We settled into our new island life. In many ways, it’s similar to life on our sailboat, but with slightly less concern for storms — slightly. The storms that buffet our little ship at sea are still keenly felt in our new little house. Our rhythms are also dictated by boats, or in our case, one specific boat: Gallipoli. Our town’s main ferry is much more than just another boat. It is our lifeline, and physical link, to the rest of the world. And we have a front-row seat to its comings & goings, right from our living room window.
With regard to the new house, work continues, both inside and out, depending on the weather. Spring and early summer weather in Ramea tends to be a bit soggy, with some version of fog, drizzle, mist or rain as the default. But it just makes you appreciate the sunny days even more. Temperatures are very moderate as well. They’ve moved slowly up the scale, with the hottest days hitting around 25ºC. It can be humid though, so it feels warmer — until the wind starts to blow, which it usually does.
House outfitting moved along well. With Donna as our Facebook hound, combined with our own efforts locally, we managed to find most of what we need in the ‘used’ market. But a list remained, so we made a pilgrimage to the Big City of Corner Brook, and spent five days praying to the consumer gods of Canadian Tire, Walmart, Kent, Dollar Store, and Staples. The result was a full car, and an even bigger load that had to be delivered later by truck.
While in Corner Brook we spent three nights at a cute BnB, which made the whole event less of a torment and more like a mini-holiday. The highlight though was spending time with Corner Brook sailing friends, Paula & Byron. They regaled us with their Bahamian cruising adventures, and the plans for the future. And we talked Ramea plans, and boat selling (more on this later).
With our consumer itch well scratched, we got back home and spent the next couple of weeks fixing things, and playing with our new stuff. Ann had to get back to her gardening duties 
, and I was keen to set up my new BBQ 
. We also attended a big Town Meeting to discuss the proposed National Marine Conservation Area, and how the big fish farm companies were fighting to kill the plan. I did some babbling: 
.
But mainly we were preparing for our first house guest of the season: Mark from Ottawa. He also has a boat (for sale @ https://www.helplink.com/Kashmir/). Although his boat was staying on the hard this season, he had work plans, and one major showing to a prospective buyer. But more importantly, he was coming to visit us in Ramea, and help with a few of the ongoing projects.
Mark arrived on time, having survived both ferry rides, and the treacherous Burgeo highway. We settled into Ramea life, that involved a relaxed schedule of visits with neighbours, boardwalk strolls, meals overlooking the harbour, and the occasional spurt of hard work. There was even a birthday that got celebrated.
After a couple of weeks of island life we decided to make the hop over to nearby community of Grey River. This little outport village is on the main island, slightly NE of Ramea. It is mainly serviced by the passenger ferry Marine Voyager, but Thursdays, and some Tuesdays, the Gallipoli makes a double run from Ramea. It’s possible to get the early morning ferry out, and then ride the last one back. We made a day of it.
If Ramea is small, then Grey River is tiny. With about 80 people (so they claimed… kinda doubt it’s even that big), Grey River really does feel like the end of the world. It makes Ramea feel like a metropolis. The village has no roads, just ATV trails. But there’s still a school, and a little store, which we visited right away to buy bug dope. The blackflies were rather nasty right away!
We spent the day doing a few hikes (Ann & Mark did more than I). This included a climb up to their local graveyard, and then down the coast past an old mine shaft. The bulk of the day was spent lounging by the water.
Back to Ramea for a couple more weeks of relaxed work and fun times, and then we packed our bags and boarded the little ferry, heading for Lewisporte. Mark had boat work and a sales showing, and we thought we were meeting our buyer — the one who had committed to buying Pachina Mia nearly one year ago. Unfortunately, with less than 10 days to spare, our buyer backed out of the deal. But since we had already booked BnBs, and Mark was committed to going, we decided to to carry on.
Our boat sale had always seemed somewhat unbelievable. Our buyer sought us out, and offered a more-than-fair price. But she never seemed to appreciate the logistics of the sale, and all the complications of a foreign purchase. The final straw for her was a sudden family crisis, but we suspect that was just the needed excuse to back out. Ah well…
It was unfortunate for us, as we had hoped the sale would make our new Ramea life more financially comfortable. But on the bright side, we still own a lovely boat. She’s officially for sale, if you know anyone who wants a good ol’ boat, pass this on.
Being back at the Lewisporte marina, and hanging around the boats, brought that life all rushing back. While we were there we reconnected with a number of wonderful boating friends, had many great meals with people hanging around, and even had an impromptu Newfoundland “kitchen party” night. Eric led us on guitar, and I brought up the distant rear on ukulele.
We spent two lovely weeks hanging around the boats. Mark was highly productive, and Ann and I got into a few projects. She even tackled our long-ignored engine, by cleaning some of the accumulated rust. We also decided to work on the stuck seacock valve that gave us such grief last season. It was seriously siezed, but I finally got the thing disassembled, and removed for the major work at home.
Note to self; don’t forget to reinstall it before launch, otherwise glug, glug, glug…
Because we had expected to hand over the keys to Pachina Mia, we thought we were going to be without a bed in Lewisporte, so we had booked a couple of BnBs. Mark paid for most of it — as usual, we couldn’t do it without him. But I was especially appreciative of having our little cabins. It was a great place for me to work on the sales websites, and hide from the heat wave that hit the area while we were there.
Another thing we couldn’t have done without Mark’s help is get our new roof installed — at least not as quickly and easily. As an architect, he was able to take incredibly accurate measurements, which we were able to provide to our Corner Brook roofer. With this, he was able to custom order all the metal ahead of time, and arrive ready to do the job.
In fact, the schedule for the roof suddenly got bumped up by a few days when our roofer announced he was coming early. We said our hasty goodbyes to Pachina Mia, and to Mark, and raced back to Ramea so we could be on hand to get the much-needed roof work done.
The drive home turned out to be a good one. Not only did we avoid most of the potholes on the Burgeo Road, but we were treated to close-ups of moose 
and caribou 
, as well as puffins and dolphins from the ferry (no pics of those).
Roofers arrived the following day. It took them about 8 hours to do the job, but because of ferry schedules, meant they had to spend one night on our little island. The job got done, and we now have a sealed roof!
Summer weather here on Ramea is nearly perfect for me. It rarely gets above 25ºC, with only the occasional muggy day. Mostly the temps have been in the upper teens to low 20s. And there’s usually a breeze to keep the moisture down. An added bonus is that the island has almost no bitey bugs; few mosquitoes and blackflies, and no ticks (so far). It really is the perfect place to live — in the summer 😎.
The great weather has meant we finally got our kayaks out, and have been exploring the nearby waters that make up the Ramea Islands.
Other than getting the roof done, Ann and I have been busy with other house projects. There’s been a lot of deck and bridge work. Mark got us moving with efforts to sand and stain/protect the exposed wood. Ann’s carried on with this, while I’ve been busy replacing boards and building out small new areas. I finished drywalling and then building new shelving in our mud room closet, which really expands our storage space. And we’ve done a little electrical work — with more to come 😬.
We recently played foster-parents to Farley, when owners and fellow sailors Steve & De went back to Lewisporte to do some work on their boat. It was fun having a big critter hanging around with us. And of course, it meant Ann did even more walking than normal — every day out on the trails. This left me to do focus on my own passion: beer (making):
These were also the days of our annual Rock Island Music Festival. This is basically the village’s main celebration of the year. The place actually felt busy, and crowded, with so many visitors coming. The event itself was fun, but the music was too loud for my old ears, so I listened from afar (you could hear it from our house). Ann spent more time there, volunteering at the Community Garden fundraising table.
We’re still settling into this new life here in Ramea. It will take some time to figure out our new rhythms, but it is all feeling pretty wonderful. We’ve been doing more kayaking with new friends, and are now planning for our big trip to “Town”, which means St. John’s. We’re meeting up with Cathie and Joe, along with Cathie’s two siblings. Should be fun.