alifaxalifaxSheet H46 ° NOOSAND & SEAjune/july 2016cruisingworld.com49WHEN
fl ying over
the Atlantic
Ocean, I like to keep track of the plane’s
progress on the seat map in front of me.
One small place I always notice, situated
well off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada,
is a crescent-shaped sliver of land called
Sable Island. Sable is a French word that
means “sand,” and as I would come to
learn, it aptly describes this outcropping
that lies in wait on the great circle route
to Europe.
I became intrigued by this remote
26 -mile-long spit of an isle after listening
to a lecture given by former Newport
Bermuda Race chair Bill Barton and Dan
Finamore, a curator and archaeologist
with the Peabody Essex Museum in
Salem, Massachusetts. After their 2010
presentation at the New York Yacht
Club, I asked them if they would consider
inviting me if they ever returned. My goal
was to produce a documentary on Sable
Island, and happily, that notion became a
reality in August 2015.
Sable is not an easy landfall. It took two
years of planning, and we had to apply for
a permit from Parks Canada to land there.
We were the only yacht granted permis-
sion to go ashore that summer. When we
fi nally arrived, I discovered a beautiful,
unspoiled place, yet with a frightening his-
tory of shipwrecks and countless visual
reminders of adventures gone wrong. It is
no accident that Sable Island is s ometimes
called the “Graveyard of the Atlantic.”
Some 350 vessels have foundered on its
shores over the past 500 years.
Sable was formed during the last ice
age. At one time there were many such
islands off the coast of Nova Scotia. Then,
as the ice melted, causing ocean levels to
rise, the other moraines disappeared.
Because of its location and makeup,
Sable Island is constantly changing shape,
which means charts of the area quickly
become out of date. Ocean storms are
frequent, and while winds and waves try
to tear the island apart by constantly
shifting the sand dunes, the island’s other
predominant feature, marram grass, helps
to hold it together. Nearly half of Sable is
grassland, where the roots grow down two
or three feet, and there is a wide variety
of other vegetation, including cranberries
and blueberries, that is well adapted to
the island’s harsh environment.
There is also abundant life on the island.
Horses were introduced in the early 1800s,
either following a shipwreck or to serve
intrepid settlers, depending on whom you
ask. Today around 500 horses roam the
land. They are small in size but can sub-
sist on grass and the fresh water they fi nd.
Many of them have developed wide hooves
that help them walk through the sand —
the same grit that also grinds down their
teeth, making it hard for older horses to
eat. They seemed to live in family groups,
and I was told that during the cold winter
months, the herds huddle together for long
periods of time between the sand dunes.GETTING to Sable Island is hard
work. Bill Barton, along with two of his
longtime sailing friends, David Martz and
Carl Doane, spent the early part of the
summer preparing for the expedition. Bill
owns a Sabre 36 named Tazzarin, after a
king in children’s literature. In addition
to the Peabody Museum’s Dan Finamore,
award-winning cameraman Mike Audick
was on board. With six of us in all, Tazzarin
was fully loaded for the trip.
Our destination lay 180 miles southeast
of Halifax. We left on a clear, cool morning.
As luck would have it, we had a southeast-
erly breeze on the nose, and it continued
to build toward 20 knots as the day pro-
gressed. About 60 miles out, I started
feeling some abdominal discomfort after
steering for an hour. I went below, but theOn the helm off shore, Carl Doane
shares Tazzarin’s cockpit with a tired
osprey as afterguard.
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ASCCCO TI A0 60 120Nautical MilesNautical MilesNautical MilesSable Island