We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Shelburne and highly recommend it as your first arrival port in Nova Scotia. Shelburne has a lot going for it as a great cruising destination.
The first order of business upon arriving in Shelburne is to check into Canadian Immigration/Customs. Yachts arriving from the US should dock or moor at the Shelburne Yacht Club (this is where Canadian Immigration wants you to be should they decide to inspect your vessel) then call Immigration using the public phone at the Club. A large sign gives you the phone number and procedures. Be sure to read the customs regulations (available on the internet) before arriving in Canada, as the amount of alcohol and tobacco that you can bring with you is very limited. Basically it is 1 bottle of alcohol OR 1.5liters of wine OR 24 12oz beer bottles. Above these limits you must pay an importation fee. Assuming you do not have to pay any importation fees, you will probably be allowed to complete the check-in over the phone. You will be given a check-in number that you post in a port window for the duration of your visit to Canada. Customs will ask you exactly where you are berthed for the first day/night in case they decide to send an inspector to check you out. Be prepared to be boarded by Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) boats that patrol the Nova Scotia coast inlets and bays. The RCMP try to intercept and check every foreign boat arriving and, given the small number of foreign cruisers in Nova Scotia, they are fairly successful . As we sailed up the bay towards Shelburne, flying our yellow Q flag, we were quickly surrounded by 3 RCMP boats and boarded. They were quite friendly and professional, but you would not want to have been trying to bring anything illegal into the country.
We also had our dog onboard. We had checked the requirements before departing and knew we had to have official documentation proving rabies vaccination for our specifically described dog, which we had. Customs asked us (over the phone) if we had the documentation and I said, yes. That was all that was required.
Customs/Immigration returning to the US was also relatively easy although you should try to arrive at an official port of entry to minimize any problems. Immigration is trying to inspect every vessel returning, unlike former times when only a phone call was normally required, so they want you to come into an entry port. We reentered the US at Provincetown which is not an entry port. We checked into Immigration via the 800 number and were directed to report ASAP to an entry port where we would be inspected. We eventually got around to doing that. The inspector was friendly and professional and, as we had nothing to declare, it was a quick check, just fill out and sign the paperwork. We had not previously acquired the customs decal and thus were directed to get on the internet and fill out the form and purchase the decal (the inspectors do not process the decals).
The Shelburne Yacht Club provides all the services a cruiser would need, which is good since they are basically the only transient yacht facility in town. They have gas and diesel plus water at the fueling dock. There is a small face dock where 3 to 4, 40 ft boats can tie up for $1/ft. They have approximately a dozen moorings for transients at $15 per night. If you anchor off the town you can still use the town dock or Yacht Club dock for landing your dinghy at $2.50 per night. (The Yacht Club collects the fee for use of the town dock). You can also purchase showers at the Club for $2. You do not have to be a member of a yacht Club to use the SYC facilities. They have limited laundry facilities but there is a good laundromat within easy walking distance from the Club. There is a bar and snackbar at the Club and a nice restaurant one block away. There is a very nice full-service grocery store with reasonable prices about a mile away, close enough to walk with a few bags of provisions.
There is a commercial port facility 1000 yards from the yacht club where you can dock for about 15 cents per foot and $6/day for 30 amp power but you will be berthed up on a fixed dock, with the fishing fleet. In cases of strong storms, the Yacht Club moves some of its boats over to the port facility in order to get berthed behind the breakwater. Given how friendly and interesting the local residents are, it might be neat to tie up to the commercial port for a few days.
There is also a boatyard with travel lift about a mile down the bay which can handle boat/engine repairs if required. The boatyard is not convenient to the town however without some means of transportation.
We chose to anchor right off the town pier and dinghy in/out to that pier. The town pier is actually a boat launching ramp with a floating dock for temporary mooring to support launch/recovery. There is room for two dinghies to tie up at the ends of the dock out of the way of boats being launched. Of course, during the 4 days we were anchored we never saw any boats launched or recovered.
One of aspects we really liked about Shelburne was the absence of crowds of tourists. Having arrived from Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket (and returning via Provincetown and Newport) we were accustomed (but didn’t like it) to having hundreds to a thousand boats at the town marinas, mooring and anchoring fields. The dinghy docks in most of these ports reminded us of the sea lions piled on top of the piers in San Francisco. The dinghies were normally 3 deep and you had to step from dinghy to dinghy to get to the pier. The towns were packed with tourists and restaurants and stores full. At Shelburne, there were never more than 4 boats anchored off the town. There were 3 boats at the Yacht Club pier and a couple in the mooring field. There were several (10-15) tourists in town, most touring Nova Scotia via car and/or staying at the national park across the bay from town. With the small number of visitors in town, it was quite common to start up a conversation with each person you met on the street, restaurant or museum. It was also common to bump into them repeatedly as you wandered around town.
The Shelburne waterfront museum complex is worth the $8 ticket to see the 4 museums that include: wooden ship building facility, dinghy building facility, town history, and a typical 18th century store/home.
When we visited the exchange rate was basically 1 to 1. Prices in stores/restaurants were slightly more than US (Virginia) prices, but lower than New England tourist towns. Gas/Diesel was about $6 per gallon, slightly more than the US (but the same as Nantucket).
We had excellent weather for the 5 days we were in Shelburne with day temperatures in the 70s and nights in the 60s. We had fog one morning until about 10 AM. We had rain two nights, but none during the day. We were surprised how warm it was ashore during the day given that we were freezing in 3 layers of thermals while sailing offshore the night before arriving, but there is a substantial temperature difference between the offshore waters and the land temperatures of Nova Scotia.
Unfortunately we quickly ran out of time to spend in Nova Scotia and could not proceed further north as we had a commitment to be back in Virginia by mid-September. It took us nearly two weeks to travel from Shelburne back to Norfolk as we dodged tropical storms and sat out frontal passages, jumping on the backside of each passing cold front to work our way south. Traveling south in September, 10-14 days is probably the best one can expect to reach the Chesapeake. Traveling north, it was 3 days from Norfolk to Martha’s Vineyard and 3 days from Nantucket to Shelburne.
In many ways, visiting Shelburne was like going back in time 25yrs to a simpler, safer, slower and less expensive time. We will definitely be making plans to return to Nova Scotia next summer.
More photos.
