What a great day. When I looked out the window at 0600 I could see the water and the land and everything. No fog and the sun was shining. So off we went to St. Anthony (pronounced Stant-nee), the dock where we were hopefully going to go on a 2.5 hour boat tour (not a 3 hour tour) out into the Atlantic. The boat arrived. It was a go! We loaded up and took off promptly.
It wasn’t that long into the trip when we saw signs for whales (the spout). Sure enough there was a mother and baby Humpback, one of the largest marine mammals. They were on their way north but probably had stopped here to eat. Apparently they don’t eat when they are down south in the Dominican for the winter so are a tad hungry when they get here and are preoccupied with food. They eat about 2000- 2500 Kg of food in a day and increase their amount of fat exponentially (he told us but I can’t remember).
There are many humpbacks who stay in these waters each year but they haven’t arrived as yet. They do get several other kinds of whales who traverse these waters on their way north and south. We later saw another whale but he/she was not hanging around for us.
In between looking at the whales we got up close and personal with some nice big ice bergs. These are from Greenland and probably have been heading south for the last two years. We got up close to a bergy bit and our guide brought a piece on to the boat so we were able to sample ice berg ice. Tasted like good water. Our guide and others apparently get this ice and plop it in their freezer and use it all year (they call it Newfoundland ice fishing).
After we finished our trip and took off several layers of clothes that we needed to keep warm (guess I should have put in more jeans and less shorts) we went up to the Grenfell museum and interpretation centre. Many of us who are nurses may have heard of him and his amazing work in Labrador and the Northern Peninsula.
When I was teaching at Dalhousie University School of Nursing we had an outpost nursing program and its director, Ruth May and the students spent a good deal of time here. In talking with some of the volunteers there it seems many students from all over the world come here for experience. A brief note on Wikipedia. ..(click here)
As it was such a nice day we revisited some of the places we had seen in the fog over the last couple of days. What a difference the sun makes. We stopped at Dark Tickle in St. Lunaire -Griquet. They make all sorts of goodies from some of the unique wild berries from Newfoundland and Labrador. The berries are all picked by hand and processed without additives. We watched them work away. As aside a tickle is a stream and Dark Tickle is named for a nearby stream which is shaded by 2 mountains and seldom sees full sunshine. We had a lovely lunch/dinner at their restaurant. They did have a good oatmeal and chocolate chip cookie (and a molasses one for Greg). Back to our motel to get things ready for tomorrow when we take of for ???? As Greg went to load some of our motorcycle gear…. Guess what its raining.
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In answer to the previous message, you are “from away”, a “Mainlander”. And from the ROC – rest-of-Canada – not to be confused with the Rock.
And by-the-by, “kissing-the-cod” is a trick they like to pull on Mainlanders!
Except that this mainlander would be in serious trouble if I kissed the cod.