Port 102 St. John’s, Newfoundland
Hello!
We arrive at St. John’s, Newfoundland, under foggy skies on 1 Jul, 2022. But before that I wanna show you this! We had a special celebration for just the Around The World (or more correctly the All The Way) guests. The gold curtain was held open for us, and I took the opportunity to take this photo with a lot of the restaurant waitstaff lined up to greet and escort us! That is Leonardo on the left. He is the Head Sommelier and hosted all of our wine tastings! On the right is Denby, Katrina, Nina, Ivan, Novi, Nebojsa, and I’m not sure who the last three are. Damien Lacroix, the ship’s General Manager is in the back in the dark jacket.
From Belfast to St John’s we have four days at sea. The first two days deliver the worst weather of the entire trip with 20-foot seas and 35-knot winds. In this shot I’m sitting in the Horizon lounge, deck 10 forward. This wave is spraying higher than the 10th deck! Today, this rainbow is not a good sign! We get to start packing in this weather! Ugh.
As we enter St. John’s harbor there is a lovely lighthouse complex on the port side! Cape Spear is in the fog bank in the distance!
OK, pronunciation lesson time! How do you pronounce “Newfoundland”? I always pronounced it with the accent on “New” and the rest contracted into “fundlun”. But now I know it is supposed to be like “understand” – “newfoundLAND” – no contraction! I hope you always did better than me!
Happy Canada Day! On this day in 1947 Newfoundland chose to become part of Canada. This is another port of call on a country’s holiday!
On the starboard side is a rocky hill with a wonderfully complicated trail running along the rocky faces! There are people walking and running along the trail! I learn this is called Signal Hill, and there is a watchtower on top that we can’t see this morning.
Behind us the sun is trying to break through!
This colorful cluster of homes comes up on our starboard side. How does one decide to build a home on the side of a rock?
Some of the strangest-looking boats I have ever seen are in this harbor!
How about these strange beasts? Rescue? Research?
We find our berth just a little way ahead of the strange boats. I see blue sky! The first in a week!
We have a tour to (we hope!) see some puffins today!
Today is Canada Day, but it is also a somber day of remembrance for the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. On this day in 1916 during World War I’s Battle of the Somme in France, of the 800 Newfoundlanders in the regiment, there were 710 casualties. They were annihilated! So Canada Day begins with the morning of remembrance, and ALL of the flags at St John’s Town Hall are at half mast. After noon the festivities are supposed to pick up!
The bus takes us by these interesting apartments!
There are four buildings with a courtyard in the middle. It’s an interesting design that allows no apartment to see into the windows of the next door apartment!
The bus heads south to Bull Bay. As we leave town we see St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cathedral stand watch. It is curiously green!
That is Wesley United Church peeking at us in the background!
We drive in fog the entire distance to Bay Bulls where we will jump on our puffin watch boat. As we arrive in Bay Bulls we pass the three tree witches!
At Bay Bulls we find a cute mermaid! I want to tell you what is inscribed on her base:
“Of the thousands of beautiful animals that occupy the turbulent and magnificent waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, stories have rolled from the tongues of many a Newfoundlander over the past 500 years. Many moons ago, Mother Nature’s magical forces of wind and wave, combined with the turning of the tides, to create one such creature: a Mermaid named “Mishell”. A nautical legend who constantly wanders the salty waters of Bay Bulls, she stands as protector of the balance of aquatic life for animals of feather, fur and fin. Some say that if you listen closely to the sounds of the ocean you can hear her silky voice humming a beautiful song. Others believe that kissing her statue brings good luck whenever embarking upon an ocean adventure. Not many can say they’ve witnessed Mishell with their own eyes. Yet it has been told that the shimmer of the sun on the edge of a wave is actually the reflection of her bronze and golden scales. If quick enough to catch a glimpse of her, nod your head and give her a wink. She will surely bless your journey.”
Now we board our boat. The fog is still thick, so this will be interesting! What will we really see? Joy and I head up to the upper deck.
Shawn, the boat’s tour guide, sings us a shanty, and explains that Mike, our captain, “doesn’t know where all of the rocks are in the bay, but he knows where they’re not”, so we are safe in his capable hands.
Here we see some of the first rookeries – this one is for the black backed gulls! I promise the shots will get better, but admit to you they will not be spectacular today. And this is the only shot of birds on shore I’ll show that is not puffins!
I catch my first glimpse of puffins in the water ahead of the boat. They swim peacefully then take off in a not-so-graceful take off from the water to get away from the boat. Or some just dive and swim out of the way – much more graceful!
Then we finally get close enough to cliffs that have their burrows.
I get my wish of wanting to see more than four of them! (That’s all I recall seeing in Alaska.)
This is a temporary location for these birds. They actually live in Iceland! They fly here to hatch eggs, then fly home almost 2,000 miles away!
We can see the little “caves” that form their burrows in these rocky cliffs!
We learn there is an activity called The Puffin Watch that kids can participate in with their parents to rescue puffins on the roads at night. Apparently these little birds take walks and end up on the roads where they might get run over. The kids rescue them, the vets make sure the rescued puffins are OK, then the puffins are released back into the wild!
This guy is running on the water to get into the air! His wings swat the water and propel him forward while his little legs help keep him above the water and give him more forward momentum.
Ah! But puffins aren’t the only thing we see! A humpback arrives! This is likely a lone male since most females are accompanied by their calves at this time of year. This guy apparently had a rough encounter – he has a nasty scar in the middle of his back!
We follow him for about 30 minutes. He gives us a nice low tail on one dive. He has a very distinctive mark on the left leading edge of his tail! But this is a difficult mark to match. Markings on the bottom of the tail are more distinctive!
About ten minutes later he gives us another tail! You can see the leading edge patch again!
Then as he lifts the tail you can see patches on the bottom flukes near the trailing edge, very thin and light on the left, but larger and more distinct on the right! So far I haven’t been able to find this guy in the identification databases.
Puffins. Check! Whales. Check! Our boat tour is done. Great job, Shawn and Mike!
We’re back on the bus. I like this picture because these two buildings look like Ukrainian supporters!
Our next stop is Cape Spear to see the lighthouse – actually two lighthouses! The area is socked in with fog! We have a bit of a climb to reach the lighthouse.
This is the current operational lighthouse. Classic! Could use some paint, perhaps red?
A little farther back on the bluff is this – the original lighthouse! This has a stone core with a wooden house built around it! It is now open as a museum, and museums are free to the public on holidays! Who knew?
The light works were removed from this tower and moved to the operation lighthouse, so that part is still in use!
I stumble across this medallion. (I wasn’t on the walkway, so this is a minor miracle!) This is a US Coast & Geodetic Survey reference marker – in Newfoundland! “For information write to the Director, Washington D.C. $250 fine or imprisonment for disturbing this mark.”
We get back into St John’s with time to take a walk and grab some lunch.
We pass by the Newfoundland Supreme Court House!
Then we follow Water Street. It is blocked off! We ask a security officer at one of the side streets if this is just a Canada Day event, and he tells us they do this every day of the week through the summer, June through September! The street is for pedestrian traffic only, and the restaurants can put tables into the street if they need the space! There are buskers out doing their thing – statues, musicians, magicians! Fun!
We stop for lunch at a pub with an outdoor seating area. I hand this guy a tip and ask him to play Mason William’s “Classical Gas” again. (I hear him playing it earlier, so this wasn’t an odd request!) He did a fabulous job! And he kept wandering over to serenade us when no one else was walking by!
After lunch we wander down to find a special stairway we saw from the bus. This amazing statue is there! It celebrates the performing arts! Dancers grace the top, and a singer, a violinist, a guitarist and an accordion player surround the base!
This is the interesting stairway behind the sculpture!
Back on the ship this is our view! The Supreme Court is on the left. and we didn’t get to walk back to the Basilica Cathedral of St John the Baptist on the far right. I guess we have something to go see the next time we’re here! But I guarantee if whales are in the area again that’s where we’ll be!
The time comes for us to push away from the dock! We move out, spin around 180 degrees, then head out of port!
On our way out of the harbor we can see the Signal Hill fort now! The fog has lifted in town!
We’re out of the harbor, and now heading east to clear Cape Spear which is, surprise!, still covered in fog! Then we’ll turn south and west to the end of our cruise!
We bid Canada farewell! Next and Last port of call – New York City!
