The Northern Isles Day 6
The Northern Isles
Day 06 - Tuesday, July 15, 2003 - ms Rotterdam - At Sea & St. Johns, Newfoundland
The ship entered the Narrows to St. John’s at 6:30 and there to greet us was the scenic Fort Amherst Lighthouse. It was something to see such a large ship go through such a small opening (90 meters).
It is the place where in WW II the Germans tried to torpedo the area to block the port. Just after we entered there were four young local sailors who greeted the ship as it passed by yelling “welcome to this s---hole”.
We went up for breakfast in the Lido Deck - just fruit and coffee this morning for me, Gennie had yogurt and Cheerios. We met Susan and Bob by our room at 8 AM and we were one of the first off of the ship and on our way to explore St. John’s.
Our first stop off the ship was to have our picture taken with a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, heard a drum and fife group and were greeted by a huge black Newfoundland dog.
We walked east on Harbour Street and then went up to Water Street to get to Signal Hill. On the hike up the steep grade we saw many colorful homes and read the Historical Boards describing the local summary of events of the city and the Province.
We passed the Queen’s Battery, a fort used in the 1840 -1860. Many tour buses passed us as we hiked up to the top of this Canadian park. As we reached the top we chose to hike the trails to the left (north) to see the northern coast and a quaint marina.
Once some of the tour buses and another with high school students had left Cabot Tower we walked over, reading the historical boards and overlooking the city. *
The tower is named after John Cabot (an Italian [Caboto]) who arrived here in 1497 and claimed the area for Britain. The tower is a building commemorating the area where Marconi received the first wireless transmission (December 12, 1901) from Southern England, a transmission of over 3,000 miles with just the letter S - a Morse code of three dots.
This transmission and the reception proved the potential of his wireless system of communication and ushered in the dawn of modern global telecommunications.
On all sides of his hill overlooking the Narrows and the city of St. John’s, we were treated to a spectacular vistas - very rugged and rocky coasts that the French and the British fought over for many years until 1763. *
We wound our way back to the visitors center on the way down the hill. We made a brief stop and continued to the bottom and into St. John’s. We followed Duckworth Street and stopped at some shops and had lunch at a local sandwich shop. We took a lot of photos of the unique row houses and the lay of the land. *
As I am having trouble with my walking shoes - blisters and heel support, we took some time to shop for a “tennis” shoes in a sport store. What we found was a store with all sections covered with hockey gear and little else. I found a pair of Adidas shoes and they seem to fit better.
As we got close to the ship we saw that the temperature had gone up to the mid 70's and the humidity was in the 90's. We had some sun and warmth to enjoy the day on land.
We got back on board at 2 PM and returned to our room. I got the computer and checked for mail and Gennie went to get two scoops of ice cream (chocolate and vanilla). (When we walked by the ice cream station in the Lido Deck, the young man who works there knew Gennie by name!)
The ship left port early tonight, 4 PM, so everyone needed to be back on board by 3:30. We had been told that icebergs and whales are seen and float just outside the Narrows.
Many of us will be looking for them as we leave and head back to the open seas. Our next stop will be Greenland so we should see some. MAYBE!
At 7:15 we went to the Crows Nest for a glass of wine and a few tidbits before dinner. At 8:15 we went to dinner and sat at our assigned table on the starboard side by the windows overlooking the ocean.
We saw the sunset and enjoyed another fine dinner. Gennie had pork medallions and I had lobster ravioli and jumbo prawns. For dessert we had a cherry jubilee and banana sundaes.
As evening approached, the skies began to clear and we had a nice sunset about 9 PM. What is so geographically interesting is that the capital of Newfoundland and Labrador is St. John’s but its latitude is 47 degrees north. It is further south than Seattle or our northern border with Canada.
We have been walking a lot in all of our days together. Susan has a step counter so she tells us the exact number of steps taken daily. We are averaging about 7 to 10 miles daily. Yesterday we took 15,745 steps, that is about 7.5 miles. Today we took over 16,550 steps for 8 miles.
We returned to our room at ten to finish this log and to send out today’s news.
ms Rotterdam
Comments
Post a Comment!Awesome view with the map-- you guys were really far north!!
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