On Monday, 18 July, we began our long-awaited trip to Prince Edward Island. It is actually an island, and it's own Province. The capital is Charlottetown, which is also the birthplace of the Canadian Confederation, like Philadelphia is in our move from colonies to the USA. There are 2 ways you can get a car on the island: The second (which we did not do) is the Confederation Bridge that runs across Northumberland Sound from New Brunswick to PEI. It is way out to the west, and it would have taken a full day to drive that far. The primary way to get across with your car is by ferry. We started with a 3.5 hour drive from our apartment to Caribou, NS to the ferry terminal.
We had prepaid reservations for a 1:30pm crossing. That means we have a reserved spot on the ferry, and priority loading. It's a multi-deck ferry, we were on the upper car level. The large ferry is powered forward or reverse, does not have to back off and turn around, so it's an easy drive-on, drive-off. Pretty efficient, as soon as it docks the loaded cars pull off, and as soon as they're off, the ones waiting to load drive on, directed by workers into lanes, with only about 1ft gap between cars. We just parked, and walked up to the upper deck to enjoy the smooth 75 minute crossing.
There are 2 ferries that run on 1.5 hour schedules, and we passed the other ferry about midway across. It's actually quite a big vessel, holds probably 200+ cars and trucks, plus passengers.
When we arrived on PEI, we met our friends Elder & Sister Leaming who are assigned to PEI. We have become fast friends with them. They were our guides and companions for 2 days of travel, meals, and sightseeing around the Island. They are from Redmond, UT, only about 2.5 hours from us in Dammeron. Sis Leaming is recovering from a broken arm that occurred during a beach activity with the missionaries.
There are several historic lighthouses on PEI and Nova Scotia, this one is at Panmure Head. Lighthouses are not really needed for safe navigation these days, since the advent of GPS. But they are historic, and several are well preserved.
We paid a small fee to climb 4 flights of stairs to the top for a view. As usual, Sister Johnson is ready for any adventure, and easily made the climb easily to the top.
This is one of the Fresnel lenses for the actual light. It is designed to focus the light for long distances, in this case 19 miles. Back in the day, each lighthouse had a unique color (white, yellow, etc), and a sequence. At Panmure Head, it was a white light, 4 seconds on, 4 seconds off, repeat. Sailors knew the light color/sequence of each lighthouse, and that helped them know where they were.
Yes, I really did make the climb as well. You will notice my distinctive Tilley hat (made in Canada) that I wear all the time outdoors. It really protects me from the sun, and Sister J says it makes me look (more) distinguished.
This is one view from the top of the lighthouse down Panmure beach. There is sand on the other side of the causeway as well, and beachgoers usually pick the side away from the wind. Leeward if you're a sailor.
The other view looks out over the Gulf of St Lawrence. The Gaspe' Peninsula, Anticosti Island, and Labrador are over the horizon
Moving on to Nova Scotia, here'a another lighthouse at Arsaig Bay. This one is now an ice cream shop.
Arsaig is a working harbor, with about 23 lobster and commercial fishing boats working out of here, in additional to recreational craft. I will say that it is about the cleanest and best-looking harbor I have seen here.
And if you farm instead of fish, your fields run right up to the ocean cliffs. Throughout PEI and the farmable areas of Nova Scotia, the fields are long, probably up to a half mile wide and a mile long, extending right to the sea or into the forest.
Further up the Nova Scotia Coast is the Cape George lighthouse. This sits on a high point above the ocean. Like the others, it is preserved for historical purposes. A nice park area surrounds it, with camping nearby.
Well, once you are on Prince Edward Island, you eventually have to get off. We had a return reservation for 5:00pm on Thursday 21 July, but were finished with our touring and shopping early, so we decided to make a run to the Wood Islands ferry terminal to catch an earlier departure at 1:30pm. Our experience with ferries in British Columbia and here is that they are: on time. I was driving at a good clip, watching the GPS and clock, and hoping to make it on, but knew it would be close. When we got to the lot, the last of the vehicles were loading, the ticket taker grumbled for a little, but then let us go ahead, as we "probably could make it". We made it on board with this much time to spare.
As you can see, there are no cars behind us, we were the last car on.
Another smooth 75 minute trip, and we arrive back at Caribou NS. We're going to drive 2 hours to Whycogomagh, to stay overnight and visit some friends and help them in their BIG commercial garden tomorrow (see previous post)
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