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The Victoria GAZETTE |
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October 2010 |
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Our Ocean’s Eleven Continued |
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‘Twas Allan Gordon, a retired school teacher, who greeted us in plaid at Bus #6 and told us stories and histories of the area, especially Peggy’s Cove, a remarkable place south of Halifax that kept the shutters of my camera active for over an hour. Every bend in the bays, every stroll in the streets, every hill toward the ocean’s horizon elicited an ethereal enjoyment for me that a photographer cannot capture on paper nor an artist on canvas, but we keep trying. Peggy’s Cove is a fishing village of 38 residents. Our bus doubled the population. Main occupation of inhabitants is fishing for lobsters, one at a time, in wire and wooden trap cages. “Prices around the world have gone down because of the economy,” said Mr. Gordon. “Lobster retails now for only $5.99/pound. People aren’t going out as much and ordering lobster.” When I think of Nova Scotia, I’ll think mainly of treeless Peggy’s Cove and the bagpiper who played near the lighthouse on the granite landscape that was spread all around like it had been dumped from a gigantic cement truck and troweled by a shipload of drunken sailors. In fact, we learned the area was carved by a glacier that left in its wake millions of rocks and rock formations, some smooth and some not. Outside the Cove, Nova Scotia is heavily wooded with maple, birch, spruce, and pine. We were told that several paper mills operate around the province which explained the pile of huge logs we had seen at the pier. The logs, not of hemlock, were longer and wider than any telephone pole in Minnesota. Mr. Gordon asked us to guess why the tall straight hemlock trees disappeared from the area. He explained it’s because ship traffic years ago was wind-powered and hemlock made excellent masts. He told us that over 1,000 ships were sunk in the various wars and casualties, and that for every sunken ship there were 1,000 or more that stayed afloat. Thus, hemlock is virtually extinct in Nova Scotia today. Mr. Gordon told us that many lifelong friendships from 9/11 were formed because of flights deterred to Nova Scotia at that time in 2001. “Passengers stayed with our families, some as long as ten days, and people have stayed in touch,” he said. After a prime rib dinner at Tsar’s -- and ice cream and chocolate syrup -- we hit the hay which, by the way, consisted of one of the most comfortable beds we’ve ever slept on -- king size, pillow top mattress, cotton sheets and comforters.
Wednesday, September 14th. A day at sea. Another blue-sky warm and wonderful day. We spent it much like our first day at sea -- up on Deck 12 at “our” ocean-side table, in the sun. As I promised myself, I walked 30 minutes on the spacious open-air Deck 13 in the morning and 30 minutes again in the afternoon. The ice cream was doing its damage. The walking path circumscribes the perimeter of the ship, more or less, and no land is visible in any direction, but we did see the possibility of another cruise ship beginning to make a mark in the distance. By 3 p.m. we were ready to change into our evening attire. For the first time we dined away from Tsar’s and stepped into Mama’s Italian Restaurant. It was okay but this Mama doesn’t do Italian well whether by land or by sea -- except for thin and crispy crust pizza. Our 8:30 p.m. show at the Stardust Theater was a live song and dance production, done well by a group of young energetic talents. Then we attended the late night comedy hour with Ross Bennett, a New York fellow, a pretty funny guy, even clean humor.
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