Yarmouth

We have arrived in Nova Scotia! Though we arrived in fog, it soon shifted over to a beautiful, clear day.





By 9am, we were off on our day's excursion. We headed to the Cape Forchu Lightstation. A pretty location, and a striking lighthouse. When we arrived, it was bright and sunny. We had a luxurious 1-1/4 hours here. We all peeled off in different directions. Soon, a fog bank rolled in, which made it very atmospheric. According to our guide, the fog is an omnipresent thing here.









Can you see why this is called the "apple core lighthouse?"




Next, we headed back to Yarmouth. We drove past some lovely old sea captain's houses. We toured the Yarmouth County Museum and the Fuller Brush house next door. The museum is located in a very pretty old building and has lots of historical information. The Fuller Brush House was donated by the widow of Mr. Fuller, intact and with all of its furnishings. It is a very attractive home--the rooms are bright and gracious. After this, we were on our own until the All Aboard at 5:30pm.

A sea captain's house.




The Yarmouth County Museum.




We walked past some more of the old houses as we made our way to downtown. We visited the West Branch of the Nova Scotia Art Museum, an antiques store, and an artist coop before making our way back to the ship in time for our late afternoon embarkation.

Yarmouth seemed "just right." It was a salty little sea coast town. The fishing industry was clearly in evidence. There were salt marshes, rocky coastline, and lighthouses. It seemed the quintessence of what I think of when I picture Nova Scotia.






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Tender Adventures

We arrived at Bar Harbor, Maine, early in the morning Friday. This is one of the few places where the Yorktown has to drop anchor some distance offshore. Everyone on board was taken ashore on a single large, local tender. We set off on our morning tour to see the sights of Acadia National Park.

Coming into Bar Harbor.




Looking back at the Yorktown.




Bar Harbor




We stopped at Sieur de Monts, where we had time for a short stroll through the Wild Gardens of Acadia. Along our trolley route, we saw beautiful views of the rocky coastline and the woods, while we were filled in on the history of this sizable park.

We stopped at Thunder Hole, an unusual rock formation on the water's edge. When there is a good surf, it apparently sounds like thunder. We were having a calm waters sort of day, so there was no thundering going on. Still, it was an interesting and pretty spot on an incredibly pretty day.








We spent a fair amount of time trolleying through the park, but, of course, the ultimate goal is to go to the top of Cadillac Mountain (all 1,530 feet of it).
We were blessed with a super-clear day and were able to see forever. Lovely fresh air. Beautiful views. Couldn't have been better.

In the picture below, our Yorktown is the tiny white blip on the far side of the island at the left. The larger ship visible to the right is Holland America's Veendam.




We wound our way back down to Bar Harbor, where we were treated to a "lobster bake." Once again, we had steamed mussels, a whole lobster, and corn on the cob. We're getting to be old hands at this lobster thing. We had been told that the blueberry harvest had just concluded and to expect a blueberry dessert of some sort. Ours was a moist blueberry-studded cake. Everything was tasty and evocative of the area.





We had a couple hours of free time to wander through the town and soak up the sea air and sun. Eventually it was time to head back to the dock to catch our short tender ride back out to the ship.





And that's where the fun began.

A group of 65 of us had signed up for the early shuttle back to the Yorktown. There would be another at 5pm. Both of these trips were to be made by smaller tenders than we'd had in the morning. (The tendering was being provided by a local whalewatching company and we were dependent on whatever other demands they had for their services.) Since so many people had been interested in the earlier shuttle, the Yorktown offered to send two inflatables to pick up the additional "early" folks.

Sixty-five of us clambered onto the provided shuttle, and we made our way through the harbor to the Yorktown. When we arrived, we were sitting too low in the water. The tender's short gangway left the angle unusable, and the Yorktown didn't have something sized to work with the tender size either. Much gnashing of crew teeth (on both vessels). Finally, our tender was told to go the stern, where there was a landing platform set out for the inflatables. We made several approaches, trying to make that work, to no avail. We were told to go back to the starboard side. Several more attempts were made. The inflatables had now arrived and left their passengers.





The eventual solution was for us to don life jackets and transfer from our tour boat tender to the inflatable and be taken to the stern. This took awhile to negotiate between the several vessels and also determine who would provide the life jackets, etc. We happened to be in the first wave to get our life vests, which resulted in us being on the first trip of the inflatable-ferrying. The captain greeted us at the landing platform and helped each of us out of our life jackets. Since there were 65 of us having to transfer to a single inflatable that held 13, this makeshift process took quite awhile. By the time we made it back onto our ship, we were all thoroughly tired of the whole shooting match. The last of the people made it off the tender/inflatable around 5pm. Added a little mixture of excitement and relief to our cocktail hour.











Just to add to our evening's socializing, we found out that we hadn't left Bar Harbor at the planned time of 6pm because our anchor was tangled in abandoned old lobster traps and potlines. The crew spent about an hour and a half dragging things up and clearing our line before we were able to sail out of Frenchman Bay.

All in all, our day was quite perfect and spectacular. Let's just say there were a few logistical hiccups. I'm guessing there will be some serious conversations--between the captain and crew, between the cruise line and the hired tenders. We travelers were just glad to be on board, laugh a bit over our awkward and strange boarding process, and shift our focus to the adventures ahead.


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Cruisin'

Tuesday was a transition day. We had to make our way back to Boston, drop off our rental car, get checked in to our hotel, and meet up with our Road Scholar tour group for an orientation, meet-and-greet, and dinner. All went smoothly. We had thought that we'd drop off our car then make our way to the airport, where we could call our hotel for a shuttle. Instead, since the hotel and Hertz were at the same airport exit, we decided to drop off our bags first. That way, we wouldn't have to monkey with them in the Hertz-airport-hotel part of our logistics. Fortunately, the hotel allowed us to check into our room early--even better! And even better yet, they had a shuttle pick us up at Hertz, so we didn't even have to deal with the airport at all.

The Hyatt Boston Harbor sits, as it sounds, right on the harbor. We had the most amazing views of the Boston skyline. And it was a nice, mild evening. When we weren't dealing with tour specifics, it was nice to be able to stroll along the harbor, soaking in the lights and sights.





On Wednesday morning, we had a presentation on the geography and history of Boston. The next order of business was to get all the bags for 72 people into two buses and head out on a guided bus tour of Boston as we drove out of town. This was complicated enough, without the added issue of one missing bus. We had been divided into two groups before the tour ever started. Wouldn't you know it was our bus that got held up in traffic somewhere and didn't show up until 25 minutes after the first group had headed out. We eventually caught up to them in downtown Boston. After the tour, we headed to Gloucester (pronounced "Glosta"). We were treated to a traditional clambake, with chowder, cornbread, and mussels (in lieu of clams) to start. Then we were given a rather specific demonstration on exactly how to go from whole, steaming lobster to lobster meat to eat. We all lined up to get our steamed lobster, corn on the cob, and potato and BBQ chicken if we wished. Bibs and lots of napkins had been provided, and it was a good thing. Having a demonstration on lobster technique proved to be a very valuable thing, but we were still a pretty messy and comical group. The lobster was fresh and very good. Strawberry shortcake finished off our meal. It was all quite yummy.











Next we drove to Rocky Neck Art Colony. Though Jerry and I have spent time on Cape Ann during several New England trips, we have never managed to see Rocky Neck. Three artists took our parceled group on a walking tour. This was a hangout for the likes of Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer and plenty of others. An interesting, historical spot. Ideally, we'd have had enough time to visit some of the intriguing galleries, but that was not to be.








Edward Hopper's home:




Now it was time to board our ship, the M/V Yorktown--and, in fact, we were quite behind schedule for doing that. We had to go through a Customs check of passports. By the time we had been shown to our cabin, we had only 15 minutes before we had to make our way to our orientation briefing. That was lengthier and more complicated than we'd anticipated, but was nicely done. Then, of course, there was the obligatory emergency drill. We just had time to restow our life jackets and quickly change clothes and get to dinner. No minutes unaccounted for.





This morning got off to an early start as a number of us threw on some clothes and came out to watch our approach on the Kennebec River to the city of Bath, Maine. We docked walking distance to the impressive Maine Maritime Museum. After breakfast, we walked over to the museum in five groups. We then got an hour-long guided walking tour of the old buildings of the Percy & Small Boatworks, with lots of history about both this specific company and boatbuilding in general. Afterwards, we were free to wander in and out of the different buildings and displays, as well as a restored historic house and the museum proper. A very interesting and well done visit.











Shuttle buses started taking people to different destinations around midday. Some folks went to Boothbay Harbor, about an hour away by bus. Some went to the Maine Botanical Garden, enroute to Boothbay. We visited Boothbay Harbor a few years back, so instead we opted to explore Bath, which we had only driven through or past previously. The day had turned exquisite. There is not a cloud in sight and it was 78 degrees this afternoon.

We strolled Front Street, the main drag, which sported some very nice shops. We stopped for lunch at Solo Bistro and then did a little antiquing before heading back to our shuttle bus and some down time on the deck of our ship. We sail around 6pm tonight, followed by a lecture on the fishing history and arts of this area of Maine.











Tomorrow: Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. The nice weather is supposed to hold for a couple more days, so we should have a great visit.




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...and Farewell to the Cape

Sunday was our day to explore the Lower Cape--Yarmouth, Dennis, Harwich, and Harwichport. We had originally thought we would explore the towns of the Lower Cape, an area we hadn't seen on previous visits. Instead, we started taking lots of side roads, heading out to the many beaches on Nantucket Sound. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, late in the season, and everybody and their brother was out to enjoy this gift of a day. Things were busy--parking lots fairly full and lots of folks on the beaches.





This part of the cape is in sharp contrast to what we'd seen the day before. This is the area totally focused on tourists--motor lodges, small rental cabins, mini-golf, ice cream stands, and shops selling beach toys and T-shirts. People head to the beach, armed with their folding chairs, snacks and beverages, and reading material.

Everyone on the beach was in beach chairs. Many parked their chairs just feet from the parking lot. Some didn't even face the view. It was clear that people set up shop for the day. Such a different beach pattern from what we see in the Northwest. Late in the day, it was as if someone hit a switch. Suddenly there were lines of people heading back to the parking lots, each carrying their chairs and tote bags. It was a reverse lemming flow.





There are many, many beaches from which to choose. It is clear that the height of the season must be really something. The parking lots were huge. In some places, there were big parking areas inland, with signs about shuttle buses to the beach. Can only imagine the scene. It looked pretty busy to us, as it was, but locals kept calling it sleepy or slow. Yikes!

We ended the day at Chatham Light. Pretty light, with the sun behind us. Confusing to us West Coasters to be looking out at the ocean and have the sun setting behind us.








Today, Monday, was our day to head to the Outer Cape (ie, Provincetown, Wellfleet, and Truro). Once again, we took to the shore drives and headed out to beaches and lighthouses. We had some periods of rain, but it cleared up nicely in late afternoon.

This is the location of the Cape Cod National Seashore, which includes a huge amount of land on the Outer Cape. There are lots of beaches, bike trails, museums, etc. Less touristy, yet set up to handle lots of folks.

















We stopped in at Provincetown--or P-town as it's known here. Hurdy- gurdy and absolutely crawling with people. But we also discovered many quaint streets of charming old houses--something we hadn't seen on a previous visit.





We moved on to charming, quieter Wellfleet.




We finished our day back in Chatham. A final view of Mill Pond. A final cape sunset.














We need to return to the Cape before too long. We barely touched the surface of this captivating place.

Tomorrow, we turn in the car and hook up with our Road Scholar tour. The following day, we embark on our cruise to the Maritime Provinces. On to the next leg of our trip!

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