Old Home Week

We are underway in the Northumberland Strait, headed southeast for Nova Scotia, with Prince Edward Island astern of us. We had an enjoyable five days in PEI across two ports of call. Today is our first good passage weather window in four days, so we're grabbing it while it lasts.

This sunset over Charlottetown, PEI from our fly bridge makes it look like the city in on fire.

Monday we arrived at Summerside and dropped the hook in the harbor, just outside the turning basin and a short distance from the small-craft marina (map). We had the hook down right at 5pm, and splashed the tender to head ashore, landing at the Silver Fox Curling and Yacht Club. An odd combination, but it's really two different groups that just share a clubhouse in alternate seasons.

Indian Spit light and breakwall as we depart Summerside harbor.

On the way to the dock we passed Loon, who were tied up at the commercial wharf with the CCGC that towed them in. We chatted briefly and they were fine. As I suspected their filters clogged in the heavy seas, so they had a miserable few hours being tossed around waiting for the tow. They were hoping to get both engines running well enough to move over to the yacht club for further repairs and some R&R.

Rounding Seacow Head and its lighthouse.

We strolled the small waterfront district and ended up at a waterfront tourist joint called The Deckhouse, in an equally touristy "village" of shops known as Spinnaker Landing. The food was decent, they had some nice drafts, and we had a great table for people-watching, overlooking the town pillory. We exacted our revenge on the lobsters by having the lobster rolls, which are very reasonably priced all over the island.

In the morning we weighed anchor and headed southeast for Charlottetown. That brought us under the Confederation Bridge, where we passed through a marked navigation span near the PEI end that was indistinguishable from any of the other spans save for the main ship channel, a full 2.3 nautical miles further from the island.

Looking back toward Confederation Bridge. We came through a span off to the right and you can see the main channel in the distance.

Seas built throughout the day, as they are wont to do here, and by the time we were turning around St. Peters Island into the bay we were quite happy to be getting away from them. We arrived to the Port of Charlottetown before 3pm and tied up to a wooden floating dock belonging to the port authority (map). Port manager Mike met us on the dock to welcome us to town.

Coming into port behind the main berth with Baie St Paul tied up. At right you can see "inflatable tube man" in Canadian flag attire waving his arms, one of several on the pier to keep the birds at bay.

Once tied to the beefy wooden dock, we were quite happy to have avoided the adjacent marina, whose plastic floats were fixed to the bottom with chains and no pilings. The docks at the yacht club a bit further west were at least concrete, but they wanted $4 a foot for a face dock that was completely exposed to any swell. The port did not want to undercut the yacht club's rates but we negotiated for them to charge us the lower rate of $2.70 per foot that would apply to boats up to 50' long. We did have to live without any power on the dock for our stay.

This sculpture at Queens Wharf is a popular photo spot, but the lighting was not right and you can barely see Louise in the 0.

Our neighbor upon arrival was the self-unloading bulk carrier Baie St. Paul, offloading a cargo of stone. The next morning Holland American Line's Zaandam arrived, disgorging its passengers onto the island for sightseeing. It was a miserable, cold, rainy day, so I suspect we only saw a fraction of the ~1,400 passengers disembark. The weather kept us aboard all day, so we did not have to tangle with them. Instead I tore into the cooling system to try to fix the hot water issue. It did clear enough by dinner time for us to walk a short distance to Peake's Quay for a bite.

Zaandam, one of Holland America's smaller ships, dwarfs Vector. "Lobster boat" behind us is actually the port's pilot boat; they use lobster boats for everything here.

We really only had the one day of bad weather. Our first evening we had a nice stroll into town for dinner at Piatto, which unbeknownst to us had been featured at one point on the Food Network. The food was quite good; we had the pizza Siciliana, apparently one of the dishes featured on the program. And we had gorgeous outdoor dining weather for our final two nights, where we ate at John Brown's Grille on Victorian Row and Casa Mia across from the Confederation Centre of the Arts.

After the Zaandam departed on Wednesday afternoon, slightly delayed due to a late-returning tour (BT,DT), the Baie St. Paul came right back in to offload another cargo, this time of sand. An endless conga line of dump trucks rumbled through the port all night long, pausing under the hopper at the end of the ship's integral conveyor arm. It was fascinating to watch but made for a bit of a noisy night.

Prince Edward Battery in Victoria Park.

When I wasn't working on the water heater, I took advantage of the nice weather to explore the town a little bit, and I even made a provisioning run out to the local grocery. In addition to the Confederation Landing waterfront area I looped through the historic downtown, past the Province House historic site (closed for renovations), through the Confederation Mall, and out to Victoria Park. Lots of rich history here. We both eschewed the ever-present Anne of Green Gables themed venues; it appears many tourists are more eager to celebrate a fictional character from a fictional place than any actual history.

The Canadians are big on fresh flowers in the summer.

Yesterday morning we decided to treat ourselves to breakfast out, and strolled over to Receiver Coffee in the old PEI Railway Brass House. We had a nice breakfast, and when we came out we discovered half the town was gathering along the street for a parade. It took us a while to learn it was the 60th annual Gold Cup Parade, which precedes the 63rd running of the Gold Cup & Saucer harness race. The race will take place tonight, at two minutes to midnight.

The bagpipes and drums of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

We staked out a picnic bench in the park and watched the parade, which was a hoot. In addition to two marching bands and the bagpipers of the RCMP, there were all manner of floats, police, fire, military, a group representing Ukraine, and all the sulky drivers seated atop the backs of classic convertibles scattered throughout the parade. The parade and harness race are among the final events of PEI's Old Home Week, sort of the island's annual fair. We're happy to have caught it.

This giant inflatable cow was in the parade, maybe sponsored by Cows ice cream shops. We were amused watching the handlers trying to get it deflated.

Our afternoon entertainment was watching the German cruise ship Amadea tie up, offloading her passengers principally into waiting tour buses. She was still in port when we returned from dinner; the Europeans are a later crowd. After she departed, the pilot boat moved her pilot over to the Irving Oil tanker Acadian, waiting in the outer harbor, which was tied alongside by 10pm and offloading her cargo via pipeline to the nearby oil facility. I could see at least ULSD and 87-octane gas being offloaded.

The German cruise ship Amadea also dwarfs Vector.

The tanker was still offloading this morning when we dropped lines, but wrapped up soon afterward and followed us out. We were very glad that the port of Charlottetown posts their port schedule online, so we had advance notice of all the comings and goings. We enjoy watching well-run commercial ship evolutions.

Our "front door" during our stay. Cruise terminal full of craft vendors at left.

This afternoon we should be in Pictou, our first stop in Nova Scotia. From there we had considered going back to PEI, near Georgetown on the east coast, where at least some of the mussels are farmed, but after five days on the island we feel ready to move on, and we did enjoy the mussels in Charlottetown. Instead, if the weather holds, we will continue tomorrow to Cape Breton Island.