Friday, May 15, 2015
Last night was smooth sailing and sometime in the dark I
suppose we turned right into the Saguenay Fjord from the St. Lawrence River.
That confluence is known for its concentration of Beluga whales, but I guess
each of the 4 times we are scheduled to sail by there it is at night. Oh well.
All day yesterday, you could barely see land from the ship except when we spent
the first half of the morning with a big island on the starboard side. The rest
of the day, it seemed like the St. Lawrence must be as wide as the lower
Amazon. The similarities end there though.
When we woke up the land was quite close on either side and we
knew we were in the fjord. You almost expected to see bears on the shore like
Alaska. They tell us that in a couple of weeks the bears will be leaving their
dens and be everywhere. We’ll be sorry to miss that. Today we saw a lot of
moose warning signs on the roads, but alas no moose.
This morning we received an envelope that contained a letter
and 2 new key cards. The only difference we could see was that the cards had
our full passport names instead of just first and last. Anyway, it thanked us
for staying on for the next cruise and told us to start using these new key
cards today onwards. It said the original key cards we were issued were no
longer valid. The new ones work!
Today was sunny and warm and the water was glassy calm.
There were hardly any clouds in the sky until mid-day. A big difference from the
past 3 days! Saguenay pulls out all the stops when a cruise ship comes in
evidently. There loads of costumed people out there with music and dancing and
First Nations representatives. They were handing out their local flags, and
blueberry pie slices and maple taffy. Maple taffy! They were pouring boiled
maple syrup over crushed ice and letting it set up, then they were rolling it
up onto Popsicle sticks. A delicious little treat! They had a lot of café,
internet and craft stalls as well as info desks set up inside the terminal
building.
So, we were a little early arriving here in Saguenay today
and the ship was cleared 10 minutes after our published arrival time. We were
in no hurry to get ashore because we had a tour booked at 1:30pm (arrive at
1pm) with Tours Aventure Fjord et Monde. It cost $79pp + VAT. We had originally
booked this tour online for noon, but Joseph Simard the 4th
generation native here and owner had emailed to change our time. There had been
some confusion and missed emails and we wanted to verify this. So about 9am we
walked down the dock to his kiosk to confirm. It turned out that we weren’t the
only ones with communication issues and 4 people on his morning tour had not arrived.
They asked us if we would go now to help them accommodate the 4 in the
afternoon should they turn up. We hadn’t brought water, binoculars or a jacket
as suggested because we thought we were staying close all morning. But Clay ran
back to the ship for mostly my stuff and we went. Of course, there were lots of
glares as they had been sitting on the min-bus for at least 15 minutes waiting
by then. I told them they weren’t waiting for us because we had arrived about 4
hours early! The guide came on after me and heard it and announced to everyone
again that they hadn’t waited for us that we had agreed to move from the
afternoon tour for the missing people. As the bus left the port area, the guide
answered his phone and told someone, no we just left because you never showed
up. Then he told them they had been emailed a time change. He told them their
seats were taken and they could go at 1:30, but be there at 1pm. Joseph Simard
was our driver, he is a Francophone and I think that may explain some of the scheduling
communication difficulties he had with Marina’s passengers. In any event, he
was booked solid before the ship arrived. The tour lasted 4 hours and we drove
from La Baie of Saguenay all the way down to Petit Saguenay (I think that was about
where we turned around and came back). It was about an hour drive straight
back. On the way outbound we stopped near the Pyramide des Ha! Ha! A memorial
site made up of traffic yield signs. We walked up to a statue of Joseph Simard’s
great-great grandfather and heard about the Societie of 21, the original settlers.
Back on the bus the next stop was at Riviere-Eternite to walk through a
municipal park of nativity scenes, creches. There was a restroom stop there
too. Next stop was L’anse Saint Jean for the Saguenay Fjord National Park. We
spent about 20-30 minutes there on trails going to fjord overlooks. The trails
were covered in elk poops, but sadly we saw no elk. Next was a surprise quick
stop at Patisserie Louise where we each got to try a warm fresh “nun’s fart”. I
don’t remember how he said it in French. They were made of leftover pie crust
with butter and brown sugar. Mom, does that sound a little familiar to yours?
Now they have a name Mom’s farts! Last stop was at a Marine Park wharf where the
boats aren’t back yet for the season. There was a Café Du Quai there though and
Clay found a Tremblay beer there. Tremblay and Simard were 2 of the 21 original
settlers. Oh, I guess I have the order messed up because I am missing the stop
at a stone church were we walked through a cemetery of iron crosses and then
down the street to see ice fishing houses parked for the summer, a wood house
shared by the houses on the street to store their winter firewood and across a
covered bridge. The bridge was filled with paintings. It was a very scenic
little river valley. One of the paintings in the bridge was of a vat of squeaky
cheese curds. I asked about it and they told us to go to Fromagerie Boivin for
curds and poutine after the tour. (We did! Highly recommend.)
We returned from the tour at 1:15pm. The 1:20pm tour group
was lined up waiting for us to get off the mini-bus. We decided to go back
onboard Marina and drop our raincoats, binoculars, etc. That was just about a
mistake because once again today there is a single gangway and it was seriously
backed up with afternoon tour groups trying to get out and morning tour groups
returning. We finally got back in and out through the zigzag of steep ramps and
made our way to Fromagerie Boivin for our poutine lunch and to pick up some
curds. We stopped on the walk back at O’Gelato & Cacao for dessert. It is a
sad day when you have to go ashore to buy a decent ice cream. I don’t know what
O’s source is for the impressive daily selection of what appears to be gelato
and sorbet, but it is not good. Mostly, it is just sweet and flavorless and not
a great mouth-feel either. How do you screw up ice cream? We walked the rest of
the port area and picked up an expensive small box of Smarties. We visited the church
and the public market. We sat across from the aluminum plant on a bench along the
waterfront bike/walk paths. This area is one of the world’s largest aluminum
producers.
We came back to the cabin long before 6:30pm all aboard.
Since we had done the morning fjord drive tour we could attend the captain and gm’s
cocktail party at 5:45pm. It was part 2, part 1 was last night. 700+ people is
too many for one night. We still aren’t sure how we got invited since we are
not past O cruisers. There was one couple from Canada seated 2 groupings over
from us that had been onboard Marina since February and was staying to
Southampton and had made another 20 onboard cruise bookings. I am assuming it
is like their version of being snowbirds. The people that love this cruise line
must really love it. I think we feel better about O than we did in the first 5
days, but I don’t know that we will ever love it.
Tonight we had an invitation to lunch in Jacques on the Montreal
turnaround day. Since that is our only full day in Montreal, we declined.
Tonight is another JAR show. It is Malibu Waves and features
a special crew salute from the crew so we plan to attend.
Here is a question, how is it that we were told over several visits to Canada (which we love by the way!) that English/French bilingualism is the law. But, here is Quebec that is either not the law or it is not enforced.. We found little in English here today on our 1st day in Quebec. I realize that while in Halifax they said 5% are Francophones at least everything had to be provided in French for them as well. While here in Quebec it may be reversed percentages, but English speakers are shut out. How is that right? Just askin'.
