Monday, May 25, 2015
Today is Memorial Day. Somewhere else, not here. Today we
are in Saint-Pierre, Saint-Pierre & Miquelon, France. It is a small island,
next to another small island, off the coast of the larger island of
Newfoundland. This is a very remote place!
We are not docked in town, but out of town, by an old
abandoned wreck of a concrete building. The local tourism people though
provided pretty good coverage with shuttle buses for the less than 10 minute
ride to and from Saint-Pierre proper.
We had very rough seas again last night. I had to wake Clay
up to secure his drawer of beers that were rolling and banging back and forth.
I guess his snoring kept him from hearing it. He thought the previous night was
so rough it was keeping him awake, but I didn’t hear those beers rolling and
banging the previous night so I think last night was even rougher. He just must
have been more tired.
Today was a walking/hiking day much like yesterday was in
Corner Brook, Newfoundland. How, you might be asking yourself, am I doing all these
long hours of walking? Well, I’ll tell you that I have been taking an Aleve every
day since NYC!
It was pretty cloudy, windy and cold when we arrived and
weather.com predicted rain. I wore my waterproof pants again since they serve
as a wind-blocking, insulating layer as well. It did not rain and the sun was
mostly out all day after we arrived.
We were scheduled to be here at 8am. I think we were close,
but the ship was not cleared until after 9am. We were downstairs in the atrium
waiting and were in the first dozen or so people out and on the first shuttle
bus. The wind was brutal but the local tourism people bravely handed out maps
in English as well as French flags. We were stopped by another woman just off
the bus stop with more maps who wanted to help us. We knew where the post
office and ATMs were and those were our main goals. We just asked here if the
poste was open. She assured us that at 9:45am on Monday it absolutely was.
Guess what? Though the posted hours for Monday were 8am to noon, it was locked
up tight and no one was inside at the counter. It doesn’t really matter, we
just hoped to get our passports stamped. We found the ATM and Clay loaded up on
Euros since it did not charge a fee. Everything in town was still closed,
though we passed a woman just unlocking a souvenir shop and sweeping her stoop.
We decided to walk to the 2 belvederes or lookouts on the map. The first one
was 70m elevation above town and overseen by a statue of St-Pierre. The other
was about half way down. We went straight up first and over the other side and
back down through town. It was brutally cold and windy, though as we noted the
wind was out of the south so God help them when it blows from the North! We stopped
at every patisserie/coffee shop shown on the map coming back down. We were
really hoping for a hot chocolate break and to sit for a spell out of the wind
and to use the bathroom. Again, even though the signs posted on the doors
indicated they were now open, they were locked up tight and no one was inside.
By the time, we got back where we started, the few shops that were there were
open. We both wound up finding and buying something in the first shop where we
had seen the woman unlocking and sweeping. You’d have thought from the turnout
of welcoming people and the free shuttles that the local businesses would have
been happy for the infusion of cash but I guess not. We were happy to give at
least some money to someone who turned up to make some. We had planned to shop
for French wine at this stop and I am happy to report that we easily found both
stores in town and they were open. But, I haven’t finished my first 4-bottle
box yet, so I didn’t think I needed any more French wine. They had a big
selection of the same size boxes here as I bought in NYC. I did not price
compare since I didn’t need any. Clay looked at beers, but oddly they were all
Mexican or Heineken. We checked the poste again between 11:30am and noon, still
not open, and then walked out along the shore to the cannons and light house.
Then we caught the next shuttle bus back to the ship. They were running 2 buses
to start. Each time we saw one inbound or outbound, it was full. We noticed a
lot of people walking rather than riding and later we saw only one white bus and
one or more school buses, so there may have been a problem with buses some time
mid-morning but we were unaffected.
We got back and turned our passports in before the 6pm
deadline and went to Terrace for lunch. Clay wanted to get ice but forgot to
bring our water bottles, so while we went downstairs after lunch, I went to
Baristas and got a decaf, skim milk cappuccino. Clay brought a bed chocolate
for me to make a mocha submarine! We went back in Terrace to fill our bottles
with ice but both ice dispensers had run out of ice! But, we found a new treat
to make with bed chocolates in Baristas.
The afternoon popcorn movie today is Mr. Turner. Neither of
us would watch it again, even free and with free popcorn unless it was at
gunpoint. So, here I am and Clay is snoring on the loveseat. There was nothing
we wanted to watch on TV either. We got our Hurtigruten final documents by
email today and there is a document they say they require you to print and
bring. Oceania charges either 25 or 50 cents per page for printing, so we hoped
to avoid that but since it is not clear when or where else we might have
access, we’ll do it here today after 4pm when the computer guy comes back on
duty. We don’t want to go up to his computer lab where we’ve seen the printer and
not be able to use it but incur charges anyway somehow. I guess we are at about
the half-way point on this first Oceania Marina cruise. We’ve been gone 21 days
on a 41-day cruise.
Tomorrow is the first of the private Cruise Critic
excursions we have joined. We met the organizer for lunch out of NYC. The
excursion tomorrow is on Gatherall’s catamaran to Witless Bay Ecological
Preserve. I have my fingers crossed for smooth seas and easy sailing and lots
of puffins. We are expected to see icebergs and whales as well, but the visit
is to the largest puffin breeding colony in North America and it is their breeding
season now. The port is St. John’s, Newfoundland.
The show tonight is a JAR repeat of Malibu Waves, so we won’t
go. I am sure we’ll return to Terrace for dinner. So, I’ll just end here for
today.
