WC Map 2015

WC Map 2015
O̶c̶e̶a̶n̶i̶a̶ ̶I̶n̶s̶i̶g̶n̶i̶a̶'̶s̶ ̶A̶r̶o̶u̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶W̶o̶r̶l̶d̶ ̶C̶r̶u̶i̶s̶e̶ ̶M̶a̶p̶ ̶2̶0̶1̶5̶ Or not...

Monday, May 25, 2015

Saint-Pierre, Saint-Pierre & Miquelon, France

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.