Bar Harbor, Maine and Disembarkation in New York City

Bar Harbor, Maine would be our last port of call and we arrived there early in the morning.

Fishermen checking their pots

Since there are no facilities to accommodate the large cruise ships, we would have to anchor and tender into the town. As our pilot was taking us to our anchorage, we got to watch the “lobstah” fishermen tending their lobster pots. The fishermen had marker buoys identifying their pots scattered throughout the bay. We later learned that each fisherman can fish up to 800 pots which are usually placed in groups of 5-6 pots strung together and identified with specifically colored buoys on each end.

Fishing for "lobstahs"

We also learned, that to a large extent, the fishermen self-regulate their industry by returning lobsters that are undersized or exceed the slot limit or are females with eggs or previously produced (a notch is cut in an egg producing female’s tail before being r

Really low tide

eturned). These practices are for the benefit of all.

Once ashore, we walked around the dock area looking at the gift shops and tour operators while we waited for our tour to begin. We had signed up for the “Gilded Age Walking Tour” which focused on the early part of the 20^th century when the super-rich families in America made Bar Harbor their summer getaway. We met our guide, Anne, who started our tour by telling us that the very rich families came to Bar Harbor because of John D. Rockefeller’s wife, Audrey, who was pregnant and expecting to deliver mid-summer.

Former speakeasy

Her obstetrician told her that he would not be able to deliver the baby, because he was going to spend the summer in Maine.

Congregational Church

Since he had delivered her two other children, she insisted on his services and told her husband that they were moving to Bar Harbor for the summer and the delivery. Naturally, the Rockefellers attracted other wealthy families, such as the Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Astors, Fords and others, to establish summer homes in the area.

Bar Harbor has a population of just over 5000 residents, but that number swells dramatically during the summer and fall months with the influx of tourists and part-time residents.

Episcopal church altar

As we strolled along the Shore Path which meanders along the waterfront, we saw some magnificent houses that Anne told us served as “speakeasies” during prohibition. Since only men were granted admission to these establishments, it wasn’t long before the wives formed an alternative social club and required their husbands to attend. Anne related some fascinating stories about the community during prohibition and World War II.

Our group next stopped at the Bar Harbor Congregational Church, a New England Protestant denomination with Puritan origins—a Calvinistic group within the Church of England.

Tiffany stained glass window

Anne told us that most residents were either members of this congregation or the Episcopal Church that was our next stop. We found the Episcopal Church to be much less spartan and were told that this was the church that was attended by most of the wealthy families. One of the striking features of the church was several stained-glass windows that were designed and crafted by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Episcopal cemetery

Looking at the various windows in the church, it was easy to spot the Tiffanys as they had richer and more gradated colors within each stained-glass panel. Anne told the story of an entire Tiffany window being stolen from the church back in the 1960s, something the church hopes will resurface after all this time. We left the church and viewed its adjacent cemetery, then walked back to the town green where our tour ended.

We made our way back to the dock area and decided to get a couple of beers and a lobster roll at one of the dockside restaurants.

Jane's lobster roll

The beers were very refreshing and the lobster roll was brimming with an entire chopped lobster. Jane was in heaven! We left the restaurant and tendered back to our ship.

 

Our last day aboard the ship was a sea day. Around mid-morning we started to transit the Cape Cod Canal which provided an interesting diversion to the open sea.

Cape Cod Canal bridge

We passed under three bridges and sailed past several small communities along the canal. Our last dinner of the cruise was spent with a Phoenix couple that we had dined with early in the cruise. Back in our cabin, we finished our last-minute packing so we could get our luggage out for pickup.

 

Disembarkation day and we are up early which is fortunate, because it allowed us to experience another sailing into New York harbor.

Canal community

We did this in our boat in 2011 when we did the Great Loop. We passed under the Verrazano Bridge in foggy conditions. With our cabin on the starboard side, Jane had to go out onto the port-side deck to view the Statue of Liberty. As we watched the waterfront slide by, we reminisced about our experience in 2011 and the good times that we had.

Verrazano Bridge

Our ship docked at Pier 88 and we were berthed right next to the USS Intrepid museum. We were the last group to disembark, and with two other large cruise ships docking at the same time, getting to our airport transfer was total mayhem. We finally boarded the bus that would take us to the airport and our flights back home.

And that’s all were going say about this trip!

Lady Liberty

 

 

USS Intrepid

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Our last port of call before we got back to the states was Halifax, Nova Scotia. Halifax is capital and largest municipality in Nova Scotia, and is the largest municipality in all of the Canadian maritime provinces.

Halifax lighthouse

It is also one of the fastest growing municipalities with a metropolitan population of just over 480,000 individuals. It is a major economic center in Eastern Canada with a large concentration of government services and private sector companies. It is also a major cultural center within the Atlantic provinces.

Clock tower at the Citadel

Our shore excursion options for Halifax were limited, and we ended up with an “Art and Architecture” tour (a Pam Carlson special!) that would take us to see some of Halifax’s cultural highlights. When it was time for our tour to begin, we boarded a bus and headed off for the city’s central library. Expectations were building as we got off the bus to go into the library, but these were quickly doused by locked doors and the hours-of-operation schedule indicating that the library didn’t open until noon on Sundays.

Art gallery entrance

oud of devastation started to descend upon our group, but we were saved from total despair when our guide, Lynn, announced that we would just do the tour in reverse!

Maud Lewis' works

We rode to our next stop, Citadel Hill, a Canadian National Historic Site. Founded by the English in 1749, the site was home to four different fortifications, with the last being built between 1794-1800. Referred to currently as the Halifax Citadel, it has long been the keystone to the defense of the strategically important Halifax harbor and its Royal Navy Dockyard, even though it has never been attacked.

Arctic mitten exhibit in museum

We didn’t get off the bus to walk the grounds, but instead drove around before a couple of times while Lynn provided the details.

Our next stop was the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, a public provincial art museum established in 1908 as the Nova Scotia Museum of Fine Arts, and renamed in 1975.

Fairview Lawn Cemetery

The museum’s permanent collection has over 18,000 works by Nova Scotia and, Canadian, and international artists and has hosted a number of traveling art exhibitions. We were given free time to explore the galleries and were drawn to the museum’s collection of works by Maud Lewis, a Canadian folk artist from Nova Scotia. Noted for her cheerful paintings of landscapes, animals, and flowers offering a nostalgic and optimistic vision of Nova Scotia, she achieved national recognition in the mid-1960s.

St. Mary's Basilica

The museum even has her small home on display in its exhibit, the most visited exhibition space in the museum. We made our way to some other museum exhibits before our time ran out.

As we headed towards our next stop, St. Mary’s Basilica, we passed by Halifax’s Fairview Lawn Cemetery. This nondenominational cemetery is perhaps best known as the final resting place for over 100 victims of the Titanic sinking, because Halifax was one of the first communities to respond to the ship’s distress calls.

Inside St. Mary's

Lynn told some personal stories about some of the victims and noted that the mass grave is probably the most visited site in the cemetery. We were lucky to be arriving at St. Mary’s Cathedral Basilica and little bit after noon, as Sunday mass was just ending and we would be able to go inside to view the church. St. Mary’s is a Gothic revival Catholic cathedral of the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth.

Inside the library

The largest cathedral in the Archdiocese, it was consecrated in 1899, made a basilica in 1950, and was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1997. The church boasts the tallest granite spire North America. Halifax’s oldest cemetery, St. Peter’s Cemetery, is located across the street from the Basilica. We viewed the church and its cemetery and then walked with our guide to our starting place, the Central Library, located one block away.

Library wall art

We had a very limited amount of time in the library and there wasn’t really very much to see except books! According to Lynn, the library has won awards for its design and architecture. We went to the top floor to see the rooftop patio overlooking the city. Concluding our tour, we were taken back to our ship where we enjoyed a fresh seafood dinner, compliments of the chef’s shopping at some of Halifax’s seafood markets.

 

 

St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

We awoke the next morning to find our ship still sailing for the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John’s.

Welcome to St. John's

Founded by Basque fishermen at the beginning of the 16^th century, it is one of the oldest cities in North America and was officially incorporated in 1888. Today, the St. John’s metropolitan area has a population of around 220,000 inhabitants.

Basilica of St. John the Baptist

Up until its collapse in the 1990s, the cod fishing industry was the economic mainstay in Newfoundland and Labrador. Today the ocean still has a major economic importance, but it is due to the oil and gas that lies beneath it. There are currently four major offshore oil developments off the coast of the city.

Our ship finally docked just before noon and was given immediate clearance for disembarkation.

Old Cape Spear Lighthouse

We had a shore excursion book for 1230, so we stayed on board until it was time for our group to meet. When it was time for our tour to begin, we boarded a bus and started to weave its way through the downtown St. John’s area, while our guide provided some background history about the area, its people, the different cultures, and the landmarks that we were seeing. Because St. John’s serves as the capital of the Newfoundland and Labrador province, there are numerous government buildings housing departments that provide administrative services which our guide pointed out as we passed them.

New lighthouse

Of course, no city tour would be complete without a photo-op or discussion of its major religious institution, and the Basilica of St. John the Baptist fulfilled this requirement for St. John’s. The church is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John’s and is the largest religious institution in the city.

We left the downtown area and drove through the countryside on our way to Cape Spear Lighthouse National Historic Site. Located on the Avalon Peninsula about 12 miles from downtown St. John’s, but still within the municipal boundary, the Cape Spear lighthouse has been important to maritime navigation since 1836.

Easternmost point

There are actually two lighthouses on the headland, the original and a new one built in 1955 with updated technology. The Cape is also the easternmost point in North America, excluding Greenland. Because of its proximity to convoy routes during World War II, a manned gun battery was installed on the Cape to defend the entrance to St. John’s harbor.

One of the big guns

In 1942, a U.S. Army Ground Radar Early Warning Station was established on the site and operated until 1945.

We walked to the easternmost point and had our picture taken, then we explored the gun battery’s bunkers, tunnels, and remnants of gun emplacements. It was quite a hike up to the old and new lighthouses, so we decided to just take some long-distance photos and call it good. Back at the visitor center gift shop, Jane purchased a Cape Spear T-shirt and a shot glass. We left Cape Spear and headed back toward St. John’s by way of Petty Harbor, a quaint little fishing village with a snug harbor.

Water tunnel

It looked like an ideal place to come back to and spend some time. On the outskirts of the village we saw a water tunnel—a large diameter pipeline—that brings freshwater from a reservoir several miles away to the villages that line the coast. We also passed several farm fields that our guide told us were not abundantly productive due to the thin layer of topsoil covering the rocky subsurface, and the very short growing season.

Back in the city we made our way to another historic site, Signal Hill. At a height of 548 feet, Signal Hill overlooks the city and the harbor.

Cabot Tower on Signal Hill

Due to its strategic placement overlooking the only entrance to the harbor, defensive fortifications date back to the mid-17^th century. Sitting atop the hill is Cabot Tower which was used for flag mast signaling and a Marconi wireless station. Historically, the hill is important as the site of the final battle of the Seven Years War in North America which was fought in 1762.

Signal Hill fortification

In more modern times, the first transatlantic wireless transmission was received there by Guglielmo Marconi on December 12, 1901.

We exited our bus and walked around the grounds. Given the very narrow width of the entrance to St. John’s harbor, it was easy to see why this location was important to the defense of the city and harbor. The hill’s height provided some great vistas of the surrounding landscape. We took our pictures then boarded our bus for a ride back to the ship.

Channel to St. John's harbor

Along the way, we passed through “Jellybean Row,” so named for the brightly colored houses that line the street. Back on board we had dinner and another team-winning session of “Brainteasers” to finish off the day.

Jellybean Row