Monday, July 15 - St Andrews By-The-Sea, New Brunswick, Canada
Once upon a time, we met Anne Jewett & Andrew Cook on a cruise. We connected with them immediately and have been fast friends and traveling buddies ever since. We have literally seen the world with these two! Recently, they moved from their home in Toronto to St Andrews. We’ve been trying to get up here to see their new home and guess where our ship stopped today!! This is one of the main reasons for this trip and it was just delightful. You know those kind of friendships where you might not see or talk to each other for awhile, but when you do, it’s like it was just yesterday? These are those friends. We always pick up right where we left off and we can’t imagine our life without them in it. Luckily, we were here from early morning Sunday till early morning Monday, so we had a good long visit. We also had wonderful tour guides for our first visit to St Andrews!
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| Good Morning, St Andrews! |
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| Anne & Andrew's lovely new home |
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| High tide off their deck |
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| Low tide looking at their house from the pier |
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| The lovely city of St Andrews |
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| Anne & Burr searching for a geocache. |
Anne is a volunteer docent at The Van Horne Estate on nearby Minister’s Island. Monday afternoons are her shift so that’s where we went after lunch. William Van Horne was an American railroad man who came up here to work for the CPR - Canada Pacific Railroad - charged with the project of building the route across Canada over and though The Rocky Mountains. Along the way, he built many opulent hotels for passengers to enjoy on the journey. To be fair, he also built them so he would have luxury lodgings wherever he went checking on his railroad. He was to finish the project within a certain budget, and within 10 years. He completed it in less than 5 and under budget! He was rewarded with a $1million bonus and was knighted by Queen Victoria. He purchased Minister’s Island here in New Brunswick near St Andrews and built his summer home - Covenhoven - there. It is a beautiful place, and I am now very interested to learn more about Mr VanHorne. A fascinating man.
One of the most interesting things about Minister’s Island is how you get there! The Bay of Fundy, where St Andrews is located, has the highest tides on earth, so Minister’s Island is an Island at high tide, and a peninsula at low tide! You have to wait for the tide to go down, then you just drive over the ocean floor to get out there!!
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| This is the "road" to get to the island. |
All this is interesting and fun to learn, but the fact that we got to spend the day and evening with Anne & Andrew tops it all. Until next time!
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| They came onboard our ship for a tour! |
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| And our day ended with the full moon. |
Tuesday, July 16 - Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick
Grand Manan is the southernmost point of Canada. There is another island - Machias Seal Island - that is more south, but it has long been disputed as to whether it belongs to the US or Canada. There was a tour to the Grand Manan - Stephen went, Lorraine did not. There is a population of 2400, mostly making their living lobstering. It has its own 10 bed hospital staffed by 3 doctors and one nurse practitioner. One unique thing that happens here is the harvesting of seaweed. There are many many lighthouses on the island, and there have also been many shipwrecks. There are also several bird sanctuaries on the island as a result of Audubon coming here early in his research career.
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| Not a huge museum, but well done with lots of artifacts and history. |
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| Our new friend, Laura, tasting and selecting seaweed. |
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| So many varieties! |
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| And lots of white bunnies. |
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| See those guys climbing that tower? |
Next stop - Bar Harbor, Maine.
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