TRAVELOGUE
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Sydney, Nova Scotia
Hello from Sydney, Nova Scotia ~
Well, our weather could not have been more perfect today. It is about 60 degrees outside and completely clear skies with no winds. Can it get better than this?
We’ve had a wonderful day here – but as we are leaving port right now, we are being serenaded by what sounds like our sixth grade band with Brunhilda singing. It is actually a group of quite elderly men and one woman. Her voice is not only off key but it is piercing to the ear. Even with our cabin door closed, you can still hear her screeching tones and the drums pounding. It gave us all a good laugh if nothing else. She made an announcement that was was not going to sing her “a capella” song, and we were all thankful.
Today our tour was of a place called Baddeck – a small community about 1 ¼ hours outside of the city of Sydney, Nova Scotia. As has been the case in most of our tours on this trip – the journey getting there has been as much fun and just as interesting as the destination. Baddeck is where Alexander Graham Bell worked on some of his ost famous inventions, including the hydrofoil (which the original one is actually in the museum). It was quite interesting and informative. We were at the museum for a little over an hour. Then, they took us into the town of Baddeck, which is one street about a city block long. Again, as in the other Canadian towns we have visited, the homes all face the water – so everyone has a view. There was a quaint lighthouse just off shore and in the far distance we could see the small “cottage” that Alexander Graham Bell built for his family – a rather small, modest 10,000 square foot home on a bluff overlooking the beautiful waters of Bras D’Or Lake (pronounced “bra – door”) and the Nova Scotia countryside dotted with farm houses and unbelievable landscapes. As we left the museum, the driver and tour guide took us past an area along the shore of the lake where there is a statue of Alexander Graham Bell and his wife sitting on a park bench, looking across the lake at their home on the bluff on the hill.
On the road out to the Bell Museum, we passed numerous fresh water lakes. What was interesting about Bras D’Or Lake was that it is part salt water and part fresh water. Because of all the rivers and streams feeding into it, it is actually at a higher level than the ocean it feeds in to; and therefore, the ocean tries to rise into the lake, but it does not succeed. The salinity in the lake is only 2% as opposed to the ocean that is 3%.
The spring colors ere just ad beautiful here in Sydney and Baddeck as everywhere along our journey this cruise. I think that here, however, the variety and colors of the tulips was much more outstanding. From the yellow/red combination to the ruffled pinks and everything in between, they are in full bloom and just stunning colors.
Many of the homes here proudly fly the Canadian flag by their front doors. Thry do not fly decorative flags as we do in the U.S.
Another thing that I’ve noticed in this part of the country is that their lighthouses are all extremely tall as opposed to the lighthouses on the California coast, many that look like little homes with a light on top. These must be at least 50 to 60 feet tall. It is definitely an indication to me that they get a tremendous amount of fog here. The lighthouses stand proudly at the entrance to most of the harbors and inlets we have sailed into; but in addition, there are many that dot the hills along the inside of the inlets – a real indication to me of the amount of fog they must get during the year.
Leaving Sydney was amazing because as we approached the Atlantic Ocean, the seas went from slightly rolling to an absolute mirror of glassy water as far as you could see. It was spectacular to look off in the distance and see small islands here and there and we just glided seamlessly through the calm waters.
Tomorrow we will be in Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island – the land of Anne of Green Gables.
Until then…
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