Leaving Toronto at 10:00 am this morning on Tuesday, June 15. It was a beautifully sunny day and we are very excited to start our adventure on the sea.
The landscape from the plane makes a huge change as we headed into Labrador, so many trees, no houses, no highways, so much water, so much wilderness, just beautiful.
It was a milk run on Sunwing. We came down in Gander to drop some people off and pick some up then onto St. John's and then the plane was going to Halifax and back to Toronto. It was like a bus. There was nothing in Gander except the airport. It was beautiful, gorgeous trees and water.
Next airport was St. John's then a taxi to City Hostel on Gower Street. They had just opened another house so we were moved to Prescot Street.
The houses are very colourful, wooden and attached or touching with no front yards. The streets are very hilly and the hills are very steep.
This is a huge Anglican Church in downtown St. John's, an awesome building, just huge.
We walked a lot, up to Churchill Square to Karen's brother's restaurant for supper, Mexican, and then we walked for another 2 or 3 hours around the harbour front and the streets downtown. We found one sailboat and asked the captain if Jim could dock there when he arrived on Carmen1 from Cape Breton. We're hoping he'll arrive on Thursday. He called yesterday or the day before to say that he and Tony were leaving Cape Breton that day heading for St. John's Harbour.
The middle house, 50 Prescot is where we're staying in a bedroom at the back. It's a very old house, newly painted. We share a washroom with one other bedroom on our floor and have a common living room downstairs and a common kitchen. We bought granola and bananas for breakfast, and vodka and rum for night caps.
This is a picture of the terrain in Labrador, isn't it just gorgeous.
We went to the Ship Pub and watched the Mayers Bayers play jigs and reels. I got their CD. They were fabulous. It was open mic night too.
The streets in St. John's are crazy steep, soooo steeeeeep there are stairs on some of the side walks.
This is the sign for The Ship Pub, great music.
We're staying at Foggy Rock Hostel. This is the common living room, we share the kitchen and there are 2 bathrooms and 4 bedrooms. We've met lots of great people from Alberta, BC and Ontario and Dave the owner and Angela, his daughter, are just super people to know.
The hostel is a historic building, a row house, three floors up. It sooo clean and beautiful and is starting to feel like home. Angela the young woman who looks after it is a real pleasure and has been a great help driving us to get the Alternator fixed at Billy Nugents in Lower Cove.
This is Anthony and I with St. John's Harbour behind us, Signal Hill on the left and Cape Spear on the right. The second mast on the right is Carmen 1's. We listened to a great blues band in the park on the weekend. The scenery is awesome.
These are the boys from right to left: Tony, Jim and Anthony. We're hoping to leave tomorrow for Horta in the Azores. The alternator is fixed, the wind generator is almost together, we have been buying groceries for the last 5 days to feed us for 14 to 20 days. Anthony took 40 gallons of water to the boat today with the help of a new friend Ian and his car. We have one more run to Sobey's and the Liquor store and we think and Leith is helping us with our last run with his car, he is the brother of a friend in Toronto...that's it. We're off to the Azores.
This is the Carmen 1. There is room for 3 to sleep down below and 1 person will be on watch at all times. He has wind vane steering and an autopilot, radar, VHF, single side band, chart finder ... everything we need ... a life raft, a dingy and motor ...a stay sail...a soft bimini...etc. It's a 36 foot Granpian.
Here the boys are trying to keep the grocery cart from flying down the steep street. It's all food.
Here we are on Water Street almost to the boat with some of our food. Today it's raining but it is the first day we have had rain. The hostel is about 5 minutes uphill from the boat and Sobey's is about 10 minutes up hill from Foggy Rock, lots of very steeeeeeeep walking, good cardio workout.
Here Jim and Tony are celebrating Father's Day on the boat. I bought all the guys a wee treat for Father's Day.
