Argentia

So, Sydney. Nova Scotia, not Australia. Let it be known that at least one person in this little ferry town has a sense of humor!(See picture #1 for my new favorite name for a hair salon)
Photo #2 Shows the view from a park that I slept in the night before I sailed. These two ferries leave from Sydney with one, the smaller one, making the shorter, eight hour trek to Port aux Basque, Newfoundland. The larger one, the one I took, makes the longer, sixteen hour ride to Argentia, Newfoundland.
As I watched the comings and goings from my "campsite", I realized that watching the eighteen wheelers disembark puts the size of this vessel into perspective. Basically, the hull is very much like the huge cargo ships that roll in to big ports stacked with shipping containers.
On Sunday, I got up, had breakfast and scored a shower at a campground a little ways away.(Yes, I'm doing my very best not to spend money on campsites if I can help it!) From there, I got to the ferry and secured my spot in line. Now, as my ferry-savvy friends know, is where the flavor, the culture and the sociology of the next port starts to reveal itself. (See Photo #4). In the rows of vehicles waiting to get on the ship, I was surrounded by the following:
1. The ATV'ers. A whole crowd of "quad riders" sat to my right. This piqued my curiosity in that I was wondering how far they planned to travel once off the ferry. I've been told that if Newfoundland were a state, it would rank just under California and Texas in size. To think of driving an ATV for any real distance didn't fit with my understanding of where I was going. Can you imagine drivng an ATV across the whole state of Texas?
2. The "caravan". To my left was a crew of French speaking couples in my age group. Each couple had a big vehicle(F250's, Mercedes SUV's, Escalades) to haul their silver bullets, aka. Airstream RV's. They pulled out their lawn chairs, circled up, and proceeded to chit chat the wait away. These guys were obviously travel pros with a comfort level as a tribe that was clear even to this stranger. In front of me was a fancy Winnebago that looked like one of those Mercedes Sprint Campers. It belonged to a Buffalo, New York couple who were retired and travelling. They showed me inside their rig and we chatted a bit about how they had chosen the vehicle and where they were going. They asked me what I liked most about travelling alone and I said that I suppose being able to set my schedule without worrying I was impacting someone else. The man gestured to his wife and, with a twinkle of a tease in his voice, joked that she got to do that, too.
The car in front of them was a white truck. And near it, a white haired, white mustached man with the tan of someone who is often outdoors. He had light blue, sparkly eyes that communicated a love of life with a dash of mischief thrown in. He had a Bruins jacket on(surprisingly ubiquitous up here) and was a chatter-er. He and his wife had their back tailgate popped and their Celtic music was loud enough to create a little party atmosphere around their vehicle. People walked by, stopped and talked, pet the couple's little dog and laughed. They made everyone laugh. After awhile the man gestured to me as I stood outside my truck enjoying the show. I walked over. "So what's the story with your licence plate?" "Oh. I'm a track and field coach". "So it's not on PURPOSE?"
Sometimes I can be so dense.....Since arriving in Sydney, I have seen all sorts of signs for the Newfoundland ferry. Every one of them says this: "NFLD Ferry". I wondered why the abbreviation resonated so strongly with me?!(duh!) So this man thought I was a local. He thought my plate stood for Trek-Newfoundland.Read more