Day 05 - 08/07/22 - Red Bay, Labrador

 When our alarms woke us at 6:45am we turned in the TV to see the outside camera views and we could see that it was quite windy.  We were still making headway to our anchor position, so it appeared we were still going to make a stop here at our first tender port. We took our time eating breakfast and let the first tenders depart.  With our loyalty status, we didn't need a tender ticket, we just had to show up.  

 

Nieuw Statendam's tenders are nice & roomy, but the outside visibility is limited.  It was a short ride over to the one berth dock in this nicely sheltered Red Bay dock.  The town only has 117 people and a couple of streets.  And the mayor was passing out tourist maps.  We made our way to the Parc Canada building and learned that for $10.75Cdn we could have entry into the two museum buildings and a water taxi to Saddle Island where significant archeological findings of Basque whaling activity in the 1600's has been found including a shipwreck of the San Juan whale oil transport ship.

 

We took the water taxi to the island and walked the trail around the island examining the curated remains.  The fog rolled in and it was an eerie setting.  There was also the rusting hulk of a coal carrier which grounded in 1966.  The salt environment has taken a heavy toll on the wreck.  Sea urchin shells littered the landscape as a byproduct of the gulls that left them after feeding on the contents.  Also we noted super cute plants called bakeapple which have an edible salmon berry like berry.  Friendly Park Rangers were available to answer questions and were very helpful.

 

We took the water taxi back to shore and walked up the hill to the United church where a man from the church had positioned himself to be able to answer questions.  It turned out he was the church guitarist and sang in the choir.  We all petitioned him to sing for us which he did.  It was a beautiful hymn.  Afterwards we walked across the parking lot to the second Parc Canada museum building which held the oldest remaining remains of a Basque whaling skiff.

 

Walking back down the hill we stopped at the local restaurant and I enjoyed some local fish and chips.  US$ were taken at par which meant that the meal had a 22% premium.  I should have probably gotten some Canadian currency the day before.  We then went back to the first museum and thoroughly toured it in the absence of no other tourists.

 

Back at the harbor we joined the tender line which was delayed for a medical emergency for a person taken off our ship. We caught the second tender and it turned out to be the most exciting part of our day. We were seated right under the driver.  We headed out of our berth, directly into a fog bank.  Initially the driver steered straight, but immersed in the fog, I think he became disoriented and didn't seem to trust his GPS.  He made sharp corrections to the left and right. The tender bounced in the waves and mostly there was zero visibility.  From time to time we could make out the shoreline and he would periodically blow his foghorn. Several nearby passengers were quite nervous about what was happening.  Finally, we made out the stern of the Nieuw Statendam and our driver made his approach to the tender platform which is a door in the side of the ship which is opened and lowered into a horizontal position and has stairs up to Deck A and mooring lines.  It took two tries for him to successfully tie up and we easily disembarked the tender.  Below is my recorded track of the route as captured by Pocket Earth. The ship is the blue arrow.

 

Once on board we watched the remainder of the tendering operation.  At one point for the first time I saw a tender retrieval go bad.  The tender was alongside the ship when a gust or current caught it and the front lifting hook released and the tender turned clockwise 90° with the rear hook attached.  The crew quickly released it and the tender motored away from the ship before returning for a successful capture.  All if this was on the starboard side of the ship.  That left tender #18 from the port side to be retrieved.  And it was too windy on that side to accomplish that.  So the ship rotated clockwise 180° and in the lee 'quiet' of the ship, it was successfully retrieved.

 

We had a quiet dinner in the Lido buffet before attending the inter-denominational service (very well attended) where we met Kathy from Mineral, WA.  After the service we enjoyed a very pleasant 'get to know you' chat with her before Angela and I attended both performances of Hyperion Knight.  

 

Some might remember that I purchased an inexpensive fitness tracker (Amazfit 5) at the beginning of the cruise.  I'm really liking it especially for the colorful interface.  It does have one drawback in that it needs to be recharged every couple of days. Today's steps were just over 10,000.

 

Tomorrow's a sea day as we head for Greenland.  Clocks go ahead another 30 minutes tonight.  Mandatory indoor mask wearing continues to be the protocol and is announced by the Captain or Cruise & Travel Director at every opportunity.