Day 22 - St. Pierre & Miquelon

As we pulled out of port in St. John’s, the "Harbor Symphony" was indeed a delightful orchestration of sounds. Ms Eurodam sounded her horn...tugboats, pilot boats, any boats all sounded theirs in resounding response to our departure, and it was a loud but happy delight to our collective ears (and I caught it on video, complete with sound!) We were heartily welcomed by our neighbors to the north. A ceremony featuring a real, live band welcomed the ms Eurodam captain to the shores of St. John prior to our departure, where local dignitaries presented the captain with the proverbial key to the city, and a continued welcome back to this delightful port.
Performance by the flautist last night was great, as were the HALCats and David later on in the lounge. The onboard daily entertainment leaves a lot to be desired, unless you like bingo and the marriage game...not! Thank goodness for the digital workshop, books and naps.

Bonjour! Today we are in foggy France...I’ll bet you didn’t know it was so close to Canada!

These tiny islands comprise a speck of French territory located in the middle of Atlantic Canada. It was first settled by the French fishing fleet in the 1500s, and for some reason, the British never bothered claiming these islands during their colonial conquest of North America. I'm sure the Brits won't be getting this land back either, although the Portuguese actually got there first but lost it to the French.

This was a very popular place during our Prohibition era. Canadian distilleries legally exported their products here, and then the rumrunners picked it up and ran it south to the US. How 'bout that!

Of course with the fog, we can't see diddly right now, although we had about a one-mile visibility when we docked this morning at 8a local time. The pier is only 300' long, which is way too short for the Eurodam, so folks are going ashore by tenders, two by two. Not people, tenders are going in tandem for safety in this now very soupy fog. We can't even see the island off shore about one-half mile that we could see earlier. And the tenders are waaaay backed up trying to get folks on shore, so we are waiting to see if the weather clears up. If it doesn't clear, we'll probably stay onboard, as it won't be much fun trying to sightsee when we can't SEE!

We haven't had CNN/BBC news in awhile. Dick said they probably forgot to include satellite receivers for this side of the world. Well, it is not that...I found out through a very reliable source this morning that the receivers are onboard, someone just forgot to activate them (meaning: they don't have the local card to insert in it!). Helllloooo...didn't someone look at a calendar and realize the Eurodam was gonna be out of Europe and the use of their receivers from over there...and would be in North America in late August??? Just askin'. This is definitely still a shake-down cruise...let me count the ways......!

Later...life is still good!