Day 21: Saturday, August 22, 2009

Today was ferry day! I was mostly recovered in the morning, enough to walk around the neighbourhood of our B&B following one of the walking tour brochures I had, and visit the St. John’s Council Craft Shop, which collects locally-crafted art and other items from across the island. I had my pick of wool, including wacky, neat stuff from a place called Wee Ball Yarns. I ended up with a skein of hand-spun, hand-dyed wool in various shades of light green, which I’m thinking I will knit and felt into a rolled-brim hat that might go with my winter coat.

Will and I walked along Water Street (the main drag) of St. John's, and we bought him a Diabolo because he really wanted one, and a random person on the street said "Yay! Dawson City" when she saw my t-shirt from last year. That was a nice moment, strolling along the furthest east I've been in Canada (and the furthest east you CAN go, Cape Fear, wasn't far away), having my furthest-north trip acknowledged.

Mike swooped by in Bobby to pick Will and I up, and we drove to the ferry, which goes from Argentia rather than St. John's. It was a somewhat boring 1.5-hour trip except for the part through Butter Pot Provincial Park, which has a high elevation and scattered rocks all over, looking like rough terrain that might be good for sheep (we saw no sheep, though).

The ferry was late coming in, but we were were off by 4:30pm or so, for a LONG ride of probably 14 hours (it's long enough that weather determines the length of time). We staked out "air" seats, as they call them, which recline and are reasonably comfortable. This was a much less fancy ferry, like a bigger version of the Chi-Cheemaun, so we felt at home. Dinner in the cafeteria wasn't too bad (roast pork for me, Mr. Sub for the guys). There were movies in our area, so we watched "Coraline" (which we already like), "The World's Fastest Indian" (pretty entertaining, and who doesn't like Sir Anthony Hopkins?), and "I Told You So", which was emphatically NOT for children, and I'm just glad Will didn't ask me any questions about it. He put his blanket over his head for the juicy bits, thankfully. After trying to sleep in my chair until my back hurt I lay on the floor (despite all the signs saying sleeping on the floor was prohibited) and was reasonably comfortable for 6 hours or so. Will and Mike both slept in the seats.