8/20 We had originally planned to go to Iles de la Madeleine on the trip and even had a place to stay while there. We were able to get a ferry onto the island, but not able to get one back off the island for 3 weeks. That wouldn’t work so we had to cancel that plan.
As an alternative we thought we’d go to Saint Pierre and Miquelon Island. That would be fun since it’s owned by France.
Unfortunately hurricane Bill decided to make it’s way north all the way to Newfoundland and we thought since we were nearing the end of our visit there that we should go ahead and get to the mainland before the hurricane arrived. We called the called Marine Atlantic at 11:00 AM and there was space available on the 4:00 PM boat and we should be there by 2:00 for boarding. The ferry to Port aux Basques was 5.5 hours. The ferry from Argentia would be 14 hours so we’d arrive around 6:00 AM. This time I booked bunks for us so we could get some sleep. Since Argentia was about 90 minutes from Clarenville we would be able to make it.
It turned out the roads we need to take to get there were the worst pavement of the trip. It was riding trying to find a route through all the large pot holes further complicated by dense fog. This was followed up by a long section where the road had been torn up and replaced by a bed of gravel. I don’t know which was worse — the fog and inability to see or the road.
We made it even with time to stop for lunch. Jean-Francois ran to a store and grabbed some food to take on the boat for dinner.
I was less nervous with this boarding (this was my 5th ferry of the trip) and we were able to get 4 tie downs for each motorcycle since we knew the drill this time. I worked on my computer (no wifi) and we read that evening. I went to bed in time to make sure I wasn’t wiped out the next day and woke up before the announcement 30 minutes prior to arrival at port.
Hurricane Bill was due to hit in two days.
Leave a Reply