Rob-n-Hild, Eastward Ho!
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Still sailing! 
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| We have spent all day on the Bella and - as we write - are due in to Blanc Sablon at 2 am tomorrow (Saturday) morning. There have been a number of stops, which have all been surprisingly similar and since we have been sleeping in recliner chairs (i.e. not very well) there has been much napping and remembering which stop is which might be an issue! The films below will give you a feel for things - we hope! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| We didn't have Max record the whole trip, but just linking the departues together gave us this nice route composite. It wasn't the actual ruoute, but the information we got on Bella's website was only a few hours at a time, so it was hard to put them all together. So where there is a stright line, imagine some curvy bits to get around islands - and a big zig zag between St Augstine and Blanc Sablon - for reasons which will become clear later. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| We slept in the convenient chairs Hild found when we boarded - they were a nice corner where there wouldn't be any passing traffic (although it turns out the boat is sparsely populated on this trip). And then when Hild checked our lifeboat muster station - we were right there! And if Rob thought that by avoiding morning and evening walks Hils would not be able to find him some stairs to climb, he was sadly mistaken. The cafeteria is on the 4th deck, our nice corner is on 6 and the viewing deck (to check on Mary Jane) is accessed on 8. This is more stairs than we do at home to go and feed the cats! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The loading and unloading at each stop is really interesting to watch - well to Rob anyway who loves watching other people work.... The first container off is the one with checked luggage so that disembarking passengers can pick up their stuff and get off and away. Next comes a couple of white refridgerated containers which get opened as soon as they touch down and a guy driving a fork-lift truck pulls out pallets of fresh and frozen food and drives them off upp the wharf at top speed. Then the other stuff gets on and off as needed. There have not been too many cars in open containers (like Mary Jane) in most of these ports as there is not much need for a car when there are almost no roads. But there have been plenty of other closed containers and some which are just a base and end walls which look very ricketty. These ones at least we can see the contents and there has been a lot of wooden frames and house-building supplies. After every stop we check to make sure Mary Jane is still there.... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Casting your mind back a few days, we may have mentioned that the delay on our trip (East-bound) was put down to ice getting in the way of the mosr recent West-bound trip, especially these little stops before Blanc Sablon. The wind has shifted and the area is now open, but there is still plenty of evidence of ice floating around. I'm not sure how big they have to be to be called icebergs, but I am sure these little guys dream about the Titanic from a whole different perspective. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Coming up: We finally reach Labrdor! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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May/June 2023
May/June 2023