Fantasy RV Caravan - Day 17

Sunday, 18 August - Day 17

Our group is now down to 23 RVs (21 plus Wagonmaster and Tailgunner).  A couple from Florida left our merry band this morning.  Their Automatic Transfer Switch fried, making it such that they could not use shore power.  They were still able to use their generator.  They got a quote to repair it in Canada - over $1,300.  The new switch was $850 of the quote to get it to Halifax.  And they think the part is $150 in the U.S.  A contributing factor is that this style of travel is not what they prefer, so they headed back to the U.S. this morning.

Today was the fullest day of the caravan trip so far.  The morning started with an assembly at 7:45am to meet the bus at the entrance to the campground.  And today was a bit of a challenge for the pet owners.  By boarding the bus at 07:45am, and not returning until 5pm, the pet owners had to make arrangements for someone to walk their dogs, or opt out of the tour.  The caravan organizers helped with finding dog walkers, although several were very familiar with the routine and found dog walkers on their own.

The first stop of the day was the Fairview Lawn Cemetery, one of three Titanic grave sites in Halifax.  When the Titanic sank, the survivors were taken to New York.  Four ships were contracted from Halifax to search for the missing.  They found 330 bodies.  Some of the bodies were buried at sea as the task overwhelmed the supplies and space of the four small ships.  Others were brought to Halifax.  Many of the bodies claimed were buried elsewhere, and 150 of the unclaimed (often because of limited artifacts for identification) were buried in Halifax.  121 of the 150 were buried in Fairview Lawn Cemetery.

We finished the visit to Fairview Lawn Cemetery early enough we would have arrived too early to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, so the guide gave us a round about driving tour of the City of Halifax, including a stop at Point Pleasant Park located at the south end of town.  Point Pleasant Park is on land that still belongs to Great Britain that Halifax has a 999-year lease on for the princely sum of one shilling, which is about ten cents Canadian, or 7 cents US.  Every year, the City of Halifax makes the payment of one shilling in a ceremony.  Two of the guides who told the story today both said the same shilling was used each year as they don’t use shillings any more.  After the ceremony, the representative from Great Britain returns the shilling to be used in next year’s payment ceremony.

Our next stop was the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.  After we gathered, the group was split into two groups and the guides provided a 40-minute overview of the museum.  We were then given time to explore the museum on our own.

While the museum had a number of maritime exhibits, three disasters and one success seemed to the the majority of the exhibits.

The first disaster was the RMS Atlantic, a transatlantic ocean liner of the White Star Line that operated between Liverpool, United Kingdom, and New York City. During the ship's 19th voyage, on 1 April 1873, she struck rocks and sank off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, killing at least 535 people.  Our guide shared a version of the event that indicated the cause was a series of human error.  He also said that the White Star Line company put a lot of effort to conceal the nature of the grounding for fear it would adversely impact business.

Another disaster, also a White Star Line ship, was the sinking of the Titanic.  With a bit of dry humor, our guide indicated that the White Star Line was getting a reputation for safety, but not in a positive way.

The third disaster was the Halifax Explosion of 1917.  Yesterday, we saw some exhibits on the waterfront about the event.  The Maritime Museum had many more, and our guide shared the account of how the accident came to be.  Major loss of life, thousands injured, and thousands left homeless.  An amazing outpouring of support from Boston and other places to assist in tending to the injured and rebuilding.

The success story had to do with Samual Canard.  In 1839 Samuel Cunard, a Halifax, Nova Scotia, shipowner, was awarded the first British transatlantic steamship mail contract, and the next year formed the British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company together with Robert Napier, the famous Scottish steamship engine designer and builder, to operate the line's four pioneer paddle steamers on the Liverpool–Halifax–Boston route.  Their steamer reduced the passage time from 10-12 weeks to 12 days.  Our guide showed some of the ocean liner models that were Canard vessels.  He said that Samual Canard preferred tried and true technology in the ships, and credited that with the better safety record.

After the guide left us, we had time to wander the museum to take in things we wanted to spend time on.  We watched the a video on the Titanic efforts from Halifax and Loiusbourg, where we will be visiting later this week.  In the area where they had small boats on display, one of the boats was a Snipe.

We then had two hours to wander downtown Halifax and lunch was on our own.  The guide on the bus mentioned that Donairs were developed here and were like Greek gyros, only better.  So we decided to try them and found Johnny K’s Nothing but Donairs a few blocks from the waterfront.  

Along the way, we passed a store called “MEC” that had banners outside with the words “paddle”, “bike”, and “run” on them.  So we stopped in and immediately we saw the similarity to an REIstore.  One of the MEC employees overheard us and spent some time to tell us that MEC was a co-op modeled on REI.  We enjoyed walking around the store.

Inside Johnny K’s Nothing but Donairs, there was a large sign explaining Donairs.

Apparently it is like a gyro, only it uses beef instead of lamb, uses a different wrap (although it sure seemed the same) and a different sauce.  And at Johnny K’s Nothing but Donairs, gyros include French fries wrapped up with the lamb in the pita bread.  The donair was tasty, but messy.  

Afterwards, we went in search of a washroom to get our hands cleaned.  With still almost an hour before the Tall Ship cruise, and having spent a couple hours wandering the waterfront yesterday, we looked for ice cream for Kris.  Not finding her preferred flavor at two of the ice cream vendors, we settled for Frappuccinos at Starbucks a few blocks away.

The next event of the day was a harbor cruise on the Tall Ship.  As we headed for the pier, we saw kids playing on the large concrete structure.  Then we noticed the sign posted at several places around the structure.

We boarded just before 2pm for a 1-1/2 hour cruise.  With the help of several of the passengers, the sails were hoisted, a four-person effort for the two mainsails.  The wind was 6-8 mph, and the cruise was actually motoring with the sails up.  To their credit, the skipper did tack back and forth to simulate going upwind, but his ability to tack a steel-hulled ship 130 feet long without losing any speed at all, pretty much dispelled any doubts about being under power.  Another clue was leaving a high performance sloop under sail behind like it was standing still.

The tall ship Silva is 130 feet long, built in Sweden in 1938 as a steel-hulled coal carrying boat.  Considered quite valuable during WWII as it was sail powered and fuel was needed for war effort.  During a storm, the load shifted, and the ship capsized in 150 feet.  Because of its value, it was salvaged, some modifications made and put back in service.  In 1950s, it was used to haul fish and grain.  The Silva was refurbished in the early 2000s and is now operated by Murphy’s Bar and Restaurant as a harbor cruise boat.  The ship even had a bar in it, which some found to be the highlight of the harbor cruise.  Our sail was one of five sailings scheduled for the today.

The final stop of the full day was the Citadel National Historic Site.  Our guide was Heather, dressed in the garb of the 78th Regiment from Scotland who were at the Citadel 1869-1871.  We arrived just in time to watch the changing of the guard ceremony which is done on the top of the hour.

Heather gave us an overview of the Citadel.  Afterwards we had about 20 minutes to wander the Citadel on our own.  The Citadel was the forth one built on the hill overlooking the City of Halifax, and was a built to protect the city from a land-based attack.  The Citadel was never attacked.  In 1950, it became part of Parks Canada, and significant restoration has been done to restore it to the vintage 1870 appearance.

One of the questions of Heather by someone in our group was where she was going to school.  We learned she was entering the 11th grade this year.  We were impressed with her poise guiding tour groups.

We were asked to be back on the bus at 5pm, and most of the group was able to exit the single entrance/exit before 5pm.  While the changing of the guard is occurring, the entrance/exit is closed for passage.  The ceremony only takes a few minutes, but one of our group was caught inside when the 5pm ceremony commenced.

Once back at the campground, folks focused on taking their pets out, and dinner.  Some settled in for the evening, others were sitting outside.  Darrell took a soda can to the recycling bin, only a couple hundred meters away, and did not get back to Sprinty for two hours having stopped to chat with folks enjoying the pleasant evening sitting outside.