Bay of Fundy...

West Quaddy Lighthouse  Lubec, ME

Supervising morning coffee

We arrived in St Andrews, NB on a bright sunny afternoon and backed our rig into a lovely ocean front spot!  We're adapting to the longer daylight hours - it's light before 5 a.m. and doesn't get dark until around 10 p.m.  And, we're loving the cool, breezy nights and warm days.  No humidity!!!

An added bonus to this stop is that we're sharing the little town of St. Andrews with 1500+ bikers!  It's one of Canada's bigger 'bike weeks' and we have had an impromptu lesson on motorcycles.  While I'm partial to the HUGE Harley Davidsons, we saw all sorts of bikes, Decadi's (?), Hondas, Yamaha's, BMWs, and others.  We watched a 'light' parade and learned that there are many beautiful ways to light up a motorcycle!  Just beautiful!  Some of us even joined in and voted on the 'Best in the Show' bike.  I voted for a foxy pink Harley that had a gal older than me riding it!!  I figure we grandmothers must stick together :)

Yesterday we went on a whale watch and had two sitings....the rule of thumb for whales is that they weigh a ton for each foot of length.  So, the Minke's we saw were maybe 18 feet long....that's 18 tons!  We also had an education on whale behavior and habits.  A large whale population will feed in the Bay of Fundy until around Feb. when they migrate to the Caribbean to breed.  We saw eagle habitats on the small islands in the bay and viewed a salmon farm.  The newsflash for me was that farm raised salmon is done in large cages made of net, in salt water.  Each net cage will raise approx. 50,000 fish and there are 24 cages in a farm.  And, 40 farms in the Bay of Fundy.  That is a lot of salmon!!  We also saw herring wiers, where they net hundreds of tons of herring.  Herring is important to the area... the whales feed on herring, it is used for baiting lobster pots, it is dried and made into fish food for the salmon farms and it's smoked, pickled and canned for humans.   By the time our guide finished her spiel, I was ready to go buy a case of New Brunswick sardines!!!

On our next day, we visited Minister's Island; a location that is only accessible by road (this is actually the ocean floor) when the tide is low.   Minister's Island was the summer home of William Van Horne, Canada's railroad baron.  And, while it doesn't quite  compare to the 'Biltmore House' (our US railroad baron's place) it is quite impressive, as it was his island & just a summer home.  Interestingly, both Van Horne and Vanderbilt were of Dutch ancestry.  Our day ended with a lobster dinner at the campground and our driver's meeting, which lays out the plan for tomorrow's travel day to Glenholme, NS.