19 - Ferry Rides

Monday, July 24, 2017 - This morning we packed up the RV and said goodbye to Pippy Park.  It was a great campground and we enjoyed our stay here.  Headed west and then south to the town of Argentia where we will board the ferry back to Nova Scotia.  It was a sunny day but very windy which made the drive interesting but we made it without any problems.  Got there in plenty of time and had our lunch and got a lot of reading done waiting to board.

At about 3:30 they started boarding and by 5:00 we were pulling out of the docks and were on our way.  This is a 16 hour trip and we were able to get a cabin so shouldn't be too bad.  Grabbed dinner in the buffet restaurant, not great food but good variety.  After walking around the ship for a while, with not a lot to see, we headed to our cabin, did some reading and called it a night.  We could see a spectacular sunset thru our cabin's window and Pat tried to get a photo but as you can see, too much water on the outside of our window.  However, you can get the idea.

Tuesday, July 25th - Up early and grabbed a breakfast sandwich at the snack bar, then tried to figure how to get down to our RV so we could leave the ship.  Tried the elevator for a while but they apparently had them turned off so it was down 5 flights of stairs to our RV.  Drove off the RV shortly after 9:00 AM and were back in North Sydney, Nova Scotia which is where we left from when we went to Newfoundland.  This is a photo of the ferry docked in North Sydney.  When we boarded in Newfoundland we drove on from the stern but we left thru the raised bow as you can see in this photo.  These ships are what is known as RORO, roll on, roll off.

Then drove across Cape Breton Island and the Nova Scotia mainland to get to our next ferry which will take us to Prince Edward Island.  This is a much smaller ferry and the ride only lasts 1 hour 15 minutes and it runs every 1.5 hours.  However, they do not take reservations so we were nervous as to how long we would have to wait.  We needed to get to Charlottetown, PEI in time to pick up our rental car.

No problems,  We got to the port and only had to wait about 1 hour for the next ferry.  It turns out going this direction it's free; they get you when you come back but that will be by a bridge at the other end of PEI.  Here is a photo as we said goodbye to Nova Scotia.

And here is our first view of PEI and one of the lots and lots of lighthouse that PEI is famous for.

Made it to the rental car place on time and then headed to our campground which is in Cavendish, the main tourist mecca on the island.  Found our campground and were set up with the only problem being that the site wasn't very level and I had to use extra wooden blocks under the jacks.

Tomorrow we start exploring PEI.