Rock’n and Roll’n all the way to the Rock!

It was not the best night’s sleep - in fact it was probably one of the poorest we have had in a long time. Bed was as hard as a "rock". I woke early, got dressed and was ready to start our day, or so I thought. Then the nausea hit me once again, so I took another anti-nausea pill and decided to lay back down for a while. When I awoke again at 8:30 a.m., I was feeling much better. We found out we were not going to arrive in port until 10:30 a.m. so decided to go to the buffet breakfast.  We both had a childhood memory moment when we saw the fried bologna on the buffet. During breakfast, I saw land and snapped our first photos of Newfoundland from our breakfast table. After breakfast we went on deck (along with many others) to take photos as we sailed into Argentia. 

As we neared the dock, a commissionaire told us a little of the history of Argentia. It’s importance lay in its strategic position and ice-free harbour.

In 1940, the U.S. military began construction of a Naval Operating Base and Air Station which served the American and other Allied Forces during the war years. The base closed only a few years ago and one can see the gun emplacements and ammunition bunker from the ferry decks.

When the announcement came to tell us we could move to the vehicle decks, we did not hesitate and we both headed for our vehicles. I was on Deck 5 with the car, Marcel was on Deck Red 3 with the motorhome. We had our walkie-talkies, so we could confer with each other.  Within minutes Marcel called me to tell me he was leaving the ship. I, on the other hand, did not get off the ship with the car for at least another 20 minutes. We lost communication, but I knew he had driven down the road, so did the same and just kept checking to see if he could hear me.  When we finally connected, he told me he had pulled over in a large parking lot on the left hand side of the road. As I approached it, I saw a sign for an RV park, but the lot he was in, was for something that no longer existed.

We hooked up and headed to Mike and Judy’s place in Paradise. The drive was spectacular with fantastic views. We snapped lots of photos. We noticed the trees were predominantly coniferous – and the only deciduous trees were on people’s landscaped properties.

We arrived at the Alexander residence shortly after 1 p.m. We toured their house and they toured ours. Marcel disconnected the car, but forgot to put the car in park prior to doing this – and with the driveway having a slight slope, the car began to roll towards the road. There was much yelling and excitement as both Marcel and Mike began chasing the car. When Marcel grabbed the driver door handle, it came off in his hand. They managed to stop the vehicle before it rolled across the road into an oncoming car that suddenly appeared or; into the ditch.

After all that excitement we parked the vehicles, Marcel helped Mike on the roof and Judy and I tried to hook up the internet.

Mike and Marcel went off to home depot and to get a watch battery (finally). Judy and I went shopping for our dinner.  We came home with 4 good size fresh lobsters; 4 lbs of mussels, and a baguette.

Once the mussels were steamed, we sat in a circle around the cooker on the back deck and ate the mussels straight from the pot.  We then steamed the lobsters, ate them at the table with potato salad, coleslaw, and tossed green salad that Judy had made earlier. Everything was delicious. It was the sweetest lobster we had ever tasted and did not even need melted butter.

After dinner, we decided to forego George St. for tonight and build a campfire instead. We sat around the campfire and caught up with good friends for a couple of hours and we all called it a night around midnight.