Summer Cruise Part IIII Francois – St. John’s

Friday around noon TJ checked the weather and it looked like a good time to go around Cape Race, the South Eastern point of Newfoundland, so we abandoned the Trepassey idea and kept going. It wasn’t much further, another 4 or 5 hours maybe, but the winds accelerate around the Cape often and one needs to be cautious when rounding it.
We arrived in Fermeuse Harbor in the late afternoon. Nick and Carol had decided they wanted to take a little inland trip. They found a local who was willing to drive them to St. John’s, and so they left us the next morning.
We spent one night in Fermeuse but liked it so much we vowed we’d be back. The trip up to St. John’s took no more than 5 hours. We saw roughly a million Puffins and a ton of whales. Right by the entrance to St. John’s a whale came up about 10′ off the bow. Very cool.

The entrance is narrow and when we arrived an oil supply boat came out which left little room for us to go in. Traffic control asked us to hang back and let them come out before we went in. We hung out a few minutes and let them go by. At the end of Pier 6 there was a spot that seemed just big enough for us to fit. Luckily two guys came and helped us with the lines, because it turned out to be a tight fit and those public wharves aren’t made for cruiser’s convenience. One has to climb on tires to get up, or get lucky and catch one of the ladders at the right moment, but that makes docking in a small space challenging at times.

We spent one week in St. John’s. A lot of the time was spent on boat chores, however, there were some highlights: Our second day there we hiked up Signal Hill. It overlooks the entrance and the whole bay and the weather was, for once, spectacular.

The other highlight came on Tuesday. Our friends Andy and Liz used to live in St. John’s, and they hooked us up with their friend Janice. Janice turned out to be a riot. She and her son Steve and his girlfriend Carmen picked us up Tuesday night to go out to Cape Spear, the most Easterly point in North America. Afterwards we went out to dinner in a little town called Petty Harbor. The food was awesome and so was the company, and we had a fabulous night out. Thank you again Janice!

Fueling the boat was also different. There is no fuel dock, so we had a fuel truck come down to the boat.

Other than that we roamed around the city and ate a bunch of good and a bunch of really bad food. It seems like bad food in Newfoundland is generally free of taste, while good food is heart attack inducing.

Life at Pier 6 was not exactly prime. It is right next to a container terminal, so I spent a lot of nights laying awake listening to boats loading and unloading. It was also incredibly dirty. The boat was so filthy it wasn’t even funny. The dirt got blown into every last corner. There was no fresh water at our slip, so we spent a lot of time going back and forth to the place where we could get water, even though the locals warned us it wasn’t drinking water. (I’m happy to report we are still alive and well.)
Possibly the most annoying part where the gawkers. We are used to people looking at Rocket Science and asking questions, and that’s just fine and dandy. However, sometimes we would just go hide because after you answered the same questions about 28 times it is no fun anymore. Some people weren’t even nice about it. I remember one guy acting like the Holy Roman Inquisition. He so was rapidly firing questions at TJ I thought he must have made notes before he came to talk to us. Oh well, it’s all part of having a fancy boat I suppose.