(Historical Stevens Mansion in Maine)
We sailed away from Boston on Saturday July 19th, sailing out of the harbor on a clear sunny day to the sound of fun music at the first "sail away" party where we re-connected with Kimberly, our cruise entertainment director we knew from the South Pacific Cruise. We also learned our Captain had his mother and girlfriend on Board, so we knew we were in for a safe sail! Captain Friso Kramer gezegd Freher (aka Captain Friso, who opens all of his daily updates with just "It's me") lives in New Jersey now, but is originally from Holland.
Our first stop on the cruise on July 20th was in Portland, Maine, where we toured a Victorian mansion and other highlights around Portland. A man named Stevens built the mansion. Several Stevens settled in Little River after leaving Maine, but I cannot believe they were related as this mansion was owned by someone quite wealthy and young pioneer Emily Etta Stevens left Kennebec County, Maine, with her family to find a better life around 1860. While her family was apparently well enough off to sail to Panama, travel overland across its narrowest part (and future canal site) then up the coast the San Francisco, it is unlikely she was connected to the ones who built this lovely mansion. The mansion was much larger than the Victorian homes in Mendocino, and had intricate wall and door carvings. It started to really rain, with absolute downpours, but we managed to miss the downpours when outside and returned to the ship relatively dry to sail toward Canada that evening.
Following a day at sea, our next stop was Sydney, Nova Scotia, on July 22nd where Liz and I had a musical excursion--it's a musical port, as this gigantic fiddle sculpture is at the port greeting arrivals (my friend Bob Klamt would love it here!):
Our excursion was gastronomic and musical and adjacent to the port, so we could walk there. The excursion was "Music Island: Song and Stories from Cape Breton," and live music played while we were served a heaping plate of fresh Sydney mussels--Callen would have loved it! As mussels aren't Liz' favorite, she had an alternate tray of home-made chips. We were also served three sample glasses of fermented ciders and three glasses of different beer. Liz gave most of hers away to folks sharing our table, who loved having a non-drinker sharing the tastings. I liked only one of the ciders, and one of the beers. The musician was great, and we had a good time.
Our next day found us stopped at Corner Brook, Newfoundland (after moving our clocks forward the 30 minutes that Newfoundland requires) on July 23rd. We first toured explorer Captain Cook's camp from his early navigation career. We could see our ship docked below in Corner Brook from the memorial commemorating Cook's landing site, which we found quite fun as we had stopped at several of Cook's exploration areas in Hawaii, New Zealand, and the South Pacific, and of course knew the story of his death in Hawaii in 1779. This statue commemorates Cook's early exploration days, before going to the Pacific Ocean.
We also stopped at a few other sites just outside Corner Brook, including one that had a contemporary totem pole carving featuring the story of the area:
Both Liz and I were bitten by the nasty little black flies, and later that night I counted three bites on my face and one on my hands. Liz had an equal number on her arm. The next Port was Red Bay, Labrador on July 24th --the weather was not favorable and we had no planned excursions, and so since we had experienced enough of biting black flies, we stayed on Board for this stop.
Next Stop: GREENLAND!
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