DAY 57 : September 2/22 Friday. North Cape PEI
Woke up at the lovely Cedar Dunes and made a yummy egg breakfast, then figured out a route up to the North Cape to check out a walking trail by the Wind Energy Site.
Left around 11:50am with 111235km on the odometer. (I’m keeping track of our diesel purchases and mileage on a separate spreadsheet, but for some reason I feel obligated to not the mileage here once in awhile to look back on.)
We drove up the coastline highway and our timing worked out serendipitously just before 1pm to stop in at Skinner’s Pond to the Stompin’ Tom Conners Centre to hear some awesome live music of Stompin’ Tom classics over a plate of nachos, a beer for Jonathan and a caesar for me. The musician playing guitar and singing was awesome and and put on a fantastic show with music and history and stories and nostalgia. Really nice experience in a small little “town hall” / legion style setting.
Around 2ish Further along Hwy 14 we came across a farm stall/honour box and bought some sweet corn, beets, green beans and some tomatoes for $15 and wrote up our tally in the little book provided.
By 2:40pm we reached the Wind Power Interpretation Centre at North Cape. We marvelled at the immense size of the turbine/dynamo section of the wind turbines… they were bigger than our RV! They had one on the ground beside the parking lot, along with a blade as well. Super cool.
From the Wind centre we did a North Cape Nature Trail alongside the wind farm on the coast. It was a 2.9km walk along the side of the wind farm and through some trees. They had some signage with information along the route and the kids and I learned about the blue fin tuna fishing off the coast of PEI. We also read about the Irish moss (seaweed) that is harvested off the shores and processed for carageenan. It was eery to hear the wind turbines above us churning away with a loud whirring sound of the air moving. We saw a rabbit on the trail and Amelia spied some more scat to investigate and see if it matched anything on her scat chart she printed in Portage.
Around 4pm we were back at our rig and on the road down the other side of the point from North Cape. We came to SeaCow Pond Wharf and pulled up to investigate. It was a small, crowded little wharf and Jonathan hopped out first to scope out fishing possibilities. He started chatting with two fishermen who were loading up their gear into a large fishing boat. Kids and I hopped out and wandered over after we saw the younger of the two handing in several giant fishing rods/reels. We guessed they must be for tuna fishing and were right! They were giant rods… so heavy. The guys were both super nice and grabbed a rod for the kids to hold (try and hold) when we asked if we might take a photo of the reels. The younger guy was named Lucas, and he held up a rod for Ollie from the boat, and then the Captain handed it to Oliver to hold for a photo op. He also showed the kids the hooks they use… giant hooks from a giant fishing tackle box. They were super nice people and it was super nice chatting with them about their fishing adventures … some crazy stuff… Great White sharks stealing tuna off the back drag lines of the boat. Yikes. They also fish for other seafood like lobster. The Captain of the boat had to leave in his truck, and once he left, Lucas told us that he didn’t want to tell us in front of him, but that guy was on a fishing show on the Discovery Channel and was the main character a few years ago. He caught a tuna that was over 1300lbs! Lucas has caught tuna over 700lbs. Crazy to imagine. He also said that when the boats go out, they usually come to the wharves around 7am to bring them in and hang them up to weigh them if we wanted to try and see some fish.
On Lucas’ recommendation, we drove further down the coast to Judes Point Road and turned into Tignish to the Fish Mart and the Tackle Store. Jonathan bought a tackle set for striped bass to try on Ollie’s rod (hooks, line leader, weights) and the popped back into the fish mart for some frozen mackerel for bait. Had a lovely chat with Nancy, the lady working there… she has a sister in Merritt :)
After that pit stop, we drove on to Jacques Cartier Provincial Park to camp. Booked site 61 online earlier in the day, but when I arrived and spoke to the lovely older lady in the tiny little office, she couldn’t believe we managed to book it as it’s a walk-in tenting site and there was no way we’d fit in there. Jonathan figured that out as soon as he pulled up. I was still at the office figuring things out with how to swap our site to site 67 without incurring a rebooking fee. The woman at the office was so lovely and really spent time with her co-worker trying to figure out to do it. She was super sweet and said to just go ahead and park in 67 and she’d run up a receipt for me if she figured it out (all this in the sweetest maritime accent).
We parked in site 67 near a lovely couple from Ontario camping here to celebrate their 47th wedding anniversary. Jonathan had been chatting with them while he waited for me to come back from the office with news of the new site number.
Unfortunately, there were SO MANY MOSQUITOES! Such a change on this side of the cape than the other windy side. Ollie tried fishing for bass off the shore right by our campsite, but the rigging was quite heavy for his little fishing rod, and there were lots of big rocks as snag possibilities. He reeled it all in and we had dinner inside the RV - fish tacos (mahi mahi from Costco, sadly not bass) and while we were eating we heard a little knock at the door. It was my friend from the office on a quad with her partner. She said, “are you guys fishin’?” The looks on our faces prompted her to say, “Yer not in any trouble!…. I just wanted to come by and give you yer receipt! I got my supervisor to help me and so yer booked inta 67 with no problems and no fee!”. Super sweet.
We ended our evening with fireside s’mores (bugs were not so bad by then) and read two chapters of Anne of Green Gables. The evening was cool… we may have seen the last of the humid bedtimes!
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