Icebergs Galore

We went to pick up our friends Marc and Lynne at the airport on Thursday night. They arrived safe and sound, a little tired after a long day's flying. Lynne, who's a science writer, had scheduled an interview with a local geologist and he invited them to drive with him down to a major fossil site about 2 hrs south of St. John's on Friday, and they got up early to go on that day trip. So it was a work day for Lynne--no rest for the weary! Jack and I stayed home, me to catch up on a batch of book chapters that I just received and he to work on his electronics book project.

Carol, Lynne, and Marc

It was the first really nice, totally sunny and almost warm day that we've had in Newfoundland, so we took a break around lunch time to drive up to Cape Spear, the easternmost point of land in North America and the site of the oldest lighthouse in Newfoundland. There's still a working light there, and they've preserved the old wooden structure as a museum. But the main reason for our trip up there is that several people have told us there's a spectacular iceberg to be seen from that vantage point.

Cape Spear Lighthouse (the structure on far right is the old one)

First, we took a side trip to get one of the RoadTrek's side mirrors fixed (after a collision with the pole in our tight driveway--ironically it's the pole that has the sign telling us not to park there!). Fortunately, the lady cleaning the jelly bean house adjoining our unit has a son who works at an auto place nearby; she called him and he said to come right over. He popped the mirror right back on--yay! Newfoundlanders are so nice!!

The drive up to Cape Spear was spectacular. Near the top of the hill we went around a bend and caught a view of a huge white iceberg against the shore! When we got to the top, where the lighthouse and museum are, we could see numerous icebergs offshore. The photos don't really do the icebergs justice--they don't give the feel of how huge and majestic they are. They're fabulous natural sculptures--real works of art carved by the sea. The spray from the waves occasionally splashed almost to the top of one berg, concealing it briefly behind a white curtain. Really an amazing view. At one point a Canadian icebreaker pulled out into the ocean and ran by one of the icebergs, giving a better idea of just how big they are. The lighthouse was striking too, but everything seems to take a back seat to the icebergs.

We took a lot of photos and then drove back into town. We were amazed to see that a huge iceberg had moved into the narrow entrance of St. John's harbor. After we parked the van (very carefully), we walked down the block or so to get a closer look and take some photos. It looked strangely familiar and we finally realized that it was the big iceberg against the shore that we had first spotted from Cape Spear. More photos... It almost looks as if the berg is blocking the harbor entrance, but it's not really big enough to totally block it. We talked to a fellow who was also photographing the iceberg and he said he's been coming here for 25 years and they've never had a berg big enough to actually block the harbor in that time.

Blocking the Harbor Entrance?

Finally went back home. Marc and Lynne came in about 7 pm and we did supper at home, scrounging all the soups and salad stuff that I had in the frig, and some hummus that I picked up at a shop around the corner. Tasted good. Lynne and I gabbed in the downstairs living room until we got sleepy and all went to bed...