Quade's Blog: Cruising With Mike: The $399 Sailing (Part V)

Trip Report Contents

Part One: Introduction & Planning
Part Two: To Boston & Sailing Away
Part Three: Bar Harbor, These Are Tender Times
Part Four: Cloudy and Windy In Halifax
Part Five: Seeing the Sun In Sydney (This Installment)
Part Six: Sunny Charlottetown
Part Seven: Down the Saint Lawrence, a Day “At-Sea”
Part Eight: Québec City. Again.
Part Nine: Into Montréal; Out of Montréal

Part Five: Seeing the Sun in Sydney

An Inauspicious Arrival

Into Sydney, I decided to stick with the main dining room for breakfast, while Mike headed to the Lido buffet, the quicker choice. When we disembarked at Sydney, the police presence was remarkable. One of the best things about going to countries like Canada is that one doesn’t feel like they’re in a police-sate; Sydney was full-on that morning. We later found out that, upon pulling in to Sydney to dock, someone on our ship spotted a body floating in the water, thus the police. (About that here.)

In Sydney we rented a car instead of booking one of the excursions through the cruise line. Our $50 rental car was a lot cheaper than an excursion for one person, much less than the cost for two of us. Because of the police presence the rental company wasn’t allowed to drive down to the boat, so finding the rental car shuttle wasn’t easy, but we managed. Soon we had the car and were on our way.

We had asked a couple of folks which driving routes to take, one a waitress in Halifax who happened to be from Sydney, and then the staff at the rental car place. In the end we decided to drive out to a small town called Baddeck, which had a few places to eat and an Alexander Graham Bell historical site; and, it was the logic stopping and turn-around spot on the route we were considering.

The drive out was pretty but gloomy, with overcast skies most of the way to the Alexander Graham Bell Historical Site. At the site one can learn about Bell’s interests and inventions, and explore the man’s legacy.

Even though Bell is mostly known for his telephone, he spent a lot of time figuring out how people hear and helping the deaf

Canadian dogs: I stepped out on the patio at the museum and was charged by this cute little fellow, while the second looked on, half scared

Lighthouse view from the patio

Another patio view

After we saw the Bell Site, we headed the mile or so back into the town of Baddeck for some lunch. We stumbled into Bell Buoy, for a really tasty lunch. A sign outside the place listed things they served, which seemed to be just about everything. This made me nervous, because usually places that try to do too much don’t do much of anything very well.

View out the window from our table

Seafood chowder

Fried scallops and baked potato with all the trimmings. Clearly I was watching my diet that day. Ha!

Just as we were leaving the restaurant, the sun timidly broke through the clouds; soon the overcast was vanquished and we had a pretty glorious drive back into Sydney.

Sunshine ... finally!

Beautiful Nova Scotia

The bridge we'd be crossing over on the way back to the ship

Looking out toward sea

Well, yes, the sun did come out and we did have some wonderful sightseeing, but we also got a little lost. We weren’t hopelessly lost but I began to feel that way when I stopped into a gas station for directions, which consisted of something like this: “Well, you need to go down that way and to that road that has the bike lane, the one they just put in, then go over there where they put up that stop light, just before you get to the hospital. You know, at that busy intersection. Somewhere over there you go left … I think … or is it right.” And on from there. Me: “Um, I’m not from here, so I don’t know where any of these things are.” Her: “Oh. Does anybody know how to tell him to get over to XYZ?” Thankfully someone did and we righted ourselves, made it back to the car rental place, and back aboard the boat with plenty of time to spare.

A Pre-Dinner Promenade

After freshening up, there was still a bit to go before dinner, so I took a walk around on the Upper Promenade deck and took some photos. I was amazed at how sunny it had been just a couple of hours earlier, because there was so little sun to be seen by this point. There was still some pretty spectacular landscape to be seen from the ship.