Halifax, Nova Scotia
Partly Cloudy, Hi 84
Sunrise 6:05, Sunset 8:35
Today’s Menu Image is a memorial celebrating “…the resilience, heritage, and lasting impact of the Lebanese immigrants on Canadian society and honors the strong ties of history identity and pride shared between Lebanon and Canada.”
We could learn a lot from our Canadian siblings.
I was out on the track this morning when we steamed (dieseled) into Halifax harbor (the world’s second largest ice-free harbor – behind Sidney).
During my wanderings I saw them deliver the pilot.
I also had a front-row seat as we approached our dock, stopped, and twirled the ship 180 degrees before sliding in to our dock. That’s the magic of azipod propulsion in operation.
Our excursion wasn’t until 11:00 so we had time to start slow and linger over brunch.
At the appointed hour we presented ourselves dockside and followed ‘the lady with the lollypop’ down the way to the ship Silva – a three masted schooner that has been converted into a tourist sight-seeing craft.
There we boarded the ship and set out on a two hour tour of the harbor.
Silva is a 3 masted schooner. 
We were entertained by a fiddler. 
Eventually we put up the sails, but never used them. 
We relaxed. 
We saw some interesting buildings 
And the state capitol Complex. 
a colorful welcome 
Our fiddler also played guitar (and sang too much rock and not enough Celtic). 
Halifax is Canada’s second largest naval base (there are only 2). 
Our ship from their ship. 
Cheryl with the George’s Island lighthouse in the background
It should be noted that when I say “…we put up the sails…” I mean WE put up the sails.
During the sail I chatted with an older gentleman who mentioned that he was employee number 5 of his company.
What company is that?
Amazon Lab126
Amazon Lab126 is a ‘skunk-works’ R&D subsidiary and his role was technical design.
He designed the first Kindle and his last project before retirement was to lead the design of the Fire Stick.
Amazing!
Following the sail we walked back to our ship for lunch.
Then it was back to the stateroom to change into shorts and out to do a bit of shopping before our “on-board” time of 4:00.
We were back in time to take a nap before Russell Lee’s lecture:
There’s a lot of history there (including events in Europe that impacted the Acadians in Canada) and he laid it out very well so we could understand the causes as well as the actual impact.
We had over an hour before the next lecture so we returned to the room to read and research and by the time it was time to return to the theatre for the presentation on “Space Travel: How we do it, Why it’s important, and Why it costs so much” we opted to eat dinner instead. these presentations are recorded for rebroadcast on our stateroom TV’s so we watched it from the comfort of our bed.
It was a lot of information thrown at us very fast, but in a way that helped to make sense.
During dinner we (Cheryl and some other diners) spotted whales spouting a ways off the port side.
When we finished eating we headed out to the rear deck to reports of other sitings so we spent some time looking out at sea – hoping to spot some more, or even an actual whale.
Sadly they had all gone to dinner and were no longer in evidence.
But we have verification that we are, indeed, sailing thru whale populated waters.
So that’s Halifax day.
Tomorrow is our second sea day and our schedule is full of things to do and see.
And just to make life interesting. We will move our clocks ahead 1/2 hour tonight. Not sure why. I’m guessing that from here on out we’ll be doing a lot of time changes and the smaller increments are supposed to keep us from living in a state of perpetual spring time change fog.
It’s always an adventure.
See you tomorrow.
Till then,
R