A View of the Bridge

The captain invited passengers to the bridge Sunday evening before dinner, the day before we arrived in Halifax. Here are a few photos, taken after we departed Louisbourg.

There is a wheel on the bridge, but the joystick controller is preferred. Harbor pilots sometimes use the wheel, the captain explained.

I skipped visiting the famous French fortress at Louisbourg near the northeast corner of Nova Scotia. After having well exceeded my usual walking quota on previous days, I decided to rest my tired feet. I also learned that the locals, of English stock, pronounce the town's name like the Pennsylvania community famed for its federal prison, Lewisburg. No French-Canadian accents in either Louisbourg or Lewisburg.

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A Canadian Thanksgiving

Once ashore in Halifax Monday I sought in vain to replenish my cigar supply, and pick up a Cuban or two to enjoy at sea. But it was Canadian Thanksgiving, and all stores selling decent stogies shut. Still, I wanted to enjoy a relaxing cigar after walking up and down the Spring Garden Road shopping district. I found as bench in the sun in front of the Halifax Memorial Library and lit up. Then I turned around to find Winston Churchill gazing upon me, undoubtedly as upset as when Yousef Karsh took away the PM's cigar to make his iconic photograph. I did my best to imitate the Churchillian scowl. A traveling companion from Glasgow thinks I nailed it. Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting account of the story behind the photo. The downtown shopping district of this city of about 400,000 was filled with people -- most of them tourists off the four cruise ships tied up a 15-minute walk away in the harbor, though some locals were taking advantage of the warm if overcast weath...

Photographer at Sea

Everyone on board has a camera, of course. Including the two professionals aboard: Camille, the in-house photographer who offers tips and provides her photos at the end of the journey (for a price, of course), and Dan, part of a contingent of travel journalists aboard this repositioning cruise, accompanied by Hurtigruten's global PR manager, Øystein Knoph. But the photographer pictured here is no professional. He's a weight-lifter, based on the amount of heavy glass in that lens. He was trying to catch photos of trailing birds this morning on the Labrador Sea. I seriously doubt he could hold the camera steady enough (no tripod) to get a decent snap. I am reminded by this scene of the old saw about the inverse ratio between the size of a photographers lens and his... As for me, I'm relying on my iPhone 7's camera and my lightweight, compact Canon G-9, which has served me well for the past eight years. I considered bringing one of my old 35mm film cameras with lense...

Salem: Great Knockers

Forget the witches or the House of the Seven Gables when visiting Salem, Massachusetts. Instead, see a great set of knockers, and a whole lot of whimsical metalwork, at Herb Mackey's Metal Sculpture Yard, the last house on Blaney Street aside the parking lot for the Salem-Boston Ferry. It's free, and I'm told the whimsical welder who created the metal creatures will come out to chat when he's home. On Saturday, after spending a delightful time over a lingering lunch with my cousins Susan and Rita, who took the train to Salem from their Cambridge homes, I took a slow stroll through downtown Salem, maneuvering among the witches, warlocks and hanger-ons who descend upon this historic maritime hub to commemorate a nasty period in American colonial history, the Salem witch trials. The hordes made the Halloween crowds who descend on my neighborhood for Eastern State Penitentiary's annual scare show seem puny. Salem's most notable cultural attraction is ...

Greenland Passage

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