Chillin' in the Summertime

" The iceberg's on the starboard bow, won't you dance with me? " - Harry Chapin, Dance Band on the Titanic The best part of a trip like this is often the unexpected. Today, we sailed between an ice sheet and a number of bergie bits (tiny iceberg pieces) off the port side, and a good-sized iceberg on the starboard. Fortunately, we hit none of them, but had a good chance to admire them. The ice sheet was too far away to get any photos, but we got a nice look at the iceberg:

“ The three cardinal tenets of rum drinking in  Newfoundland . The first of these is that as soon as a bottle is placed on a table it must be opened. This is done to 'let the air get at it and carry off the black vapors.' The second tenet is that a bottle, once opened, must never be restoppered, because of the belief that it will then go bad. No bottle of rum has ever gone bad in  Newfoundland , but none has ever been restoppered, so there is no way of knowing whether this belief is reasonable. The final tenet is that an open bottle must be drunk as rapidly as possible ‘before all to-good goes out of it. ’ ” - Farley Mowat Known locally as The Rock, Newfoundland is part of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It became part of Canada only in 1949 after a close vote in a referendum on whether to confederate with Canada, be part of Britain, or be independent. It previously had been a British colony, then for a few years was an independent C

" There's an understanding in Canada that immigration is a net-positive for our society, and that we should continue to have a very robust immigration system that welcomes those in need of protection but also those that want to come and give us their skills and talents ." - Canadian Minister of Immigration Ahmed Hussen  Halifax’s history as a major east coast seaport is striking. Halifax-based ships undertook the grim task of searching for bodies of the victims of the sinking of the Titanic.   While some of the bodies recovered had to be buried at sea, a couple hundred of them were brought to Halifax, where many were buried in three cemeteries around the city. But some five years later, an even more horrific, but for some reason less known (at least in the U.S.), event occurred. A French cargo ship carrying explosives for WWI from New York to Bordeaux via Halifax, collided with another ship and caught fire in the harbor. It drifted into the pier

“ The sea returning day by day Restores the world-wide mart. So let each dweller on the Bay Fold Boston in his heart Till these echoes be choked with snows Or over the town blue ocean flows .” -Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Boston And we’re off. After a couple of very full days in New York, we had a beautiful departure from New York harbor, sailing in perfect weather past the Statue of Liberty and under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Our first stop was Martha’s Vineyard, an unusual port for a cruise ship due to its relatively shallow harbor and the desire of its residents to not have their view disturbed by a monster ship. Fortunately, ours is a relatively small ship, and we anchored pretty far out. It made for a long tender ride ashore, but no local disturbances. In the morning, we took a walking tour of the town, and in the afternoon met our friends Carla and Frank for lunch and another walk. The gingerbread-style houses, and shop