On a restful day

I have just spent a fairly restful and rather touristy day here in Charlottetown. Last evenings lobster was succulent, but I think it would have been better with melted garlic butter instead of regular butter. Then again, just about everything goes better with garlic.

I slept in quite late, before going downtown to take the Harbour Hippo tour. This is taken in an amphibious bus allowing the tourist to get both the town and harbour tours in one. What they don't say is that Charlottetown has a remarkably dull harbour. No commercial traffic to speak of, no wrecks, and nobody drowned. Nothing to laugh at at all. About the most interesting things to see were the cormorants. Oh, and the ketch rigged yacht whose home port was Venice. (Since returning home, I have discovered that it was the Jancris, a 56' Mikado ketch.)

I also took in Province House, Founders' Hall and Beaconsfield House. Lunch was at the only brewpub on the Island. They have a very good brown ale.

I must get back to the motel in order to give Leonardo a good oiling. There has been a fair bit of rain, so he deserves a bit of attention. I only hope I have a spare rag.

The weather has been fairly sunny today, though rain clouds have been visible every now and then. Yesterday started off quite rainy but turned quite nice.

I phoned my uncle Julian up to get his professorial opinion on a couple of historical matters. The first was the Battle of the Restigouche. He more or less agreed with me that the Parks Canada presentation was substandard and biased. The second question related to my biking from Moncton in the Bay of Fundy watershed to Shediac on the Gulf of the St. Lawrence. The distance is only about 25 km and the land isn't very high. I was curious to know if there had been any attempt to build a canal from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf. Apparently there had been a private venture to do so during the 1880s or so, but the company collapsed before the canal was even remotely completed.

When Julian found out I was in P.E.I. he asked me to come and stay with him. When I pointed out that it would represent two days of biking to get to him and another two days to get back, he offered to drive two hours to pick me up and then return me to my starting point. I politely turned him down, as I felt that having someone drive for eight hours would probably defeat the ecological side of my trip.

I bought some lobster stickers to affix to Leonardo today. I think I will put one opposite the cockle shell.