On my first 24 hours in St-John's

Getting to my plane for this jaunt took a lot out of me. I think it was depression talking or maybe just a relative lack of prep. The flight itself was great with clear weather and a left hand seat on the plane that allowed me to see North Hatley and St-Pierre et Miquelon.

 Getting from St-John's Airport was so quick and smooth that within an hour of getting my luggage, I was hoisting a pint of Quidi Vidi IPA in the Duke of Duckworth, as made even more famous in "The Republic of Doyle" TV show. I had made the "mistake" of binge watching the last two seasons in the last two months, so I keep on expecting an old Pontiac GTO to surge over the crest of a hill. ;-) This is a reference to the private eye show set in St-Johns'. Actually, I am beginning to think someone could make money with a "Republic of Doyle" tour of St-John's.

That was yesterday.

Today was also full of sunshine. I assembled Leonardo, gathered information and moseyed around the town in an aimless fashion. My path took me along the harbour. I chanced upon HMCS Glace Bay tied up to a wharf. Glace Bay is a Kingston-class coastal defence vessel that can be configured for a variety of missions such as mine hunting and the like. They are small vessels, not intended for serious conflict. However, there was something about her that made me ask one of officers an important question: "Where was her main gun?" In theory, she was supposed to be armed with a 40 mm Bofors gun in what is termed a "Boffin" mount. Her answer was typical of today's RCN. The Bofors were now too old, having references to King George on their inspection plates. So the Navy is in the process of replacing the guns, but for the time being HMCS Glace Bay is conducting fisheries patrols with out her main gun, hoping that a pair of fifty caliber machine guns (which might be just as old) will suffice to overawe fishing boats.

As I was reassembling Leonardo this morning, a pickup truck parked outside my lodgings and a man in uniform got out. He was wearing a knife and/or bullet resistant vest marked "Sheriff" in large white letters. He walked off. From "the Republic of Doyle", I had learnt of the existence of sheriffs in Newfoundland but knew squat about how they fitted into the Newfoundland and Labrador justice system. I filed this thought away until the afternoon when as I was coming out of my lodgings and the same sherif was going out to his truck. I took the direct approach and asked him. It seems sheriffs are agents of the provincial courts and do things like prisoner transports and serving warrants or writs to appear in court.

Items forgotten so far are a T-shirt for sleeping in and a universal plug. Both omissions have been rectified, the former by a 2XL "Bat-moose" logo T-shirt and the latter by a test-run trip on Leonardo to Canadian Tire. I came back via Quidi Vidi.