On Fiona and consequences

Well, here’s a pretty howdy-do.

At some point early in the night of the 23rd of September, the night that Fiona hit, I decided to stay in Alma an extra night and phoned the hotel in Moncton to change my reservation by a day. That went easily. Later that night, I woke up and noticed the power was off. Well, to be expected. I should have cancelled my alarm, but when it went off, I silenced it before rolling over for some more sleep.

Around 8:30, I arose, dressed for the weather and went around the corner to the office to let the place know I would be staying for another night. I saw that the owner was holding a take-out cup of coffee. I asked/guessed if it had come from the gas station and general store down the street, the only place with a lit sign! It had and provided me with a breakfast of sorts, coffee, a hard boiled egg, a muffin and some grapes.

The strong Northeast wind had rain in its teeth. The parking lot of the motel was littered with roofing shingles. Later in the day, a couple of men were up on the motel’s roof making repairs.

After breakfast, I turned in for a nap, setting my alarm for 11 AM or high tide. It had been low tide when I arrived and the fishing boats in the port were high on the mud. They appeared to be intended for the lobster or crab fishing. To my eye, they were extremely beamy with no taper at the stern, no doubt to better handle resting on the bottom twice a day. Some of them had overly macho names or decorations. “Fundy Fury”? Pirate logos? Give me a break! I later noticed that many of them had home ports in Nova Scotia, mostly Yarmouth and Digby.

Someone at the gas station had wondered about a storm surge at high tide. However, there was no need to worry. By high tide, the wind had abated and in any case, it had been blowing against the tide.

I spent the afternoon wandering about Alma doing some good by picking up some wind blown shingles. In the process, I discovered that there was a seafood shack open and had a hot lunch of fish and chips. I had been expecting it to provide supper, but it closed early, alas. 

In the late afternoon, I went into the motel’s office to pay for my second night. Power was not expected to be restored until 10 PM the next day, so the internet was out. I offered to pay cash. However, the owner said he had an old machine that would do the trick. He produced an old credit card imprint taker. I chuckled and explained that it wouldn’t work as my credit card isn’t embossed! (I had worried about the problem when it arrived.) We arrived at a working solution.

I had limited cell reception which gave me a picture of the relative devastation in Nova Scotia. Yep, I would have to call this trip quits in Moncton. In reading about the more limited damage done to New Brunswick, I had a moment of panic when I read that Route 915 East of Alma of was blocked and that motorists should find alternate routes. My panic was that I would have to got back through Fundy National Park. Then I remembered that the main road out of Alma was the 114!

I strolled out on the beach about an hour before low tide. It was a long way out. It was interesting to see the changing amount of barnacles on the rocks the further I went. I came back picking up litter as I went. At the top of the beach, I was removing some ropes from a piece of driftwood when a man commented that the boulders just below us hadn’t been there the day before. I was a bit surprised by this as they looked well established in their current locations. I suspect that the sand that had been covering them before was washed away.

Supper that night was skimpy as was the following breakfast.

Sunday dawned gorgeous. It was cool at first, but glorious. The 114 out Alma rose at a gentile grade that made for a fast climb on its well paved surface. I imagined that it might because New Brunswick wanted to give visitors to the Park a positive image of its roads. After a lovely descent the other side of the pass, I came out on the coastal plain and thought that from here to Moncton it would plain biking. Of such thoughts, the gods take pleasure in playing with cyclists. As related in the previous entry, there were far too many pointless and annoying hills between there and Moncton. There was also the aforementioned problem with the Hopewell Rocks.

There was a railway museum in Hillborough which should have been open because it was a Sunday, but wasn’t likely because of Fiona. There were many items of rolling stock out in the open and with no fence surrounding them, and no one telling me not to, I wandered about inspecting them. I was surprised that one piece of rolling stock that I had thought was a tender to a steam engine had been used to fight fires. Hmm, maybe it had been a tender to a steam engine but when steam engines were retired, it had been repurposed. The one thing was was fenced off didn’t match the rest of the collection. I mean it is very rare to find a McDonnell CF-101F Voodoo interceptor in railway museums. As I returned to my bike, a car with an East Asian family arrived. The father asked me if the museum was open. I said it was supposed to be, but it wasn’t. However, there was nothing stopping them from looking at the outside of the cars.

I made Moncton earlier than I had planned, mostly because of the Hopewell Rocks situation. I had thought I would find a tourist information office and through it locate somewhere I could access the internet and recharge my phone. However, owing to the relative inefficiency of New Brunswick tourism, I found my hotel before I found tourist information. As I hadn’t showered in 36 hours, I decided to see if I could check in early. And so I did and I could.

Once clean, I phoned up Via Rail to see if I could change my ticket back to Montreal. I had looked up flights back to Montreal on Air Canada and they started at $700. Indeed, I had checked again while waiting for an agent to become available. However, my ticket on Via Rail had been paid for by points and in theory could be changed free of charge. It would also be more fun. That would more than make up for the extra time and money spent in Moncton. As it turned out, it was possible to change my ticket to Wednesday and Moncton. So that is what I will be doing! 

Today has seen me putz around doing my laundry and taking it easy. Tomorrow isn’t looking so nice, so I rebooked the car for Wednesday which is better logistically. I feel I should be finding a museum or something, but…

P.S. According to Environment Canada, Fiona dumped 105 mm of rain in Fundy National Park.