Terrors in Tiaras: Bay of Fundy

Wednesday, our port was St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. It was kind of a cloudy day, but pleasant. We first boarded a bus to ride to St. Martins, a little fishing village off of the Bay of Fundy, population 374.

On our ride to St. Martins, we learned a little bit about the livelihoods of forestry, fishing, and lobstering that support residents of St. Martins and St. John. We also learned that the Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world--54 feet, and that one hundred billion tons of sea water flow in and out of the bay twice a day. Wow.

The village of St. Martins has two covered bridges, a small light house museum, a little wharf, and an amazing beach of colorful rocks. In the 1800s, it was a ship-building town where over 500 sailing ships were built and put out to sea.

One of the few original homes still standing, the first ship captain's home.

We went up into the light house, which was moved to a location near the center of the village and is no longer used. It offered a nice view of the wharf, though.

We drove around the corner from the little wharf and visited the beach. It was full of many, many colors of rocks that were worn smooth from the rough tides. The variety was amazing. Our tour guide explained that these rocks were from all over the world. In the 18 and early 1900s, when the ships would leave port with their shipments, they would add rocks to the ship to balance the load. A ballast. When they arrived at a port to unload, they would dump the rocks into the bay, and start over, loading their boats with wares, and balancing it out with rocks from the ocean floor. So, ships arriving from China, Europe, and elsewhere into the Bay of Fundy would unload their shipments and dump their rocks. Hence the variety. Gorgeous.

The beach had some sea caves, but the water was coming in too quickly, so we didn't go out to them. To give you some idea of how quickly the tide was rolling in, this first picture was taken at 10:27, and the second one at 10:44. You can see that the water had moved up at least a couple of feet.

We gathered a few rocks for keepsakes and enjoyed the scenery for a while, then boarded our bus for the trip back to St. John.

Our tour guide shared with us her two favorite treats on our ride back. Dulse, and Scottish mints.

She said she eats dulse like we eat potato chips, it's such a delicious crunchy, but healthy, snack. So I tried it. Barf. It was not crunchy. It felt like chewing wax paper, but tasted like rotten fishing village leftovers. At least the mint was good.

Back in St. John, we decided to walk around the streets and enjoy some of the architecture. We loved the high school, the old hotels turned apartment buildings, and the variety of buildings.

We visited a few historic churches in the town and learned a bit about their histories. This first, St. Andrew and St. David, was created after two congregations combined following a fire in town in 1877. They used bricks from the Victoria Hotel rubble for the sides and local limestone for the front.

The thing that was so cool was this pulpit. The front of it was hand-carved by an apprentice wood carver at age eighteen. It was the only part that was salvaged in the fire. So, sixty years later, when the church was combining, the same man, now seventy-eight years old, carved the rest of it for the church. It was amazing.

They combined windows from both churches, as well as some benches and other decorations.

The Trinity Church was built in 1880 to replace the wooden church destroyed in the fire. It was huge. And beautiful. The lady there told us that only about 100 people are active in their congregation. They must feel swallowed up in the cavernous sanctuary.

We then walked past a couple or more churches, the St. John's Anglican Stone Church, built in 1925 of stone used as ballast from European ships. Pretty cool.

There was also a Jewish Synagogue no longer in use across the street. It was built in 1865 as a Presbyterian church, but was purchased by the Jewish Community in the 1920's to accommodate their about 1400 member community. Their numbers dwindled to about 55 in 2008, so it was abandoned.

We ate at a delicious place on King Street, Urban Deli, for lunch and then headed up the street to the King's Square, a public park. And, of course, we took a picture of the fire house next door.

We went up and down the streets and in and out of shopping centers to try to find a post office. We finally found one, but not until after finding the Marco Polo,and some pretty fun statues. I bought a magnet and a deck of cards in the shops. (Which I did at every port.)

We headed back to the ship as a fog was rolling in. We heard the fog horn from the ship all night long...or at least as long as we were on the upper decks. Luckily, we couldn't hear them from our rooms down in the steerage. :)