July 21 - First day on the Nordic Express Ferry

Last night when the ferry arrived at Blanc Sablon, Quebec, at about 2 AM (9 hours late) and the loading took a very long time (we finally got to our cabin at 3:30 AM), we had cause to think whether this was the way to go.

But today at lunch, all doubt was removed.  This is a French-Canadian ferry, with headquarters and all served destinations in Quebec.  With this influence, our "lunch" consisted of: "Crème de Tomates" soup, Boeuf Bourguignon" with delicious sauce, and "Gateau aux Chocolat" cake!  It was as good as any cruise ship!  And, this is included in the very reasonable price of the ticket.  If they continue to feed us like that, in three days they can just roll us off.

We had to chuckle at falling into such a gastronomic delight.  Deane made the reservations from information on the Internet, with no prior knowledge, and said Yes, we'll take the package with the meals.

Our cabin is a very small but adequate one, with bunk beds and a toilet, but no shower.  The shower is down the passageway, and shared.  However, we do have a porthole, so that's good.

This is really a 'working" ferry, serving 10 ports of call on the North Shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence (South shore of Quebec), and 1 final call on the south side of the St. Lawrence Seaway.  This "ferry" (210 ft. long) is really a "Container Ship" with some cabins and lots of seating for day passengers going from port to port.

As we found last night, they first unload containers for that port with a huge on-board crane, take the received items out, refill the container with items ready to be shipped, and then put it back on board with the on-board crane.  Our Gold Wings had to be loaded in a container before they could put them on board.  Cars also are loaded into containers, with bigger RV's and trucks loaded on a large "pallet" and hoisted on board with the crane.

We had to ride the Gold Wings into the container, which was very tight, and then worriedly observe the tying down of the motorcycles.  However, the deck hands were very experienced and did an excellent job.  The only problem was that we had to wait until most of the other cargo was loaded before they got around to us, and by then it was raining.  So, the loading of the Gold Wings into the container in the rain was dicey, to say the least!

We found from a more accurate source that the total distance we will ride the ferry is 623 Nautical Miles, or 716 statute miles.  Typical distances between the ports of call is 20 to 60 nautical miles, and the journey takes from 2 hours to 5 hours.

Our first stop today was the little village of St. Anthony.  The "unload- containers, reload-containers, lift-on-deck" method was used here also.  One thing that interested us was that the majority of the people at the ferry landing were "Native" people, and their main source of transportation was Four Wheeler ATV's from Kawasaki.   No outside roads reach this village, so their link with the outside world is the ferry.

Our second stop today was the village of La Tabatiere, and the area around the port was interesting for its rocky ruggedness.  However, we didn't see much, because we had just awakened from catching up on our missed sleep last night, and since it was time for our "Souper" meal.  (We wouldn't want to miss a meal.)

At the third stop for the day, Tete-A-La-Baleine, we watched more closely while the crew unloaded and loaded the containers.  With all the jostling of other containers while loading or unloading a specific container by crane, we were glad that the deck crew had very securely tied down our Gold Wings in their container. 

Again we've met very interesting people, especially since this is a Quebec ferry and many of the passengers and crew are French-speaking people.

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