World Canada Nova Scotia Baddeck

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Restful Day in Cape Breton Jul 10, 2010

A much slower pace today! Didn’t wake up till after 8 am and went down for breakfast at 8:30. Sat with 2 gals who were holidaying from France. They were surprised that we knew where they were from and had actually been to their town, Perpignon, not too far from the Spanish border. Today we decided that we would go out aborad the sailing schooner, Amoeba. There was a 2 hour sailing tour out of the harbour each morning. The rain hadn’t arrived yet but the wind was up so thought it would be a good day to go sailing. We boarded the Amoeba with Captain John at 11 am and soon we were on our way out of the harbour. There were 10 other folks aboard. Within minutes I looked back toward the wheel and there was Captain John reading a book titled Sailing for Dummies. Within minutes he had 2 of the sails up and the boat was listing hard to our side of the boat. It was really on a slant and Dianne and I were the only ones on that side of the boat! Captain John assured us that the boat couldn’t sink and pointed out the rails that were now very close to the water were the same as those on the Titanic, very stable. At one point the captain encouraged us to go out and stand on the prow and have our picture taken as a Titanic momento. It was a tad precarious but we did and he took a couple of good photos on our camera. The trip was just fantastic, probably the highlight so far. We went out and around several of the islands. On one was the mansion owned by Alexander Graham Bell which is still in the Bell family but noone has access to it. Huge place! As we sailed past his home, the captain started tossing fish overboard and within seconds 2 large bald eagles began to circle. They came down right near the boat and scooped the fish off the water. I got some great pictures with the continuous shooting mode of my camera. Although we were out there for almost 2 hours, it ended too soon. After the cruise, we went through the Alexander Graham Bell museum. I wasn’t really expecting too much but it was fascinating. What a clever fellow he was. Time was marching on so we ordered a pizza, bought a bottle of wine and headed back to the Auld Farm to read on the veranda and enjoy the rest of the afternoon. Tonight we went into Baddeck to attend a Scottish Ceilidh. We were entertained for 2 hours by Cape Breton fiddlers along with some step dancing. It was fantastic! It made a fitting end to one of our most enjoyable days.

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