St. Anthony
No whales in this picture of St. Anthony
This morning I awoke at around 6 with the ship maneuvering into position just outside St. Anthony’s harbor. I could see the lighthouse at fisherman’s point, one of our destinations for today, and a tall transmission tower on the tallest hill at the mouth of the harbor. After breakfast I was out on the balcony watching the tender boats maneuver around each other to take the first passengers ashore and I saw a whale on the other side of the route the tenders were taking.
view of the lighthouse from the ship as we were leaving in the evening
By 10am, Mom and I were on our way to the pier. Once on land we headed east towards the lighthouse. The street was lined with cruise passengers. I made note of the location of a local brewpub and we kept walking up a hill. The road curved to the left and past a church, now going down. After a few more ups and downs, we could see the last uphill part of the route. We had a good view of the Zuiderdam at the mouth of the harbor and the path was newly refurbished with walking gravel and lined with grass. It was warm and sunny and I worried a little about sunburn for the first time in weeks. The breeze kept everything quite nice.
Finally, we made it to the lighthouse, where there’s a restaurant and souvenir shop. Many people from the cruise were looking out over the water spotting whales, right next to the whale-watching tour boat. A little thirsty, we stepped into the restaurant and asked if they sold bottled water. No, they didn’t but they’d be happy to give us a glass of tap. This busy, kind person put ice in two glasses and filled them at the sink.
Lighthouse at St. Anthony. No whales pictured (to my knowledge).
The souvenir shop has a small museum with a taxidermy collection, including a polar bear. It also had a display with information about all the different types of whales and how to recognize differences among them. I’m doubtful I could apply this knowledge with any confidence.
As we started our walk back into town, we passed a woman who had parked her car on the side of the road to tend the grave of a loved one across the street. She wished us a happy day in port. A few minutes later a pair of local young women yelled out to us from their car, asking if we would like a ride back. We declined, but I think Mom had second thoughts about it before we made it all the way back. Returned to the brewpub, I saw that my watch reported that we had walked 4.5 miles. Maybe some of that was at the Lido getting breakfast, but most of it was our little hike.
RagnaRöck Northern Brewing Company pulled out all the stops
The brewery was PACKED and the proprietors had hired a band to play. St. Anthony is a town of only a little over 2100 people and so when a cruise ship with nearly 2000 passengers and 800 crew comes in, it’s a big deal. They usually have a small public bus system, but they re-assign the drivers and busses to hop-on hop-off duty on these occasions. It’s clear that they understand the potential benefit this many tourists could have to the local economy, and they are new enough to hosting cruise ships that they aren’t yet jaded. The Grenfell Handcrafts store right at the pier sells yarn and locally handcrafted goods, rather than the typical you’d find in this sort of spot.
Security Warning: Stay 50 meters away
Back on the tender to return we could see a banner hung on the side of our ship. A couple of crew members next to us noted that the ship doesn’t have any weapons to enforce the warning and we joked back and forth with them about what the ship could do. “They could launch rice balls.” “They could fling plates like frisbees.” etc, etc