July 10 - Ellsworth, ME to Halifax, NS - 355 miles

Our ride started out in heavy fog at Ellsworth, Maine (20 miles from Bar Harbor).  The fog was thick enough by the time we got to Bar Harbor to catch the "Cat" catamaran ferry, that we couldn't see the ferry boat from the parking lot!  We never did get a picture of the "Cat" because of the fog.  The fog lifted a little by the time we were to get on the "Cat", but almost the only thing we saw was the huge opening mouth into which we rode the motorcycles.

There were six other motorcycles with people going to Nova Scotia, so we found out who was going where, and from where they had ridden.  Some had both ridden the Cat before, and ridden on Nova Scotia before, so they passed on some tips to us.  The ferry load supervisors put the motorcycles on last, and all eight of us were lined up along one side of the car bay.

Norm and I had taken good adjustable tie-down straps for our motorcycles, but the ferry operation provided very good straps, too.  The aluminum deck of the ferry car bay was VERY slick, with oil and water from cars and sea, so it was very dicey getting to our assigned places.  No one dropped a bike though.

This Catamaran ferry is awesome in its size and capabilities.  It was apparently developed and built in New Zealand and Australia, is 91 meters long, and holds 900 passengers and 240 vehicles.  It is HUGE!!  For power, it has 4 diesel engines which generate 38,000 horsepower, and it will go 55 mph!!  (If anyone wants to see what it looks like, since we didn't get a picture, go to www.catferry.com.)

The "Cat" started right on time, even with the fog.  It only ran about 35 mph for the 120 miles on this run, because of the fog, and took about 3 1/2 hours, compared to the scheduled time of 2 hours and 45 minutes.  There wasn't much to do on board because the fog limited visibility all the way to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.  So Deane watched "Toy Story" on a video (with the other kids on board), and Norm took a nap.

We arrived in Yarmouth in time for lunch, and started on our 215 mile ride to come on to Halifax.  It was foggy, and at the start we had light rain falling also.  The rain stopped before we rode far, and we had dry or drying roads all the rest of the way.  The fog lifted somewhat, and we had periods of pleasant temperatures and cold temperatures.

We did get to see very nice scenery though, with forested areas, almost "muskeg" areas like we saw in northern Canada and Alaska last year, and pretty lakes.  The lakes were from a 1/4 mile across size, up to a 10 mile long size.  We rode sometimes up in the forest, away from the sea, and sometimes right down by the sea.  There are so many little inlets and bays along the coast of Nova Scotia, and they are so pretty!

In the city of Halifax we got lost looking for our motel, but this gave us a most interesting tour of the city.  Then our motel was just above the harbor, and we could see a fair amount even though we still had some fog.  We are sitting here right now watching a Container Ship be loaded and unloaded.

We topped off the day with a dinner of fresh Atlantic Salmon!  Fun Day!

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