Rain still exists! After days and days of sunshine and
fantastic weather, finally reality reached us this morning. A Beaufort 7 was
announced in Anja’s morning greeting and outside it was wet and miserable, with
a very poor visibility. But who cares? Everybody agreed that better bad weather
here than in so many other stunning places we have visited.
At 11 o’clock the pilot came on board to navigate the ship
to Baddeck on Cape Breton Island. Once more, the blue smurfs invaded a little
village – although this one is considerably larger than any of the others of
our itinerary. A beautiful peaceful resort town with lovely wooden houses. And
once more we were lucky: as soon as we came along side the pier, the rain
magically stopped.
The most famous inhabitant of the area was Alexander Graham
Bell, the inventor of the telephone. We learned more about the life of this
great man in the local museum (extremely worth while a visit) and during the guided
city walks that some of us joined. Mr Bell actually had a lifelong passion and
dedication for teaching the deaf and his career started when doing research on
hearing and speech. He married Mabel Hubbard, who was deaf herself. It was a
very happy and close couple. A sculpture was recently produced illustrating
both of them on a bench, just across the bay of their house, which still
belongs to the descendents. At the end of a day we were rewarded with a very special moment: the sighting of an amazing raptor with white head and tail – the bald eagle, so characteristic of North America!
