There is a change in the weather this morning – it is still chilly, but not anywhere near as cold as it has been – welcome back to North America! Our morning goes as norm – gym, which is crazy busy before the opening time because the walking deck is closed due to wind. Thankfully we know the drill.
Then we begin our Cabaret camping – First with Dr. Hal and ‘The Search for Jack the Ripper.’
Known as the White Chapel Murderer, who went on his spree in the Autumn of 1888, also called the Autumn of Terror. Having only a basic knowledge of the whole Jack the Ripper crime spree/legend, I was really surprised to learn that he only “operated” 9 weeks – from August 31 to November 9. Just figured the killings went on longer. Anyhow, Dr. Hal presents an excellent overview of the case and the outcome, or maybe outcome! Essentially, the crimes generated at least 150 suspects; the name Jack the Ripper came from one of the hundreds of letters that the public sent to the police; all the letters were hoaxes or just false – one such letter came from a newspaperman trying to drum up news and circulation.
He talks about the 3 main suspects that finally were culled from the masses: Walter Sickert, a painter (who Patricia Cornwall wrote all about in her 3 books beginning with Portrait of a Killer – whose DNA connected him to a lot of the letters sent to the police but who wasn’t in London at the time of the murders); Lizzy Williams, wife of Sir John Williams (because there were buttons from a woman’s shoe at one crime scene, burned clothes in the fireplace that didn’t belong to the victim at another, plus one of the victims was a patient of her husband and was pregnant – an affair?); and Aaron Kosminski, a hairdresser (whose DNA was found on a blood-stained silk shawl at one crime scene).
Dr. Hal talks about how all the DNA was eventually found through distant relatives and went through all the mitigating circumstances around each victim; Sickert out of town, Kosminski evidence had chain of custody issues. Then we get to vote – fun! No one voted for Sickert; a number, including Dr. Hal voted for Lizzy – more than half; a pretty good number voted for Kosminski. In the end, the general consensus is that it was Jill the Ripper – Lizzy Williams who committed all the other killings as practice for killing the younger victim as revenge. Fun and interesting, plus Dr. Hal reminds me so much of an older Eugene Levy! His voice, his mannerisms. He’s such a dead ringer for me – love watching and listening to him. He is also so humorous, making it easy to sit in his lectures.
Immediately following Dr. Hal, Captain Les is back with ‘Electric and Hydrogen Powered Aircraft?.’
I’m going to say upfront, this one bores me senseless. Is there a future for alternatively powered airplanes? Probably, but the basics of doing it and the reasons – only 2% of CO2 emissions come from commercial airlines; Electric engines are only driven by propellers which make long distances difficult; Batteries or hydrogen fuel cells as a power source require not 1 battery, but a series of small batteries – 1000s of them. Eh?
The jury is out….and so are we…it is time for lunch! Albeit a quick one in Windows as we are arriving in St. John’s at 1pm.
We’ve learned from Dr. Jannie all about Newfoundland and St. John’s; It is the capital of Newfoundland and is closer to Ireland than to capital of Canada (Newfoundland/Labrador being 156,000 sq miles); St. John’s is one of the oldest and most easterly cities in North America with a population of 239,000; the Trans-Canadian Highway ends here; Fishing is the primary industry; and the weird time zone is due to the fact that when time zones were created, Newfoundland was part of England and they decided they wanted the solar time match as much as they could with St. John’s, thus the 30 minute time difference. Still bizarre if you ask me.
We watch from the balcony as we sail into the bay, passing Fort Amherst, with the little lighthouse and collection of houses – where there are quite a few people out on the road and on house terraces waving. Then past a little harbor with, yes, fishing boats, and on the opposite side of what is called The Narrows, Signal Hill up in the distance.
It is a fantastically beautiful day, working well for our plans of hiking a very small bit of the East Coast Trail – the trail that stretches 209 miles along the Newfoundland and Labrador coast – from Middle cove to Torbay in the north. We have rented a car for 2 days from an Enterprise office about 15 minutes from the pier, but who has arranged to come pick us up down here. Although it took about 45 minutes before they finally arrived – it is Regatta Day here (one of the biggest public holidays of the year, even Walmart is closed!) making traffic crazy, and when combined with the intensive amount of construction going on everywhere on these roads, well, it took a long time to get us – the delay actually worked in our favor as we have more time tomorrow to go out and explore before returning the car. Once on the road, with directions from the Enterprise guy on how to drive out of the city (don’t follow the GPS – go the other way to avoid the construction), it was an easy drive up north to Middle Cove Beach. We were lucky in that we only had to wait a few minutes for a parking space to open up – we had read it could be a long or impossible wait – and then we were out into the sunshine, crossing the rocky beach to climb up the trailhead at the base of the bay.
The scenery here is stupendous – craggy rock cliffs rising up out of the bay, the trail leading up and into the forest, filled with pine trees and covered in big roots that could act as stairs, although so numerous we were ever so vigilant that we didn’t twist or break an ankle, in some areas erosion creating sheer drop offs into the water. An amazing hike.
Further around the bay, we spy ducks in the crystal blue water and more sheer cliff walls rising above it all. We pass what we call the ghost skewer forest – seriously, those limbs are like knife edged skewers that we are avoiding at all costs! But it makes for a really fun, sort of eerie atmosphere.
The trail continues on, through more alleyway-like root-stairs, past huge rocks that are crystalized, over a really cool rock bridge spanning Houlihan’s River with amazing rock formations stretching out to the sea, stopping about halfway to North Pond River. We had wanted to go all the way to Torbay, but our late start has truncated our plans today.
Regardless, the hike is spectacular, and the views on the return trip equally stunning – even if we have just seen them all. It is just too gorgeous here.
After a couple of little detours to avoid the Regatta – or we should say because we couldn’t drive the GPS route due to Regatta street closures – we made it back into St. John’s a little after 5, lucking into a free parking space on Harbour Drive, not even a 10-minute walk back to the ship on the same street. Sweet! We can leave the car here all night and not have to worry about the decrepit looking garage across the street from the ship berth. Perfect.
Back aboard, we shower and change, then decide we want to eat outside tonight. Why not? We’re here, it is seafood central, we’ve been on the ship long enough that the menus are getting a little bit tiresome – so what the heck! Stopping at the dining room to tell Vicson we are eating outside (fair is fair, no need to hold our table if we aren’t coming), we hit the streets, ending up at Yellowbelly Brewing. Gotta love the name! Unfortunately, they have no tables available, everything is booked – but there is bar seating which has our names on it! Excellent. Not only is the food great – seafood packed chowder, massive fish sandwich and equally massive fish and chips (yeah, we should have just ordered 1 fish dish – but who knew the chowder would be that huge and filling!) – we are treated to a fabulously funny and talkative bartender and a great place to people (albeit staff) watch. Thoroughly enjoyable night.
Ambling back to the ship, down the pedestrian only Water Street (is it always car-free? Or just for the Regatta events?), we pass by the regal Courts building, turning down Clift’s-Baird’s Cove Street right at our sweet little Quest. You can even see our balcony from the street (red arrow on photo). Excellent.
And here it is we will spend the rest of our evening, after night caps in the Living Room and a cloudy sunset on the balcony. Tomorrow? More hikes in the wilderness!
Andiamo 