WELCOME TO THE ROCK

Placentia Bay is a body of water on the Southwest coast of the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland.  
Fishing grounds in the bay were used long before the first Europeans arrived in the sixteenth Century.  

Nearby Argentia, the commercial seaport averages 206 days of fog a year and because of its position in the North Atlantic extreme weather is the norm.  The temperature had definitely dropped from the previous day’s sweltering heat in Sydney and while the sweeping mountains were imposing we weren’t supposed to be there!

The sail out from Sydney had been spectacular, the landscape casting lengthy shadows as the sun began its decent in the western sky.  The shame was that passenger registration on board and the emergency drill had been slow and we were still in the final throes of practicing for an emergency evacuation as lands end faded into the distance, the lighthouse glimmering one last time in the fading sunlight.

Not that it mattered really.  We were beginning another adventure that would take us to places heretofore unknown.  Comfortably installed in one of the nicest cabins we’ve ever had on our previous sailing adventures we drank a glass or two as the expedition leader made his introductions and delivered the bad news.  

Apparently the vessel had been unable to take on the requisite amount of fuel in Sydney and it would require us to connect with a fuel barge in Placentia Bay so that Resolute had sufficient fuel to reach Greenland, two cruises beyond ours.  Since the fueling process would be time consuming our itinerary would have to change.  It was disappointing.

To say the natives were restless was somewhat of an understatement.  So much so, the following day our intrepid leader reported that after further consultation with Head Office in Squamish the itinerary had been adjusted in order to maximize our journey. We hoped that included fair weather!

It was an expedition cruise after all and while messed up fuel supplies didn’t really compare with being icebound as we had been last year, we decided to take the matter in stride. A happy traveller is a flexible one and we decided that a refuelling experience at sea was something a little different as we took our first zodiac cruise around Placentia Bay. 

Why do I keep thinking about Newfoundland’s Mary Walsh and her alter ego Marg Delahunty when I mention Placentia Bay?

The weather part of the wish list had been taken care of when we awoke the following morning. Blue skies above us we had anchored at the mouth of a craggy looking fjord, its granite formations rising from the sea in dramatic fashion with foamy waves sweeping at its base.

Our zodiac spent the morning cruising the fjord, the rocky outcrops in all manner of disorganized shapes.  Some resembled rosy coloured lego blocks, others slate coloured monoliths jutting out from the ocean interspersed with shale, weathered vegetation and the occasional waterfall. 

As we travelled further the landscape changed.  A verdant landscape soared revealing dramatic rocky crevices and shallow caves.

Southwest Newfoundland.  Boldly going where few have gone before. Who knew?