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New Brunswick or Bust!

Our Dad has wanted us kids for sometime now to go an extended boat tour with him.  We used to do this when we were younger on the Great Lakes & Waterways but since we're all much older, have families of our own & live in different provinces it was something that he figured would not happen again.  Well, we did some talking & 3 out of 4 of us found we could swing a week together from July 18 to the the 26 so we started making plans.  I flew to Toronto first, picked up 1 brother & we continued on together to Saint John, NB to meet Dad & our other brother Randy.  We arrived on time (West Jet is good for this) but no one was there to meet us.  Saint John has such a cute & small airport my brother & I remarked as we stepped off the plane onto the tarmack.  Coming from 2 big cities this was almost culture shock for us!  As we were waiting for our baggage our brother Randy shows up with the first breakdown story.  Dad's truck, loaded with around 6000 pounds of boat & trailer had almost lost a tire on the way.  All that held that tire on was 2 pins & 2 lugnuts!  They had managed to fix it & got Dad on the road again & he met us in a little town called Hampton where we were greeted by 2 wonderful people & a nice surprise.  Randy had rented us a cabin right on Belleisle Bay!  The boat & trailer were dropped off along the way at Lloyd's house (another nice person we met) as there was no way to bring them in by the cabin - you almost needed a 4 wheel drive.  To the cabin, something to eat & to bed we went.  The next day started off good, we took the boat to a launch & put her in the water to scour the waterways for our cabin as there was a mooring for us right there.  Nice day for the most part, not real warm, but sunny.  N.B. had not been having good weather we heard over & over again.  Well, we found the cabin, moored the boat, went for a swim, then back to the launch to retrieve the vehicles while Dad & Todd took the boat back to the cabin. Day 3 started out good, we had a 5 hr boat cruise from Belleisle Bay to the Saint John Marina.  Lovely sunny day & beautiful scenery!  In the morning when we were ready to do our cruise up & around "The Long Island" the boat was making an awful racket!  Turns out one of the teeth in the outdrive broke off & went into the other teeth to play havoc in there.  We were going nowhere today.  Called some friends (Charlie & Doreen) & they drove us back to the cabin.  Charlie has a very large "shed" with a crane & lots of tools so the next day the guys drove to the Marina, pulled the boat out with quite a bit of trouble (the launch there is not very good!) with help from another fine gentleman we met the day before.  Well, the outdrive got grinded, polished & cleaned & put back in so down to Hardys Point boat launch (very nice this one!) & in she went.  She started up just fine & away us kids went in the boat back to the Marina where Dad would meet us.  Dad dropped off the trailer back at Charlies & went to meet us there.  Too late now for a boat ride so we went back to the cabin to regroup.  So here we are, 4 in the truck cabin (1 too many by law) & on the way just past the Nerepis River the truck went clunk & we had to pull over.  Under the truck they went to have a look.  Seems that the U-Joint had blown apart (likely from the trouble they had getting the boat out at the Marina!).  Us kids walked up & down the road & found most of the parts as well as some other good junk that our brother Randy (the MacGyver in the family) could use to put us back together again to at least get us on the road.  During this time a gentleman was turning into his driveway & stopped to ask if he could help.  Randy asked him if he had a couple of C clamps as he figured he'd have us fixed if we could rummage up a couple of those.  So Peter (our new friend) went to his house, got the the clamps & Randy fixed it temporarily.  Peter did not want us driving the vehicle for 1/2 to 3/4 of an hr as it was & offered us all a ride so we all piled into his SUV with his girlfriend Christine driving & away we went.  Turns out Christine is a good friend of the wife of the couple that owns the cabin we were in!  Life is like that in NB!  When we got to the cabin we had a wonderful couple hours with our 2 new friends.  So the next day the boys go & fix the truck then went into Saint John to toodle around.  I stayed at the cabin for a lovely quiet but very rainy day with laundry strung out all over the place as like I said it was raining but we all needed some clean clothes at this point!  The next day dawned absolutely beautiful so off we went to the boat to do our day trip our The Long Island.  Wasn't it beautiful!  One side of the island the cliffs are around 150' high & on the other side are some very lucky people with cottages & lovely beaches!  When we got to the end of island we stopped to have some hot dogs only to find we had no lighter or matches!  Well, that didn't stop the MacGyver in our family!  By hooking up the starter cables to the extra battery on board, soaking a piece of paper in lighter fluid & by touching the other 2 ends together to make a spark you get fire.  Don't try this children at home!  I was on the bow outside the cabin of the boat thinking here we go!  So the hotdogs got cooked & all was well.  After 6 hours we made it back to the Marina & back to the cabin to sleep.  We are nearing the end of our holiday time now & I haven't even told you about almost loosing the dingy on our 1st day of boating - seems the rope broke & we didn't notice it gone for 5-10 mins so we had to backtrack to find it.  The dingy is not worth much but the motor on it is worth a couple hundred & it is your lifeline if you need to go to shore in a lot of places!  Or you start sinking!  Another time we went out we had the dingy tied too close to the boat so as we were letting out the rope a rogue wave caught it & it upended & out went the oars, the chair, etc.  No problem, the motor was not with us this time & it was just a matter of tooling around to pick up all the floating debris!  The day we pulled the boat out of the water for repairs we also had to pull the dingy out & water had gotten inside it so I want to tell you it was not easy pulling it out of the water!!!! 

For all our breakdowns & rainy weather we were lucky to have sunshine on all our boating days with a nice breeze.  Us landlubbers couldn't have asked for it any better!

I would also like to mention a wonderful restaurant called Jodi's Kitchen where you get the best home cooked meals ever!  All at a reasonable price & their french fries I have to say are to die for!  The owner Lisa cooks, cleans & waitresses all with a smile & my Dad had a terrific time giving her a hard time as she gave back as good as he could give!  You will find this little treasure in Westfield in the Sobey's mall.  Stop by & tell her "Charlie's Friends" said hi!

As you can see we had quite a few mishaps on this holiday but I truly believe that this was all part of the master plan for us.  If nothing had gone wrong we'd not been able to spend as much time with Charlie & Doreen nor would we have had the good fortune to meet Peter & Christine.  Coming from Calgary it was a breath of fresh air to meet so many wonderful, warm & helpful people! New Brunswick now has a very special place in our hearts & I plan on taking my own family out there as soon as we can!  The scenery is full of trees, hills & lots of water!  I would recommend a holiday here to anyone I meet.  There are tonnes of bed & breakfast places on the lakes, rivers & roadways.  I also really enjoyed all the ferry rides.  This is just a normal part of their roadways that I'm sure they take for granted but again we thought it was lots of fun criss crossing all the waterways during our travels.

Love you New Brunswick & I hope to be back soon!