Voyage of the Vikings Redux – St. Anthony, Newfoundland, Canada

Cruise Day 31

Monday, August 21, 2023

Today we are in St. Anthony, a small town on the island of Newfoundland in Canada.  This will be our first visit to St. Anthony as it wasn’t part of the 2016 Voyage of the Vikings Cruise.  St. Anthony is at the northern end of the peninsula that is at the northern end of the island of Newfoundland.  Its population is a little less than 2,300, but it seems bigger because it services a far greater area than just the town.  Just across from where the tenders docked there was a very large hospital.

We sailed from Qaqartoq in Greenland (the blue middle marker at the top of the map) to St. Anthony in Newfoundland, Canada (red marker).  At the bottom of the is Corner Brook that we visited near the beginning of our cruise.

This is St. Anthony.  The red starred marker towards the right is where the ship is anchored and the black marker with the boat on it to the left and up a little, is the tender dock.

There was a Cruise Critic Roll Call tour planned for today, but it doesn’t look like it is going to happen.  The tour operator had filled one bus and when more people (including us) said they were interested, he said he would try to get another bus.  We didn’t hear anything more until the cruise began when Val received an e-mail saying he had another bus and we could join the tour.  Val wrote back and asked where we would meet and at what time, but she never heard back.  Evidently others had experienced the same thing so we just gave up on it, so, to make a long story short, we have nothing planned for the day.

I got up at 6:00 AM to check the weather and it was foggy so that didn’t bode well for the day.  I got up again at 8:00 after we were at anchor in the harbor, and the sun was shining with blue sky above, great!  The area is very picturesque with a rugged coastline and grass covered hills.

We had beautiful views from our balcony.  This whole area is a park that you can hike to from town.

Val and I got up and had our breakfast in the Neptune Lounge and then decided to wait a while before going ashore.  This is another tender port, so it takes just a bit more planning to go ashore.  At 10:00 we decided to get going, but apparently so did a lot of other people as we had to wait a bit for the tender and by the time it left, it was completely full.  After getting off the tender, the first thing we saw was a museum and gift shop, so we decided to check that out and spent some time in there.  From there we decided to explore the town, but it was quite spread out, so we didn’t go very far.

The tender dock. It was large enough so that two tenders could dock at once which speeds things up.

We didn't take many pictures while we were ashore, but these are some of the area around the tender dock.

It almost looks like our ship is docked, but it wasn't of course, and we had to take tenders into town.

The town wraps all the way around this small inner harbor.

Val had run out of hair spray, and they didn’t have any on the ship, so we started looking for a store and found a pharmacy that had just what she needed.  We also took the opportunity to buy some bottled water as they sell it for an inflated price on the ship.

We started walking back to the tender dock and I wanted to stop and take some pictures so Val sat down on a bench and waited for me to finish.  When I came back I found Val talking to Ivy and Doris, a couple of retired sisters who lived in the area.  Evidently, they only get a few cruise ships a year here as they were very excited to see one here today.  They asked us a lot of questions about being on the ship and we asked them about their life here; it was a very interesting chat.  It is always great to connect with the locals of an area you’re visiting.

I took a picture of a tender docking while Val chatted with Ivy and Doris.

We walked on back to the tender dock and Val decided to stop by the gift store again and make a few purchases.  Once that was done, we got on the queue to get on the tender and were stopped just as it was our turn to get on, the tender was full.  That was fine with us, because being the last one on means you have to squeeze in somewhere, but when the next one arrives, we would be first on.

There was a long line for the tenders, but with two tenders being able to dock at the same time, it moved quickly.

There were tenders constantly coming and going so after only a five-minute wait, we were on and ready to head back to the ship.  We were back in our room a little before one and after settling back in and cleaning up, we headed off to the Lido for lunch.

It was lunch as usual, but this time right outside our window we watched a couple of whales jumping and spouting. They continued cavorting for quite a while. They certainly drew a lot of attention, and Val and I were very lucky that our table was right by the window with a great view.  Unfortunately, we didn’t bring our cameras to lunch with us so there are no pictures of the whales.

The weather had started clouding up and there was a prediction of showers this afternoon, so after lunch I decided to go up on the outside decks and take some pictures of the area.  It had cooled off a bit and the wind had come up, but it was still quite pleasant outside.

A tender heads into St. Anthony.

A look down at the tender loading / unloading platforms.

After returning from my photo taking, I decided to write up the blog for yesterday evening and this morning, so I am right up to the minute on that.

We sailed out of St. Anthony around five and I stayed out on our balcony for the sail away taking way too many pictures of mostly the same thing.

We sailed out of St. Anthony as the fishing boats starting sailing in.

Goodbye to St. Anthony

After we had made it to open seas, Val and I relaxed a bit until dinner and then did our usual routine.  The casino has not been kind to either Val or I lately, so I guess our luck has run out, but Val is playing with casino money so she’s not worried.  Tomorrow we'll be in St. John's, Newfoundland.