… day today, just leisurely meandering back towards New Brunswick and winding up my marathon journey.
I was up at the usual time, as usual, but I had quite a few things to organise and sort out. And as a result it was about 11:00 when I finally hit the road.
There’s a huge wind farm just down the road at Cap Chat. It was impressive back in 2010 and it’s even more impressive now.
Highlight of the park has to be this. It’s claimed to be the world’s biggest vertical-axis wind turbine, reaching a height of 100 metres. It’s quite possible to go up to the top of it for a good look around but, of course, there was no-one here today
It’s a monster of a machine and won’t half pump out the power, but I can’t help thinking about all of the strain that’s being placed on the bottom bearing. It won’t last long and it will be a swine to change, I reckon.
New stop was the Verreault company’s dry dock down the road at Les Mechins to see what was going on in there.
This year we have the CTMA Vacancier in here receiving an overhaul. And here’s an enigma if ever I saw one. In Europe, ferries have a strictly limited working life, rather like school buses in the USA. Greece however has an exemption due to the thousands of islands and hundreds of Greek ferry services, so many time expired ferries end up in Greece.
But what happens when the Greek ferries are exhausted? Most of them go across the Mediterranean to Izmir in Turkey where they are cut up for scrap because that is all that most would have been fit for.
But not Egnatia II.
She was built in 1973 and sailed as the Aurelia across the Baltic. Later, she became the St Patrick II and sailed on many Irish routes as a duplicate summer service, as well as being the relief ship on many other routes in the winter when other ferries needed service or overhaul.
In 1998, when her 25 years was up, a Greek exemption was obtained and she sailed as Egnatia II on the route between Brindisi and Patras.
When her time was up there, she was on charter in Spain for a while and then ran an emergency ferry service back in the Irish Sea.
By 2002 she was thoroughly worn out and was laid up ready for breaking, but instead was sold to Coopérative de Transport Maritime et Aérien (the CTMA). That company named her Vacancier and she underwent a refit here at Les Mechins later that year to prepare her for her new life as a cruise ship running between Montreal and the Iles de la Madeleine.
And so Happy Birthday to the CTMA Vacancier – 42 years old this year.
I had a drive around Matane afterwards. I’d never been for a good look around the town. I’d have preferred a good walk around but by now the weather had broken and it was pelting down – a proper autumn rainstorm we were having.
This about finished me off for the day, even though it was fairly early. I headed up the River Matane valley into the Appalachians but the weather became worse and worse. By the time I reached Amqui I couldn’t see a thing and so there was no hope of finding a place to doss. And even if it did, I’d be soaked in humidity and condensation because the insulation would be soaked.
But a cheap motel came to the rescue. It had a microwave and I had a tin of baked beans. And even better, just across the road was a chippy, so chips and beans was the order of the day for supper.
And I really enjoyed that too!
And, as an aside, this time next week I’ll be back home.
