mlchad147
- Aug 30
- 6 min read

August 29, 2024–St. John’s, Newfoundland

Oh, Canada! We’ve completed our transatlantic crossing and are in the home stretch of our nine month odyssey. What’s left? Two stops in here Canada, then New York City, Bermuda, Coco Cay (Bahamas), and Miami, where it all began back in December. Twelve nights from tonight we’ll be home, which doesn’t seem possible. All told, we will have sailed 75,000 nautical miles, which is three times the circumference of the Earth at the equator, and visited 64 countries. Wow.

But we’re not done yet, and today we docked in St. John’s, Newfoundland, a beautiful little city served by a compact deep water harbor. The entrance to that harbor from the North Atlantic is very narrow, a mere 200 feet wide at its narrowest point, providing little margin for error for larger ships like the Serenade of the Seas. But more on that later.

First we’re going to school, and here are three cool facts about Newfoundland that just might be on the blog final exam. First, Newfoundland is an island, which you probably already knew, but I didn’t. Second, Newfoundland and Labrador, its mainland neighbor, are joined as a single Canadian province, usually abbreviated NL. And third comes my favorite fact. Newfoundland and Labrador did not become part of Canada until 1949, after a referendum that passed by only a 52-48 margin. Look it up, it’s pretty interesting.

And now, about our day. At 9:15 am, under mostly cloudy skies and cool temperatures, we boarded a bus for what might be the last organized tour of the cruise, as we have no excursions booked in our upcoming ports of call. Our first stop was a 15 minute photo opportunity across the harbor from the ship, next to the area where many of the fishing boats were docked. It was a pretty spot, with great views of the brightly colored houses on the hillside across the harbor from us.

However, that was just a warmup for our second stop, which was deserving of bucket list consideration. Signal Hill rises high above the harbor entrance, offering spectacular views of the city, the harbor, and the Atlantic Ocean. And that’s just for openers. Clearly visible from Signal Hill is Cape Spear, the easternmost point in North America. And even that’s not the biggest attraction, because that honor goes to the event that gave Signal Hill its name. At the very top of the hill sits Cabot Tower, a castle-like stone structure built to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the discovery of Newfoundland by John Cabot. And it was near Cabot Tower that Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal in 1901. How about that. Spectacular views, the easternmost point in North America, and major history all in one place.

We spent a considerable amount of time at Signal Hill before returning to the bus for a short ride down the hill to the Johnson Geo Centre. It seems that scientists have determined that the rocks around St. John’s are perhaps the oldest on the planet, creating endless opportunities for geologists to study the planet’s earliest days. The Geo Centre celebrates that fact and serves as a marvelous museum and learning opportunity, and I could easily have spent more than the ninety minutes we were allotted to wander through the exhibits. There are a couple well done videos that play all day, one in a darkened, rock lined theater. I was delighted to discover that the videos were narrated by Gordon Pinsent, one of my favorite actors and a regular on the old Red Green television show.

The last part of our excursion was a bus tour of downtown St. John’s, which we found both enjoyable and useful, because after we returned to the ship and had lunch we walked back into the downtown on our own to do some sightseeing and take some photos. St. John’s really is a neat little city, with brightly painted houses and businesses, murals, monuments and sculptures, and a row of taverns on George Street that can give Duval Street in Key West a run for its money. Many of those saloons offer visitors the opportunity to become honorary Newfoundlanders by becoming Screeched, which involves kissing a fish, downing a shot of Screech rum, and reciting some colorful poetry. And no, I didn’t get screeched. There’s a limit to what I’ll do in the service of my readers, and today I reached it.

But now, back to the subject of the extremely narrow entrance to the harbor here in St. John’s. This afternoon the winds picked up considerably, and were forecast to remain high throughout the night, causing our captain, in consultation with the local harbor pilot, to postpone our departure until tomorrow morning, giving us an overnight in the city. This is actually a win-win for us, as it gives us the opportunity for a night out in St. John’s without otherwise impacting our itinerary. We’re scheduled to be in Halifax on Saturday, and the captain says we can still arrive there on schedule despite our delayed start.

So that’s it from St. John’s, at least as I write this. One last impression though. We had been told that the people of Newfoundland are very friendly and helpful, and today we had several interactions with locals that reinforced that reputation. At the Geo Centre, at the bank, and at the terminal gate we met people who truly went out of their way to provide assistance, volunteer useful information, and just make us feel welcome here. By golly, it was almost enough to make me want to get screeched and become an honorary Newfoundlander. Almost.

Hopefully we’ll depart on schedule at 8:00 am tomorrow, and if so my next report will be from Halifax, Nova Scotia. I’ll be looking for Tim Horton’s coffee and donuts to fuel my day, so stay tuned to see if I’m successful. Until then, as they say up here in hockey country, keep your stick on the ice.

One of the first things we saw from the bus on our excursion was this impressive war memorial, with a recently added Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We got a closer look later on our walk around the city.

The harbor in St. John’s isn’t large, but it’s very pretty. A lot of the fishing boat fleet docks in this section.

A look at some of the brightly painted houses and rugged terrain across the harbor.

One more photo across the narrow harbor, this time showing the more urban section of the city.

Cabot Tower, at the top of Signal Hill. The views from the tower are spectacular.

That’s Cape Spear in the distance, the easternmost point in North America.

Seemed like a good place for a selfie, with the city and our ship far below.

The Johnson Geo Centre is just below Signal Hill, and I really enjoyed our visit there.

The Geo Centre takes you all the way back from the beginning of the solar system to the present day.

The theater video, narrated by Gordon Pinsent, is excellent.

The rocks around St. John’s may be the oldest on earth.

The exhibits are first rate. Even I could understand them.

There’s a whole room dedicated to mythical creatures, which I very much enjoyed.

I got to compare my footprint to that of a bigfoot.

The province of Newfoundland and Labrador is very proud of its two iconic dog breeds, the Newfoundland and the Labrador Retriever. There’s another sculpture of them downtown.

And speaking of downtown, one of the main streets was closed to traffic from noon until midnight to allow Newfoundlanders and visitors to fully enjoy the pubs, restaurants, and shopping. Very nice.

There were a lot of great murals on walls and the sides of buildings.

I liked this one of frogs. There were several stairways that allowed pedestrians to safely climb up from one street to the next, useful in a city built into the side of a fairly steep hill.