LABRADOR – THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM.
Day 134 – As of this morning, Dorian remains a Category 2 Hurricane & is headed for Nova Scotia, then Prince Edward Island, then right up the Strait of Belle Isle between Newfoundland & Labrador. It could drop to a Tropical Storm by the time it reaches us on the eastern coast of Labrador; it depends on the force of the winds.
The ranger gave us a printout of the weather forecast for the next seven days. Today: high of 61 degrees, mostly sunny, wind increasing. Tonight: 46 degrees, rain beginning overnight, wind going from 18 mph early to 48 mph early Sat. a.m. Tomorrow: high of 59 degrees, rain increasing through the day as much as 1 ½ to 1 ¾ inches per hour at the highest, wind 42 mph to 66 mph during the day. Tomorrow night: 42 degrees, rainy, wind decreasing to 24 mph to 36 mph. Large waves & storm surge are expected. He also told Rob that this morning he looked out the window at 3 a.m. and the ground was covered with frost & it was 35 degrees out. Frost on the old pumpkin already?
He said that the ferry to and from Newfoundland & Labrador was only running once at 9:30 a.m., then shutting down, going to safe harbor ahead of the storm. (Where is safe harbor? We should go there!) So there’s people stuck in each ferry terminal town, not going anywhere. National Parks in Nova Scotia shut down yesterday. Gros Morne in NF shuts down this morning. He thought it might be a good idea if we moved to a more protected campsite away from the water. We moved to site #8, and are feeling well protected.
We drove north to Red Bay for lunch today, wanting to take advantage of the good weather while it was here. It was gorgeous out, a bit windy but we are getting used to that. The sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Even though it was the Ocean, the water was like glass, so calm. From the RV this morning, we watched a Minke Whale as it traveled along towards the entrance to the Harbor in Pinware. You wouldn’t know a hurricane was coming. It was the calm before the storm.
In Red Bay, we first had lunch at The Whaler Restaurant, one of the few restaurants other than something attached to a motel or convenience store in any of these towns. It was located near the Harbor across from the Interpretation Center that we were planning to visit. We both had Fish & Chips and it was very good, the fresh Cod excellent as it is all over the province. We walked over to the Center and ended up spending most of the afternoon there. There were very interesting exhibits. Red Bay was a busy Basque whaling port at one time, so most of it was about whales & about how the Basque seamen lived many, many years ago.
Click on any picture below to see a slideshow.
There were three stories to the Interpretation Center. My knee could only handle the tour through one of them. While Rob toured the others, I ended up chatting with a group of people who were sitting near the entrance to the museum. For hours. Rob joined us when he finished the tour. We learned a lot from them; two were former fishermen, all five now were working at the center. Really nice people. A main topic of conversation (everywhere we went) was the upcoming storm. People were definitely battening down the hatches.
We drove back to the RV and our new campsite. We were still waiting for some sign that this storm was coming. We are learning about weather forecasting. We have watched the skies, watched the surf, and watched the wind to see if & when there were changes indicating a hurricane was approaching. There was no “red sky at morning, sailor take warning”. When there was no internet, no TV, no newspapers, etc., how did people from isolated communities know when there would be weather trouble? Supposedly, the barometer does not drop drastically in time to give sufficient warning of an approaching hurricane, because the low pressure region is so localized around the hurricane’s eye. People that depended on the sea to make a living, for example; how did they know it would be safe at the time they were going out?