PEI Weather

and a few other things:

Starting week three already and it’s been busy. We spent the first few days with P&E as usual and moved into our 3^rd floor garret on September 2.  I’ll tell you it felt very strange to pack our suitcases and drive across town instead of going to the airport. We are at 6 West Street in Charlottetown and I grew up at 7 West Street, across the street and about 100 yards away. I find myself remembering who lived in the various houses 50 and 60 years ago as we move around the neighbourhood. 

Of course the city is different but also very much the same. We are enjoying access to coffee shops, theatre, etc. on foot instead of by car. I joined an uptown gym (uptown because it’s uphill from here) about 5 blocks away and we are developing a habit of meeting for coffee after my workout. The lobster rolls are negating the workouts to some extent!

We went “down east” one afternoon doing some cemetery hopping, my grandmothers would be proud, looking for ancestors. Found my great greats in the South Lake cemetery along with a lot of others. The old Island families like mine are closely intertwined genetically.

John and Elizabeth Stewart, grt grts

East Point lighthouse

We were supposed to go rafting on the Fundy tidal bore September 6 but Dorian put an end to that plan. We were underwhelmed by the reaction of the rafting company when we cancelled, they obviously not paying attention to the hurricane about to hit the area as a category 2 nor to their customers concerns about it. Storm surges of up to 10 meters, winds of 120km, and torrential rain do not make for a happy adventure.

Covehead Run

It was interesting to experience an almost direct pass over of a hurricane again; it’s been a few decades. During the front side of the storm on Saturday afternoon, after we had prepared as best we could, I sat reading, looking out at the harbour and the wind and waves were running east to west. It was stormy but we were in the lee although the rain was heavy enough to flood the street below. After the eye passed over during the night, the back side of the storm was a wild, wild ride. Our power went out in the wee hours and came back sometime late Sunday. This is now Thursday and 60-70 crews are still working on restoration, tree by tree. The Cavendish area was badly damaged, mostly by the wind but also with flooding.

Confederation Bridge

Sunday we decided to go to Nova Scotia for 24 hours to see the family. They are south of Halifax and the storm was long gone by then. It was still very windy here and we white-knuckled it across the bridge but after that it was fine and we arrived in Upper Tantallon to a summer day.

2 of 3 ships in harbour on Sept. 10

Tuesday, Gary and Lesley Wilson were here from Victoria on the Norwegian Gem cruise ship and the weather was perfect. They had to miss Bar Harbor and Halifax thanks to Dorian, stopping instead in Portland and having an extra sea day. Memorial University reported a 30 meter wave south east of Newfoundland and that is a big pile of water!

We are fortunate to have very good friends here. We aren’t in touch much from year to year but seeing them again is like putting on your favourite comfortable sweater. We don’t fit on the stairway as well as we did 30 years ago when the first version of this photo was taken but we get there with a tug here and a crunch there.

the gang