Monday, August 26, 2013

Peggy's Cove

Yesterday went by too fast.  Pam and I spent the afternoon with Suzanne at the museum.  I was surprised that two of the visitors were Yahookers, Phyllis Smith and her daughter Joanne.  Funny when you meet people you've known for a long time on the internet, they don't look at all the way you had them pictured.  I thought Phyllis was a tall, willowy, dark haired Tallulah Bankhead-esque sort of person - but, I was wrong.  She's my kind of person!

We went to Peggy's Cove and saw the lighthouse pictured in dozens of mats donated to the museum by the wonderful people in Ontario.  After seeing so many hooked versions of the lighthouse it seemed appropriate to view it in person.  While we were there, we had a delicious dinner of baked stuffed lobster tail.
We had a corner
 table in the restaurant, so I could see the ocean to my right and to my left.  Wonderful place to eat!
The early settlers in Peggy's Cove were given land grants for this area, and, although it's a very popular tourist area now, I think they got the raw end of the stick - the land is all rock.  Not rocky, rock.  Solid giant rocks of granite.  No soil for farming.  No soil to support a shade tree.  No soil.  Just huge, gray rocks.  Fortunately, those brave souls could make a living on the ocean because the land sure wasn't going to help them.  So, it was an isolated fishing village on the very rocky coast of St. Margaret's Bay.  We drove around on the other side of the bay when we drove down the Aspotogan Peninsula to get to Old Salt.  In that bay, 15 years ago, a Swiss Air plane crashed and all on board were lost.  There are memorials on both sides of the bay to those lost on that flight.  One man I met on Saturday thought I was a family member of someone lost and thought I had come such a long way because the 7th is the 15th anniversary of the crash
.  The fishermen on both sides of the bay went out to the crash to rescue survivors, but there weren't any.  They had to deal with the gruesomeness of  finding
hundreds of bodies.  The local people took in the family members back then and would probably be just as kind today.

1 comment:

stitches said...

Hi Phyllis! It was great to meet yourself, Pam and Suzanne.On our next visit we will plan for more time as we didnt get to see the museum. Hoping you have a safe trip home.