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1730, Monday, July 3, 2023
We opted to spend another day here in Bonavista. There is lots one can do and we tried to pack in a number of activities. There is a lot of history here. European involvement in Bonavista began way back in 1497 when John Cabot entered these waters aboard his vessel the Matthew. He had been looking for a new, fast route to the far east. Instead, he encountered a "New Found Land" which still lives on in the name of this vast Island. His landfall was here at Bonavista, which he thought was a most beautiful land, or "Buena Vista." There is a full size replica of the Matthew here, which we toured today.
Mory and I also made a trip out to the lighthouse on the tip of Cape Bonavista. I always climb lighthouses whenever I can. So, we went up to the lantern room at the top of the tower. The light mechanism is truly one of a kind and predates the Fresnel lenses one sees. This one, as seen in the photo below, has six separate la ters that rotate to provide the flashes that quite Mariners along the coast. Fascinating!
A highlight of the day was a visit to a puffin colony where we could sit and watch thousands of these comical and colorful birds, sometimes just 15 feet away. One photo is at the top of this photo.
Out towards the puffins we also viewed some collapsed sea caves that now form tunnels from the high shore out to sea, as shown below.
Another stop was to tour the Ryan Premises, an old mercantile of the cod fishery, now a museum delving onto the history of cod fishing here. It includes the topic of overfishing from the 1950s to the 1980s that eventually led to a moratorium on cod fishing that largely remains in place today. However, in summer, Newfoundlanders are each allowed to catch up to five cod a piece, three days a week, for family consumption. Today, the Monday Holiday for Canada Day, small boats were going in and out of the harbor all day as locals happily caught their cod. A photo of one of those boats is below.
There are only one or two old fishing stages and flakes (drying racks) for cod left around the harbor, a picturesque reminder of the heyday of the old inshore cod fishery. The last photo is of one of those old fishing stages.
Tomorrow we continue sailing north.
Bill
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