Rubyfisch

Cute mice sculptures:

More sights and sounds downtown:

Then we went past the PEI government buildings, and the very amusingly underwhelming Boulder Garden with a rock from every province...

The first main stop was St. Dunstan's, which is made of sandstone from Nova Scotia (you know it isn't from PEI because it isn't red). It was built around 1913:

We went on a lovely walking tour that I booked independently through Walk the Walk PEI. It met at 9:30 effectively at the pier and lasted maybe 2:15. It was 29 CAD a person. I would definitely recommend it to others. Jamie grew up in PEI and is a retired veterinarian. I get the sense these walking tours are his passion project.

Cormorants and the ship:

Lido breakfast .... I do love crepes...

Sunrise:

It's pretty choppy and pretty windy ... One downside of a balcony is the wind noise ....

I think the compression on cruise critic loses them .... But it's still really cool. I've never seen them before

Northern lights!!!!

Sunset after dinner:

Dinner in the MDR definitely finished stronger than it started... Sad, sad tomato crostini.... Salmon chowder (definitely better): Eggplant Parm and asparagus risotto (probably the best entree so far): Stroppenwaffle cheesecake (fantastic):

MDR menu:

I don't think you can actually have a Lido line system that works perfectly, but I kind of hate the self-service bread/cheese that apparently bleeds into the hot food service. I wanted a single piece of fish as a snack and the hot service people weren't assisting anyone, so I walked up, to be somewhat harshly told by someone the line started twenty feet of empty buffet ... Like, it's not particularly efficient for service to stop because someone is spending five minutes looking for the perfect poppy seed roll from the stack of identical ones ... To be clear, I don't really fault anyone and I'm not sure it could be better ... But the self service into the served line is just awkward...

We were going to do that in May, but our port call got cancelled. Maybe next time ...

Overall, this was an enjoyable excursion and was on the cheaper side. My one complaint is I'm not sure anyone actually wants to listen to two plus hours of narration ... Like, I don't think most of us care about the controversy about whether or not the community college is building a parking structure or when the road is getting resurfaced or the tour guide's family quibbles ...

I swear, the ride back to the ship on these shore excursion could aptly be called "how everyone on this island died in the past 300 years ..." Things we've heard about so far - bootleg coal mines collapsing, coyotes attacking, childhood cancer caused by the steel industry, naval battles, etc .... It felt the same way on the ride back from Peggy's Cove in May.

Seal Island Bridge from the bus:

A few more pictures from Baddeck:

We saw a pair of bald eagles (sorry the photo isn't great): And some sort of loon or cormorant:

Food time - starting with iced lattes, a bagel sandwich, and an amazing blueberry muffin from Bean There: And then key lime pie ice cream at the Frozen Spoon - which was amazingly good and cheap - it was $7.00 Canadian for both our ice cream:

Views from Baddeck:

The Bell Museum in Baddeck - it's definitely cool, but probably only 20 or so minutes of stuff to see unless you really like reading museum signs ...

We pulled over to an overlook on the way to Baddeck to take pictures - it's really beautiful....