Day 71 – Ad Mare Usque Ad Mari (Argentia NL, Saint John’s NL)

Written in the Toronto Airport Sept 6, 2010 and posted from New Jersey.


I thought I’d close out the trip with the title I used to start the ride from Vancouver, the motto on Canada’s Coat of Arms which translates “From Sea to Sea”.

Another choice would have been “Failure to Launch” which described my tent on the last night of camping in Argentia. Before we went to bed, the outer edges of Hurricane Earl were making their presence known with some blustery winds.

Gone with the Wind!!!

The campsite grounds were basically 2 inches of loose gravel on what appeared to be a bed of concrete (most likely the granite of the Canadian Shield). At that point we went looking for large rocks to try and secure our guy lines and corners of our tents in preparation for what might be a wild evening. After we had finished, the site looked like the base camp at Everest.

At about 10:30 PM, the winds started to really pick up with blustering gusts of 20 – 40 MPH (my estimate based on what I felt then and what I feel when I am riding at those speeds). The large rocks we had used to secure things had been dislodged, and my tent had adopted caved in profile so I went out in my PJs with a headlamp to try and re-secure things. At one point I was holding on to my tent, which was airborne, by a single guy line, and after about 5 minutes managed to secure it around the seat of a picnic table. With that as an anchor point I then secured two other lines, one around the far leg of the table, and the other around a post near the tent. I then moved my heavy bags inside from the vestibule of the tent and onto the windward side of things to keep the floor from billowing up. That seemed to work although the whole tent was shaking, and making a tremendous noise – kind of like trying to sleep inside a wind tunnel. At around 1:00 A.M. I finally managed to “sleep” and awoke shortly before 6 AM.

The campsite, which was full of about 35 tents the night before had only about 6 or 7 still standing, the rest having been either blown apart or blown away, or moved in the middle of the night to a more sheltered space - the riders in those tents had abandoned ship, so to speak, and slept, or tried to sleep indoors, in the camp office and bathrooms. Luckily we avoided any rain and just had to put up with the high winds.

A Cloudy Start

Breakfast was an abbreviated version of the usual (no hot servings, just bread, bagels, cereal and coffee), so we were on the road at around 8 for our ride to Saint John’s. The terrain along the southern coast reminded me of that from my ride in Alaska.

Sunny Skies

Conception Bay

As you can see, today’s weather was overcast, but dry at the start and sunny and in the high 80s later on.

After the climb up Signal Hill

The ride finished with a good climb to the top of Signal Hill, to the cheers of other riders from the group who had taken a more direct route and arrived earlier.

Under the Finish Banner

We also had the family of our only rider from Newfoundland, Murray, with signs to celebrate our achievement - 5,360 total miles of riding in just over 10 weeks.

"The French Connection"

It is hard to believe that it is over, and tomorrow, the friends I have made over the past 10 weeks will be heading back to their respective homes. All in all, as expected it has been a very memorable summer, and as a previous rider counseled me, one sure to provide an endless source of dinner tales.  After 10 weeks and 5,300 miles of riding together, the "French Connection", Serge, P-A, and I finally parted ways at the Toronto Airport.  I am confident that this is not our last adventure together.

Cheers to all, I will be making the occasional update as things wind down once back at home, and I compile my slide show from the 2,695 photos taken since departure. Thank you to all for your words of encouragement and comments over the summer.

Postscript:

I am now back at home in New Jersey after saying goodbye to everyone in Saint John’s this morning.

Before and After

Shape shifting: I got a chance to weigh myself on the home scales and have lost a total of 18 lbs during the 10 weeks. Better yet, along with the net weight loss of 18 lbs, I have converted another 16 lbs of fat into muscle, and now have a 6% body fat ratio. Time for some new clothes as none of the clothes that I wore in June fit me now!