It was a dark and stormy
night on the Iles de la Madeleine. It could have been the makings of a murder
mystery, but instead, we were just arriving by ferry after a 6 hour crossing
from PEI. The sea swell had been increasing as we went, though fortunately the
ship remained relatively stable.
The winds were strong out of the east, and the ship had some difficulty getting into the harbour and aligned with the dock. As a result, on the final approach, a tugboat was used to help steer the ship and maintain control.
The winds were one thing, but when we disembarked, we were met with heavy rain and darkness. In our headlights, we could see the rain was blowing across the road in sheets, and it was impossible to pick out the road names, but fortunately, our GPS managed to lead us to our campground, Barachois. We were greeted in French at the reception office, then sent on our way in search for our site. The sheets of rain continued, and after circling the campground more than once, we found on the winding camp roads with such poor visibility, our headlights weren't good enough to pick up our site number. It wasn't until we stopped and pulled out our spotlight that we had success. Water was flowing everywhere, but our campsite didn't appear to be any deeper in water than anywhere else, so we backed in hoping for the best.
By the time we got Penny roughly positioned, I was soaked to the skin and afraid to plug in the electrical cord for fear of electrocution. Marlene at least had a dry pair of boots, so we hatched the plan to dry off the extension cord plug and attempt to keep it dry while we dashed for the electrical plug-in, make the connection, pull a plastic bag down over the post, then tie and seal it all in place. While doing so, we hoped the connection wouldn't get too wet and trip the GFI, if that protection was in place. The plan worked, and we were able to crawl into Penny with lights glowing, the heater on to get dry, and the microwave available to heat up some leftover Lasagna.
We celebrated our successful wet landing in the Iles de la Madeleine with a couple of glasses of wine. We had had our first real maritime adventure, but hoped the weather would improve by morning, as it had been a dark and stormy night.
Click here for the next story in this series:
http://travellingwithsteveandmarlene.blogspot.ca/2015/09/its-windy-place.html
