Together Is the Best Place to Be, Day 13: The Day the Lights Went Out in Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia 2007

Day 13: Thursday June 28

Copyright(c) 2007, Jim Beachy

At 5:00 AM, the sky is a gorgeous pink as the sun begins its ascent over Bras d’Or Lake. At 6:00 AM, we are in the midst of a vicious thunderstorm. I go back to sleep and by 7:00 AM the sky has opened up and the rain is pouring down. I cast a well-practiced weather eye to the sky and announce to Kitty, “Remember those clouds I talked about yesterday, the ones that bring no rain? Well, now these are the ones that bring rain.”

After breakfast, we begin the process of suiting up and packing up in the rain. There is no covered portico for Black Satin this time, although both bike and trailer are covered as usual. But the rain gear is in the right-hand saddlebag, and to get to that we have to partially uncover the bike to open the saddlebag. Where the rain gear is. That would be the rain gear that will keep us dry once we can dig it out and put it on. I do my best with an umbrella, but I’m fairly well soaked by the time I dig out the rain suits and the clear helmet shields and dash back into the room. We load out our gear and wrap up the wet bike and trailer covers as best we can, and finally we are fully prepared to take on the storm: Clear helmet shields in place, helmet vents closed to prevent the helmets from getting waterlogged, rain gear properly zipped and flapped, waterproof leather Cruiserworks boots to keep our feet dry (why did I ride so many years without those boots?), hands protected by waterproof SealSkinz gloves. I learned about SealSkinz from my Canadian friend Gordon Claridge and his wife when they and IndyWinger, my American friend, accidentally bumped into me in Asheville, NC. It’s a long story. And speaking of Gordon Claridge, he shall forever be remembered as the guy who sucked diesel fuel out of my Wing in the Texas hill country near Leakey. Twice. He gets the diesel fuel in his mouth, I get the name Diesel Boi. Maybe it’s a fair trade, I don’t know, but it seems to me he got the raw end of that deal. Another long story. Now where was I before I so rudely interrupted myself?

Oh... well, we may be in the middle of a downpour, but we sure look good with our black helmets, black-and-red raingear with the luminescent piping across the back and down the side of the legs, and black gloves and boots! We’re all set, ready to stay dry while we ride into the pouring rain. And that’s the time that the lights went out in Nova Scotia. We try to check out and the hotel says they will e-mail us the bill. I usually fuel up in the evening when I need fuel, but last evening for some reason I didn’t, so I have only about 40 miles or 64 km to red light. We ride in the pouring rain out to the nearest station, being careful to avoid the deep standing water that gathers in both tracks where I’d normally ride. The station is closed. No electricity. No fuel. Ok, no problem, we’ll ride about 15 km to the next station in the next town where the electricity should be Ok. Closed. No electricity. The next major town is Port Hawkesbury at the Canso Causeway, but I don’t have enough fuel to make that. In this weather, I’m not about to wander about on unfamiliar highways and become a potential empty-tank victim. Well, come to think of it, in any weather I wouldn’t do that. The station attendant says the electricity is out in the next town as well, and the estimated time of recovery is 1:30 PM. It’s now about 9:30 AM.

“Ok,” I tell Kitty. “All bets are off. All schedules are out the window. Let’s not try to catch up, let’s just find a place to hang out until the electricity comes back and we can get fuel.”
“Why don’t we go back to the hotel?” Kitty suggests. “Maybe they’ll let us crash in our room if they haven’t made it up yet.” That’s a stroke of genius on her part, but should I perhaps get a little credit for recognizing how good a suggestion it really is? So we ride 15 km back to the hotel and walk into the now candle-lit lobby, our rain gear dripping all over their floor, and humbly beg for our room back. They are exceedingly obliging.

I explain my gasoline predicament and ask if there’s anyone around who might have several gallons of fuel in a container that we could buy and transfer to the bike, thinking that if we could get enough fuel to make it to the ferry at Caribou, the electricity would be restored by then and we could refuel. Dave, who apparently does the grounds work around the place, hears the discussion and says “I think I can help you! We have some fuel for the mowers and tractors. Pull the bike up to the little shed over there.”

We go look at the fuel supply, but all the cans are empty. He’s very disappointed, but I’m resigned to waiting until electricity returns. Meanwhile, from our re-occupied hotel room, I call the Nova Scotia 800 reservation number, where the person can’t help me with power issues but is able to give me the number for power outage problems. This automated number in turn reports power outages over all of Nova Scotia. Apparently the entire province is without power!

About this time Dave knocks on the door and says “I have a treat for you. I have three gallons of regular gasoline.” He’s siphoned out all his equipment to gather up three gallons of gasoline for a stranger. “It’s not diesel fuel, is it?” I ask suspiciously. “And not two-cycle lawnmower fuel?” says Kitty. It turns out to be just regular gasoline and we dump it into my thirsty tank. This substantially fills the tank and will be enough to get us to the ferry and into Prince Edward Island. Maybe we’ll still make it today! Dave refuses any payment for his gas or his efforts. “It’s my good deed for the day!” he explains.

And so we strike out again, but just before we do, the lights in the hotel come on and power is restored. The rain has lessened but the clouds have lowered and it’s a gray misty day with the temperature staying solidly on 13 C (once again, use your conversion powers!). The SealSkinz gloves are fantastic except in one regard: The back of the gloves are water-absorbent even though there’s a Goretex waterproof liner, so my hands are a little chilly in sustained riding at these temperatures.

By the time we reach the ferry in Caribou, NS, the temperature is pleasant and dry, if overcast. I’m a little amused at myself because in routing to the ferry, I haven’t even looked at the routes or looked at a map. I had simply asked the GPS to find the ferry and it did so, with a predicted arrival time of 1:48 PM. I just follow the instructions of British Emily Version 1.40, who delivers us exactly to the right place at exactly 1:48 PM. Uncanny! After a half-hour wait, we board the ferry and tie down the bike with a single tie-down to the left-side engine guard, keeping the bike on the side stand. As on The CAT, I take the extra precaution of wrapping the long end of the tie-down around the right-side handlebar and brake to use as a parking brake. The floor on this ferry is much more motorcycle-friendly than The CAT’s floor, as it is painted in a rough-textured green paint that, even when wet, is not slick. There is no fee; only when you leave the island do you pay a fee. The ride to Wood Islands, PE is smooth and takes about 75 minutes.

After a stop at the Prince Edward Island Information Center, we decide to ride for an hour before finding a room for the night. We call several places from the courtesy phone and find out there is no need to make reservations, as the tourist season is early and it’s been extremely slow. This suits us just fine because we don’t know where we’re going anyway.

We head east along Rt. 4, the “Points East” route, leaving it a number of times for the slow road near the coastline. The highway is what I often call “easy country,” which is a non-challenging but pleasant ride in the country. The land is flat and the highway here, at least, is mostly straight with a good road surface. The reddish earth in the fields is immediately remarkable. The woman at the Information Center had told us the color is due to iron oxide, and it is ideal for the potatoes Prince Edward Island is famous for. She joked that PEI really stands for “Potatoes Every Inch.” The steep-roofed houses along the way are meticulously maintained and the grounds well groomed. At one point I make a turn that I decide to retract, so while turning around I take the opportunity to get off the bike and take a few shots of some lupines. We’ve seen them in Maine and Nova Scotia, but here the colors are more intense (especially the purple ones, Kitty remarks), and they are ubiquitous: Whole fields are covered with them, and much of roadside is lined with lupines of all colors. (http://home.howstuffworks.com/lupine.htm) We roll through large flat expanses of red-earth fields with new potato plants sprouting from the well-tilled soil. There are a few fields of hay and we see one farm with numerous horses.

“Well, so this is Prince Edward Island,” I say to Kitty.

“I love this!” she exclaims. “Riding through farmland and seeing all these houses makes me just as happy as seeing the Cape Breton scenery!” Wow, who knew? I’ve always known Kitty is a farm girl at heart, but even I am a little surprised at the depth of her declaration.
“Well, in that case, I’m glad we came and I think you’ll be seeing a lot more of this in the next couple days!” I respond. I’m happy for her and am looking forward to the next few days touring the “Gentle Island” with its red fields, well-kept homes, green landscapes, and beaches.

We pass an Ultra-Mar gas station and Kitty suggests we might want to fuel up, and see if they have some CRC or WD-40 to spray into the trailer lock, which has become very troublesome over the past couple days to the extent that Kitty doesn’t want to try to open the trailer. I glance at the fuel gauge and decide to ride on. Five kilometers later, I decide Kitty was right. I don’t know the usual closing times for stations in this area, and my tank wasn’t quite full when we started so my normal mileage range is off.

“You have certainly earned your pay today!” I tell her as we leave the station with the lock working and the tank full.

We get to a motel in Montague ten minutes before its restaurant closes. Even with today’s forced layover and short destination, we’ve traveled 338 km (210 miles) and seem to be on schedule without actually trying. Sometimes it works out that way.