Together is the Best Place to Be, Day 6: The CAT!

Nova Scotia 2007

Day 6: Thursday, June 21

Copyright(c) 2007, Jim Beachy

It’s the Day of The CAT, the wave-piercing, tri-hulled catamaran ship that has cut the ferry time between Bar Harbor Maine and Yarmouth Nova Scotia from 6 hours to 2.5 hours. That’s how they spell it: The CAT. My Treo alarm sounds and vibrates at 5:00 AM. My watch alarm beeps at 5:00 AM. My backup wakeup call comes in at 5:30 AM as scheduled. Well, that’s the first hurdle. We’re awake. And a special thanks to all those who sent me helpful e-mails after yesterday’s post to wake me up this morning!

After fighting with a recalcitrant banana (which seems to take significant exception to having its skin removed) and other assorted fruits for breakfast, we uncover the bike and trailer and we’re ready to roll at 6:30. I’d booked this motel, the Acadia Inn, because of its location just several hundred yards from the ferry terminal. We arrive some time before 7:00, present our reservation papers, collect our tickets, and get in line as instructed with the other bikes making the crossing.

They load the 18 bikes (two with trailers including us) near the end of the loading process. This ferry business always seems a little tricky to me. The ramps are always wet, the floor of the ship is always wet and oily, and in addition there are tie-down points on the floor with little “domes” that could cause a bike tire to slip if you drive over it. Not to mention that with the trailer, my rig is longer than a minivan. And, because the bike is just inching along and the rider’s feet are pretty much off the pegs for balance, only the front brake can be used to stop or slow down. Not a good combination for an extremely slick floor. It’s a time for extreme gentleness and great conservatism. No sudden movements! We wear our helmets even for this 200-yard ride so we can talk to each other and also, unsaid, for protection in case I drop the bike.

We make it without incident across the heavily-slanted wet ramps and into the maw of the ship. No sooner are we in the hold than I see the Wing behind us on its side, lying on the floor. Ed and Sandy, whose bike we saw yesterday at Thunder Hole and who happened into line behind us, are having a really bad day. I talk to him later and he says neither they nor the bike were hurt. He explains that he was wearing sunglasses in the bright outside light and when he got into the hold it was so dark that he couldn’t see. In a moment of near panic he tried to remove the glasses with one hand while still moving and just lost perspective of the horizon. And every time that happens... Well, fall down, go boom! There is just no room for error in this environment.

The vehicle handlers herd all the bikes into very tight quarters, very close to each other, and instruct each of us to leave our bike on the side stand, put it in gear, and secure it with one tie-down across the middle. These instructions are definitely NOT what I had in mind! I had planned to take soft ties around both sides of the triple tree and secure a second set of tie-downs to the passenger grab rails. But the location of the tie-down points on the floor of the ship leaves me no choice. I put my single tie-down across the middle of bike, fit the strap into the space in front of the seat and onto the frame, and for good measure I secure the left-side passenger grab rail as well. Then, for extra good measure, I take the tail end of one of the tie-downs and wrap it several times around the brake/handlebar to keep the brake applied during transit. I hope it works. Actually, I feel pretty good about my work. I’m more worried about the work of all those other riders parked two feet on either side of my bike!

The CAT is a fantastic ship! I learn that there are four 9,500 engines, and instead of propellers it uses a jet propulsion system that displaces the volume of water in an Olympic-sized swimming pool EVERY THREE SECONDS! I walk out to the fantail and am instantly covered by a froth of spray that shoots up behind the ship from two massively excellent, raging-foam monster rooster tails that leave a trailing mist for at least half a mile. Its wave-piercing catamaran design makes for a smooth ride on the open sea at 56 miles per hour. It holds the world record for the shortest transit time between Australia, where it is made, and the US coast. You can find out more at

www.catferry.com. Any of you hopeless gearheads will find it fascinating.

In what seems like a short time, the announcement is made for drivers to return to their vehicles, so we all troop down the stairs to the lower deck. Well, it appears all the bikes made it standing up! We untie our vehicles, mount up, and await our handler’s instructions. The Harleys are really, really loud in the confined space of the hold, and perhaps that contributes to one rider’s confusion, but he accidentally pops the clutch on his Harley while we’re still in these very tight quarters. The bike immediately to my right lurches forward and in panic he kills the engine using the hand brake, but then his plant foot slips on the slick floor and I think he’s going to drop his big bike — right on my leg! I watch this unfold in slow motion, as it were, just two feet to my right. He finally recovers and my heart rate returns to normal, but I’m struck with how little it would take to write the story a whole lot differently. Had he dropped his bike, it would have fallen on my leg, most certainly broken it, and in turn would have thrown us over, which would have begun a domino effect that could have affected many bikes. And probably ended our trip as we know it.

But thankfully we emerge unscathed into the fog that shrouds Yarmouth today. We ordered US passports over four months ago but due to the now-highly-publicized US passport backlog, they have not arrived. Fortunately we have certified birth certificates as backup, and that, along with a photo ID, is all that’s currently required to enter Canada from the USA by land, rail, or sea. After taking off our helmets and presenting our identification, we clear Canadian Customs without a problem. Will they let us back into the USA with this same documentation? We’ll find out in about 10 days or so. The time zone change has moved our time up one hour, so it’s nearly 2:00 PM local time.

We park at the Visitor Center parking lot just up from Customs to check out a few things and find out where the nearest bank is located, when we see a trim and smallish man wearing a ball cap walking purposefully toward us. “He looks like he wants something with us,” I tell Kitty.

“Jim and Kitty!” says the guy. “I saw your post on WOTI, knew you’d be on The CAT today, and figured a black Wing with a trailer couldn’t be too hard to spot.” It’s Larry Surette, a Yarmouth local and WOTI contributor. As has happened many times before on our rides, the Internet once again makes for a small world. We chat for a few minutes before we part ways. It’s always good to put a face to a person we “know”.

We sign the guest book in the Visitor Center, pick up a few things, and wander off to the now-unused Cape Forchu lighthouse a few miles out of town. “Are we on vacation yet?” I ask Kitty. “Yes, we are!” she says. I’ve found that it is always good to check on these things from time to time. I give a contented little sigh that I’m sure she hears in the headset. I’m glad the ferry ride is over.

We spend a couple lazy hours at the lighthouse just hanging out, climbing over the rocks, having a coffee and muffin atop the cliffs, watching the relatively calm sea, and marveling as great banks of fog drift in and out while the sun struggles to maintain visibility behind the gray veil. As a bonus, we see The CAT leaving Yarmouth harbor on its return trip for the day to Bar Harbor, Maine. It passes right by the Cape Forchu lighthouse, which guards the entrance to the harbor. What a magnificent vessel!

I decide to switch the GPS to metric units. It will take me a while to learn metric distances, but the GPS will always display my current metric speed and so I will not need to convert or try to look at those tiny blue “kilometer” numbers on the speedometer. Several days ago when traveling on Vermont Rt. 100, poor Jill nearly went beside herself giving incessant instructions related to the “Forty-Third Infantry Division Memorial Highway” which she repeated at least 20 times during the course of the day. I think American Jill deserves a rest, so I select British Emily Version 1.40 as my new GPS voice. The GPS reboots with a whole new persona. It’s just weird but really kind of cool to hear my GPS sound so unfamiliar. Emily’s voice is lower than Jill’s and a little husky, and Kitty likes it, saying it fits with the metric units of measurement. Ok, so I guess we’ll go with Emily for a while. Personally, though, I’m kind of enamored with Australian Karen, who I think sounds really exotic.

After checking in at our motel, we go for our almost-daily walk along the Yarmouth waterfront. We have been trying to do a two-mile exercise walk most days on this vacation. As we power-walk back to the motel, who should pass by on his black Wing but Larry Surette. He recognizes us, stops, and considerately gives us his cell phone number in case we need anything.
Soon I’ve cleaned and covered the bike, we’ve showered, and we are walking to dinner. We end up at Captain Kelley’s restaurant and lounge a block from the motel. Kelley’s turns out to be a cool place with a really good local cover band playing in the lounge. I usually get tired of a band in, oh, say, two or three minutes because, being in bands myself, I tend to be so critical. But these guys are really good, covering such diversified artists as Jerry Lee Lewis, Simon and Garfunkel, Johnny Cash, Elton John, Steve Miller, Eric Clapton, Alabama, and even quite a few French and Cajun hits. Now, I’d have to say that although Cajuns were originally French, first lived in Nova Scotia (Acadia), were expelled by the British when they refused to bow to the British crown, and ended up in Louisiana, apparently you can’t go home again. Because even with a good band, “Jambalaya” just doesn’t sound the same in Nova Scotia as it does in New Orleans! Still, Kitty and I linger quite a while after dinner enjoying the band.

Today we have ridden a whopping 51 km... er, 31 miles. Tomorrow we will set out along the Lighthouse Trail, taking the slow road to nowhere along the Atlantic coast.