Homeward Bound
Wednesday 9/14. Warm and sunny with onshore winds, perfect for a hike along the exposed grassy coast at nearby Lowland Cove.
Lost mooring buoys
Onwards. Back on the Cabot Trail we camped on the beach near Cheticamp...
Thursday 9/15 ... And left Cape Breton Island having driven along the coast but not quite all the way because of locked gates. We should have believed the signs.
Onwards. We missed the Fundy tidal bore and passed from Nova Scotia to New Brunswick and Saint John, where we arrived under our own, borrowed, steam for the first time. We ate in town, camped at the provincial park and prepared to pay the piper.
Friday 10/15. At the Jeep dealer we were welcomed like friends and then told that the Jeep wouldn’t start because the battery was dead and a new one was installed for our convenience. Weird, it was working fine before. At least there was something to start and it purred like the Chrysler 4.0L straight 6 cylinder tractor engine should.
We paid the piper, with the credit card company on the phone to make sure the eye watering foreign transaction wasn’t rejected.
The rental truck was emptied, cleaned, returned, inspected, signed off and we left promptly, just in case!
The tide was wrong for one last surf on the reversing falls so we took our last picture at the Martello tower, had a last lunch at Tim Hortons and hit the road.
At the US border in Calais, Maine, the conversation with the US customs and border protection guy went something like this:
CBP guy: “Are you returning with anything you bought in Canada?”
Me: “Yes. some wine and vodka from Newfoundland and a new engine.”
CPB guy: “Do you have a receipt for the engine?”
Me: (Thinking that I should have kept quiet about it) “Yes.”
CPB guy: “Do you know where it was manufactured? You will have to pay import duties if it wasn’t made in North America.”
Me: (Hoping that it wasn’t imported from Germany like the POS Mercedes transmission I just replaced) “Honestly, no.”
The CPB guy picks up the phone and calls the customs folks. “It was made in the USA. Welcome home!”