East Coast Cruising - Saint John, New Brunswick

September brought a cruise to the East Coast for Annette and I. We started in New York, visited two cities in Maine, then sailed over the International Boundary into Canada and visited several cities in the Maritime region. The cruise ended in Quebec City and we ended our holidays after spending time in Montreal.

Today we are in Saint John, New Brunswick. It is the oldest incorporated city in Canada, the city was incorporated in 1875. Saint John is on the Bay of Fundy which has the worlds highest tides.

The agenda for today is a bus tour of the city, then we head out to the small village of St. Martin were there are sea caves recognized by Unesco as a conservation site.

CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO SEE THAT PICTURE AND THE OTHERS FULL SIZE

The first stop of the day is on the Saint John River at the Reversing Rapids. At low tide the Saint John River flows out into the Bay of Fundy. At high tide the water in the bay rises 28 feet and the ocean now flows into the Saint John River basin.
It is early in the day, and the tide is out, so in the picture above the water is running to the sea. Later in the day we will come back to this same spot and you will now see the water is almost covering the dark rock on the small island 

I took a lot of photos here so we could compare later - even better Ken and I found a geocache here so we can now add another province to our list of "Found" geocaches.

Back on the bus and we head north along the coastline for 30 minutes to the small village of St. Martin. Founded in 1783 by soldiers from the disbanded loyalist King's Orange Rovers. These were British soldiers raised in 1776 to protect British interests in Orange County, Province of New York, and generally around the colony of New York. They also seen action in Nova Scotia protecting Liverpool in the Nova Scotia colony.

A couple of small tourist businesses and a covered bridge were the highlights at this stop. New Brunswick has the most covered bridges in North America, which was a surprise to us. Common thought would have been New England or Main, but nope.

Up the road a short ways was a section of the bay were there are the Unesco recognized sea caves. There are several in the area, but we did not have time to explore them. Instead, as the rain moved in, we sat in a diner and had a wonderful bowl of clam chowder and biscuits and gulped down some coffee to help warm up.

Outside there was another tourist shop, this one with locally hand made art, everything from earrings to smooth flat rocks with folksy sayings on them. Annette bought some earrings which is a must almost every time we travel. It's her way of remembering places we have visited.

Back in Saint John we had an hour to wander the Saint John indoor market in a building built in 1876. The building is a long city block in length and as the town is built on a hill the building slopes down as you walk the length of the building. 
We purchased a couple of snacks to have later on the boat. This is also a farmers market but having a 5 star floating restaurant on the shape of our cruise ship it didn't make sense to buy any other food.

Last stop on the tour was at an authentic Irish Pub were we were treated to free samples of Moosehead Beer.
Moosehead Brewery is Canada's oldest independent brewery in Canada. Founded in 1867 it is owned by a sixth generation of the Oland family.
And the beer was fairly good and worth a stop on a rainy day.    

This was the end of our visit to Saint John as we were back on the boat and set sail by 5.00 PM.
This was the way most of our ports of call would go - arrive in the morning and set sail by dinner time. 

As usual I just gave you just a peek of Saint John and the surrounding area, but you can see more of Saint John by clicking here to see all the photos.
Go ahead - CLICK - CLICK !!