Last
night at dinner time Paul and I met up with the 2 doctors (Aileen
Siscar and Irene) and a nurse from the medical team, as well as Liz
from shore excursions, and her fiance. Sadly Aileen and Irene were
called away to an emergency so the rest of us ended up having the
major part of dinner without them. Aileen got back around about the
time we were starting our dessert. As usual we all ate a bit too
much and were full afterwards, our bellies exiting the Pinnacle Grill
before we did!
It
was a chilly but bright and sunny day when we docked in Halifax but
it warmed up a bit during the day. The excursion I was assigned to
met not far from the entrance of the cruise terminal. Our horse
hosts for the day were Mel and Mike. Mike was a curious chap with a
good sense of humour whereas Mel wasn't really bothered, just getting
on with what she was there to do.
We
had a guide who gave us an interesting history lesson about Halifax
and pointed out places of interest as our trolley trundled its way
around, such as the city gardens, Citadel, Robbie Burn's statue and
much more. Our carriage driver was a huge lass. At first I thought
she was a lad until our guide introduced her to us (oops!). Its just
that her curves seemed to be all in the wrong places and well hidden
underneath her man-like clothing. She handled the Mel and Mike well,
making sure they didn't get startled from all sorts of things going
on around them – from traffic to humans and building works. Sad to
say, not only did I thank the guide and carriage driver, but I also
thanked the horses for taking us around Halifax!
Paul
was very busy when I got back but eventually we managed to 'touch
base' with each other. I went with him to see one of the winches
undergoing a load-bearing test. A lifeboat was lowered into the sea
and then huge rubber tarpaulins were hitched onto each winch. The
tarpaulins were filled with water until a certain weight and left for
a few minutes to hang. Then the winch brakes were tested: the full
water tarpaulins were lowered a bit and then the brakes applied.
Fortunately they held! The water was then emptied out of the
tarpaulins.
After
the tests were done the lifeboat was then hitched back up out of the
water but it went back down into the water as fast as it went up.
The winch had broken and fortunately nobody was in the lifeboat when
it happened. Unfortunately this happened around about the time that
the ship was about to leave and the mechanic who serviced the winches
had already left the ship. So a frantic call was made for him to
come back to the ship and look at the winch = a delay in the
departure. Needless to say, things were sorted fairly quickly and
the ship was able to leave without any further hiccups. According to
Paul, the technician didn't have to do anything – the winch worked
without any problems under his watchful eye – sod's law!
You can see my pictures on facebook via this link: Excursion: Halifax by Horse Drawn Trolley
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| Travelling to our next destination: Bar Harbour, (via sea though!) |
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