After a restless night's sleep, we were up around 8am for coffee, breakfast and get the trailer ready for moving again. I gave the campground office guy all the maps we had picked up for him on our travels yesterday and he was very thankful. Laura and I are starting to make a good team with converting the trailer from a stationary land home to a 60 mph, motor-less box zooming down the highway. We almost hit our 10:30am goal exactly as we motored out of the campground at 10:29.
A fairly short trip down Hwy 104 then north on 106 brought us to Caribou, Nova Scotia and a space in-line for the ferry to Prince Edward Island (PEI). The ferry gal on the phone yesterday said we "should" be able to get a spot if we arrived an hour ahead of time for the 1pm ferry - we should be the first RV in line (RVs have the lowest priority on the ferry because they take up so much room). When we arrived at 11:30am, we were the 5th RV in line. Oh well. We'll take what we get I guess.
I walked to the Visitors Center and talked to the nice lady about what to see on PEI. She gave me lots of good information that I will share later in this post.Here is the group waiting for the ferry to board. The back of our trailer is on the right (Hideout) and you can see the ferry unloading just left of center. The bow swings up like a big open mouth. That little tractor-trailer heading our way just came out.
We watched what seemed like 100s of cars come out then they started loading the 30 or so cars with reservations. A reservation would have cost $108 round trip but stand-by was free. Then they loaded 2 long lines of cars waiting like us and 5 big tractor-trailers. Then they started loading the RVs but stopped when we got to the end. We thought for sure we'd be waiting 2 hours for the next ferry they waved us on a short time later.Here was our view entering the huge ferry.
We had lunch at the ferry restaurant - I had a cheese, meat, salad and Laura had a bowl of chili. Total was just under $20. I checked out the whole ship and saw the Captain talking to another gentleman while I was eating. I thought about introducing myself as "another" ship Captain to see if I could get on the bridge but eventually decided to travel incognito. Sucking up to other Captains wasn't my favorite part of the job....
The ferry ride was smooth and lasted a little over an hour. We were near the front of the line and were off the boat quickly. We ended up taking a wrong turn just off the ferry terminal (Google said right lane when we should have stayed left) but got to see a little more of the island on the way to our campground. The scenery in PEI is way different from the rocky hills of Nova Scotia. The land is much more level (at least what we've seen so far) and seems to be 80% farmland. We read that PEI produces 25% of the potatoes for all of Canada. And, it's the smallest province. Here is a huge field with the ocean in the background. 
On the other side of the road, was a large hay field.The roads were fairly level as we navigated the 20 or so miles to our campground. The Panmure Island Provincial Park is a smallish campground with some sites near the woods and others near the beach. The sites near the beach were all booked but I was able to get a 2-way (water and power) site near the woods.
After setting up, I walked next door and introduced myself to our neighbors Dana and Mourine. Their trailer was about the same size as our but had a pretty good size slide out. Plus, he had all the toys - a Honda Gold-wing motorcycle, 2-person kayak, bicycles and boogie-boards. They have been RVing for many years plus toured both the US and Canada several times by motorcycle. He even has a ramp and winch for loading the Gold-wing into the back of the pickup before hooking up the trailer.After we settled in a bit we invited them over for cocktails and munchies to hear about some of their adventures on the road.
PEI is the smallest province in Canada with the highest population per square mile (or kilometer, ...). But, the place is pretty big. Here is a map of the island from the Visitors Guide which shows 4 main sections. The bottom of the yellow section to the right is where the ferry came in. We are in a campground where I put the black "X". We had intended to take the truck around the yellow section tomorrow but it's almost 300 miles. Yikes! Instead, we'll drive up the east coast to a few places that might be interesting. I was told that Souris Beach has good sea-glass and Basin Head has singing sands (when you walk on the sand it kind of crunches and makes noise / notes). I'll let you know how it was.
We have this campsite for 2 nights but might stay another night or two if there is more we want to see. Laura is reading about places of interest on the whole island so we might be here a while.
Day 15 -
197 miles today (all towing) = 2,020 total trip miles (plus about 12 sea miles on the ferry)
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