HARP & HOOD SEALS

The next day we met several others and we took a tour of the city, the highlight being the Maritime Museum which has artifacts from the Titanic. Several boats from Halifax had the grim task of retrieving the bodies from the wreck. One of the most interesting things was a passenger list that indicated the status of each passenger and crew member.

121 of the dead are buried in Halifax, one of which was featured in the movie. They picked up the body of an unidentified boy, and that really hit the rescuers hard. He has since been identified, but the family decided to keep his name a secret.

Later in the day we meet the rest of our group and had a nice dinner. Afterwards, we boarded our planes for the Magdalen Islands where 250,000 harp seals come every year to bear their young on the ice fields.. We were lucky enough to be in the six seater and, although we've been on small planes before, we've never been in front nor flown after dark. We flew through rain, sleet, snow and finally clear skies. The pilots kept turning on the lights to the wings to be sure ice wasn't forming on them.

After an hour or so, we saw the lights of the "Maggies" which are in the St. Lawrence Seaway. It's almost midnight by the time we went to bed and we were to be the on the first helicopter to the ice. We had to be up by six to have some breakfast and be in the helicopter room by 7 for our briefing and issued our survival suits.

We were given instructions on boarding and exiting the helicopters as well as learning what to do on the ice. Both are very serious and we didn't take it lightly. Then we headed to the aircraft - color me excited. Luckily, I got to sit in front with the pilot. That was really cool. After letting the engines warm, we took off and in a few minutes there was nothing but ice. Finally, we saw some seals and they looked for a pan with seals that would support two helicopters.

Our trip was called "Harps & Hoods" and it's the only one where you can visit the rare hood seals. They have just had their babies a few days ago so there is a trade-off to see them but the harp seal babies are older than the other groups saw. The seals are on the ice only in March so, only four trips are offered, and ours was the last one.

We found some good ice and set down. Upon exiting the aircraft, we were given 4½' poles which you had to use to test the ice before walking on it. You don't go on the ice without an ice master (Ward) who was one of the most colorful people I've even met. He is a fisherman but does the seal watch trips in March. We were lucky to have him as you will see later. The seals make blow holes and they can ice over and not be detected. I wouldn't want to step on one - that water is c-c-c-c-c-cold. These hood pups, which are grey, aren't weened and still with their mothers. There is blood around them from their birth. You can't get near these babies but we were privileged to see such rare seals. Two huge males were close to each other and blew up balloon-like sacks on their heads - they almost came to blows. We, being brilliant, kept our distance. We spent some time with them and boarded the copters to find some harps.

Luck is with us and there is a nice ice pan with quite a few babies on it. We all head in different directions to find our special baby, being careful to not get between the pups and their parents. I saw one pup by itself and meandered over to see if it would be receptive to some company. I asked Dave if he'd take some pictures of the encounter. He got caught up in his duties and deaf in one ear so he didn't hear Ward call to him. Ward finally poked him in the shoulder, took his ice stick and pushed down on it - it went all the way down into open water. Dave was three feet from the edge of the ice. Thank goodness I wasn't aware of what was happening and thank goodness for Ward.

It's time to leave so the other group can have their turn (they had two six passenger helicopters which took two trips each to accommodate the 20 people).

This afternoon we took a ride to another island where we had lunch and afterward went for a dogsled ride. The dogs bark their heads off because they just want to run. One group was so eager to go that they just took off without their driver or passenger. I don't know how they caught them but the driver took off after them on foot. The islands are very French and very few people speak English so conversing with the driver was difficult. I was in the lead sled and, at one point, he stopped and made me understand that he wanted Dave to trade sleds with me. The lead sled had nine dogs, the next two had seven and the last had eight. Since I am lighter than a man, the other sleds were having trouble keeping up. We took off again, making several stops to enjoy the scenery as well as giving the dogs a rest. It was great.

We had a nice dinner in a French (what else) restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed our adventures.

We were slated to be in the second group today so had breakfast and enjoyed a slide show on photography. We suited up for our next expedition to the ice and took off. We were in the lead helicopter and, after the second one took off, they called to say they were having pressure problems and had to turn back. Because of the low ceiling, we couldn't fly very high which made it more difficult to see the ice, which didn't look very promising. They did find one patch with one baby on it and we landed. There was just four of us on the ice and I managed to get very close to the seal. I almost touched it but he didn't seem very receptive, so I didn't want to harass it. We didn't stay long so another group could have a chance to see the seals. Before leaving the ice, Ward would spray the ice with orange paint so they wouldn't visit the same seals too often.

The next day we heard that Ward saved another of our fellow travelers. They were on the ice and he heard it crack. He saw one lady was on the piece of ice that was breaking away and it was about to go under the larger ice pan . . . he grabbed her and dragged her over to the other side. One minute later and her legs would have been crushed between the two pieces of ice. Scary!!! He told everyone to get to the helicopters and they took off safely.

The next day we were socked in and nothing would be flying so we took of to see some artisans. The first one made sculptures out of sand and his work was wonderful. The second carved alabaster and I've never seen such creative work. The only thing we bought was a stuffed baby harp seal and we named him "Sealvester". It takes so little to make me happy.After lunch we went snowshoeing for the first time. It was easier than I thought it would be and we really enjoyed our trek through the woods. My only complaint is that we could have walked longer. We really enjoyed it.

This is our last day in the Magdalens and the first group took off to see the seals. They came back and said the ice wasn't good so our final trip had to be cancelled. It turned out that there was a storm in Newfoundland which broke up all the ice.

Since we couldn't fly, we went for a tour of the islands. All the houses are painted in beautiful colors and it's very picturesque. This is a fishing village and lobster fishing is their mainstay. We had our farewell dinner then boarded our planes for the trip back to Halifax and our trip home the next day.

After our great five days in the hinterlands, we left at 12:30 for our trip home from Halifax. Smort saw that our flight would be ½ hour late and we boarded at that time. We taxied a short distance and I noticed they put down the flaps and the engines shut down. They said there was bad weather in NYC and we were to wait on the tarmac for about an hour. After about an hour and a half, we took off for NY. We arrived at Kennedy and while we were on the bus to customs, the pilot heard we were going to Raleigh/Durham and the plane we were on was the one we would be taking. He said he'd stall for us so we could make the connection.

It took over ½ hour to get our bags and send them through to our next flight. We ran like crazy from terminal 8 to terminal 9 to get to our flight. Some jerks butted in front of us because they had a 7:00 flight (which gave them 20 minutes), our flight had already been called. Tempers flared. We finally got to the gate (there were 4 of us) and they had given up our seats. They found two seats and we let the other couple take them because R/D was their final destination and we didn't have a prayer of making our connection.

AA put us up in a hotel and gave us a voucher for dinner. They also booked us on a direct flight to St. Louis, but it was at LaGuardia. We had to take the Sky Train to a station where we could got a shuttle to our hotel. Luckily, we were the last ones on and had no luggage (it was happily flying to R/D) so we were the first in line at reception (the bus was full). We asked if they had toothbrushes and paste, which they did. Got to our room and immediately went down to eat (It's about 7:30 p.m. by now). This hotel is the one that all stranded passengers are sent to by the airlines and they have a food/salad bar as well as a menu. The food allowance was $10 each but our agent allowed for 3 people, so we had $30. We got soup and salad and it was probably the worst food I've ever eaten (even worser than mine). The waiter didn't even ask if we wanted something to drink.

We had to be up at 4:00 a.m. to catch our plane so we told the desk clerk that we'd need a cab to take us to LaGuardia at 4:30. I had to sleep in my hooded sweatshirt and wear the same clothes the next day. We didn't even shower and got downstairs and had to wait over 20 minutes for the cab, even though the guy at the desk called them twice. The only good thing was a girl came down that also had to get to LaGuardia and she was on an expense account, so we shared the cab and it didn't cost us anything.

One good thing about Kennedy and LaGuardia, they make our St. Louis airport seem nice. They are disgusting. I hate New York . . . .

We finally got home and went to baggage services to see where our luggage might be. It was resting happily in R/D. We had to give the clerk all kinds of information about them and, as luck would have it, she was a trainee and screwed things up badly. We were there for over 40 minutes . . . . sigh.

With all our travels, we've been lucky that this sort of thing has never happened at the beginning of a trip. We do try to arrive a day early when we travel to avert any disasters beforehand. Happily, this was at the end of a great trip, and it didn't diminish the fun we had in the Magdalen Islands.

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