Wednesday, September 9, 2009

New Toy

I had to drive our son downtown last night, to the far side of the harbour for sea cadets. It's a Tuesday night ritual we've gotten used to the past year. On the downtown side, I noticed that there was a cruise ship docked. This isn't unusual as we get a dozen or so a season. Newfoundland is a bit off the beaten track, but I think some ships passing to or from Europe put it on the schedule for a visit.

When I got home I mentioned it to my wife who said, "Maybe you can see it on Harbour cam at the CBC web site." Hmm...nobody told me there was a camera taking pictures of our scenic harbour every 5 minutes. So I visited the web site and, sure enough, there is a Harbour cam situated on the Rooms (the provincial museum sitting high above the downtown core.)

This is probably of no interest to anyone but me, but I'll throw it out there anyway...the following reference about St. John's, and its harbour, is courtesy of our friends at Wikipedia.
"On August 5, 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed the area as England's first overseas colony under Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I. At the time, he found 16 English ships with 20 French and Portuguese vessels using the harbour; at the time, settlement had developed on the north side of the harbour. There was no permanent English settler population, however, and Gilbert was lost at sea during his return voyage, thereby ending any immediate plans for settlement."
It's funny that the region was claimed by the English, yet the people here are descended mainly from Irish immigrants.
This is yet another case of a guy playing with a new toy at his disposal (I prefer to think of it as promoting my city to the world population.) The first photo was from about 7pm last night, the second from about 7am this morning. The first is obviously was better as it shows the cruise ship (the Aidaaura, out of Germany...he,he,he, toys!)


17 comments:

Aaron Polson said...

Man, I love the view. Mind if we pop in for a visit?

Fox Lee said...

What a pretty harbor! If you keep checking the camera, maybe it will catch some skinny dippers ; )

Cate Gardner said...

Gorgeous view.

Katey said...

Wow, so gorgeous. I always love historical tidbits, and I'm afraid my Canadian history is a pathetic thing. I'm inspired to remedy this now...

Rebecca Nazar said...

Very nice, the community all tucked in like that.

Laura Eno said...

St John is actually on my list of places to cruise to...when I'm rich and penning my novels from my stateroom balcony. I have it all planned.

Beautiful harbor!

Alan W. Davidson said...

Glad that you all like the harbour view. I think that I'll put together a post later in the month describing this place where I live (still getting used to it after 3 years).

Aaron-Our door is always open. That's why we got a 4 bedroom house: to accomodate all the visitors.

Natalie-If it pleases you, I will go to one of the building rooftops, strip naked and wave to the camera for 5 minutes until I'm picked up (by the police).

Cate & Rebecca-Glad that you like the view. We wish that we lived downtown, but the property cost down there are outrageous.

Katey-I wouldn't feel bad about the lack of knowledge of Canadian history, they hardly taught any to us back in school. Keep in mind, Newfoundland was a Btitish colony (ie. not part of Canada) until 1949, when it became the last province to join Confederation. There's a bit of an 'independence streak' about here.

Fox Lee said...

Woot!

Danielle Birch said...

It's a fantastic view, what a gorgeous harbour.

Anonymous said...

And to think, a few webcams set up in Poland during the thirties and an entire world war might have been averted.

Just something to ponder.

Alan W. Davidson said...

Laura-Sounds like a great way to use up some of the money you'll make writing...I figure the odds of that working for me is about the same as winning a lottery!

Nat-You're a wicked woman...

Danielle-The beauty is that the view always seems to be changing.

Anton-I'm pondering...that was a very deep thought, by the way. You must have some awesome views along the Irish coast.

Unknown said...

I would love to visit sometime.

Anonymous said...

I was just assuming your local government had set up the webcam to get early warning of an assault by German tourists on your beaches. The mine-laying dolphins appear to have taken care of it over-night, so the system must be working.

Alan W. Davidson said...

Jeremy-The doors would be open in your honour.

Anton-Ha! That's funny. I understand that they did have a problem with German U-boats during the war. Sadly, the beach tourism isn't top priority as there is very little sand. The nick-name of this island is "The Rock."

Anonymous said...

It's so gorgeous! I miss that sort of view. It's not the same looking out into the gritty streets of the city. Boo, hiss! Let's all move to Newfoundland!

Sylvia Dickey Smith said...

I'm interested, and I found your story fascinating! Of course I live in Texas and Newfoundland is off in never never land. So I love learning about far away places. Thanks for sharing a slice.

Alan W. Davidson said...

Mercedes-You know it's funny, but I grew up in Victoria and had a tremendous view around me all the time. But I paid no attention to it. I didn't appreciate it until I moved to the "gritty streets" of Vancouver.

Sylvia-Glad that you enjoyed it. I'm sure that Texas is beautiful in its own right. I once drove from LA back to Ontario, but only caught the top of Texas on HWY 40.