We had a long day planned for Saturday! Joyce had identified a Geocaching Event taking place at a nearby diner and wanted to go. We often do this when we travel so that we can meet other geocachers! Well, it was a breakfast gathering at 9 AM. Now most of you will recognize that 9 AM is the approximate time we leave every morning….. Well, we were on our way about 8:30 and were still the last to arrive for the meeting of PEI geocachers! Had a nice breakfast, found a couple of trackable items and enjoyed good conversation about our favorite subject (well, after lighthouses…..). Enjoyed local egg sandwiches, coffee and tea. Gary even won one of the raffle drawings, but a new ammo box for caching was not a thing we needed in our inventory—we already have 3 at home! Declined the prize and it went to another local cacher who will make a new geocache for others to find.

We had a last minute change of plans for today based on the weather forecast. The area near where we are staying was predicting heavy rain and no sunshine. Not great for photography. The forecast for the East end of the island predicted less rain and fewer clouds. Away we went in search of the lighthouses and geocaches in that directions. And we were not disappointed because there were many intervals of blue sky and no rain! We drove 280 miles to cover this end of the island.

We did lighthouses and geocaches as follows:

1. Prim Point Lighthouse 11 AM
2. Geocache at 11:45 in an evergreen tree
3. Wood Islands Lighthouse and Range Light (plus a geocache) 12:15 PM (3 photos)
4. Cape Bear Lighthouse (smaller one) 1:00 PM (photo)
5. Panmure Head Lighthouse 2:00 PM
6. Panmure Head View LH with horses 2:15 PM
7. Sorius Lighthouse 4:00 PM
8. East Point Lighthouse 4:30 PM (photo)
9. Shipwreck Point LH 5:45 PM
10. Covehead Harbour Light 7:00 PM (photo)

After a long drive back from the east end of PEI, we decided to take the recommendation of our Airbnb host to have dinner at the Island Stone Pub in Kensington. Arrived there without a reservation at 8 PM (closing at 9). Asked the hostess if there was a table for two available. After checking we were shown a table and had a great waitperson To no one’s surprise, Gary had fish and chips. Joyce opted for the seafood roll (lobster and crab) without fries and committed to eating some of Gary’s!! Just had to have some of those PEI potatoes in one form or another.

Arrived back at our “lighthouse” at 9 PM and spent a bunch of time trying to create and send this blog without success! So, on to bed and worry about the blog tomorrow! Yep, with no internet and spotty cell service the blog is more difficult to compose and send. This time, it was getting the photos from the phone to the computer to the blog! So, it is late getting this blog post out!

Geocache very close to Wood Island Lighthouses

We were surprised to see road signs for Amish farms. The sign is different than in the US. Finally saw mowing by an Amish man and along the same road a farm with a regular buggy.

East Point Lighthouse was a popular place today

Cape Bear and must love the playground in the area

Wood Islands Lighthouse front side

Wood Islands has two lights for the price of one, a regular and range light

Covehead Harbour Light in PEIs only National Park seems to be an active light

REMINDER: ALL PHOTOS IN THE BLOG ARE FROM OUR PHONES!!

Today started with another foggy morning! Breakfast from supplies and on our way at 9:15 to see the lighthouses and grab a few geocaches along the west cape of Prince Edward Island! We drove 200 miles to cover just this little part of PEI. PEI is about the size of the state of Delaware (our home state). Our trip looked like this:

The first stop was a small range light that was not too important and shrouded in fog. Then we stopped to photograph a potato field with rising fog (no photo on the phone).

Next was the town/village of Alberton where we photographed the library because it had a geocache inside. Spoke to the very nice library lady who gave us a small hint! Also stopped at local Canadian bank to finally get some Canadian dollars. Still have them unused!

On to the lighthouses. We photographed these:

1. Northport Range light (no phone photo) and Cascumpeque Light in the distance
2. Tignish Lighouse
3. North Cape Lighthouse
4. Howards Cover lighthouse and harbour
5. West Point Lighthouse
6. Cape Egmont Lighthouse ( here we also visited the Lot 15 area that our genealogy friend Regina’s relatives arrived there in about 1815). And found a virtual geocache called the Horses Back geology site.

Cascumpeque Lighthouse

Big Tignish Lighthouse

North Cape Lighthouse

Howard’s Cove Lighthouse (on a bluff-no need to be tall)

West Point Lighthouse

Cape Egmont Lighthouse

Horse’s Back Formation

We also made a detour to see the Potato Museum. The cash crop on PEI! And to see the Bottle House a kitschy PEI attraction.

One of hundreds of potato fields, some with small green leaves

The outside was enough, we had more on our list

Returned to our lighthouse by way of the Esso gas station to refuel and the Sobey’s market to resupply the food and wine stocks. Got back to call it an day at 7:15 PM. Dinner from new supplies (pasta, red wine). OH, there is no TV here! They have only 1 channel at the Airbnb and it has no interesting programming—no weather or news! Get our local Philadelphia radios station (WRTI) via phone app. Great for bedtime listening and at coffee hour in the morning.

Thursday June 15, 2023

This post is coming to you using email to write instead of our usual blog software and using the hot spot in Ms. Merlot to get internet access. Another experiment in communication! Else, there is none here!

Today we drove 274 Km (170 miles). We had a lot of stops, but we got all of our steps today (11,000 plus)!!!

We left the Comfort Inn in Moncton around our usual hour (9:15 AM) and headed east to Prince Edward Island. First stop, the nearby Shell station to fee Ms. Merlot. It took 36.5 Liters and cost CD59 (9.6 Gal, $44.25 US). Then we were on our way to cross the Confederation Bridge stopping at a nature center to visit a lighthouse, claim both a virtual and regular geocache.

Confederation Bridge (8 miles) to PEI

Had to hike .5 miles to get to Jourimain Point Lighthouse

A replica lighthouse welcomes folks to PEI

Two Borden Range lights

Just the Borden Front Range

Once on the other side, we made a point to get geocaches and lighthouses together if possible.

Victoria Range Light

Blockhouse Point Light Station

Blockhouse from the front

Cache near Blockhouse Light

North Rustico Harbour Lighthouse

New London Lighthouse (after a short hike on the beach)

We arrived at our lighthouse Airbnb for the next 3 nights. Around 5 PM. Enjoyed dinner from supplies and the views from the 3rd floor!

It was not a real lighthouse, but was built by the owner from material taken from the Canadian TV show “Emily of New Moon” by the same author who wrote Anne of Green Gables. First floor is kitchen, bathroom, sitting room. Second floor bedroom with small closet. Third floor is a sitting area with fantastic bay view. Clouds moved in before 9:01 sunset or we would have sent photos. Maybe another evening…

“Our Lighthouse”

Second floor bedroom – Cozy