Taking the watery short-cut to Canada

The marine weather forecast we saw on television as we packed for our cruise to Nova Scotia said seas in the Gulf of Maine would be five to eight feet and an east wind would blow at 30 to 40 knots. But, we’d looked forward to the trip for months and so this detail didn’t worry us.

It should have.

I’ve been recalling that cruise two years ago now that M/V SCOTIA PRINCE has ended her winter layover in Portland Harbor and is again sailing to Nova Scotia.

We were heading off for a week-long motor tour of the Canadian province and, to save hundreds of miles and a dozen hours of driving from southern Maine, we were taking the direct sea route. The 12,000-ton, 461-foot-long cruise ship-car ferry operated by Scotia Prince Cruises would carry us overnight from Portland, near our home, to Yarmouth and return us a week later, in style.

And, I would be reliving an ocean cruise I’d taken 70 years before. I was 11 years old when I went with my father, mother and brother aboard H.M.S. ARAGUAYA of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company from a Hudson River pier in New York to Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence and the fiords of the Saguenay River.

ARAGUAYA – a graceful, 17,250-ton steamship with a black hull, one yellow funnel and tall masts fore and aft – sailed out of New York harbor on July 5, 1930, as storm clouds of the Great Depression darkened. Within months my dad, who ran the office of the Royal Mail’s New York agent, would close its doors and join the nation’s 4 million unemployed.

For that brief time at sea, though, Dad gave us a last glorious holiday. We dined at the captain’s table and sat on deck wrapped in steamer robes sipping beef bouillon served by white-jacketed stewards. We visited the bridge, and I have a photograph of my father standing there, tall, erect, confident, not revealing his business worries. He looked like ARAGUAYA’S captain, not the accountant that he was.

I’ve loved ships and the sea ever since that brief, happy time.

We boarded SCOTIA PRINCE at Portland’s International Marine Terminal on a windy, rainy, early May night. The line’s brochures promised us a “Fun Cruise.” The ship, they told us, was “like a floating hotel, with attentive staff, full-service dining, a coffee shop, a gift store loaded with bargains, a full-size casino plus Las Vegas-style floor shows with live music, dancers, colorful costumes and much more.”

“Both legs of the trip feature bands, live music and other entertainment,” we were told. “Go for a stroll on deck. Take in a first-run movie or curl up with a good book. Whatever you choose to do, there’s always something going on aboard ship.”

And, in the vessel’s comfortable cabins, said a brochure, we would sleep well.

To do that we had booked a deluxe stateroom. It had a king-size bed, two portholes and a compact bathroom with a tub and shower.

After stowing our luggage, we went on deck, bundled against a cold, blowing rain, and watched as mooring lines were dropped and the ship, turned by her churning bow thrusters, eased out into the channel. Slowly at first and then with increasing speed we were under way out of the harbor in the dark.

We’d hope to stay on deck as SCOTIA PRINCE sailed past Portland Head Light but wind and rain drove us inside for dinner. As our meal progressed and as the ship sped farther out into the gulf, we felt her begin to heave and roll. We each quickly chewed down a motion-sickness pill and as the vessel’s motion increased, we chewed a second one.

We got through dinner, then staggered like drunks, feet spread wide, holding onto chairs and railings as we left the saloon to go on deck, only to be driven inside again by blowing salt spray. After a cursory visit to the duty-free shop, we gave up and, forgoing the delights of casino and floor show, we retreated shakily to our stateroom to try to read until sleep came.

But sleep didn’t come, as SCOTIA PRINCE rolled and pitched. Every few minutes she would smash into a wave and shudder and seem to slow. We tossed and turned restlessly all night. Clearly, the voyage wasn’t resembling my relaxed trip down the coast 70 years ago.

Next morning, woozy after the long night, we clawed our way up to the dining saloon, where a half-dozen other groggy passengers had assembled for breakfast. With waves breaking over her bow, Scotia Prince had slowed and would be an hour late making port.

But in Yarmouth our compact rental car was ready at the marine terminal and off we sped along Nova Scotia’s Acadian north shore. After we reached homey Mary’s Waterview Bed & Breakfast in Digby, we both slept until a dinner of delicious Digby scallops at the nearby Captain’s Cabin.

The rest of our trip went wonderfully and inexpensively, thanks to the cheap Canadian dollar. We found a delightful bed-and-breakfast inn, Angels Wrest, in Windsor. In Halifax we watched the firing of the noon cannon at The Citadel, dined in the chic Le Bistro, in the city center and slept at the motel-like Garden Inn.

Heading back along the south shore, we photographed picture-postcard Peggy’s Cove, and in Mahone Bay got the last room at the Heart’s Desire B&B and had a fine dinner at Mimi’s Ocean Grill next door. In Lunenburg, we watched the schooner BLUENOSE II being fitted out and in Shelburne, we stayed at the handsome 1785 Cooper’s Inn and savored a gorgeous dinner at Charlotte Lane, which had just won provincial restaurant-of-the-year honors.

Then at week’s end, after 611 miles of driving, we were in the Rodd Colony Harbour Inn back in Yarmouth, watching as SCOTIA PRINCE docked to take us home.

The rocky voyage from Portland forgotten, we looked forward to the daylong sail back to Maine. We would lounge on deck, enjoy the sun and the sea air and maybe see whales. And for the first two hours, as the Nova Scotia coastline receded behind the ship’s wake, we stretched out in deck chairs on the sun deck. I was back on our cruise on ARAGUAYA in these waters, playing deck tennis and shuffleboard and listening to a band made up of crew members playing “Swanee.”

But when we went below for lunch the hazy sun had disappeared, the sky had darkened, the wind had freshened and SCOTIA PRINCE began once more to roll. We made it through our meal and clambered out on deck, only to be turned back, once more, by stinging salt spray whipping off the crests of angry, gray waves.

From somewhere in the ship we heard a band playing, but with the deck dancing under our feet, we had no choice but to ignore the gaiety and retreat to our day cabin. There we hid for the remainder of the 11-hour voyage, trying in vain to nap. As before, I had fortified myself with seasick pills, but Bev, relying on a motion-sickness wristlet loaned by a friend, was getting increasingly queasy.

And so we spent the last hours of our holiday, prone in our bunks or peering out through a porthole at the leaden ocean. By nightfall, the ship’s motion had eased as we entered Portland harbor and docked. Then, huddled against a hard rain, we lumbered down the gangplank to inch through customs, joining fellow passengers in, gosh, the voyage was rough, and how seasick were you?

Nova Scotia was wonderful, and we’ll go back. But, next time we’ll avoid the Gulf of Maine in early May. Or, maybe we’ll drive – smoothly, all the way.

Raymond J. Blair of Cape Elizabeth is a somewhat retired journalist.