Day 115
Today we decided to take chance on an excursion to a few small islands located right alongside the US border. The islands that I am referring to are Deer, and Campobello Islands, located along the southwestern part of New Brunswick. When I first mapped this as a possible day trip, I had a thought of possibly taking the Rv through the US border located on Campobello. If I was to take this path, I would cut a great deal of driving off the journey compared to possibly heading to the Calais border entry. The only scary thing would be the two small jumper ferry’s we would need to take to reach Campobello Island.
The day was expected to be sunny with a high reaching 27, with no destinations planned that included leaving the truck, we decided to bring the pups along for the journey. The drive to the ferry was only an hour and a half from Sussex, passing through Saint John along the way. I was a little apprehensive on what to expect when we arrived at the ferry, the website said it was a free service to Deer Island and then $32.00 to cross over to Campobello. As we approached the wharf I noticed four cars in a line along the side of the road with a sign saying stop here… so I did.
We did not wait long before the ferry pulled in, quickly dropping its front platform and allowing the vehicles loaded to began driving off, they did’nt even tie up the ferry before doing this. Once the ferry was unloaded they seemed to reposition it and then sounded their horn. At this time, the vehicles in front of me began the decent down the hill and onto the three lane platform of the ferry. An operator was on the deck directing what lane to take as you drove on. Once the ferry was full, it quickly departed the wharf. The travel time to Deer Island was twenty minutes. They began lowering the platform just as they pulled up, once the boat stopped an operator directed the farthest lane to debark, followed by the other two.
The island certainly had some scenic sections of road as we drove to the southern tip of the island. Once there, we checked out a possible campground if we felt brave enough to take the Rv onto the ferry. The campground was certainly secluded and surrounded with beautiful views. One surprise attraction was the Old Sow Whirlpool located just off the shore by the campground. The Old Sow Whirlpool is the largest tidal whirlpool in the Western Hemisphere. The Old Sow has been know to produce smaller whirlpools surrounding the Old Sow along with standing waves, upwellings that may spout several feet into the air, and up to seventeen foot trench-shaped depressions in the water, something you definitely don’t want to kayak around.
During our time exploring the beautiful beach, we watched a few dolphins swim past and shortly after that a seal popped it’s head up close to the shore as it slowly worked it’s way around the southern point. It was getting close to 2:00 when we finished exploring Deer Island and figured we would skip the second ferry as it comes every hour and we just missed the 2:00 departure. As we passed the loading section for the ferry to Campobello, I noticed it was just a large barge with a tug attached to the side of it, giving more leverage to drive into the US on dry land.
Once we reached the ferry, we took our position in line and began to wait. The ferry was just arriving and was proceeding to offload the vehicles onboard, I even watched a full sized cement truck drive off, so the weight of the Rv certainly would not be an issue. Once the Ferry was unloaded and everyone in line was waiting for the horn, some idiot drove right past the lineup and down onto the ferry! We were in total disbelief… the vehicle disappeared from view once it drove onto the ferry, but we could see the captain leave the control room above and head down to the deck. A few seconds later we watched the car back off the ferry, turn around, and head to the back of the line… buy that captain a drink I say! Once we reached the other side we slowly made our way back home.
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