Back on the mainland (not really)

September 24, 2009

(written on board). we're aboard. The Atlantic Vision is a much newer ship than the Caribou that we came across on. We were away on time, and it's raining and there's a bit of a roll. We're in the Habana Room, which is a quiet area, except for the two couples playing cards. Can't figure out what they're playing, but it's 2 bucks a bet.

The lighthouse inn at Cape Anguille was excellent. We were the only ones there, in the four unit building. Literally, the only ones there - no owner or manager, just us. We should have taken more notice of the write-up when it said “operational lighthouse”. The light was not an issue at all; fairly directional, so it's not like it lit up our room. From where I was lying, I could see the light through the curtains. Kinda neat. However, at 2:45 am, the fog horn kicked in. Carol had said that they upgraded the sensor for the horn, and it doesn't need to be surrounded by fog to activate. Now it can pick up the fog as it rolls over the hill (mountain?). Every 30 seconds, the horn sounded for 3 seconds. It wasn't too bad, though, we were able to go back to sleep. We woke for good at 7:30, ate in the other building and headed out.

Moneca and Mazell Kolyvn's big rig is on board (they competed in GT as well), as is the Subaru that rolled on the Bobby's Cove stage. It's on a flatbed trailer with some other freight.

(written in Baddeck, NS)
An uneventful passage from NL to NS; smooth waters with minor rolling. We trundled on out to Baddeck, checked in at our accommodation, and went back into town for mussels, salmon and steak. We now have 3 days to cover the almost 2000 km back home. We're going to try for a bit of a visit in Quebec City on Saturday. So far we have done over 7000 km since we left 3 months ago - sorry, just feels like that long.

Will we go back to Newfoundland? Absolutely. Will we compete in Targa again? Who knows?

Back to Targa.

best stages - Gander by far. When we finished, after we got our time off the display, we were laughing and whopping; we were pumped! Garnish and Frenchman's Bay (reverse of Garnish) were good. Those stages were fast at the beginning and the end, with the tough in-town (in-village?) part. Running alongside the ocean, sweeping back and forth, up and down was good. Jane hit 138 km/h at one point to make up the time lost in the town.

A note about that speed. GT class is given a set speed to average, in this case, 3 speeds in the stage - 90, 62, and 93.6 in those respective sections. There was no way to hit that 62 through the village, so, to keep up to the overall average, we have to get up some speed. GT class has an outright maximum of 140 km/h; Moneca wondered when any GT class would hit that - now she knows. We were able to tell the max with our GPS, which has a resettable max speed display. We hit 85 in Fortune on a 52 km/h average stage.

The car.
No issues, except the tires rubbing on the fenders in bumps and corners. That was my error in getting a tire size too big for the offset Compomotive rally wheels. I had taken a hammer to the inside of the rear fenders after our day at Mosport DDT, but it still wasn't enough. Of course, we weren't running empty either. We had 2 spare tires, a box of tools, battery impact wrench, our travel bag (we didn't bother using the luggage truck), and our 'office' bag which had the computer, the route books, our extra camera paraphenalia, chargers, etc.
Back to the car. Tires were great in the rain, as I mentioned before. Brakes were good, new windshield was very helpful; really, the car was great; it did what we asked of it without too much complaint.

Bruce