This was our last day in Nova Scotia (and Canada) for the trip, and we spent it on excursions to Lunenburg and Mahone Bay (a nearby town).

Lunenburg was settled mostly by German immigrants enticed by the English to come and take over land (and houses and farms) which were owned by the Acadians (French settlers) before the English expelled them. It became a hub of fishing activity (and still is) and ship-building, using timber from the area around Mahone Bay.

They don’t have a dock large enough for the Pearl Mist, so we anchored offshore and took a tender into town, passing lighthouses and ships along the way.

Our first stop was the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic (a former cannery) on the waterfront. The third floor is largely devoted to the Bluenose, the pride of Canada – a working fishing boat which won many international contests in the early 20th Century. Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy to take good photos of the exhibit, but here’s a very small taste.

There were many other exhibitions at the museum, including ones on ship models, Black Nova Scotians in nautical careers, and life on a fishing boat, but I’ll leave this section with the oddest thing I saw in the museum.

We took a short walk around Lunenburg (a UNESCO World Heritage Site because its traffic grid is unchanged from the 1700s) before boarding the coach, which took us around Lunenburg before heading off on the 15-minute drive to Mahone Bay.

The bus we took was unusually comfortable; I was surprised to see that it had signs saying that wearing seat belts was required by California law. But all was explained when I took a closer look.

Mahone Bay has an annual Scarecrow Month (like Charlottetown), but this one has more heart than the one in Charlottetown did.

Mahone Bay is famous for its “Three Churches” along the waterfront.

We only had an hour in town; there were museums we could have explored and shops we could have visited (and it was my last chance to hit a Tim Horton’s on this trip), but we just walked around and enjoyed the atmosphere and the scarecrows.

And then it was back on the bus to enjoy the fall colors along the road to Lunenburg, followed by a quick trip on the tender to the Pearl Mist.

We were the last group to return to the ship, which departed for Portland, Maine about five minutes after we were on board. We should be there in the early afternoon tomorrow.

We arrived in Halifax at 8am today and were off the ship for our first excursion (“Halifax Highlights” by bus) thirty minutes later.

Our first stop was the Halifax Public Gardens.

We drove through the Halifax Citadel on our way to our next stop, the Fairview Lawn Cemetery where many victims of the Titanic and the Halifax Explosion are buried (along, of course, with thousands of other Haligonians).

Our last stop for the morning was the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, which has a terrific exhibit on the Titanic (including many artifacts), as well as exhibits on Cunard, the Age of Sail, maritime communications, and much more. I could have spent a few more hours there, but that would have meant missing our next excursion (and lunch!).

We drove to the southern end of the harbour so we could see our first lighthouse of the day and then returned to the ship.

The second excursion was “Picture Perfect Peggy’s Cove”. Much of the drive covered the same ground as our morning excursion, but I was struck by the horses when we passed the Halifax Lancers field.

The scenery was beautiful all the way and only got more interesting as we reached Peggy’s Cove itself.

We finally tore ourselves away from the lighthouse and spent the rest of our time exploring the village and shops – twenty minutes wasn’t long enough.

And then it was back to the bus for the trip back to Halifax and the ship.