2025-08-11: Big Tides and Forts

We woke up to the fog. We were on our way to Saint John, New Brunswick. We were scheduled to arrive at 12:15pm due to the tides. They have to wait until high tide to enter the harbor and dock. The fog followed us most of the way to Saint John. The fog seemed to lift as we were docking.

We gout ourselves up and headed to the International Market for some brunch before heading to the Symphony dining room for today’s tour. The same staff were manning the restaurant as yesterday. And unfortunately, they told the same jokes too. We waited for the ship to be cleared and then were sent ashore.

We entered the terminal building and headed just outside to catch our bus for our tour. We took a quick photo of where the ship was sitting in the water so we could compare to later in the day. Before long, we were on our way. Our first stop was only a few blocks away. The bus parked at King Square and we walked through the park to City Market. The square is laid out like the Union Jack. It has several monuments including one for John Young who, at 19 years old, tried to save a 10-year old that was drowning. He handed folks on shore one end of a rope and hopped into the water to save the child. When he made it to the child, he called to pull them in via the rope but they folks on shore didn’t hold onto the rope and both of them ended up drowning. They gave us about 20 minutes to peruse the market. Darrell bought a hat that he liked. After our 20 minutes were up, we were ushered back onto the bus.

We drove through a few areas of Saint John, including the building where Red Rose tea was founded. We made our way to Fort Howe. Unfortunately, it was just a drive by and we didn’t actually stop there. The next stop was the “reversing falls”. Due to the high tide fluctuation, the Saint John River reverses direction a couple of times each day. When tide is low, the river flows to the ocean. When tide is high, the ocean pushes the water back up the river. The river flow changes can be felt as far as Fredericton, which is over 100km away. We were there at high tide so saw the water flowing upstream.

After taking a few photos, we hopped back on the bus and continued to Carleton Martello Tower. It’s a tower that was built from 1813 – 1815 as a defensive installation for the War of 1812. Unfortunately, by the time the tower was complete, the war was over! It was also used as a defensive installation for World War 1 and 2. It has been closed since 2016 and has been under restoration since 2020. They added a concrete “fire command” structure on top of the tower during World War 2. The new structure was too heavy for the base of the tower and the walls started to bow out. In addition to water leaking into the walls over the years, the tower became structurally unsound so they had to close it. They’ve replaced the damaged walls, rebuilt the fire command structure with lighter materials, and hope to have the tower re-opened sometime next year.

Once we were done at the tower, they returned us to the ship. Instead of getting back onboard, we decided to go for a bit of a walk around the port area. We saw “Saint John High School” which is the oldest continuously publicly funded high school in Canada. It was built in 1932. We popped into a couple of souvenir shops and made our way back to the terminal. They have a “container village” beside the terminal that has a bunch of food stalls and shops. We poked through them and then made our way back onboard the ship.

We hung out for an hour or so on the ship. Darrell and Amanda decided to grab some dinner on land instead of on the ship. The kids wanted to hang out on the ship, so we split up. We (Darrell and Amanda) disembarked the ship again and walk a couple of blocks to a pub called Big Tide Brewing Co. A large Collette tour was leaving the pub as we entered. We each ordered a seafood platter to eat and Darrell tried on of their in-house beers. The meal included shrimp, scallops, cod, and clams. It was quite enjoyable.

After dinner, we walked the streets of Saint John. We found some old buildings and churches to admire. We also walked along the boardwalk to enjoy the views. The fog started to roll in again as we made our way back to the ship. We took another photo to compare where the ship was sitting in the water now before we got back onboard.

Once onboard, we relaxed for a few minutes before making our way to the theatre for the evening show. Tonight’s show was a rock and roll singer called Stephanie Hodgdon. She called her show “She Will Rock You”. She had a good voice and sang several famous rock songs including songs from the Rolling Stones, Chicago, Elvis, and Johnny Cash.

We walked around on deck for a few minutes after the show before returning to our cabin and calling it a night.