The Lobster "pond"

Tuesday August 8 2016

At 9 am we walked back to the Seafood processing plant just down the hill from the campground. We had a tour of the lobster storage, sorting and shipping operation. What was once a seasonal food is now available year round because lobsters are held in plastic crates submerged in a pool of ocean water chilled to 37 degrees. 

lobsters are placed one to a space in the tray

Lobster "pond" where they are held at 37 degrees for months before delivery

They are unable to move in the bins and not fed for months before being sorted, repacked in ice and delivered to your local seafood store as fresh catch. The pallet being sorted this morning yielded only about 50% live lobsters, the rest will be dumped in the ocean. Our guide said the number of lobsters who don't survive the storage is usually much lower.

Female on left, male on the right

The rest of the day there there were no scheduled activities. Millie and I, along with Clay and Rebecca went to tour a unique power generating plant. The Annapolis Tidal Generating Station utilizes the huge tidal flow of the Bay of Fundy to spin it's turbines.

Built over 30 years ago as a demonstration plant it still produces enough power for 4500 homes, but only twice a day for a few hours on the outgoing tide. Technology has advanced enough that they will soon have experimental power generating turbines on the seafloor that produce power on both the incoming and outgoing tides.

The orange section is the 29 foot diameter generator winding's

While at the power station we saw a flier for a farmers marker in Bridgetown so off we went on a 25km ride, to find only three vendors at the market. Not seeing any restaurants we then drove back to Annapolis Royal to Ye Olde Towne Pub, a restaurant recommended by our Wagon Master.

 We enjoyed our meal outside on the patio and then walked a bit on this end of town. Afternoon was for relaxing, that is whenever Maggie would let me. She was really wound up today and wanted me to play with her every time I tried to sit down to write this blog posting.

I was looking at a map this afternoon and noticed the Fantasy RV Tours route for tomorrows Journey took us on about ten miles of unpaved road. I decided that wasn't a very good idea and created my own alternate route on better roads. A few minutes ago a knock on my door informed me of an emergency drivers meeting this afternoon at 7:30. I guess someone else noticed the dirt road on the map, it will be interesting to see what alternative they come up with.