I arrived back in Newfoundland before Isy, as she was still in Ottawa while I now found myself in January Newfoundland. She would head home in a couple days, but she still had a fair amount of driving and ferry riding ahead of her.

A great idea struck me though - I could take the wintertime ferry for nine hours through rough North Atlantic seas, sleeping on the floor of the lounge to avoid paying for a cabin, in order to get over and have 24 hours in revitalizing Sydney without the cost of a hotel and a free cabin on the way back.

Oh, this would work.

And so, following work one night, Shelloo drove me up to the gas station which acts as the Corner Brook bus station with its small seating area, although everyone just sits in their cars and waits for the bus outside.

Climbing aboard the DRL and happily taking my seat, it was a thin crowd on this Thursday night. I sat back and smiled at the 3-hour ride ahead, which is a mode of transport I love, except that it's costly and slow in Newfoundland. At least heading to Port-aux-Basques to take the ferry, it's only $42 one way.

This cost was especially palatable tonight since the in-bus entertainment wasn't RV featuring Robin Williams like last time, but instead a DVD of a local guy playing his whole album in places like down by the beach in York Harbour and the above spot in obscure Bear Cove, which I was impressed he knew about.

The only other people on the bus were two women who sat near the front chatting with the ticket collector, so it was funny to sit halfway to the back and just have this music lamenting the loss of cod blaring as we roared through the dark, snowy night.

We landed in North Sydney right on time. Departing the ferry terminal into the frigid morning and walking all of 100 feet to the Tim Hortons, I still had over an hour before the city bus would be me to Sydney.

Walking around after breakfast, I found some different paths and abandoned houses I'd never seen before. This was nice and I was enjoying North Sydney enough that I briefly considered staying longer, but the bus only comes out here every 4 hours.

I wasn't hanging around North Sydney until 12:30.

Some guy actually came out of a nearby apartment complex thinking I was lost. And then when I told him that I was just killing time waiting for the bus, he started into various options of other bus stops and how to get to Sydney quicker.

Jeez dude, no, I was just looking around this abandoned house, maybe for an opening, while otherwise savouring this fine morning. Friggin' Atlantic Canadian helpfulness, lol.

Now BRN might be getting a bit old hat now in terms of boozing/QMJHL/county courthouses/mediocre skateparks, all in many of the same locales.

I'm about to throw you a curveball though: I decided against having Taco Bell this morning. I'd had my fair share of it while home in Ontario and that was only a week ago. I mean, I'm always off the island and never lamenting a Taco Bell deficit so this was clearly a smart decision⁰.

So instead I finally checked off one of the local Sydney restaurants, one that I often walk by because I always seem to end up on George Street out front of the Centre 200 when exploring Sydney.

In the end, the Indian food was fine. The lady was nice.

0 - I didn't have Taco Bell again until June. I'm dumb.

I cut across the street afterwards into Sydney's ode to the Iron Triangle, the neighbourhood of brake and tire shops in the shadow of Citi Field in New York.

Sydney's version is only a couple streets with about 6 businesses, but it's still one of the things I like about the Centre 200, that's it's right in Sydney and you can explore tire shops, creeks and homes all around their QMJHL arena.

Eventually I tired myself out with walking around, so it was time to head out to Membertou, the First Nations community to the south. This is where Isy has her preferred Cape Breton hotel & she had called ahead, letting them know that I might show up first and that she would take care of signing in when she arrived.

After wandering around for 6 hours, it was lovely to retreat into a room with a big, cushy bed. This was luxury that I don't usually treat myself to. A Hampton Inn? I only end up in places like this when I have flight cancellations and get a hotel voucher, lol.

Isy was worn out from the drive & decided to stay in tonight. So she dropped me off downtown and I was saved from calling a taxi or walking to the bus stop and riding said bus from outside Membertou.

Dropping me off on Falmouth Street in front of the local library, it was a short walk over to the Centre 200 for some QMJHL action.

Tonight the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles were taking on the Moncton Wildcats. There weren't too many players that were exciting in terms of making the NHL, but Cape Breton did have Egor Sokolov, who was ranked in the 95-100 range last year, but oddly went undrafted.

Watching Sokolov, it was clear that he wasn't a very fast man. He was big, had silky mitts and would get physical, but the skating needed lots of work.

More recently, he was picked 61st overall by the Ottawa Senators in 2020, and reading up on recent changes, Sokolov started eating better, dropping fat, adding muscle, and working with a skating coach that the Screaming Eagles brought on. And not only did he improve his skating by doing this, in the meantime he showed his character by also thinking it was irresponsible to fly back to Russia during the pandemic, instead hanging around Sydney to deliver groceries to immunocompromised families.

It's easy to make fun of the Ottawa Senators nowadays, but maybe Sokolov has it in him to make it to the show.

I was also excited by Brooklyn Kalmikov, who I thought must've been Cape Breton's other Russian import. That is until I looked at my game program and saw...that he was born in Terrebonne Quebec?

Looking it up, he wasn't even born in Terrebonne, he was actually born in St. John's Newfoundland! His father was a Russian drafted by Toronto back in the 90s, who played in St. John's for the Maple Leafs farm team of the time.

It's always annoyed me that Tie Domi's hometown is listed as Windsor, so I guess listing hometowns as birth places in the QMJHL is somewhat better?

I couldn't believe how quickly tonight's game was going. There were a few penalties, but the lack of offsides and icings made the game fly by.

Near the end it was 2-1 Moncton, and I jumped out of my seat when Cape Breton tied the game with 7 seconds left - not only because I usually get caught up in the home team's excitement and have a soft spot for Cape Breton by now, but just because I wanted to see more hockey.

My picture of Sokolov taking his turn in the shootout was only at 927pm, meaning that they played a whole game, plus overtime, and shootout in under 2.5 hours.

This meant I had a minute afterwards to stop at the nearby divey steak house that I like, especially since I figured Isy was sleeping.

One of these days I need to get a better picture of said Steel City Sports Bar, but it's no easy task in terms of the number of bright TVs, dark wood, dim lights, and heavy patronage.

Before I knew it, we were in line to get back on the ferry and return to Newfoundland.

Of all the times for the boat to run right on time, lol. We couldn't catch just a couple more hours on the mainland?

As Isy had purchased a cabin for the crossing, I lounged in comfort instead of the usual sleeping on the lounge floor with 13 surrounding TVs all playing The History Channel.

Sleeping away just to pass the time, I got up after a few hours and finally caught a glimpse of St. Paul Island, a lonely, grey blip of rock 24 km from Cape Breton Island and 71 km southwest of Cape Ray Newfoundland. For years, I'd thought of getting up in the middle of the night or taking one of those pleasant summertime day crossings, just to finally see this island, but it had eluded me through something like 20-25 crossings.

Intrigued with St. Paul Island because of how often I pass it by and its remoteness, I was also blown away by the thought of how it would be so hard to see every Nova Scotian lighthouse because of how you'd have to get out to St. Paul Island somehow. It's only in reading blog posts that I discovered that St. Paul Island is one of the top 100 places that amateur radio enthusiasts go to because of its unique call sign.

So after asking the Coast Guard for the required special permission to land on St. Paul Island, these HAM radio operators set off in a fishing boat with all of their radios and tents, sometimes wading in the water and then carrying up tons of equipment to the area around the lighthouse in order to camp for days and make radio contact. Who knew that amateur radio enthusiasts were so hardcore.

Myself, I was stuck watching St. Paul Island pass by for the 5 minutes I stood there and looked on in joy.

The remainder of the ferry and drive back to CB went by without note.

Riding the bus for 3 hours and taking the ferry for 9 hours at a cost of $87 total for 24 hours in Sydney? Easily worth it.