In the early 2000s, concerned that I would be working for another 15 years, I made an effort to travel more during my time off. A couple of those trips were small-ship excursions to Antarctica and Galapagos. As it turned out, I was given an early-out less than five years later, and the exotic trips ended. I was still roaming, but it was around the USA by car.

The past few weeks I've been on a trip that harkened back to those days of small-ship exploring. Sort of. It was a small ship, and it stopped at some ports we would never see otherwise, but it was not on the other side of the world. It was up the Maine Coast and down the St. Lawrence Seaway on a 180-passenger ship called the Pearl Mist. And the clientele was maybe a bit less rugged than on those earlier cruises. Average age was 78 and a large proportion of participants were not 100% mobile. We expected to see lots of lighthouses, wildlife and fall colors. We did see lots of lighthouses, but only some wildlife and fall colors. Here's a day-by-day:

Portland, Oct. 14: We arrived on time with two of our four bags. After an excellent lobster roll at Boone's Fish House, the hotel's shuttle driver took me back to the airport to retrieve our other two bags, which had made an unexplained detour to Newark.

Portland, Oct. 15: Before boarding the ship, we took a tour of Portland which included a stop at the iconic Portland Head Light House. After we boarded and got underway, I got a few more shots of that lighthouse from the ship. Overnight we cruised to Bar Harbor.

Portland Head

Bar Harbor, Oct. 16: At Bar Harbor, we took a lighthouse and wildlife excursion that didn't have much wildlife. I got a few very distant shots of a couple of eagles that ordinarily I wouldn't bother to post, but it is all I got. The lighthouses were much more cooperative than the eagles.

Bass Harbor Light

At sea, Oct. 17: We were supposed to stop in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, but according to the cruise line we got big-footed by a bigger ship and we lost our berth. So they switched to a stop in Yarmouth, NS and we were supposed to take a long bus ride to a national park, but (again, according to the cruise line) the Canadian authorities were too lazy to get out of bed to clear us through until afternoon, which made our timetable impossible. So we skipped southern Nova Scotia entirely and just cruised (slowly) to Halifax.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Oct. 18: We had a bus trip to beautiful Peggy's Cove, then roamed around the Halifax pier a bit. It would have been nice to explore the city a bit more, but we just didn't have time.

Peggy's Cove

At sea, Oct. 19: The highlight of the day was supposed to be the transit of the lock at Canso Canal which runs between the main island of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. But, once again (according to the cruise line) the Canadian authorities fell down on the job and were unable to provide us with the necessary pilot boat. So instead of having an evening available to us in Chalottetown, PEI, we cruised all the way around Cape Breton and didn't dock until morning. I got a few distant shots of two Cape Breton lighthouses we wouldn't have seen otherwise.

Charlottetown, PEI, Oct. 20: We spent all day here and went on two excursions. The first was the most disappointing of the entire cruise, the Solar Boat cruise around the harbor. If you want to hear about someone's vanity project, converting an old hull into "North America's largest solar-powered boat," this is the cruise for you. If you actually want to SEE SOMETHING, just skip this and take a stroll up the shore. The boat was cramped, and if you did want to take a picture of the Government House (about the sight on this sightseeing trip), the windows were covered with decals and there was no outside deck. The only positive note is we just signed up for the morning ride, not the evening dinner cruise. Being crammed into that little boat for dinner would have been a nightmare. After escaping confinement, we had a good lunch on the dock and walked up to see lovely St. Dunstan's Basilica before our afternoon excursion. This bus ride went to Point Prim Lighthouse and the Wood Islands family of lights (a lighthouse and two harbor lights that had been moved there). Point Prim was very prim and well maintained. Wood Islands could have used some paint, but in one of the harbor lights buildings, there was a dude selling excellent shortbread and cream cookies. Our final stop of the day was Rossignal Winery, a nice property.

Point Prim

Iles de la Madeleine, Quebec, Oct. 21: This is the type of stop that justifies taking a cruise. This group of islands is five hours from PEI by ferry. Our bus tour caught a couple of lighthouses, a distiller, a dairy farm/cheese factory, and a fish smokehouse. As we sailed away after our too-brief stay, I was able to get some images from the ship of places we visited. This was our first stop in Quebec and our first experience with people who did not routinely speak English.

Burgot Lighthouse.

Gaspe, Quebec, October 22: If the solar boat ride was the worst, the whale watch with Croisieres Baie de Gaspe from Forillon National Park was the best. The boat ride was wet, cold and bumpy, but we SAW THINGS, including whales, seals and a lighthouse high on a cliff. This excursion featured both the best and the worst tour guides of our trip. Paschal on the whale boat was a delight, and offered her gloves to one of the tourists whose hands were freezing. The bus guide told bad jokes and also subjected us to his singing of sea shanties, which apparently is a hobby of his. It reminded me of other occasions when I was in a captive audience, such as on a NYC subway car. I was looking around for icepicks to jam into my ears. At the end of the day as our ship sailed away, once again I got some shots of what we saw on shore, and also got a distant shot of Perce Rock, which was on a different bus ride. Hopefully one which did not have the tour guide singing sea shanties.

Whale tail

Baie Comeau, Quebec, October 23: None of the planned excursions appealed to us, so we hiked to the (former) church Sainte Amelie to see the frescoes. It's hard to believe the Catholics gave up this beautiful church, which is now a museum. We were back on the boat in the afternoon, just watching things float by in the harbor, including a Gray Seal and a Minke Whale.

Sainte Amelie

Saguenay, Quebec, October 24: I had hopes of seeing more whales near the junction of the St. Lawrence River and the Saguenay Fjord, but daylight did not cooperate at either end. Our bus tour took us through the countryside to a blueberry distillery (good) and a cheese factory (meh). For a fall colors cruise, we didn't see many colors. The reds were almost all gone in Saguenay. The Pearl Mist cruise prior to ours probably saw more colors, especially in Saguenay, but we had much better weather than they did. On our way out of the fjord, it was still daylight when we passed the statue Notre Dame du Saguenay high up on the cliff.

Notre Dame du Saguenay

Quebec City, October 25: Our flight home wasn't until mid-afternoon, so we took the tour through historic Quebec. Unbelievably quaint. Our bus driver did a heroic job navigating the narrow streets of the old city. Our final stop before the airport was Montmorency Falls, which I would describe as a heavily-developed park with a large waterfall. I wonder what it looked like in its natural state. I read this review on TripAdvisor which sums it up: "The waterfall is big but not terribly beautiful." Then it was on to the airport, getting groped by the Canadian equivalent of TSA, ending up in an endless death-march US Customs line in Chicago, and missing our next flight due to being stuck in this line for hours. There was no way to get home at that point, so we sought shelter.

Chicago, October 26: After a restful night of sleep at the O'Hare Hilton, we completed our journey home.

What I liked about this cruise was being able to see so much with relatively little effort. We went to bed in one place and woke up in a different one. No need to unpack and repack. But the schedule was hanging over our heads all the time, and there were places like Halifax and Saguenay where it would have been nice to have more time just to stroll around. The ship food was very good to excellent, and generally consisted of dishes we never or rarely have at home. (On a negative note, they put some sort of sauce on just about everything, including a twice-baked potato.) In these days when hotels have adopted the COVID excuse to stop cleaning rooms, it was a delightful change of pace to have our room attended to continuously throughout the day.

We were shadowed by a larger Norwegian Cruise Line ship for the first few days, but I think they were too big to go up the Seaway so we lost them there. I think the ship we were on was the perfect size, and I never want to end up on one of those big cruise ships. A small-ship cruise isn't for everyone, but for us it was just right.