we spent most of the morning in the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, learning more about the part Halifax played in recovering bodies from the Titanic disaster,...... and a few years later the Halifax Exposion (1917), when two ships collided in the narrowest part of Halifax Harbour. On the deck of the Mont Blanc, was benzol, and it soon seeped into the hold which had picric acid, TNT, and gun cotton. The Mont Blanc exploded and sent it flying one mile into the sky. The blast destroyed everything within half a mile, and damaged buildings within a mile. The blast knocked over stoves and ignited the wooden houses. Soon the whole north end was a blaze. The next day one of the worst snow blizzards in years hit the city. Property damage $35 million.......
and the exhibit all about pirates ... if you were caught stealing, you were killed, dipped in tar and hung in these cages at the entrance of the harbour to warn other pirates, what would happen to them !!!
a few more things about the Corvette .... HMCS Sackville, Crewed primarily by reservists, the corvettes formed a core of the ocean escort groups defending convoys of merchant vessels from enemy U-boats (submarines). On any given day more than 100 merchant vessels, carrying vital food and war supplies departed Halifax and other East Coast ports for Britain. In August 1942 SACKVILLE was part of a convoy that was attacked by U-Boats near the Grand Banks. During a 24 hour period, while defending the convoy she engaged three enemy submarines and put two out of action before they were able to escape. ....
Joe and I have been following another Canadian couple that left Halifax about a year ago,
SV BANYAN, Dave and Alex, on their Jeanneau 40 Sun Odyssay .... they flew home for a couple of months, their boat's in Grenada. It was so nice of them to look us up on the Halifax Waterfront and spend a couple of hour swapping stories and us getting all the good info on the anchorages near by.
Another coincidence, they know Paul and Sheryl Shard, from Distance Shores, and spend time this year with them !!!
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