Friday 19 August 2011

Day 94: St. Margaret's Bay to Kingsburg (The Pirate's Revenge)

One blog follower to another:
"Are they still in Moncton?"
"No, I know they are not still in Moncton, but I don't know where they are."

Yes we admit to a bit of skullduggery but the company of five was on a mission of subterfuge and plunder, going underground on Saturday, August 13 and morphing into marauding pirates. So as to hide our plot from the victims, it became important to disguise our progress on the blog lest they suspect we were up to pirate mischief. We apologize to our innocent followers who may have been confused by our erratic postings. Why pirates? Why August 13? We will give you a very abridged bit of backstory to set the scene.

Our good friends Cate and Leon were married on August 13, 2010. They are wonderful people and exquisite planners who planned an amazing, perfect wedding. So WarPoTay and several other accomplices felt that a bit of chaos was needed to add an air of reality to this perfect wedding on the beach at Kingsburg Nova Scotia. One year ago, two pirates showed up coming in to the beach in a canoe from the mother ship, uninvited in the afternoon. They dramatically delivered a warning note in a bottle to the bride and groom. They should "Expect Chaos" that night. That evening more pirates invaded the reception, took over the hall, tied up the bride and groom and made them overcome a series of challenges to prove the appropriateness of their marriage. The pirates succeeded and chaos was wrought on the wedding. But alas, chaos was also wrought on the pirates as one older pirate tore his achilles tendon during the afternoon caper while sprinting on the beach. As a result the pirates since that time thave been looking for the opportunity for revenge. The opportunity availed itself recently when the WarPoTay Adventures were invited to the Cate and Leon anniversary dance in the exact same locale one year later (today, August 13). The Adventurers officially declined the invite several weeks ago saying they would not be finished the trip in time. We then proceeded to hide our tracks with the blog in the past few days in hopes of convincing Cate and Leon that in fact they were too far away to make the party. Back to the story of our attack...

Pirates need to eat well so we started the day with a magnificent breakfast with Susan and Bob in St. Margaret's Bay (we hope they do not get into trouble for providing tasty provisions to the pirates). Our path during the day was carefully crafted to stay off roads where we might be sighted by other party goers who would know us, or worst of all by Cate and Leon.


We did the first 35 km on a beautiful off road, bike path with magnificent views out over St. Margaret's Bay. We were safe from prying eyes. When the path started to deteriorate in quality we headed to the smaller, hilly, coastal road, crossing picturesque South Shore rivers and harbours.




Sometimes the best cover involves being in the open while blending into the landscape, so we chose a lunch spot in a waterfront park in the community of Western Shore where large numbers of people were along the roadside waiting for a parade to start. Things were smooth until the very end of lunch, when disaster nearly struck. We could see the parade forming and tuning up, and knowing it was approaching 2 pm (a logical start time}, we figured we had 10 minutes to finish lunch and get out ahead of the parade or else we would be stuck behind it. Given it was a long parade, being stuck behind it could wreck our tight arrival schedule since we had 45 km left going into the wind to bike to Kingsburg. Things seemed fine as Ginny and Leah went to throw out the lunch garbage just prior taking off ahead of the parade. But the other three pirates waited and waited, watching from a distance as the pair belaboured over the garbage can and the bagpiper at the start of the parade started piping such that the parade start seemed imminent. More time passed... how long could it take to separate garbage, recycling and compost into their respective bins?... More time passed... Yet they remained despite more bagpipe notes and our now frantic calls... "Ginny, Leah, we have got to go!" The others got on our bikes and called one more time. Finally Ginny and Leah returned back to the bikes, leaving the garbage bins behind. What had been the problem?... Why did it take 10 minutes to separate the garbage? Finally Pirate Ginny fessed up during the afternoon ride. She had dropped her knife (a key weapon for a pirate) in the compost bin with the lunch compost. So Ginny and Leah were trying to unobtrusively (not so successful) fish out the compost as the heavier knife had fallen in deep. Phew, they finally retrieved the knife and we got out of Western Shore just barely before the start of the parade.



We biked through the afternoon along beautiful inlets and waterways to Kingsburg, with a stop along the way in Lunenburg to improve our pirate costumes at Frenchies and to strengthen our bellies with ice cream. We arrived at our safe house just off the road before Kingsburg by 5:15 pm. Marc and Maureen were not there but said we could cook dinner and costume and arm ourselves at will for the invasion (Thank you M&M for supporting this pirate caper). 6:45 pm, all was set and it did not seem anyone had caught wind of us. We slowly biked the last kilometre. We quietly rolled down the last hill behind the trees to see what would confront us... would everyone already be in the barn for the start of the dance lessons (not a good scenario for a pirate bike invasion)? Would they still be outside?... We peered out around the trees... Perfect, everyone was outside finishing dinner around the house... We instantly shifted into our fast downhill gears and attacked with a roar, flags flying and weapons glistening in the evening sun... Total surprise!


We jumped off our bikes, threatened the party with plunder, and finally agreed to the alternative of partying if they would provide the beer and dance music (Thank you Cate and Leon!). Having executed our surprise elegantly, we had redeemed our image from the self-inflicted chaos of a year ago.


Distance: 98.21 km
Time on bike: 5:33:45
Average speed: 17.6 km/h
Distance from Vancouver: 7520 km
Start: 9:30 am
End: 6:45 pm
Wind: southwest (light against)
Conditions: sunny


Cheers
- The Warpotay Team

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