| The Burin Peninsula is an amazing drive. The scenery | | | | hoisting the men up to safety, they were able to |
| constantly changes. We stayed at Golden Sands | | | | save 186 personnel. 203 perished in the oil slick |
| Camp Ground on beautiful Golden Sand Lake outside | | | | freezing waters. Many of the townspeople suffered |
| of Marystown. The lake, fed by two salmon rivers, is | | | | frostbite themselves and other injuries. They took |
| about four miles in diameter and three feet deep for | | | | the sailors into their homes, warmed them, ministered |
| at least ½ mile from the shore. Then it drops off | | | | to their injuries and sheltered them until help could |
| to about two hundred feet. The lake bed is sandy, | | | | come. A grateful US Government erected a hospital |
| which makes it a great place to do water hiking. We | | | | for the community. A trail, which we took, leads the |
| were fortunate to get the last space available. | | | | way to the wreck site. A hay building still has the |
| Wednesday, August 13, 2003 | | | | scars of the tar from the sailor’s clothing as they |
| Drove the loop around the Burin Peninsula. Our first | | | | rubbed against it to ascend the hills. |
| stop was St. Lawrence, a town which produced the | | | | Our next stop was Point May, from which we were |
| best soccer teams in the nation. The town is noted | | | | able to see France, over 1,800 miles away. Really we |
| for its flourspar deposits, which accounted for its | | | | saw France’s holdings in North America, the |
| prosperity, but also for the numerous deaths from | | | | islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, quite visible from |
| respiratory diseases and cancer, the later cause by | | | | shore.They can be reached by ferry. |
| radon gas present in the mines. A museum shows | | | | Off to Fortune to seek the ecological reserve. |
| the life of the miner. February 18, 1942 is a date that | | | | Reached by some precarious paths leading the cliff |
| will be forever remembered in US Naval history and in | | | | side rocks of slate the rocks immortalize fossils from |
| Newfoundland. The destroyer USS Truxton and her | | | | over 550 million years ago. Sea clams and worms are |
| supply ship USS Pollux ran aground at night in a | | | | just some of them visible in the rocks. A fossilized |
| blizzard. One seaman was able to scale the cliffs at | | | | dinosaur is also resting there too. |
| the shore and saw a light through the blinding snow. | | | | When we returned to Golden Sands, the beach was |
| It was one of the mine’s lights. The people from | | | | crowded with people. It was time for us to move on. |
| the town came out to rescue the sailors awashed in | | | | We spent the night at a truck stop on the TCH, ate |
| the seas and freezing to death on the shore. | | | | dinner in their restaurant (excellent food), and retired |
| Lowering themselves by ropes down the cliffs and | | | | to the evening. |