Now that I’m committed to going, I need to figure out how to get there. The biggest issue is the ferries. More specifically the ferry that funs from Cartwright and Goose Bay. It departs only on Saturdays and Mondays going in that direction. That leg is on the critical path. Secondarily, the ferry that runs from North Sydney to Argentinia runs every other day. There’s another ferry crossing the Gulf of St. Lawrence — but that one runs three times a day.
The upshot of all this is that I want to give myself enough wiggle-room that I don’t miss a ferry. That would be a bad thing. If it puts me back another 5 days, that would put everyone in a sucky position.
After I get to Goose Bay, it’s just around 40 hours of road time to get back home — with no ferries blocking the way. Figure a week or so to get that final leg done.
Here’s a of tentative timelines to see how things work:
- Aug 5 evening: Leave Cleveland (first day or two are long transport days)
- Aug 10, Arrive @ North Sydney (33 hours road time, 5 days calendar time)
- Aug 10 @ 20:00 board ferry (The Smallwood)
- Aug 11 @ 11:00 get off in Argentinia
- Aug 15 (Saturday) by 19:00 arrive at Cartwright (21 hours road time, >4 days calendar)
- Aug 15 @ 19:00 board ferry (the Sir Robert Bond)
- Aug 16 @ 8:00 get off at Goose Bay
- Aug 23 arrive back home (43 hours road time, 7 calendar days)
If I miss either ferry, I still have a two-day buffer to catch the next one. If worse comes to worse I’ll hole up at a hotel in Cartwright and work remotely for a few days… LOL.
The same (roughly) can be pushed either a week or so forward or back.
Some of the considerations that went into this are some training that will be happening at work along with a wedding (Jerry and Sharon’s wedding to be specific) that I want to get to.
I think that this is a doable time-line and gives me the flexibility to screw up a bit without getting myself stranded in Cartwright.
Overall I’m aiming to be on the road around 6 hours a day on average. I think that’s a good amount of time based on experience last time. On the Alaska trip we had plenty of 12 hour days. That kinda started to suck after a while.