Wow! Two days later and the province is still reeling! Not only did the NDP win, but they did so with a significant majority. There hasn't been a majority government in NS for almost 20 years. The reaction from some people is amazing. The Elections Nova Scotia website has one of those post your comments features and some of the first responses were absolutely scary in their negative hysterics. You'd think that the devil himself had won the election. A comment like the NDP government is going to bury the province in debt - like, and what have the Conservatives and Liberals been doing over the last 50 years? NS has the highest per capita debt of any province in the country. That wasn't the NDP's doing.

We had dinner with our friends Alan and Heather Uren, a couple who may be remembered from previous posts as folks who are also planning to head out to Bermuda this fall. Our intent is to sail in company with them both for real and emotional security during the trip. Besides having an excellent meal we began the serious business of actually planning to voyage. Of course much of the planning is a bit like writing your name in water since it is still four months off and much will depend on the work finished on the boat and upon the weather. The tentative plan is to head off as close to mid October as possible and hope to make Hamilton in 6 days or less. We are beginning a program to get the animals set for the trip with a multitude of visits to the vet and have also initiated inquiries with the insurance company for offshore coverage.

Tonight the Binnacle, where I work, had a pub crawl in three of the pubs in downtown Halifax, and it is the first that I experienced the ramifications of the broken sewage disposal plant in the metro area. We boaters are used to the smell of a backed up holding tank or one with leaks in the lines, but try to imagine that on a metropolitan scale. That's what hit my poor old nose as I was walking down Duke Street. I sure hope that the city gets it fixed before the Tall Ships Festival in July or else there will be a totally unfortunate reputation for Halifax carried around the world.