The rather cloudy arrival at “my” beach on the shore of Lake Nipissing (translated “little water”) in North Bay tuned to be a great sunny the next evening. Now I know why the place I stayed is called Sunset Inn.
What can you see on a Monday 9. of May 2016 in North Bay? Yes the beach, the harbour (how fast is now “dead slow” exactly? Seems to mean “as slow as possible without losing steerageway”).
But did you know that on this day there was a transit of mercury across the sun?
I didn’t, but the astronomer of the local astronomy club did. And they were there on the beach with their telescopes waiting for a spot without clouds. Yes, mercury is small and so you just see a very small black dot…. You could see it almost around the whole world (not in Australia, because there is night-time; sorry mates better luck next time..). But transits of Mercury happen only about 13 times a century. The next will be in 2019. So Mercury transits are rare and they’re also some of the best opportunities to see the closest planet to the sun.
Yeah I’ve learned something here in North Bay!
Unexpected was also the movies I found in the video library of the motel (they advertise with “over 100 free movie rentals”). I didn’t expect to find “Volver” by Pedro Almodóvar in original language! And this was not the only surprising movie they had….
So North Bay surprised me and after two days I went on my way up north by plane.
