It was a short walk into the 'cod rush' town of Black Tickle from our snug anchorage in Domino Harbour. The fish processing plant in Domino, long since abandoned, was literally falling into the sea. A derelict indication of the booming cod years that have now long gone.
The rough road into town was littered with abandoned trucks. A refuse lorry, still bearing it's load, stood at the roadside broken, abandoned and forgotten. A few yards further on was the town's tip but the winds had done their work and scattered refuse far and wide over the treeless heath of wild strawberry and cloudberries.
Not then the most salubrious walk into a town that had once been the crowning glory of the hugely lucrative cod fishing industry. The town itself felt almost as broken and abandoned as the trucks that littered the road. Attempts to replace the extinct cod industry with crab fishing and processing have largely failed and the town is hanging on by a thread.
Few folk stirred but then a quad bike stopped and Vince, it's driver, stopped to chat. It was English he was speaking but it was so distorted by dialect it was pretty hard to follow.
More toothless grins and friendly chats as we walked into town and paused at the post office to enquire about those essentials of modern travel such as cell phones and internet. No, the nearest cellphone mast is 100 miles away- when it works. No WiFi, a couple of rudimentary stores with produce long expired, a health post, a school and no hope for the future. The crab processing plant finally closed in 2011 and with it went the last jobs. A gold rush town after the gold has gone. It no longer has a reason to exist.
And nobody seems to know what to do with it. There's one ferry a week in summer from here to Nain and two twin propeller flights a week to Goose Bay. A community cut off by ice for half the year and apparently forgotten. Disheveled, decaying and resigned to it's inevitable demise. Attempts to bring wind and solar power to the region have been resisted and there's no attempt to capitalise on the tourism potential of a glorious coastline that witnesses a steady procession of crisp, white icebergs making their stately progress south along a fabulously indented coastline of natural harbours, tickles, runs and rigolets.
We left at first light on another blue sky day in the hope of finding lighter winds before they build from mid day.
As I write we are passing a stark white and icy cliff face that must have drifted 1500 miles since it calved from some northern glacier. Icebergs speckle this coast and they are at their best when glinting in the morning sun in a blue sea beneath a blue sky. Black Tickle may be past it's prime but the landscape will survive.
Oh and there's one more black spot to add to Black Tickle's misfortunes. As we rowed the tender back to the anchorage my wonderful new iPhone chose to slip, silently out of my pocket and into the deep, dark waters of Domino Harbour. The last message it gave me was, "Your iPhone has not been backed up for 44 days."