Middle Head is a granite tongue sticking out at the North Atlantic. Today, the Atlantic responds to the gesture with wind strong enough that it slightly flattens exposed skin, like gentle contact with a physical object. Its gusts are stumble-inducing, which pairs nicely with the jagged precipices on both sides of Middle Head. The sky is light gray to the north, dark and foggy around the sheer brown and green cliffs of the peninsula to the south. A neon rainbow of buoys convulses in foamy waters. Then, inevitably, the rain returns, a gradient of wetness going from shy drizzle to drunkenly uninhibited downpour.
The MV Caribou is named after the SS Caribou, a passenger ferry that sailed between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland from the mid-1920s until the Germans torpedoed it in 1943. The commemorative plaques delicately waltz around this topic, employing the passive voice in reference to vague "enemy" U-boats. There are no conspicuously German tourists on this voyage, but they may be a larger traveling demographic than is apparent—perhaps they are on board, but are cleverly disguised as Albertans? It is not beneath them.
There are multiple yellow warning signs throughout the ship. They read: "No Crocs are allowed on the escalator!"
