Back on the trans-Canada early this morning heading east, then a secondary road northeast through Lewisporte and Baytona (that's right, no typo) toward the Fogo Island ferry. We found more super-fresh local seafood - another huge feed of crab from Treats from the Sea for dinner later, and some crab and lobster sandwiches from Chelsea's takeout - a simple little place by the side of the highway featuring sit down tables with umbrellas - and a million dollar view.

(There's no big secret at work here. If you want the freshest seafood, get close to the sea.)

During a two-hour wait in the ferry lineup (very busy this weekend because of the very popular Brimstone Head Folk Festival, in it's 28th. year) allowed us to get caught up on blogging and  to chat with magazine subscribers and fans who came knocking on the RV driver's window. An indulgent order from the enterprising ferry terminal chip wagon (a radical departure from our usually healthy eating habits) rounded out the stop.

From the aptly named Farewell, an hour gets you across the island-studded body of water via a very efficient ferry service. Fogo is quite a large island, so we spent some time touring, as far down as the intriguingly named Joe Batts Arm.

We settled down for the night at the spectacular Brimstone Head location for the folk festival on a fabulous evening weather-wise augmented by the simultaneous appearance of a full blown sunset over the water to the west and a rising full moon in the east. Some of the music was pretty darn good too - old Newfoundland and Irish tunes, ballads and toe-tappers, that never fail to delight.

Another heaping plateful of fresh snow crab, washed down with mediocre wine, rounded out a pretty nice day with fine weather forecast for the morn.

Did a little more exploring of Fogo Island in the morning -  the original Marconi transmission site offered an amazing view (and a hairy ride back down the steep, winding road in a heavily loaded 30-foot RV) and we took a run down to the easternmost community of Tilting. It's interesting that the three major communities on the island were relatively isolated from one another for most of their history, accessible only by boat until a road was finally built. Acccents were actually slightly different.

We were struck by the amount of new home construction and recent renovation work going on, in a dramatically different economic scenario from most small Newfoundland coastal communities.

Mid-morning saw us visiting with Winston and Linda Osmond (Winston being a Fogo Islander while Linda is from Truro NS). The couple have made a firm lifestyle choice of quality over quantity. They subsist very happily and handily engaging mainly in their respective artistic pursuits, and growing vegetables (wherever a little soil, improved with pig manure, can be found) and commercially raising poultry for meat and eggs. They openly express pride and satisfaction with their sustainable independence and safe and secure small, intimate community life where locks are almost unknown. They have complete disdain for cities.

We lunched, and interviewed, with Zita Cobb (who will be the central character in a feature article in a later issue of Saltscapes) and Pete and Margaret Decker, who really became our amazingly cordial hosts while on the island.

Jim had a photo shoot speedboat ride around the bay with Pete, trying for seaborne angles on the amazing new inn (under construction) and recently completed ultra-modern design artist studios clinging to rocks along a typically rugged shoreline.

Linda, meanwhile, prepared snacks for an outdoor cooking party with local families and international visitors later in a beautiful day, complete with a little kayaking in the new Hobie foot pedal design, bonfires, home-grown music and that big, orange August full moon again.

With our puppy now sleeping through the night, we were well-rested for an early departure to get into the Fogo Ferry lineup early. Jim planned a day salmon fishing on nearby Gander River and was anxious to get going.