Why Didn't Allah Come To Save Him?

I was shopping in Walmart for groceries. I had just put some bananas on the cart. Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me.

"Excuse me! How do you know which banana is good?"

I turned around. It was a middle aged lady, and she had Asian (Chinese) features, and she spoke impeccable English.

"Um ... I don't really have a method." I replied, trying to maintain the social distance. "I just don't pick ones that are too ripe."

"You are Muslim, right?"

The sudden change in conversation startled me. She had also pronounced it Mozlem.

Shields up!

"Yes, I am." I replied, suddenly wary. What was she up to?

"Look. Let me show you this." She suddenly whipped out her phone, opened WhatsApp and started to play a video. "You should see this, since you are Muslim."

"Well ..." I replied, slowly backing away just a little bit. "Why don't you just tell me what the video is about?"

I didn't know why I was continuing the conversation, but my interest was piqued. Just a bit. Let's see where this goes.

"Well this video ..." The lady paused to forward the video. "It's about a man. He was also Muslim. He had a terrible disease. For five years he prayed to Allah. But Allah did not save him. One day he saw our lord Jesus Christ in his dream. And then he was cured."

The lady then turned to fix a steely gaze at me.

"Why didn't Allah come to save him?" She asked emphatically.

"Well ..." I replied, thinking fast. "So he prayed to Allah all this time ... for four years."

"Yes, five years." She corrected me impatiently. "And nothing happened."

"And then the man saw Jesus in his dream." I said. "And he was cured?"

"Jesus saved him." The lady declared. "And Jesus can save you too. Allah didn't come for this man, but Jesus did. Why didn't Allah come to save him?"

"Maybe ..." I started to speak slowly for emphasis. "Maybe Allah sent Jesus to save this man."

The lady blinked. Time literally froze for her.

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"Well ... he kept praying to Allah, so Allah sent Jesus to save this man. How do you know Allah did NOT send Jesus to him?"

"No! That's not how it works." She shook her head.

"Think." I urged her. "You believe God sent Jesus to this world to save humanity. So it's not a big deal if this God - whom we call Allah - just sent Jesus (in a dream, mind you) to save this ONE man. So what's the big deal?"

"No ... no ... no." The lady shook her head. "You are not getting it. I will pray for you."

And she walked away.

Our East Coast Canada Trip 2019

Since a lot of folks ask me about it, I thought I would summarize the total East Coast trip (Canada, done in 2019) in one post.

We drove nearly 6000 km, but it was an epic road trip!

Here is the detailed description of each of our days.

Days 1,2 - Drive from Toronto to Moncton, NB via Quebec City, QC
Our initial base was Moncton, NB and we took 2 days to get there.

Day 3 - Hopewell Rocks, Magnetic Hill
Truly a wonder of nature, to see the difference between high and low tide.

Day 4 - Saint John, Fundy National Park

Day 5 - Shediac, Confederation Bridge, Cavendish, Prince Edward Island
This was the day we toured most of the famous beaches of PEI. If only we had more days in this beautiful island!

Day 6 - Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
A must see for any lover of history, especially Canadian history!

Day 7 - Baddeck, Nova Scotia (and the Bell Museum)
Get there early, as the museum closes at 5 pm, and ferries can be notoriously busy.

Day 8 - The Cabot Trail
A beautiful day of driving and sight seeing.

Day 9 - Peggy's Cove
Oh, how I wish I had spent more time here! This was more of an after thought, but such a highlight of any East Coast trip.

Day 10, 11 - Halifax

Day 12, 13 - Return to Toronto

The main reason we took to days to get there, and two days to get back is because we had kids and seniors in the group. Moreover, we did not want to rush and spend most the time just driving, but rather seeing the sights and soaking in the experience. I would advise anyone to do this trip, but keep time on your hand. If I was doing it all over again, I would add 1 more day each to PEI and Peggy's Cove.

East Coast: Halifax (Days 10 and 11) and the Return (Days 12 and 13)

Continued from Day 9

Note: This post was slated to be published last year (yes, last year!). For whatever reason, it was missed. Now, as we are stuck in our homes during the Covid19 pandemic, I was reminiscing about a fantastic trip to Canada's East Coast last year, and realized I hadn't posted about Halifax.

Halifax is home to Dalhousie University. It is a small campus, very beautiful, neat and tidy. For some reason, when I visit cities, I like to visit their famous university campuses. Dalhousie is also one of the first universities in Canada I had applied to, and got admitted to, though I never attended as I eventually chose University of Toronto. So, in a way, it was seeing a "what-if-alternate-situation" scenario!

Halifax and Dartmouth are twice cities, separated by a body of water that empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The Halifax Harbourfront is a great place to sit and relax, and watch the big ships come and go.

Tired of seafood all through the trip? Well, we weren't, but when we discovered this fantastic Turkish halal eatery, why not get some meat? :-)

The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is a must-see attraction when you are in Halifax, primarily because it houses some relics from the most famous sunken ship of all - the Titanic. This museum is the oldest and largest maritime museum in Canada with a collection of over 30,000 artifacts.

A special permanent exhibit explores the sinking of the Titanic with an emphasis on Nova Scotia's connection to recovering the bodies of Titanic victims.

The museum has the world's foremost collection of wooden artifacts from Titanic, including one of the few surviving deck chairs.

In the exhibition on the Halifax Explosion, there were fully detailed models on how the city looked a hundred years ago.

Citadel Hill (Fort George), also known as the Halifax Citadel, is another National Historic Site and you can enter with your national park pass. It offers good viewpoints to look at the city.

Halifax was a lovely city, full of greenery and parks. I don't know how it was in winter, but it is lovely during a hot summer's day.

Theodore Tugboat is a Canadian children's television series about a tugboat named Theodore who lives in the Big Harbour with all of his friends. Now, when you visit the harbourfront you can see "Theodore" still sailing there.

The last night on our East Coast trip (before we start to head back), we once again tried some halal Turkish.

The Long Return

It was now time to return home. The long drive would take two days. On the first day, we would have to make the big journey to Quebec City.

Fuel up before the drive

Crossing into New Brunswick

Irving gas stations - this was a common sight in the East Coast

Leaving Quebec City early the next morning

Finally, after so many days, you see on the sign "Toronto"

About to enter into Ontario

Finally, after 14 days, we were home! 5,731 km , lots of great seafood, adventures, memories - this was one epic road trip.

How Taiwan Conquered the Coronavirus with Common Sense

This is Ms. Tsai Ing-Wen. She is the first female President of Taiwan. She also leads the country with the best response to COVID-19.

Let's look at some of her stats and then her steps.

Stats:

• Taiwan is geographically right next to China, and had daily flights to Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus.
• When the epidemic began, John Hopkins university predicted Taiwan would be the second hardest hit country.
• Right now, they have a population of 23 million, out of which only 427 are affected, and 6 deaths. For comparison, Canada has 37 million people, more than 40,000 cases and over 2000 dead. Not to mention, Taiwan's 23 million live in an area smaller than Nova Scotia.

Now let's see how they handled their epidemic.

Short summary: Masks, hand wash, travel ban, aggressive tracking and quarantine. Also, ignore the WHO.

Result: Everything is open, economy hasn't crashed, curve is basically flat.

Details:

• early action (from January 1, 2020). Starts to board flights from China and check passengers for symptoms.
• Travel ban from ALL flights from Wuhan, and then China, shortly after.
• Put a triage centre in airport to identify possible cases
• Strict quarantine: you get paid for staying in quarantine, get food delivered to your house, get your symptoms checked thrice a day. Break quarantine and you are fined several month's salary. They would do this for all POSSIBLE cases, not just positive cases.
• Aggressive hand washing - every public building had sanitizing stations, and you get your temperature checked before you enter. You are not allowed to enter a building if you show symptoms.
• Masks - Everyone MUST wear masks when out. Taiwan saw they have 40 million masks in their stockpile, so they cranked up production to 10 million masks PER DAY and put a price limit on the masks to prevent price gouging.
• They integrated travel, immigration, customs and health care databases and included cellphone tracking to identify possible cases and improve contact tracing.
• QUARANTINE the sick, not the healthy - was their motto.

Today, Taiwan is a classic example of using common sense and the old age methods with new technology to control an epidemic. They went hard, they went aggressive - AND THEY WENT EARLY. Today their parks, restaurants, schools, offices, public services are all open, and yet their numbers are low.

Compare this to Canada where we had no travel restrictions, no forced home quarantine, no database integration, no masks (STILL NO INSTRUCTION ON MASKS), no aggressive stockpiling of PPEs, no protection from PRICE GOUGING or PANIC BUYING, no hand washing in public buildings, NO AIRPORT measures ... the list goes on.

Sources:

https://www.thestar.com/podcasts/thismatters/2020/04/22/23-million-people-6-deaths-how-taiwan-tackled-the-covid-19-crisis.html

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/04/asia/taiwan-coronavirus-response-who-intl-hnk/index.html

A Tale of 3 Women: Jacinda Ardern, Dr. Henry and Dr. Tam

Let's talk about three women.

Two of them are smart. The third one - Let's say I am not a fan.

1. Jacinda Ardern

They say a leader is tested in a crisis, and how you deal with it makes or breaks you. By that definition, Ms. Ardern should be the leader of the world. Her first crisis was last year during the horrific mosque shooting in Christchurch. The whole world saw how she dealt with the fall out, with empathy, determination, unity and determination. Now let's see how she dealt with the corona virus:

• COVID-19 testing is widespread
• Out of 5 million, only 12 people died
• Banned travellers from China in early February, before a single case in NZ
• Banned foreigners from NZ in mid-March, with only a handful of cases
• National lockdown from early March, much earlier then other Western nations
• Unveiled a four level alert system
• With a degree in communications, kept her citizens abreast of events, and used empathy in her Facebook live sessions
• Inspired a collective effort from all NZ, public health departments and hospitals.

Though it's early to say, by all counts, her efforts seem to be working.

2. Dr. Bonnie Henry 

She is the Provincial Health Officer for British Columbia, and the first province to see a spike in the number of growths of COVID-19 positive cases. Yet, as of now, whether you go by confirmed cases or hospitalizations, by raw numbers or a per capita comparison, the virus has steadily grown in Ontario and Quebec, but flattened in BC. Why? It is her leadership, as well as luck and timing.

• She looked at the data from Quebec's March break and correctly deduced it's mostly community transmission from USA. This was at a time when Dr. Theresa Tam was saying the "risk is low".
• She immediately asked BC citizens to STOP ALL TRAVEL outside of Canada. This was on March 11, the same day Doug Ford of Ontario was telling people to travel on March break and "have a good time".
• She immediately put a halt to health workers working in more than one place. This immediately broke the back of community transmission. As a comparison, Ontario did this only last week (4 weeks later).
• Improved testing per capital (Ontario is still behind its goals), reserve stock piling of PPE and focus on social distancing.
• Unified messaging and response to the public, and a better health care system than other provinces.
• She saw the data and introduced corrective BOLD measures in BC much before the rest of Canada caught on.
• Dr. Henry's direct experience in overseeing Toronto's SARS and Canada's H1N1 outbreaks is the type of background that's impossible to quantify in a situation like this.

3. Dr. Theresa Tam

Now let us quantify the "contributions" of Canada's top doctor.

• On Dec 31, 2019, Taiwan warned WHO about the virus spreading from human to human. WHO rejected the idea. Guess who sits on the oversight committee of WHO? That's right, Dr. Tam. This is the committee that is there to make sure WHO does the right thing, and NOT bow to pressure from China. 
• On Jan 14, 2020, WHO tweeted the virus was NOT transmitting from human to human. This, despite doctors treating patients in China getting sick. Dr. Tam did not stop them, but actually repeated that rubbish, despite warnings from Taiwan and Singapore.
• Jan 20, China finally admitted the virus was transmitting from human to human. Dr Tam insisted there was no risk to Canadians. Flights continued from China.
• Jan 25, first Canadian case, a man who returned from Wuhan.
• Jan 26, second Canadian case, that man's wife. Dr. Tam insisted risk is "low".
• Jan 27. Dr Tam chastised those worrying about the virus as "racism".
• Jan 31, Trump acted on his "China ban". Meanwhile Dr Tam continued to insist there is no risk, and travellers continued to come here from China. Canada's numbers showed a steady rise.
• Feb 19 to March 4 - As Iran became the new hotspot, Dr. Tam continued to resist calls for travel bans. By this time, Singapore, New Zealand, Vietnam, Taiwan, USA, Italy had all acted on travel restrictions, but not her. Canada's numbers now began to rise sharply as returnees from Iran began to show signs of infection. 
• By March 4, returnees from USA were showing signs of infection. One of them rode the TTC and Go before testing positive. Dr. Tam insisted the "risk is low". She also said travel bans were of no use. She also said don't wear masks.
• March 12 - Mrs. Trudeau tested positive, and all hell broke loose.
• March 30, the CDC says you should wear masks. Dr. Tam still denies it's of any use.

This is why Dr. Theresa Tam needs to be fired.

Why Dr Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, Needs to be Fired

Recently there was an article on how Canada's COVID-19 response is led mostly by women. A lot was made of the fact that Canada's Chief Medical Officer, the Deputy PM, and the top doctors for several provinces and cities (Toronto/Vancouver) are all women. Now to me, I was never a big fan of Trudeau's gender balanced cabinet. Personally, it doesn't matter for a job whether you are a man or a woman. What matters is how good you are at the job. And I am not that impressed with this group.

Going by our numbers and our state of the nation right now, most of these women (sorry, most of these employees) have been HORRIBLE at their job. And at the top of the pack, led by Chief Public Health Officer of Canada and head of the Public Health Agency of Canada, Dr Theresa Tam.

As far as I am concerned, when all this is over, she needs to be FIRED. 

The only reasons she shouldn't be fired right now is that we are in the middle of a crisis.  At the minimum, there should be a public inquiry on how badly she has mismanaged this crisis and how these so-called "experts" have failed Canada every step of this crisis.

Let's take a look at some facts.

1. As early as Dec 1, 2019, Taiwan told WHO that the virus causing COVID-19 was a case of human-to-human transmission. WHO chose to believe China, which defiantly lied and said it was NOT a case of human-to-human transmission. Canada (and Theresa Tam) chose to believe WHO.
   
   You can say it was the fault of WHO, which was trying to appease China, but why did Dr. Tam not take the cautious and conservative approach of preparing, just in case ? You are there to prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.
2. As things deteriorated in China, Dr. Tam continued to emphasize that the risk to Canadians was "low". It wasn't until January 15, 2020 that Canada activated its Emergency Operations Centre. Yet flights from China continued to come to Canada daily. Plane loads of people, whether they were affected with COVID-19 or not, continued to flood into Canada.
   
   US President Donald Trump banned anyone from China coming to USA (with certain exceptions) on January 31. Meanwhile Dr. Tam continued to toe the general line that "travel restrictions does not work". Canada did not ban foreigners from coming to Canada until mid-March, when it practically had no choice.
3. Iran reported the first case of COVID-19 on Feb 19. One of the first cases in New Zealand came from a family who had recently traveled to the Islamic Republic. At least three of the first 12 cases in Canada came via Iran, as did all 33 initial cases in Iraq. In the United States, the first confirmed COVID-19 case in New York City was a health-care worker who had returned from Iran, and Los Angeles also identified a coronavirus patient from Iran who passed through LAX.
   
   Yet Canada continued to allow passengers from Iran to disembark in Canada. Flight after flight came in, and plane loads of people disembarked. One of the infected travellers even rode the TTC and Go on March 4, 2020. This was when community transmission probably started in earnest. And yet, Dr. Tam continued to insist the risk to Canadians was "low".
4. On Thursday morning, March 12, 2020, Ontario premier Doug Ford told the people who were planning to travel for March break to go ahead "and enjoy themselves". This, despite the fact that USA (the most likely destination for many) had become a hotbed of COVID-19. Remarkably, even on March 12, Dr. Tam had no dire warnings for Canada, even as the situation worsened. By this time, Europe (especially Italy) was the new epicentre of the disease. Still planeloads of passengers continued to come from Italy into Canada with no screenings at the airports and no restrictions. Where was Dr. Tam? She was sleeping on the job, it seems. Risk to Canadians - "low".
   
   Just wash your hands.
5. Suddenly, late Thursday night, March 12, 2020, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, the wife of Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, came down with flu like symptoms after travelling from UK. She was tested for COVID-19, and the result came back positive.
   
   All hell suddenly broke loose.

It wouldn't be unfair to state the Canada woke up after Mrs. Trudeau tested positive. Suddenly we stopped going to work. Suddenly schools were closed - initially for two weeks, and then indefinitely. The situation was no longer "risk is low". The situation was suddenly "stay home". Businesses were immediately shut down if they were considered non essential. 

The number of cases jumped, and continues to go up daily. The healthcare workers are suddenly complaining of a shortage of masks, gloves and other PPE.  There is now a Global News article on how we have to choose who gets to live in Canada due to a shortage of ventilators. The news is grim and this week is critical.

So the question remains - why is Canada now REACTING to the crisis, rather than being PROACTIVE? It remains Dr. Tam's responsibility to make sure we were not just prepared for this crisis, but on top of it, without it ruining our economy. 

So how did we go from "risk is low" to the "situation is grim" in the blink of an eye?

There was never a perfect solution to this. What we could hope for was to delay the onset of the crisis as long as possible and limit its effect once it was here. 

• When China became the ground zero for the crisis, we should have immediately banned all travellers and flights from China. In fact, Air Canada suspended its operations in China long before any government directive.
• When Iran became the epicentre, we should have barred any traveller who had been to Iran in the last 14 days from entering Canada, whether they were showing symptoms or not.
• When the disease moved to Italy, we immediately should have suspended all travel from Europe. 
• In all these cases, surprisingly US President Donald Trump took these decisions. But even he was late, and his details diluting the intent of the action. But at least HE TOOK the action. Canada, based on Dr. Tam's advise, never did. 
• If you argue that this would mean denying Canadians entry to Canada, it would only be temporary. Just like we did for Canadians stuck in Wuhan, there could be separate flights to bring Canadians home (just like now).
• When you bring these Canadians home, they should have been quarantined in a place away from the community (just like those from Wuhan were held at CFB Trenton for 14 days). Then you would not have had the community transmission which is how it is spreading now.
• When reports emerged of Seattle being the hotbed of USA cases, we should have immediately closed the border to US citizens except essential travel. Instead, we were told "the risk is low" and we continued.
• When the first infected traveller rode the TTC, that should have been it for start of social distancing and other measures. Yet we were told the "risk is low" and we continued.
• Until Mrs. Trudeau got the virus.

There are things that we can be doing RIGHT NOW to abate the disease. Yet, we are not.

• Get local factories to make test kits and ventilators. If we need them, we have them. If we don't, we can export them to the States.
• Why are we not ramping up immediately to produce more PPE? Where is the plan for that?
• How long are we planning to stay in shut down mode? Where is a plan to return to normal? How are you going to sanitize public transit?
• Today there was a speech by the PM and for the first time we are hearing that masks are a good thing. Yet for so long we were told "don't wear masks".
• What is up with the supply chain? When can we expect Lysol wipes?
• What are you doing to keep control and track of inbound travellers to avoid another spread?

So, Dr. Theresa Tam, what did you actually do with all that expertise? And why should you not be fired for gross negligence? 

Is this world a simulation?

As a believing and practicing Muslim who also loves science fiction, I find the recent musings of some key figures (such as Elon Musk and Neil deGrasse Tyson) that "this world is a simulation" very fascinating. These quasi-philosophers (and I like to play one on the internet) say that we are all avatars, or characters, in some big simulation and nothing is "real".

We know from our religion that our souls (programs?) are created separate from our bodies (avatars) that exist only in this world. We know that the sun and the moon are precisely programmed (Quran, 55:5). In this world, everything we do is recorded by the angels in a scroll (our activity log).

We know that God created the universe in 6 days. In Islam, we have long accepted that these "days" are not like our 24 hour days, unlike Christianity. And part of the reason is that we know this universe took millions of years to take shape. And God says His day is not like our days. But consider that on His day 1 He ran Day1.exe. On His day 2, He ran day2.exe. I am just speaking in terms a computer layman can understand, but you get the point. The time inside a simulation does not mean the same time outside the simulation. We know this from our own simulations, such as SimCity or The Sims. And you don't even need time dilation to explain this.

Since Allah is the creator of everything (39:62, 13:16 etc), He is also the Creator of Time and Space.. He is not bound by constraints of Time and Space. That exists for us inside our reality (our simulation?).

Just to throw a spanner in the works: If it were proven that we live in a simulation, that would prove a creator, but not a perfect creator. Since our Creator is perfect, one would expect that the simulation would be perfect. If a simulation is only detected by its flaws, we would probably never know.

Then, Allah says in the Quran: "And what is the life of this world except the enjoyment of delusion." (Quran, 3:185).

The final answer: We probably wouldn't know. And after death (game over), we probably wouldn't care, except our final score!

East Coast: Peggy's Cove (Day 9)

Continued from Day 8 ...

Peggy's Cove is an iconic East Coast destination. And to think - we nearly skipped it!

If I had to do the trip completely my way, I would have put a whole day here. Simply because I would love to photograph this famous lighthouse in the morning at sunrise, then in the middle of the day when it's busy, and then again at sunset with the famous golden sky behind it, and then at night when the lighthouse actually lights up.

As it was, we only spent a couple of hours there, enough to explore the site and take lots of pictures. I don't have a lot to share here as most of the pictures have people in them, and it's the same lighthouse but at different angles, but still I will try to recount the journey.

Clearly lighthouses are Nova Scotia's most

popular souvenir as well

Nova Scotia is home to over 160 historic lighthouses, some of them world famous (such as Peggy's Cove). Peggy's Point Lighthouse is one of Nova Scotia’s most well-known lighthouses and may be the most photographed in Canada. It was built in 1915.

Cheticamp is still on the Cabot Trail, so when we left the morning after our Cabot Trail trip, we still continued on the trail for some time.

There were still some nice coastal vistas to occasionally stop the car and take in the scenery. We were enroute to Halifax, which was some 4 hours away, and Peggy's Cove was another 45 minutes further from Halifax.

The East Coast is the true definition of a Road Trip. It's not just the destination, but the journey. There were so many things to see on the way. Just little road side stops. Small attractions. Memories. You really have to take your time and explore this part of Canada. Soon though, we left the coast and started to move inwards into the province of Nova Scotia. Interestingly, nowhere in Nova Scotia is more than 67 km (42 mi) from the ocean.

Nova Scotia, another interesting point of note, is the second most densely populated province in Canada (first being PEI). It is also the second smallest of Canada's ten provinces (again, PEI is the smallest).

Almost five hours after leaving Cheticamp, we entered the Peggy's Cove area. We passed a small memorial on the way to the lighthouse. This memorial is dedicated to the victims of Swissair 111. This memorial is about 1 km from the lighthouse.

To be honest, our initial itinerary had us travel back to Fredericton from Cheticamp, and then onwards and back towards Toronto. Suddenly we discovered we had one extra day, and Halifax wasn't too far of a drive from Cheticamp, hence we made the decision to visit Halifax. And of course, if you visit Halifax, you HAVE to go to Peggy's Cove. And boy we were glad we did!

How can you not visit Peggy's Cove! Every east coast trip from anyone I know includes a picture by this iconic Canadian lighthouse. This lighthouse, by the way, is an active lighthouse, unlike some of the other ones we saw on the trip - which were once active but now are only tourist attractions. This lighthouse is operated by the Canadian Coast Guard.

The area surrounding the lighthouse is also pretty in its own right. It was typical Atlantic Canada. Small, rustic, pristine, clean, natural, beautiful, picturesque and simple.

This cove was the scene of a youth novel by Bryan Doyle called You Can Pick Me up at Peggy's Cove (1976), which was made into a film directed by Don McBrearty and into a video released by Beacon Films, Inc., in 1982.

Peggy’s Cove is famed for its picturesque and typically East-Coast profile, with houses perched along a narrow inlet and on wave-washed boulders facing the Atlantic. Although this unique environment has been designated a preservation area, it is still an active fishing community.

The lighthouse was built around 1914 and stands almost 15 metres (49 ft) high.

The village of Peggy's Cove is likely named after Saint Margaret's Bay (Peggy being the nickname for Margaret). Another popular legend claims that the name came from the sole survivor of a shipwreck at Halibut Rock near the cove. Some claim she was a little girl too young to remember her name and the family who adopted her called her Peggy.

If you are there for an extended period of time, you can spend the day watching the waves and exploring around the rocks. There are many signs reminding visitors to exercise caution at all times, as the ocean water around Peggy’s cove is dangerous. Rogue waves (unpredictable, rough waves) commonly splash up over the rocks, even on calm, sunny days. We saw many during our time there.

Today, Peggy's Cove is a major tourist attraction, although its inhabitants still fish for lobster, and the community maintains a rustic undeveloped appearance. The regional municipality and the provincial government have strict land-use regulations in the vicinity of Peggy's Cove, with most property development being prohibited. Similarly there are restrictions on who can live in the community to prevent inflation of property values for year-round residents.

Once you are done visiting the lighthouse, you can take a stroll in the nearby village and surrounding area. There's lots of artists there, and many have shops nearby. The area around the Swissair memorial is also excellent for capturing pictures of the Milky Way on a clear, moonless night. Be cautious driving though, as the road is not illuminated at night.

It was with a bit of sadness that we bid adieu to Peggy's Cove as we headed back to Halifax. We knew this was our last stop on the East Coast trip, after which it was going to be a couple of days of driving back home. One last glance back at the historic lighthouse, and we were on our way.