Yo, We're Back!!!

Just spent the summer in Eastport - that's my excuse for not visiting Ballyhack Point since late June, and I'm sticking to it. Had a phone line that was truly unbelievable in the 21st century and dialup on top of that, since the Community Access Point (CAP) site at the school in Glovertown was closed for summer while the building was being rewired. So a slow connection, lots of dropped sessions, and besides, we were having far too much fun to spend time writing and editing pix...

Did some paddling, a little hiking, a bit of camping, cut the grass, ate really well, polybonded the rusting 4Runner winter beater, read books, got to know a really good mechanic at the local service station, walked the beach with the dogs almost daily, had lots of great visitors - all in all, a fine time was had by all.

We also finished Chris' GLADWIND, which is a somewhat modified VOLKSKAYAK that she's taken to like...well, like a VK to water. Nipped the beam in about 1.5", hacked the same off the forward bulkhead peak, and 2" off the rear bulkhead peak for good measure - the result has a slightly deeper "V" to the hull, and lower decks than the VK Standard. A little less displacement, and a fair bit less windage - was kinda hoping she'd hate it, 'cause I really, really like it - no such luck! Been told, point-blank, that I'm gonna have to build myself one, if that's what I want - the GLADWIND is hers...

Mother and Child

That grouse wasn't about to move - no sir, no way! Standing at the near end of the boardwalk in Minchin's Cove, it seemed unconcerned as I got a few quick pix from maybe 15 feet, then started slowly moving closer and closer...



Then we saw them - three chicks, each egg-sized, making their separate ways across the boardwalk, one at a time. Momma wasn't budging - no big fuss, just staying right there while the kiddies toddled across. Kinda like a school crossing guard, having an eye to the traffic and stopping anything that might cause harm...


With the last one safely accounted for , she strolls off into the tall foliage herself, still very relaxed about it all. Then she stands there, side on, and has one final look at this creature with the camera...

Small Stuff...

...can be wonderfully interesting. Lately, we've been taking a look at our world thru the macro setting on our digital cameras - and finding lots of fascinating sights.

Take a common leaf, for example, just after a rain - have a close look at the water drops - besides glistening like little jewels, they act as magnifying lenses and convex mirrors, little distortions you'd not likely see if you weren't looking with the camera's eye...



Sometimes, the right things happen for entirely the wrong reasons. This 'flower', for example, struck me as odd - never seen one like it, I thought, and so snapped a few shots to get it I.D.'d later on. Well, duh - turns out it's a dandelion, but with most of the seed dispersed. There is, however, enough seed left to show just why the plant is such a tenacious species - the brown seed and dispersal 'parachute' show clearly with the camera's detailed eye - another small wonder...



A gull's feather on the beach - not a lot to look at in most folk's books. Closeup, however, there is stuff to see - the shadings white thru grays, the drift of sand along the quill, contrasting with the strong green of the seaweed bladder. Another small visual world, caught and recorded by a close focus lens...



And while it isn't strictly macro work, there's always the whole other world beneath the water, a place most digital cameras fear to go. The Pentax WPi, however, is reputed to be waterproof to a depth at which the state of his/her camera becomes of academic interest only to an air-breathing kayaker. So stick your hand down, aim, and fire - the LCD screen freaks out with the cold, going gray for about 10 seconds...and then the bottom life slowly emerges, just like pix used to do back in the days of developing trays in red-lit darkrooms...



We'll be off to Eastport soon for the summer, and hope to have some really neat pix of some really neat places to post as the summer progresses. May be a bit hit and miss, tho, since we'll be doing the uploads thru the Community Access Point at the region's public library and have to hit it on days when it's open and the weather's not fit for paddling...first things first....

The KatYak - What Can You Say But !!!"WOW!!!"

There's kayaks, and then there's kayaks. There's VOLKSKAYAKs, and then there's VOLSKAYAKs. And there are certainly spectacular VOLKSKAYAK paint jobs - and there's the KatYak, the Queen of Them All.



As artist Reg Cantwell notes in his explanation of just what happened, a simple question became a commission that became a case of "Go Big Or Go Home", something that seems to have a way of happening when Kristy and Tim Way are around. Tim built the VOLKSKAYAK Standard for Kristy, and Kristy's innocent query to their friend Reg triggered the whole incredible thing. It's led to a perfectly serviceable kayak being turned into a floating art exhibit, and a darn fine one at that...


If you'd like to see more of where obsession can lead, the juicy details can be found at http://www.regcantwell.com/katyak.htm

Finally, Finally, Finally....

...we got out for the first paddle of the year.

Nothing terribly exciting - just a couple of lazy laps around the little test-tank of a pond just five minutes from the house. When we first moved up this way ten years ago, most of the pondside buildings were modest summer cabins - now it's sprouting impressive homes on nice big hillside lots, with Lawrence Pond Road becoming a 'preferred' address. The pond's really quiet this time of year, with the speedboats and Sea-Doos still in the boathouses or hauled up ashore.


Tucked away in a sheltered spot, there's a small seaplane, one of two that makes the pond their home base during the summer. We often see them flying really low over our place, as they make the final approach for landing...


The treat of the trip was the ducks - lots of 'em all over the pond. Semi-tame and undisturbed by noise this early in the season, they'll let you approach very close indeed, close enough to really see the wondrous shimmering emerald green of their heads, and observe their chicks at close range.




But it's ducky supper time, so the main order of business, nosy humans not withstanding, is to get those feathered kiddies fed and ready for bed...



And finally, for a special little treat on the drive back home, there's the sight of the ocean and the sky awash in colour, as the sun's just after sinking beneath the hills behind Brigus...


Not bad, not bad at all, for a first paddle of the season. Got some work to do, tho, of course - the old abs need tuning up, the arms need work, and a certain someone who shall mercifully remain nameless is going to have to figure out how to somehow levitate out of that cockpit when the paddle's over ;->))

Warming Up Nicely...

...for Newfoundland in mid-April!

Had some friends out for a visit, and took a nice long ambley-shambley kind of walk along the seashore on the old railway track from Upper Gullies to Seal Cove. Virtually no wind, cool but lovely, with bits of sun poking thru the clouds to spotlight the patches of snow still lingering against the blackness of the rock that forms the islands' coastlines.

Lots of birds - gulls, an eagle, salt water ducks, and loons - saw maybe six or eight diving and feeding in real quiet waters about 50 yards offshore. The ice is finally off the pond behind the Seal Cove beach, but the sea face of the beach is something else again - real steep cobble terraces, all neatly sorted by size as you descend towards the water - round rocks the size of your head at the top edge, grading down to round rocks of exactly the same material no larger than a ping-pong ball near the tideline. Walking's like wading in ball bearings, and you keep sliding slowly sideways down the slope with every step - regaining height is hard work, with the rocks rolling away down the slope with every step you take.

The seas that did that sort of rearrangement of thousands of tonnes of rock don't bear thinking about from a paddler's point of view...

Now We're Cooking With Gas...

Just got what is, for us, high speed internet... should see Ballyhack Point enjoying more posts, now that the weather's getting fit to be around the water AND we can upload pix without having to have a snack to save off hunger while the upload's running...
What with the bit of sun, a few showers, and warming temps, the old snow's getting a real cutting - a few nice foggy, drizzly Newfoundland spring days now should see the end of it.
"Bring it on", says Ramah, "even us Newfoundland/Husky crosses can't wait to see the back of this winter!"

Give Me A Diesel A-Daisy...

Why, with a very few exceptions, can't we buy small diesel-powered vehicles in North America?
When I visited St.Pierre, a French possession just off Newfoundland's South coast several years ago, there was a slew of 1.2 -1.5 liter turbo-diesel cars, trucks, vans and what-have-you on the island's roads. Most of Europe manages to get around in this sort of vehicle, as does much of the rest of the world, while burning a lot less fuel.
The modern diesel is nothing like the noisy, sluggish, smelly, rough, high-emission engines of even a decade ago. With gas prices here right now at $1.20 Cdn a liter ($4.50+ a gallon), I'd dearly love to be able to pick up a good, used small diesel-engined van, wagon or small UTE.
As things stand now, only VW has any significant number of diesel cars/wagons available here, and used prices on those are accordingly very high. Both the North Amercian-based and Japanese automakers produce diesel versions of most of their vehicles for sale in Europe; why don't they make them available on this side of the Pond???

It's Been Cold...

Take a close look at the shot below - small waves slopping between the rocks just a few feet offshore in Conception Bay. Now, look a little closer - about 2/3 the way up, to the right - that grey area?

That's salt water slush, Ma'am, yes, salt water slush...and that's cold!

Been nice, tho...lots of sun and good snow, not the heavy, wet kind, but light, dry sparkley stuff...pretty enough to entice us outside in -15, even with the wind blowing. A late afternoon, the sun hits the snow with this honey-tinged light, while dried grasses throw splintery shadows...

But it's about to get a cutting, if the laddies at Environment Canada's weather office are right - and they amazingly often are, considering the challenges of forecasting anything in the meteorlogical monkey puzzle of the North Atlantic that is Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula. It's going to get very moist (25mm) and very warm (+9) for the next few days, which should cut the nice base we have back to naught but ice when it cools down later the week. More likely to need salt and sand than snowshoes, skis and poles...

But what the heck - it's only January, after all - lots of time for snow yet, isn't there? In this neck of the woods, winter's a battle between Hope Springs Eternal and The Depths Of Despair where weather fit for outdoor stuff is concerned...we can get buried, or have bare frozen ground, or rain, sleet, and freezing rain, or cold and sunny with a wind that drives the cold thru the heaviest parkas- or else just perfect, cold and sunny and still, the kind of day when you first notice the sun's getting just the faintest hint of direct warmth in it again...

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New Shoes, New Views

The purpose of any conveyance is, of course, to take us places. Be it a jet, a truck, a kayak or anything else equipped with wheels, wings or paddles, it exists solely to let us move thru our world. Thru space, thru the environment, thru new pathways in our minds.

I've always hated snowshoes. Last time I was on 'em, they were the old beavertails; heavy wooden frames with a mesh deck, an awkward width generating an awkward and tiring stride, sloppy bindings and a tail that felt like something dragging behind a dinasour...definitely not my idea of a fun time.

Ain't modern technology wonderful? Tried out a new style snowshoe today - can you say "Amazing...?" All molded plastic, very light, quite narrow, easy-to-adjust and secure bindings, no tail drag - just like walking, in fact, except for the absolute lack of the skidding and slipping you'd face in boots alone. That's thanks to a carnivorous-looking crampon system under each foot...you could almost climb a tree with 'em, or face a bobcat on pretty well equal terms :->))

What really matters, of course, is not the tool, but what it lets you do. The pix below were all taken within 15 minutes of the home we've lived in for the past ten years, but we'd never seen any of these views until yesterday. The trail is a bit twisty and tangled for skis, but a real cakewalk on snowshoes.

The Meadow

Bay View

And Yet Another...

Heading Home Time

Winter Interlude

It's that time of the year again - the fresh water's gone solid, and the salt is colder than Harper's heart; paddling is definitely on the shelf for the time being. So it's out with the skis, touch up the wax, and off we go.

Absolutely beautiful day, if -12C doesn't bother you, and you don't mind hard crusty snow that whips the wax off your skis faster than a scraper could. Climbing is challenging, but doable, and the very light dusting of fine snowflakes atop the crust glistens like a million diamonds in the sun.

And, of course, there's always lunch - ham sandwiches, some nippy old cheddar, pungent dark fruit cake, and tea hot from the thermos.Who in their right mind would want to be indoors, sitting at a table or in front of a TV, when they could enjoy a snack in this sort of setting?

That's the good news - the bad is that we're getting a mild spell for the rest of this week, and will probably lose the snow we have. Maybe it's time to dig out the drysuits and cold water hoods, find the neo mittens, and liberate the VKs from the snowbank...