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...
