You Never Know Whoo's Watching You

SATURDAY LAST

Forecast - light winds, going SW 20 gusting 30 in the afternoon. A group of nine boats assembles at Colinet, St. Mary's Bay, launches around 10:45a.m., and proceeds over glass-smooth waters the seven kms. to and thru Pinchgut Tickle. The Tickle lies between the main shore and Pinchgut Island - quite sheltered for its three-kilometer length, and very shallow for the most part. At the far end, the remains of a single house still stand, tho the barn alongside has fallen in.

Along the other side of the Tickle, grassy clearings mark where other families once lived, close to the fishing grounds that sustained all of coastal Newfoundland in those years.We land, and head out to the barachoix beach for lunch and the naming ceremony for a brand spanking new Current Designs FG single, complete with champagne! I manage to miss most of that, since I'd ambled along the beach's steeply-raked seaward tide-line collecting bric-a-brac - heavily coralled mussel shells, bits of driftwood and the like. We head back to the old house, which proves less uninhabited than it seemed.



Sharp eyes spot something perching on the frame of one of the long-gone windows - a bird, a big bird, a great horned owl in fact, in broad daylight! As we gather to view it, it moves to a side window, then back again, watchful but not unduly alarmed. People ooh! and ahh!, cameras click, and the owl just swivels its head to keep an eye on the lot of us, until we've had our fill and grow tired of watching it.

Before we launch to head back, some folks go swimming, a feat that in Newfoundland salt water usually ranks right up there with walking on the stuff. But the Tickle is sheltered and shallow, and its early September, so it's doable and by all reports pleasant. (I, like a true Newfoundlander, risked peeling my drysuit off to waist-level, and letting a warm gentle wind dry my damp thermal undershirt!)

Just as we get rolling again, the promised tailwind wind starts, and quickly settles into a good shove along - about 20-25 kms., just enough to raise a few whitecaps as we scoot back thru the Tickle. Back out in the harbour, the waves are a little bigger, perhaps 18", just enough to get under the stern and promote the occasional short surge forward. By 4:30p.m., we're back ashore, have the boats loaded, and are heading home, our faith on Mother Nature's inherent kindness to paddlers restored.

Sunday - an early a.m. start, this time with two friends in their VOLKSKAYAKs, as my wife had things to do to get ready for the first week of school. Launched at a little slipway in Harbour Main, crossed the harbour, then proceeded seaward over glass-smooth water along one of the most geologically convoluted coastlines I've ever seen.

Sediment layers are jumbled together at all sorts of angles - some straight up and down, some sloped 45 degrees, some folded or fractured, older sediment layers atop newer ones; I wouldn't have wanted to be here when whatever produced this layout was happening! Visiting geologists who get to see this area look like they've entered the Rapture...
Saw birds, too - an osprey who kept skimming back and forth along the cliffs, a kingfisher, gulls, and lots of ducks, one of whom exploded out of the water and took wing right beside my 'yak - hard to tell who got the biggest fright! We went on out about 3 kms., turned the Point, and had a look into Red Rock Cove. Bobbing on a gentle swell, another set of sharp eyes spots a whale feeding off in the distance - too far to ID it, but close enough to see its blow, the dorsal fin and a length of back that makes me glad enough to have lots of searoom.

Back around the Point, land for lunch, then back along the shoreline, pausing to reverse into a little seacave where tiny starfish cling exposed on the rocks just above the waterline, and to eyeball the small cobble beaches we've filed away for future picnic and bonfire excursions. Back to the slip, haul out, load up, and then have my wife join us for an hour's blueberry picking in back of Harbour Main, at the end of road where we lived for 20 years and raised our daughters - then back home, strong coffee while we're cooking up the fresh cod stew for supper, and a fresh-berry blueberry pie with yogourt for dessert. Beats bashing up Bellevue any time.