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

Keels

Keels is one of those magical places that strikes you immediately as the very heart and soul of Newfoundland's northeast coast. Situated at the extreme end of a rocky peninsula dividing two arms of Bonavista Bay, a corner of the tiny harbour is well sheltered, with reefs and offfshore sunkers blocking the swells and waves.




Fishing boats are hauled up on the slipway and beach, which is a very good thing; it's a sure sign of a healthy inshore fishery, something that's been mournfully lacking in all too many small outports since the '92 groundfish moratorium forced a stop to fishing on the tattered remains of the 2J3KL codstock, once the largest free-swimming stock of protein in the oceans.




Behind them the houses and other buildings lie nestled in nooks and hollows amongst the rocks with no discernable pattern, save for that dictated by the needs of an owner and his neighbors; this place was settled and grown old long before municipal planners were even dreamed of.




The observant eye can see the age of this place - the stacked, flat stone foundations beneath houses, the elaborate fretwork around windows and doors, the steeply sloped rear roofs facing the ocean- it all hints of the fact that Keels has been here since the 1700's.




It can and does, of course, get rough here: outside the harbour's shelter, it's the open North Atlantic, with nothing between you and Europe but light and air and water. Not a place for small paddlecraft in anything but perfect weather and highly skilled hands.




Some folks would look around Keels and see nothing isolation, exposure, the pure bald rocky headland nature of this place. To me, tho, that's Newfoundland, that's what this island and these people are all about.





St. John's, for all its glories, could really be McCity, Pop. 135,000, Anywhere - the same malls, the same buses, the same crowds. Keels is Keels, has been for hundreds of years, and will remain so into the future.

An Excursion Around The Bay

Saturday morning - up early, load the dog and bags of food and clothes into the Zuk, and hit the Trans-Canada for Clarenville. Coffee at Tim's, then out thru Shoal Harbour, and off down the Bonavista Peninsula, bound for Upper Amherst Cove, population 40, plus younger daughter and her faithful canine companion Kahlua for the past few months.

Located on the north side of the Bonavista peninsula, the tiny community clings to the side of a steep hill overlooking the bay. Below, waves roll across the waters, and mackeral create 'boils' on the surface as they school around just off the rocks. Earlier, whales regularly appeared just below the house, feeding and breaching in the cold waters.

After lunch, we decide to literally take a hike - there's a short walking trail that leads to a lighthouse a few communities away. Two cameras and two dogs are loaded, and we set out for Kings Cove - Knights Cove. Park near the church, and then start out on the short but scenic trail.





The view across the bay is spectacular - deep blue water, dark green hills, explosions of white surf fringing the points, despite the fact that there's virtually no wind. It reminds one that this is indeed Bonavista Bay - exposed to the North Atlantic, and the swells that roll in relentlessly from the open ocean.

Seen from here, Upper Amherst Cove is just a sprinkle of white cubes dotting the hillside, a tiny splash of humanity imposed on the otherwise empty landscape.




A few minutes along the trail, the unmanned lighthouse is perched atop a rocky little cliff, it's riveted curved iron panels unlike anything we've seen before.





As we gaze upward at the light's lens, an osprey soars along high above. When you look down, the breakers along the shoreline show you exactly what hazards the lighthouse signals for night-time mariners.


The trail circles back thru the woods, rejoining the original path just a few hundred meters before the church parking lot. Nice short walk, beautiful scenery, a unique lighthouse, and a lovely view coming back...definitely worth the hour it's taken us.

Then it's back to the Zuk, and off to see one of the most magical places I've ever seen - Keels, Bonavista Bay. Stay tuned for story and photos.

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.