Thursday, October 17, 2013

Sea Kayaking in Nova Scotia

 We did a sea kayaking trip with Nova Shores around Cape Chignecto in the Bay of Fundy.  This was by far the highlight of our trip and one of those moments where I just can't choose between all the possible photos.  So this is a longer post, but I'll do my best to cull.
 Our first stop came pretty early because the waters seemed quite calm here, but as we adventured out to see if we could do the Cape on Day 1 (waters were predicted to only get more rough) our guide deemed the waters too much for that day --- seem calm here, but as we neared the Cape, much more.

Tent site #1 and a photo of our guide Anthony from South Africa.

One of the best parts of the kayaking trip was "living the Bay of Fundy."  The tide changes are so huge we planned to launch and stop at as close to high tide as we could so we would not have to carry the kayaks 30 vertical feet or more up the beach!
 Breaking down camp on Day 3 (the order of the photos are bit off for a long list of reasons).  We got our only rain on Day 3 ---  you can see Tom's and my tent site in the photo (the dry spot).  We had to move our tent to that spot because Tom, the guide and me all realized, after we first set our tent, that the tide line was dangerously close.  I woke up around 1am with high tide and watched it lap near the edge of our tent --- even in the new sight.  During the photo is is very far away...
 At each site we had a chance to explore the park we were kayaking around.  The next few pictures are Tom and I out for an afternoon run...
 The 3 sisters from the trail we were running.  The next day we were kayaking right up near these rocks. 
 We are exploring a beach at low tide which has very little available space during high tide.  Look on the right side of the photo and you can see the dry sand...
 We did some fun bouldering on the rocks at low tide!

 Running on the beach at low tide.  This is all covered in water at high tide --- past the photo on the left!  It is hard to show.  You need to live it.

 In high tide this is all covered in water.  You can see the tent in the distance.  When we landed, that tent was right were our boats landed on the beach.  See where the water is!
 It is just so pretty in the Bay of Fundy.  These are all pictures from the first night.  Each of these photos are related views of the same thing showing different levels of the water.  One of the most striking is this photo to the right and the center picture below.  They are of the exact same rock, but in the lower one, the water was still well under our feet.  In the one to the right, the spot where we were sitting is on the center left, where there is no water!



 Our guide took some excellent pictures of us in the boat on days 2 and 3, especially as we rounded Cape Chignecto. 
 Here you see the guide taking a picture of the top of our paddles at their peak.  We were in 3-4 foot swells.  For us this was rather exciting!
 Still in the photos as we worked our way around the Cape.


 We were starting to get really good on Day 2 and our guide encouraged us to work our way through some narrower, rougher areas in the rocks.  We are actually passing through and below, just through one of the, but we did several and this was not the most exciting!

 The sisters are behind us --- the sisters were in the running photo above.  We also saw a bald eagle around this time that sat on a rock and watched us as we watched it.  We also saw a number of seals and other birds.

The whole group:  us, the guide and Martha and David on the last day as we finished! We would definitely go back and kayak with Nova Shores again.  Everyone should do this, if they get the chance. 

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