Caplin Roll in Caplin Cove

Carpet of iridescent green, writhing. A thin fog half-heartedly obscuring cliffs, solemn, battle ship grey with their longitudinal lines. Impressive, but the veil of mystery soon lifting, peeling back to show true blue.

This past wednesday, the caplin rolled onto the beach. Almost to the day they did last year (a month behind from years ago). Son Ezra first out at 6am to net a few. The ritual cooking up of a few on the Regal woodstove. Then such a fine day, I launched and paddled over to Hant's Harbour to let some friends know 'the caplin are in'.

Trinity Bay

(photos by Michael Bradley, 2007)

As temperatures fall far below zero, and clunky Sorels replace booties, I'm remembering some paddles from this past summer. One was with fellow kayak blogger Michael Bradley who took these photos of our day trip in Trinity Bay. This is an exciting bay to paddle. At the head are places like Chance Cove, Chapel Arm and Spread Eagle - sheltered, for the most part, but their stacks and caves testify to an often active sea.

A little further out are resettled communities - only accessible by boat - such Deer Harbour and Ireland's Eye (site of biggest drug bust in eastern Canada of the 70s, or something like that) and Pope's Harbour where this year a church was built - four decades after the community was abandoned.

Further out still, past a great poker hand (as in Hearts Delight, Hearts Desire, and Hearts Content) is the exposed coast chez moi with its sheer cliffs, shoals and great vistas. Many miles on the other side of the bay are places like Trinity, a historic community with many restored homes and the filming location for the 2001 film The Shipping News and the 2002 television miniseries Random Passage.

Chance Cove - all days are sundays

(Photos of Chance Cove, TB courtesy of Graham Openshaw)

In a 2003 trip report about paddling Chance Cove to Rantem Harbour - a short but enlightening trip - I wrote that the paddle, like all fine things in life (tasting good chocolate, listening to bullfrogs, reading Barbara Kingsolver), should be enjoyed slowly, reverentially. And so when a late October chance to paddle the Chance arose, I grabbed it - and my 12-year-old enthusiastic daughter - along with several other members of our ever-expanding kayaking club.

October around the Chance offers a different view. Fewer eagles and the noisy terns and flashy guillimots were noticeably absent. Instead, the bright yellow and muted orange of larch, birch and dogberry softened the edges of Rantem Harbour. And anyway, rocks, caves, stacks, passageways have a tendency to stay put. Just one day past a full moon meant we were treated to a greater tidal range.

Daughter Ella was intrigued by the intertidal flora and fauna exposed by a low low tide and kept steering our borrowed double in close. Encouragement by another paddler had us both squeezing through passageways and rock hopping in places that I would not have thought a double could possibly manage. And while a double is far from my preferred mode of paddling, I was surprised at the agility we attained. Smiles from offspring #1 were well worth it.

An immense little paddle

aug. 2007

managed late afternoon paddle in Trinity Bay from our cove. Calm waters encouraged me to solo paddle an otherwise forbidding coastline with no takeouts for several miles. Past Hants Head and headed south (well, actually west). Not a boat on the bay - that felt eery, given it'd take me a good 5 hours to paddle to the other side. Lots of long-tendrilled jellyfish. Stark cliffs, brutal headlands (given the right - or wrong - conditions) and then I found Green Cove - local name. It's barely a cove - not a boulder to take out in, but it has the most impressive arch, a solid mass scratched with quartz. Even then - in a quiet sea, the swell slapped up a good foot & a half on the cliff. I managed to edge around the arch to see whether I could pass through - but not unless my kayak came in around 5 feet - there was a tight right angle to pass through. Still, a magnificent sight. Still further, another section of the cliff I'd not explored before (I'd been paddling further out to avoid clapotis), sheer rock for a few hundred feet - heard the unmistakeable sound of water - fresh water - falling. A crevice, barely one foot wide and the entire length of the cliff face smudged in oozing lime green and tinkling loudly. Then paddled to yet another head... there are a few along this stretch - gulls, terns and guillomots crying desparately - of course it sounds that way when their voices echo off cliffs.

Just an hour or so - my underwater camera on the blink so no photos this time.