Drenched

It was the calm before the storm this morning with just the slightest whiff of a wind coming across the cove. The direction had changed and it was blowing in from the east. We saddled up and put the boards in, paddling east to explore around the islands that lay near the mouth of the bay. It took about forty minutes to reach them then we wound our way around and between them checking out the beauty of their rocky shores.

The water was crystal clear and we could watch the bottom pass by below us, rocks covered with seaweed and plants. There were a couple of tall granite rock faces like a mini El Capitan rising up from the ocean. Unfortunately, or fortunately for those tired of all of the paddleboard pictures, the camera battery died minutes after leaving port. Leaving us to focus entirely on the beauty surrounding us and the posse of seals that were spying on us from a safe distance behind. The gray skies were getting even grayer and we still had to pack up camp so we stuck to the lee side of islands and hopping from isle to isle we wove our way back to Norse Cove.

The rain began to fall, softly at first, then it picked up in intensity and by the time we reached Dartmouth it was coming down torrentially. The remnants of tropical storm Erin let loose her wrath and pounded the Canadian Atlantic with close to 100 millimeters of hard rain and gusting winds. We plodded through the downpours following a trio of hapless motorcycles for a while until they gave up and pulled off under an overpass. Visibility sucked and by the time we reached Blomidon Regional Park near Scots Bay we were enshrouded in a thick mist just like back on the stony Scottish highlands where many of the area residents originally came from. We parked in our soggy campsite on a grassy knoll covered in little yellow and white flowers. The rain never eased off an inch until the pre-dawn hours of the following morning. A cob-floater.