Surf

 Some photos of the ever changing surf.

Have a great day.

Some Favourite Rocks

 A few of the unusual rocks I spotted on the beach.  I really like this purple one.

 This one almost looks like driftwood with its "graining".

 I wasn't sure at first if the little stones were stuck in cement, but it did seem like they were in another kind of rock.

 What an odd shape.  It looks like some old bubblegum, but it really is hard rock.

 Beautifully smoothed with delicate veining.

 This one is different!

 Another puddingy one similar to the one above.

Because there was very little seaweed on the beach , I thought I should give this bunch a cameo appearence for being the stand out.

Inverness Beach - Pebbles

 One of the wonderful surprises I encountered at the Inverness beach was the profusion of beautiful coloured pebbles.

So many different shapes, and colours, and mixes.  How did they all end up here?

 I was tempted to start picking up my favourites to bring home, but I realized that would pretty quickly become a heavy load so I just took photos instead.

For the most part, the beach is just sandy, but periodically flat piles of pebbles line the shore. Some people find sea glass here as well. It's a really interesting beach.

Sound of the Beach

 

 

I made a couple of short videos so that I could revisit the beach whenever I wanted.

On To Cape Breton

 We drove an hour south-east of Charlottetown, and lined up to board the ferry to Nova Scotia.  The bow of the ferry lifts up, and then the cars and trucks, including transport trucks, slowly make their way into the lower deck. It's a bit claustrophobic, and I was glad to get out of the car and up to the upper deck.

We passed some lighthouses on our way out of the harbour.

 The opening in the sea wall seemed pretty narrow for the large ferry, but the pilot expertly did a 90 degree turn and put us exactly through the centre of the gap.

 A smaller ferry passed us going the other way. The weather was cloudy and misty, but fortunately the sea was calm. As it was, my stomach felt a little queasy if I went inside the boat.  I was OK on the outside deck.

 The never-ending painting that has to be done to keep the rust at bay.

 The approach to Nova Scotia was marked by a narrow path of buoys.  Again I was struck by the skill of the pilot.  We had to scramble down to our cars before the ferry docked so there was no opportunity to take pictures then.

 Another hour on the road and we came to the edge of Cape Breton.  The weather was intermittently rainy; we had left sunny PEI behind.

This is on the causeway that joins mainland Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. The dark hills were dark and broody at first encounter, but, as we drove further along up the coast, the landscape began to remind me a lot of the Laurentian mountains north of Montreal.

 We stopped at this welcoming gift store in Mabou, a small village up the west coast.  The owner gave us an exhaustive (and exhausting) run down of all the opportunities to hear local music.  Something happening every day. In October, a big Celtic musicfest happens, and people come from far and wide to participate in and enjoy the music.

 The view across the road from the gift shop.  By and large, the area is not prosperous, and the farms are often on hilly ground that probably doesn't have very good soil.

Finally we arrived at Inverness Centre for the Arts to meet up with my sister who is the manager of the centre.

 View  from her office.

 In the late afternoon, we made it to the Inverness beach that has very beautiful water in shades of dark turquoise, purple, teal blue, and green. 

Cavendish - Home of Anne of Green Gables

 We headed further west along the north beach, up near Cavendish, the town made famous by the Anne books written by L M Montgomery.  PEI has very red soil which shows up in the cliffs, the farmers' fields, and along the beach.

 Pebbly pattern.

The flat stones inspired someone to make a couple of inukshuks.

 A barnacle covered piece of driftwood  looks like some ancient sea monster.

The sea grass on the lumpy sand dunes reminds me of an old carpet put out to air.

 A sturdy boardwalk climbs up over the dunes and down the other side.

The beaches just go on for miles and miles.

Driving back to Charlottetown, the scenery is very much like our home area except for frequent glimpses of the ocean. It really is a pretty place to visit. We didn't visit Green Gables, although we drove by it, but tourists, especially from Japan, love to see the farm that inspired the books. The restaurants and cottages for rent have names inspired by the books, and, at the farm itself, a range of activities for children and adults aim to take you back to the beginning of the 20th century PEI.

North Rustico, PEI

 An old anchor in North Rustico on the north shore of PEI.  The name Rustico is an Anglicization of the French name Rassicot.  Some of the French Acadians came to PEI when the British kicked them out of Nova Scotia in the 1700s.

We decided to check out the gift shop.

 Lots of odds and ends, but nothing terribly interesting.  I ended up buying a few seashells.

 These potato gloves are kind of fun and practical, too.  They are made out of a  scratchy material so that when you rub the potatoes with your gloved hands, the dirt comes off.  But then you have to wash the gloves.  Hum, maybe it's easier to just scrub the potatoes with a brush.  PEI is well known for its potatoes, and I was expecting to see lots of potato fields.  I saw a few of them, but also lots of fields of corn and soya beans. Perhaps we were just in the wrong part of PEI, not in real potato country.

 A small lighthouse.

 An osprey, I think.

 A typical fishing boat.  It's hard to imagine that they take these boats out into the wide ocean to fish.  They look like they could so easily be swamped .  Brave men, those fishermen.  Some of the boats don't even have a wall at the stern because it's easier to haul in the nets with the open back.  Seriously scary.

I didn't know that we had tuna off the Canadian coast.

 Lobster traps are everywhere in the Maritimes.  The fisherman sell off their old ones to tourists, and get a little extra money that way.

 Ever since I was a Girl Guide, I've had an interest in knots.  Maybe that's why I like knitting.

 The supervisors.

A row of boats neatly tied up. Click for full photo.