The shaky weather situation the previous two
days left us trying to do two activities that were still on our agenda, one of
which was kayaking on the north shore. We headed a half-hour west to the town
of North Rustico, where there was a very convenient area to drive onto the
beach and unload the kayaks from the van.
Strangely, the most difficult paddling was
in the harbor, as we were fighting the incoming tide and crazy currents around
the jetty and sandbar at the mouth of the inlet. Sue snapped a shot of me
passing the lighthouse:
Once out of the harbor, we found the Gulf of
St. Lawrence to be incredibly calm, with occasional gentle swells or boat wake
the only disturbances. The Northumbria Strait on PEI’s southern side, because
it is shallow, is notorious for having the warmest summer waters north of
Virginia, but the Gulf was amazingly comfortable as well!
We picked one of the red cliffs that
jutted out a couple of miles in the distance and headed for it, and with just a
light breeze and no waves or current to fight, we reached it in a short amount
of time. There wasn’t a whole lot to see out there, but we laughed at how
easily we could hear over the water the shrieks from children way back on the
beach.
We were baking out in the sun because we
were so close to the cliffs, which sheltered us from the small amount of
wind that existed, so we moved out into the open water a bit farther, where we
could see rippling from breezes. Laying back in the kayaks and lazily drifting
around for a while has become a favorite pastime of ours on this trip!
With the breeze at our backs, it took even
less time to return to the harbor, which featured a crew of people taking turns
diving off the jetty into the channel. We took a short break at the beach, then
rowed up the harbor to take a photo of the neat little fishing shacks lining
the waterfront.
At this point Sue and I thought (more on
this later) we had become quite adept at lashing the kayaks to the roof. She
would climb up on top, and I would hoist the boats up to her. She would secure
them to the vertical rack, then I would scramble around the sides,
looping/tightening the straps around the roof rack. We would be careful to keep
the straps as flat as possible against the hulls of the kayaks to prevent the
annoying humming that can occur while driving at high speeds. If there were any
spots where the straps were left out in the open, we found that putting a twist
in the strap at that spot would usually eliminate any noise. There really had
been no major issues since we set out from Royersford!
After grabbing some snacks back at the cabin
and changing our clothes, we set off on a bike ride, pretty much back in the
direction we came from North Rustico, but we veered into the entrance of Prince
Edward Island National Park. A wonderful traffic-separated bike lane took us
along the six-mile length of the Gulf Shore Parkway.
It happened to be one of Canada’s “long
weekends”, kinda like Britain’s “bank holidays”, and we were completing our loop
as many folks were heading home, so traffic was a bit heavy once we left the
park. Again, Sue had planned to ditch partway, especially since we had also
done the kayaking, so she turned back toward the cabin site, and I continued
south to meet up with another part of the Confederation Trail.
This eight-mile section of the trail ran
right through the middle of the province and was quite remote compared to areas
over which we had traveled previously. Most of the surface was grassy double
track through dense evergreen forest, and there were only three minor road
crossings along the way. There was a bit of a grade in the middle, but this was
a railroad after all, so nothing too challenging.
Our riding experiences on Prince Edward
Island didn’t do anything but support the idea that the province is indeed a
cycling paradise. Judging from the numbers of people we saw on the roads and
trails, many folks agree!
We knew that we were driving back into some
heat in the U.S., so we started off rather more unenthusiastically from this
vacation than we normally would. Our moods did not improve when we had to stop
multiple times to adjust the kayak straps, as inside the van it sounded like a
swarm of bees watching a cello concert!
None of our stops to tweak the setup had worked, and the final time we pulled over to find both kayaks lying flat on the
roof! The knob that keeps the rear vertical rack...uh...vertical had loosened (maybe from the extreme vibration?), and
both boats collapsed down on top of the van. They must have slid gradually,
otherwise we surely would have heard some type of thud.
There was no alternative but to start from
scratch, and we were lucky to find a breezy stop safely off the highway to restart
our usual operation. It must have been quite a scene to those passing by with
Sue up there on the roof. Thankfully, we nailed it this time around and had no
further issues.
Our midway Airbnb accommodations were in
Yarmouth, Maine, a second-floor bedroom/bath in someone’s home. I find these
situations somewhat strange, but the hostess was a sweet older lady, and the digs were
very comfortable – and air-conditioned!
The rest of the drive home the next day was
rather uneventful, which is definitely good news, and as expected, we pulled
into Royersford on a typical brutally warm/humid Pennsylvania summer evening.
We grabbed the cooler and a few necessities but decided to leave the rest of
the unpacking for the next day, when the temperature would be a little more
bearable.
I had received amusing news that my wife’s
family had rescheduled their annual Seafood Fest at the Jersey shore – to the
upcoming weekend. Apparently about 3000 miles of driving wasn’t quite enough, so
we were going to be on the road again in just two days. At least the 2½-3 hours
behind the wheel would seem rather brief after two straight days of 8-hour
drives!
Many packages had arrived during our
vacation(s), and I was finally able to wrap up the Colnago Saronni single-speed
bicycle project. I’ll sign off this final trip log with some images I snapped
this afternoon, when we returned from the shore:
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