We left Fleury Bight, rounded the last of the headlands, and started across 3 miles of open ocean where Seal Bay and Badger Bay meet at the sea. Above, Seal Bay Head, from a few miles offshore as we paddled by. It took about 45 minutes of steady paddling to make this big crossing. Wind had not come up yet so it was easy going, and very beautiful.
We crossed the first big bay mouth, stopped at Adcock Island for a breather, and then proceeded onto the big 4-mile crossing to Great Denier at the far left edge of the chart.
Adcock Island. Fog crept along behind us, obscuring the passage we had just made.
We reached Great Denier by noon, a one-hour crossing, and as I was at last feeling well we decided to go farther.
Surf landing at Great Denier Island. Mark needed to clear his skeg and couldn't get his knife open. Beach debris provided us with a stiff piece of thin plastic that did the job handily.
We had just left Grand Denier when Mark shouted and pointed. Iceberg!! Then we both started laughing. It was the smallest iceberg I've ever seen. It bobbed around in a corner of Little Denier Island, trapped there by wind and currents, slowly melting and sizzling. We touched it, noted that indeed there was much more underwater than above, marveled at the sound of air being released from it, tried to take photos that made it look big. But really, not bad to find an iceberg in July, far from the east where most of them are carried by the current.
We wanted to survey the island of Triton. We'd found mention of it as a good place to poke around and to find campsites.
Shag Bight Cliff on Triton Island.
We paddled in to Triton Harbor and felt immediately overwhelmed by the boats, cars, people, noise. There were probably only about 200 people who live there but it was about 200 too many. We stopped at J's Seaside Convenience Store to buy water (totally unnecessary, as it turns out - we found fresh water at almost every place we camped). I bought a Diet Coke, Mark bought ice cream. As we sat on the dock eating, a local man couldn't help but inquire curiously. "You don't mind going out in those kay-yaks then?" No, we assured him we didn't mind at all. He asked where we were from. "Bobby Orr country, that is, roight? And how about the Stanley Cup, Newf-lander took the cup, roight?" He told us about growing up right there at Triton, his kids moved to Ottawa, grandkids come to visit every summer, said he couldn't imagine living anywhere else.
The "John Wayne", a local fishing boat turned cruise ship, taking passengers out to see the islands. This was Triton Harbor.
We traveled all around Triton Island and then Brighton Island and couldn't find suitable camping. It was growing late, we'd been paddling long distances all day and we were tired. But no campsite was quite right - they were close to a road, or they were buggy, or swampish, or too much wind exposure. We paddled down the length of Pilley's Tickle between Pilley's and Triton Islands. Nothing. As we paddled, a small motorboat passed by farther out on the bay. Suddenly it slowed down and veered directly toward us. Three men stood inside, staring at us. One took out a camera and shot a photo of us. They pulled alongside and stopped.
"You have some nerve being out in them things!" the weathered fisherman exclaimed to me, taking a pull from his can of Labatt's. We asked about campsites. "Roight, you can camp anywhere hereabouts, no one will mind. You can come camp at our site, green cabin just over there, you're welcome to join us, right. It's all good camping." We thanked him for his kind invitation but could not imagine camping with these three rough fellows whom we could barely understand. We tried to make a little more conversation, struggling with the thick accent, and then waving goodbye, we kept paddling.
At long last we found a grassy knoll of island just inside a little cove. It was wide open - I thought it a poor choice - but Mark was all for it, and we were both exhausted. We stopped there for the night. Mark was right, it was a perfect location. We stayed two nights.
Total mileage this day - 28.3 miles. Roight.
Mark sets up the kitchen. The sun was still high but it was quite late.
The campsite, again amidst wildflowers: beach peas, iris, daisies, devil's paintbrush, buttercups.
There was just enough level land for us to pitch the tent. It was our oasis.
We watched the beautiful sunset and marveled at our luck at finding yet another wonderful campsite.