The second day on Halifax dawned calm but increasingly foggy. I wanted to get out in my boat at least a little so I paddled around the island and Mark climbed the knoll to shoot photos.


photo by Mark Stephens

Here I am rounding the west end of the island, with Pulpit Rock in the distance.


photo by Mark Stephens

There is a cove on the seaward side with some breakers rolling over the rocks. I paddled into the cove and out again, careful to avoid the breaking waves that Mark would have flirted with more closely.


photo by Mark Stephens

Continuing on with the Brothers Islands in the distance. The sea was very gentle, but even so it's a big place from this perspective!





The fog suddenly cleared and we had a glorious day. The Brothers Islands were temptingly close, and we thought we saw some sort of structure on it that we wanted to investigate. The islands are wildlife refuge so we knew we couldn't land there, but we could look. We headed out.



Sure enough, there was a house on the island. This has to be the most forlorn location in all of Maine.


photo by Mark Stephens

Two naturalists are staying in the house for 12 weeks to observe the bird nesting and to be sure they aren't disturbed. They said we could land on the cobble, but we just chatted a bit and then paddled on.



We paddled around to the outside of the islands. There were great rock cliffs. At the top we saw a small flock of sheep, left there to graze down the vegetation to make it more suitable for bird nesting.


photo by Mark Stephens

Photo from Mark's paddle-cam of the turbulence around the rocks. This was on a calm day. I wouldn't want to be there on a rough one.




At the top of the cliffs were the most remarkable birds. At first I thought they were penguins, they stood so tall and straight and had that tuxedo coloring. It was something of a reality disconnect - penguins? Here? Then Mark said they were razorbills. And at the same moment we realized that just below them was a group of puffins. I'd never seen either species before. What a treat!



Here's a close-up of the above photo, somewhat showing the beak coloring of the puffins and the funny stance of the unmoving razorbills.



Mark of course had to get as close to the rocks as he could. Myself, I was doing all I could just to hold on to paddle and camera and keep boat upright as the waves sloshed off the cliffs in a confusing chop. Rugged and beautiful coast.



On the way back to Halifax we happened upon this rock ledge covered with seals and pups. They were soon in the water. A flock of eider ducks fled from us too.  

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