Friday, August 1st 2003

Clear skies, light wind, moderate swell from the Southwest. First quarter of the moon

Friday morning, 10:10 am. After our usual breakfast (never get tired of it!), we prepare our water bottles for the day, adding a little powdered juice for taste and energy. Paddling in the narrow channel behind Fox Island, the water is so clear and calm that we seem to hover over the sand and rocks 5 or 6 meters below us. We paddle only for less than two hours before stopping for a snack. The next stretch of coastline, beyond Bay de Vieux, rises as a wall of granite straight from the sea. For the next 6 km, there is no shelter or landing spot until we get to Grey River.

At noon, we paddle around West Point into a small cove at the entrance to Bay de Vieux. The soft Southwest swell rounds the point and comes crashing on that rocky beach. A small pond of stagnant water just behind the beach is teeming with mosquitoes. It still is a welcome break before our afternoon paddle. We extract our lunch bag from the front storage of my kayak, where it can be kept dry yet easily accessible. Depending on the day's inspiration, we chose one of the canned fish that we stocked (lemon sardines, curried mackerel...), add an energy bar, fresh carrots, an apple and some juice.

An hour later we push off again, crossing Bay de Vieux. We follow the coast line, staying 500 m off shore, away from the chop created by the cliffs. The entrance to Grey River is invisible from a distance. Earlier we had seen a fishing boat disappear into the cliff. Getting closer, we can see a buoy and the lighthouse marking this narrow gap in the granite wall. Even as we enter the narrow channel, the village of Grey River stays out of sight, bundled between the mountain and the river, around a curve in the canyon. We hug the side of the channel to avoid the outgoing tide and the wind pushes us along back eddies until we reach the little harbour.

The village is quiet with no apparent sign of life. Fishing boats are tied to the shore and patches of colour sway gently on clotheslines. As we get closer there is the sound of a small engine and voices drift down to the water... My watch shows a little bit after 3 when we drag our kayaks over slimy rocks near the public wharf. A young girl peers over the side and sends a torrent of questions that we barely understand through her strong accent.

Grey River

Grey River is home to about 110 souls and has its own school, church and post office. There are neither streets nor cars here, except for two minivans parked on the wharf. Rather than leaving the cars in a public parking lot in Burgeo, their owners load them on the Gallipoli, the larger coastal ferry that calls here once a week and connects Grey River with Burgeo and Ramea. "Stages" (small fishing shacks each with its own wharf) line the waterfront, many with boats tied to them. Farther along, a walkway leads to the municipal incinerator. A thin strand of blue smoke rises from its flue and a long pile of refuse slopes down to the water.  

Dressed in our kayak clothes, we feel like aliens as we walk a few steps to the wharf. Passerbys nod but walk on without a word to us. A white cabin cruiser just came in as we were tieing the kayaks. We join a few fishermen who are talking to the skipper. The visitor is from Halifax and is cruising with some friends who are following on a sailboat, just entering the harbour now. Someone cracks a joke, and a few minutes later we feel like we are part of the family! Soon after, the Marine Voyager appears around the bend. This smaller coastal ferry provides daily service between Burgeo, Grey River and François. It seems like the whole village descends on the wharf. There are friends and relatives to greet, mail to distribute, packages to receive...

People inquire about our trip, where we'll spend the night and we try to get some local knowledge about the coastline. As the weather is nice, we decide to keep going rather than camp here (there is not a lot of room and we'd be on someones's door step). We're told that there are nice landing spots farther up the long Grey River channel. There is also a beach at Gulch Cove a little farther along the coast although we are warned that it is not very sheltered. There are two stores in Grey River and we go in the nearest one, just behind the wharf, not so much out of any pressing need as to know a bit more about the community. We recognize the owners as the couple who waved to us last night on Fox Island. Rose, the owner, was living in St.John's but decided to come back 7 years ago. Her brother teaches at the school. Twenty kids attend school in Grey River, from kindergarden to the last year of High School. We buy some bananas and an ice cream. There's a ping of regret as we get back into our kayaks. Our short stay was still long enough to make friends and now we leave... As we paddle out of the narrow channel, against the wind this time, we remember that we should have filled up on fresh water. Oh well... We have enough for a day and we'll surely find some tomorrow along the shore...

The sea is calling and the tide carries us out against the fresh breeze that pours into Grey River. It's almost 6 by now but the sun is still high.

On the water, off Grey River

With a light wind to our back and a gentle swell following, we paddle eastward, fast over the smooth water, without a word. We are each lost in our own thoughts but still together in the rythm of our paddles. Suddenly I hear Marie scream with all her lungs. She's 3 m to my right. Just in front of her kayak, the water is swirling and swollen. "Some... something just jumped, there! Right in front of me!!" I raise my eyes only to see a black fin cutting the water's surface and coming towards us, fast. And two dolphins surface in unison, their shiny backs arched out of the water. They breath in sharply as they dive back in. Between our two kayaks, under water, their torpedo shapes make a barrel roll, eyes watching us and spotted bellies catching the light. They surface again in front of us, only to dive and circle back under again, repeating the maneuver another few times. The whole episode lasts no more than a minute or two and we're in a trance... They leave as fast as they appeared, jumping out of the water farther away, leaving us breathless and hearts thumping. Later, using a book, I conclude that these were probably Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins, larger than the porpoise that we had seen on the St. Lawrence near Tadoussac or in Maine, and not shy at all!

A few minutes later, we reach Gulch Cove, a small bay, partially sheltered by a rocky strip and backed by a crescent beach covered in round pebbles. We empty the kayaks and drag them to a spot higher that the well dried sea weeds marking the high water line. I level a spot for the tent. We have a quick supper as night falls and the air quickly cools below the high cliffs.

Just behind Gulch Cove, a saddle leads to the Southeast Arm of Grey River. In Grey River, we had been told that you can cross this saddle. Seen from here, this crossing is not obvious at all and involves a pretty good climb up some large loose rocks between two scree slopes.

Exposed to the South and Southeast,
Gulch Cove and its pebble beach are accessible
when the sea is gentle.

The beach is covered with driftwood and the usual garbage carried by the sea. I don't even attempt a clean up... Between empty bottles and an unbroken light bulb (how can the sea so delicately place a glass light bulb on a rocky beach without smashing it to bits?), between pieces of lobster traps and bits of rope, I find an empty milk carton bearing only arabic inscriptions and a styrofoam instant soup cup covered exclusively in Japanese caracters. Small reminders that the Grand Banks of Newfoundland are not far and still attract factory ships from all around the world.

What was behind that sudden encounter between us and the dolphins?

Are those seemingly random encounters between kayaks and sea mammals really due to something other than pure chance or the coincidence of two travellers meeting along the same path? Just looking at our own personal experience, while in our kayaks, we have been approached by Minke whales and fin whales near Tadoussac on the St. Lawrence, by pilot whales off Cape Breton and by dolphins here. We heard the first hand story of an Orca approaching a Zodiac between Rose Blanche and La Poile on Newfoundland's Southwest shore and read stories from other sea kayakers telling of such encounters with blue whales, humpbacks or sperm whales. I can only conclude that such encounters with those very intelligent creatures are caused in a large part by their curiosity towards us rather than the opposite.

And why did Marie and I react the way we did? All along this brief encounter, we kept paddling at a steady pace.

We were so engrossed that we never even thought about taking a picture. I carry a waterproof disposable camera and Marie always has her compact 35 mm in her front pocket. I could even have taken a picture of them under water! 

For the rest of the trip, the obsession of this encounter never leaves us. We replay the film that's burnt in our memory, trying to fix every detail forever in our mind. Would the dolphins have behaved differently had our boats stopped?

The rest of our trip never provided the opportunity to re-live the experience or try other behaviors. We saw dolphins again, several times, but they never approached us like these and our questions stay unresolved.