The road to Ireland's Eye

On Thursday, August 8, six of us began a four day Kayak Newfoundland and Labrador club paddle to Ireland's Eye in Trinity Bay.  Ireland's Eye is an island.  Nevertheless, the road there, figuratively, began in the community of Burgoynes Cove.

Two and a half hours after leaving home we arrived at the put-in.  We loaded up the boats after which Dean, Julie, Hazen and Ron shuttled the vehicles some 75 kms up to the community of Trinity.  For a further two and a half hours Barb and I waited in the welcomed shade of a tree for their return when we could ...

... finally get on the water to begin our trip.  We paddle up the north side of Smith Sound under sunshine and pillowy white clouds.

Smith Sound gradually opened up and we could see Ireland's Eye in the distance.  We would save that for the next day.  A late put-in meant we would spend the first night at First Pond ...

... which is a fresh water pond up a one kilometer fjord and river.  We arrived at 6:00 pm.

There isn't much room on the side of the pond.  Here Hazen gingerly bends over with an ice pack on his thrown out lower back.  That was the cause of considerable concern for the rest of us so we did what we could to spare his back and save the trip.

Flat ground for tents was at a premium.  Four of the guys were here last year and cleared some room but we needed to set up six tents.

I set about with my saw to clear enough room for my tent in between the alders, in the suburbs just on the outskirts of the main site.  It was just after 7:00 before our community was established which meant a late supper.

Not long after cleaning up from supper the sun had set and we had this glorious view across the pond.  As darkness became complete we had an amazing view of the heavens.  We caught several early meteors of the Perseid meteor shower, a few satellites and the Milky Way galaxy wheeling overhead.

There wasn't much "beach" to have a fire but we squeezed in along the shore and managed to have a humble fire by our standards.  We didn't want to set the whole countryside on fire, and our tents!

We made a late start but we were underway.  Here are the breadcrumbs.