Return to Lobster Cove

On the fifth day of our Fortune bay trip we departed Rencontre East in fog.

Rencontre Lake is some seven kilometers long and runs out into the sea near the community.  At high tide it is possible to paddle over the falls an into the lake but the timing of the high tide was off when we arrived.

The fog couldn't hide the rugged beauty.

We handrailed along the coast and reaching Big Head we made a short crossing to the other side of Mal Bay.  Near Mooring Cove it started to rain heavily and the wind came up.  We had decent weather in the four days up to that point so we were lucky to have gotten into day five before it turned inclement.  Such weather is to be expected on longer trips.  It didn't matter as we were in our drysuits.

The rain eased but fed streams falling off the cliffs on the west side of Mal Bay.

We exited Mal Bay at Woody Head where we were exposed to seas that had built up by the southwest winds.  For an hour and a half we rode one meter seas until we reached Stones Cove where we got out to have lunch and look around.

Stones Cove is a resettled community (more on that later) that at one time housed almost 200 persons in 36 households.  We climbed high on the hills above the former community and had a great view of the cove.  After looking around at the various foundations of the former community we headed back into the whitecaps ...

... made another stop at Crants Cove to have a look at the cemetery before ...

... rounding Long Harbour Point and the relative safety of Long Harbour.

We reached Lobster Cove in Long Harbour at 3:00 to set up camp on the hillside overlooking the cove and in the protection from the southwest winds.  Five years ago Stan and I spent a windy night here on the exposed bank in the middle of the cove.  This was a much better site that Neville though might have been a potato garden many yers ago.

We set up Dean's ubber-tarp he has dubbed "Big Yellow".  Dean and Hazen relax after the bar was opened.

It felt good to be back in familiar surroundings under the protection of "Big Yellow".  It wasn't raining; it was only foggy.  We all agreed the yellow in the tarp brightened things considerably.

The orientation of the cove meant all the wood was in the farther side so after supper we walked over with our wobbly chairs and bar supplies to have our usual campfire.  We planned on a two night stay so we had to reserve some wood for the second night.  Conservation of the wood meant I would take no part in the fire on this evening.

Here's our 21 kilometer track to Lobster Cove from Rencontre East with the last bit along the exposed coast.