Taking option three

There are three options when leaving out of St. Philips: south to Topsail; north to Portugal Cove and west to Bell Island.  Sunday we took option three and made the 5 km crossing to Bell Island.  Eight of us set out for Bell Island in the distance.

Half way across Conception Bay lay open to the north with Cape St. Francis on the right and Bell Island on the left.

We made good time to make landfall at Dominion Pier on Bell Island.  Recent rain turned to icefalls on the tall cliffs above a bunch of ramshackle cabins.

From Dominion Pier we headed north along the dominating cliffs of Ordovician sandstone and siltstone.

We paddled by the ferry terminal and passed by The Beach on Bell Island Front.  At the terminal a lady asked us if we had come for our psychological assessment.  At -5C it must have felt cold to her.

A swell pounded on the beach aerating the water giving it a turquoise colour.

Reaching Pulpit Head.

The further north we paddled the more we felt the swell dashing against the rocks.  Tobias joined us for the first time in a year and a half having been too busy with new family arrivals to paddle.

Derek paddles towards the distinctive feature of Long Harry Point and I also caught ...

... a smiling Gary there.

Some of us paddled just past Eastern Head to take a peek at conditions along the north shore.  We sat for a while in the swell and watched 2 meter waves build, steepen and rush towards Redmond Head.  Cathy said we should keep going and do an unplanned circumnavigation of Bell Island but we suggested it for another day.

After 5 minutes or so we headed back the way we came.  I shot one last picture of Cathy.  We weren't as far apart as the picture suggests but we were several meters apart in height which made her look tiny in the setting of sea and land.