August 8 Saturday 2009 Cape St Marys
Overcast again but not raining so we head down the Irish loop again to Cape St Mary's ecological reserve on the Southwest tip of the Avalon peninsula on the East coast of Newfoundland. (125mi-200km from St Johns one way). The reserve is home to 24,000 northern gannets, 20,000 black -legged kittiwakes and 20,000 thick billed murres. We arrive in fog we can't even see the interpretive center from the road. Bill does the 1.2mi walk to the edge of the cliff where we hear and smell then before we see them -family after family of gannets. Their babies are much bigger than the ones we saw at Bonaventure island Quebec. We are told to watch our step, look out for sheep poop, and stay on trail. Standing on the cliff edge slopping rock the barren ground are carpeted with gannets. The sharp smell of guano and 1000 voices chorus of cries and shrieks are awesome. We watch them swoop and glide and return to feed fat fluffy over grown chicks too large to cover. Time is moving and we have to complete the circle, so we head back. We stop at Placentia where the long ferry to Nova Scotia docks. The fog has lifted and it starts to rain. We get lost trying to find our way into St Johns. Their streets do not run straight or level. It is a very easy town to make wrong turns in which we always manage to do.We arrive back around 3pm still raining. It stops raining long enough to go grocery shopping and fuel up before we leave for the Burin peninsuls on Monday for the French Islands.
REMEMBER -Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success.