More Nova Scotia thoughts, etc.

These are the things I wrote down while in Cape Breton. They're not in chronological order or any kind of order for that matter. Just things that caught my mind.

* Road signs in Maine, two yellow diamonds--top large, bottom significantly smaller.

Main St. Closed
Use other end

* Wolf spider on my arm in the kitchen. Hairy kind. I brush it off and it drops on a web rather than just falling off. Hard time disconnecting it from my sleeve. I thought of Jenny.

* Three-day trip from Cadyville because of a blown alternator only 160.7 miles after starting. Amazing luck finding another alternator for Bruce's 1988 van, our transportation mode. (Don't get me started on that.)

* Half of 30-mile stretch on "grooved pavement" (read: blacktop removed and nothing put back yet). No line markings. Driven at night, valiantly, by Bruce with me white-knuckling for him. That van has headlights like candles--and he says so.

* Carmel (Bruce's friend, a terrific Cape Bretoner of Irish heritage): "One night I took an unbearable pain."
And about one of her brothers (I think she said she comes from 13): "If he wants to shovel his dirt outside he'll just have to ...." I can't remember the rest of the phrase.

I love to listen to her talk; her regionalisms are all new to me and so interesting, as is she.

* Mackerel fishing--caught about 14, kept 9. (This was the first day I fished.)
Beautiful fish: fast silver flash in the water, mottled blue and green on top with irregularly-shaped black stripes.

* Cluster flies. Aargh. Using a shop vac to suck them up makes me feel like Darth Vader with a light sword.

* I opened fridge and went to get butter out of the door compartment. There was a (non-hairy) wolf spider on the compartment door! (I figured out later that the spider probably got there when the fridge had the door propped open since J&S had closed the place for the winter.)

* Eagle flying overhead as I walked along the North River with the dog. The eagle was harassed by a very brave crow but it scared a murder of crows from their roosts anyway.

* Moose poop on the road about 100' from the driveway. Looked fresh ... and it looked just like the candy called "moose poop."

* Caught 12 mackerel today. Some were pretty big!

* I must be into poop: bear poop about 100' from the house today. It's definitely fresh, most likely from earlier this a.m. I'm glad we're on our way out!

And now I learn that no one develops 35mm film locally. I dropped the film at Walmart and will be able to get the prints in ... Friday of next week? So maybe pictures then.

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

I'm an A-One Mackerel Fisherperson, according to Bruce. That was our main fun on this trip to Cape Breton. I'm hoping Bruce got a good photo of me holding one of the many mackerel I caught (12 one day!). But since our camera broke right before we left I have no digital photos and the 2 cameras we did have use 35mm film which I'll take to get developed tomorrow. It appears that Target is the only place left in my little town that works with film. Geez. So we'll see...

Meanwhile, Cape Breton is still its beautiful self. Probably the best feature of the island is its people, all of whom are friendly and (like most Canadians) so polite. We stayed at our friends' house, John & Sue, on the southeast side of the island. They live in P'burgh but have bought the place in N.S. as a summer place. I do not know of anyone else who would choose Plattsburgh as their winter place! And I compare it to being at camp. (For any non-NY/Eastern U.S. readers, a "camp" here is much like a "cottage" elsewhere but it doesn't have to have waterfrontage.) There's running water, which means a flush toilet, and electricity--unlike the camp I used to have in the Adirondacks. Heat comes from a kerosene heater and I'm somewhat allergic to the fumes, i.e., headaches. But it can be quite cozy when the weather is typical Scottish weather, meaning cold mist/drizzle/rain, and that was what we had for several days this time. (Bruce goes up every year and the only other time I've gone along was 2 yrs. ago.)

I do have to tell you about mackerel, though. First, they're a lot of fun to catch. I don't fly fish--Bruce is an expert and I get all tensed up about doing it right, even though HE doesn't care--but I've done spin casting pretty much forever and what's handy about mackerel is that they won't hit a fly for love or money but give 'em a 1-oz. lure and they're hooked! They hit nicely and then fight, swimming hard back and forth to try to shake the hook. When you pull them in they manage to unhook themselves pretty regularly, which makes it easier on the person(s) in your party who are willing to get slimed and covered with scales. Bruce volunteered so that I could just catch fish and it was a ton of fun.

Then, mackerel are beautiful. I don't think this photo really does justice to how pretty they are. Apparently they get more color as they're out of water for awhile; I know that looking down into the bucket I saw gorgeous cloudy mottling of blue and green. The irregular black stripes just add to their camouflage from above--it must outwit eagle-eyed eagles, I'm sure. And we did see eagles. Anyway, when you catch a mackerel, it flashes in the surf just beautifully--it is solid bright shiny silver from its midline down, so you feel like you're landing a sterling silver fish. They are pretty oily so it's not a fish I'm willing to cook indoors, but they're tasty so I'll keep one package of fillets and grill them. The rest go to John & Sue; they usually bring home up to 75-80 fillets but John was ill and couldn't fish this year.

Oh, for you fisherpeople? I did say 1-oz. lure. Actually the guys--mostly old farts--around me were all using 2-oz. lures but my rod couldn't handle that, Bruce said. And I probably would've dislocated something casting with something that heavy. But one guy told me that my 1-oz. was okay because the fish were being caught as close in as I was casting--the 2-oz. guys had to do a lot more reeling! So I did have fun.

But Bruce didn't get to fish very much. His targets are wild Atlantic salmon and Cape Breton is one of the few places left in the world where those fish come every year. Not so many, anymore, but they do come back. But with the rain, and then winds, his rivers were pretty much unfishable. We did go to "the other side of the island," to the Margaree River, world renowned for its salmon but he didn't fish it. It was a disappointing trip for him. And the ride home (it's 850 miles each way) was L O N G.

I'll try to get some photos to add to this--if they turn out, I'll edit this and add them in a few days. I'd like to go back to go all the way around the island again, and spend some time on the N.S. mainland too, in Halifax and Digby, etc. This trip is sort of a "working" trip for Bruce: fishing is what he's there to do so touristing around doesn't happen much. Maybe in a few years I'll go back; I told Bruce he's like the salmon. Every year he says this is his last year for the trip, but Cape Breton waters just call him back again and again.