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Yesterday was the second and last day of our unplanned visit on the Atlantic side of Nova Scotia. Today, we’ll be returning to the Bay of Fundy shores to camp for a couple of nights, so this will probably be my last post until sometime this weekend as we begin our (all too soon) journy home. Next time we’re down this way, we hope to spend more time in this area, having found a couple of excellent campsites along the shore.

We spent much of yesterday along the coast near Chester, and also on the Aspotogan Peninsula near Hubbards. We did a bit of hiking along the shore at Graves Island Provincial Park (see above – click on all images for larger views). As always, the rocks along the coast never fail to interest me (I’m a rock nut from way back).

Many of the rocks were encrusted with barnacles (see above). There was also a lot of seaweed along the shore, but unfortunately I don’t know much about identification [note to self: find field guide on seaweed before next trip.]

On one piece of seaweed, I found many small white discs. I didn’t have my magnifying lens along, so I couldn’t get a good look at them, but shot a few photos to inspect later. When I put the photos up last night, I was surprised to find that the little disks seemed to be tiny marine snails [and I was incorrect — read on]. Here’s a photo of another piece of seaweed encrusted with dozens of these little disks.

CORRECTION to the above!! Rick MacPherson left the following comment below:

wow, your pics warm the heart of this former atlantic coast marine biologist… those white disks are called spirorbis… spirorbis is a genus of very small (2-5mm) Polychaete worms, usually with a white coiled shell… it lives on the lower littoral and sublittoral zones on the rocky shore. spirorbis worms usually live attached to seaweeds, but some species live directly on the rock…

After leaving Graves Island, we drove up the coast as far as Hubbards, then circled back on the road that follows the coast of the Aspotogan Peninsula. The terrain is very rugged with small coves and inlets. The road runs tight against several small villages where there seems to be an active fishery with wharves and associated buildings. I would have liked to stop and take photos, but there were very few points where one could safely pull of the road. Along sections of the highway, long sections of net had been laid out to dry in the sun. We concluded that it must be one hell of a job to lay out the nets as they are very large and must weigh a lot when wet. There were a couple of sandy beaches along the coast – one at Bayswater Beach Provincial Park that looked quite busy. We didn’t stop yesterday, but this is also the site of one of two memorial sites to Swissair Flight 111 that went down in St. Margaret’s Bay in 1998.

At Blandford, we stopped to take photos of the harbour (see above). Not too far back along the coast, there was an island just off shore that was surrounded by some type of fish pounds – or perhaps for shellfish.

Just down the road from the wharves, we stopped at a lookout where there was a sign about the history of whaling at Blandford. It’s now odd to think of the whole whaling industry. Out here in Nova Scotia, the “whaling industry” is mainly associated with the tourism.

I can’t resist throwing in this bit of silliness.

After our afternoon of touring around, we stopped off at a small store near Chester that advertised 100 flavours of ice cream. I didn’t count them, but there were quite a few. As I’ve mentioned here before, we’re not really much for desserts, but once in a while I’ll bake a pie, or we’ll buy and ice cream cone (usually once or twice each summer). The cones that we got yesterday will probably hold us over until next year around this time. The Tropical Treat cone in the photo on the left was a “medium” — and I didn’t think to take this photo until *after* I’d already eaten part of it! I couldn’t finish the whole thing, but Sabrina was quite happy to help.

We decided that the best way to end out stay in this area was to return to Crescent Beach for an evening walk. There were very few people at the beach, but we found a good number of Semipalmated Plover resting in the dried seaweed at the highest point on the beach. I shot this little movie of our last walk near sunset. It’s not that terrific, but I like it as Sabrina keeps stopping to see if I’m coming. She gets worried if I don’t keep up or wander off somewhere.

Tags: Graves Island Provincial Park, Chester, barnacle, marine snail, Blandford, Crescent Beach, Bridgewater