On the same land as the Kennedy Space Center and the historic launch pads from the 1960s and still in use today, off the end of the enormous space shuttle landing strip, is a wildlife drive that I thought was common knowledge in the area. Turns out it isn’t, despite the enormous increases in traffic.
However, Black Point Wildlife Drive isn’t the only road through the marshes. As I’ve become more familiar with the area (and the behavior of alligators!) I’ve ventured further afield, turning onto narrow roads often unmarked and not as initially inviting as the well-marked route of Black Point.
Over the past few years, I’ve collected a number of photos of birds who nest and feed in the area. For a separate project, I’ve been reviewing, editing and grouping these photos together for print selection. So let’s consider this post a virtual contact sheet for review.
If you’ve got questions or comments, send me a message. I love sharing what I know about this remote area that’s a mere 5 minutes from town.
Though the day’s original plan fell miserably apart, I’m all about the improvisation. Okay, I’m actually more about getting into the car at the spur of the moment and driving with only a vague idea of direction and intention. The light caught up with me and I had perhaps the last patio dinner of the year. It was a good day.
Take a look to the left of the map up top and if you look real close you’ll note that I call this a non-linear blog. Nearly two weeks away from Grand Manan and I still have to sort through photos from then until now.
Today, I had to return some pants. Not the usual start of a Saturday adventure, but hey, lesser things have motivated me. You see, I only packed jeans. This is no surprise to anyone who knows me.
If I’m ever going to appeal to a woman who likes a man in uniform, she’s gonna need to have an appreciation for jeans and black v-necks, for that is the uniform of Shpak. Throw a sport coat over it and I’m sometimes accused of being fancy. In fact, I simply need the pockets.
As a privilege of my acquaintances in Saint John, I discovered the secret handshake that will get me dining rights at the Union Club, rumoured to be the home of the local illuminati, literati, or mafioso. Once again, my flaky hearing kicked in, so I’m not quite sure. However, I’ve been by it several times and it’s quite swank.
Now, if I were an actual rock star rather than a pretend weekend version, I’d just walk in with my usual uniform and if anyone made a fuss, I’d have made a bigger one, craploaded with entitlement. You know, just for fun.
In fact, in the right mood I might do that anyway, fakestar though I am. However, the keeper of the secret handshake has gone all out for me so besmirching my own tattered reputation is all well and good, but it would not be smirched in a vacuum. The secret handshake would reveal my benefactor.
This is where the pants come in.
I ventured forth last night to repants myself in keeping with the Union Club dress code. Now, the corona plague has put change rooms off limits in retail establishments, making return policies far more important to me than they’ve ever been before.
As it happened, the dimensions that serve me well regardless of the source of jeans failed me when translated into dress sizes. There was no way the usual size was going to work in grey wool. I didn’t find this out until I got back to my suite and, standing there with no pants on, I wasn’t inclined to return to the store right away.
Instead, I pulled pants on today and went to the store after buzzing around Uptown, intuiting the way back to the provider in question. A straightforward exchange ensued and I was suitably upsized.
Then, instead of turning left, I to-hell-with-it turned right and drew upon many map viewings. I was vaguely aware of Kingston being across a ferry so I went thataway. The photos that follow were gathered along the way. Along with some fish cakes and a beef short rib, this year’s Thanksgiving protein. There’s no end to the blue skies in this province, and they’re setting off the emergent fall colours in a lovely way.
It was a good drive, even if I can’t say what I’ve seen.
A local tourism map suggests that the ghost lighthouse on Gannet Rock is some 14.5 kilometres southeast of, one assumes, the southern tip of Grand Manan Island. Without a compass and map, it’s difficult to know precisely how time, speed and direction conspired, but arguably, the Zodiac boat I was on departed the Bay of Fundy and entered the Gulf of Maine or perhaps the Atlantic Ocean itself. I’m not up on how these things are defined.
Let’s call it a long way from frikkin land, because it felt as though we proceeded past Gannet Rock about another 14.5 km or so. On a gray day, the horizon between sea and sky was just a suggestion. That, in itself, wasn’t an issue.
Nor were the seas themselves, no matter which body of water was technically surrounding me. The captain estimated swells of less than one metre. Oh, there were drops of two or three metres that rattled the coccyx, but these were occasional. Even a lake tripping canoeist like me knew this was a gentle day in a stable boat, well within its design parameters. This wasn’t an issue.
I resisted the urge to yell, “thar she blows!” when I spotted the first of the humpbacks to port and the captain turned in the direction of the finger that I could not resist pointing. We’d found our pod. This, too, was hardly an issue.
Calm-ish sea or not, there remained plenty of motion and as I raised camera to eye, there was a bit of struggle to keep the telephoto lens trained on the aquatic mammals that were surfacing to clear their blowholes. On top of this, I was keeping my non-camera eye open to spot other groups. This is where the issues began.
Internal Disagreements
The human ability to detect its position in space depends on a coordinated effort. The inner ear holds three balance organs that detect and track the head’s rotation and others to report on its movement.
That information is sent to the brain, which then compares it to information gathered by the eyes. This is a sort of inner redundancy check. Your brain expects to see a field of vision that matches the motion information put forth by the ears. Muscles and nerves provide tertiary-level input.
As long as the brain reconciles the reporting of these body systems, all is fine, as it was all the way to the imagined point, 29 km or more from our starting point.
However, my spatial sensors were having a rather heated discussion. Muscles and nerves were fixed in position within the Zodiac. One eye was tracking whales through a long lens. The other eye perceived a more or less normal field of vision. My ears were reporting every gentle roll along every gentle axis.
In short, my balance systems were calling each other liars.
Heave Ho, Almost
The net result became apparent as the whales began to lose interest in us. Given the internal struggle that was now creating storm surges in my stomach while a great wooze did its thing from ear to ear, I was losing interest in them.
Forget whales. It was indignity prevention time. All I needed (not) was to hang over the inflatable side of the Zodiac pumping bacon and eggs into the bay/gulf/ocean. The telephoto went back into the camera bag and out came a GoPro that I simply engaged and held high, hoping I was pointing in the right direction. Usable footage? Well, no.
As the cetaceans dwindled and the captain turned back toward the harbour, I was not at odds with his decision. Along the way, I saw my first in-person puffins, pulled the long lens out and suddenly remembered why I put it away. More meditational breathing.
By the time we were back in Ingalls Head, my eyes, ears, bones and brain were once again on civil terms and the shelter of the harbour was both literal and figurative, and I maintained my breakfast.
It was, in the grand scheme, a tiny battle. The images were worth it.
Just 18 hours in, I’m already in my third thick fog. This would be of the literal maritime variety, not the thick mental version which plagues me more or less constantly. The fog isn’t the surprise. The ease with which it comes and goes is far more interesting.
Between the episodes of limited visibility, the cheerful summer sun breaks loose, shining on Greg and Clem and I as we sampled beers, chased pigeons and harassed passing motorists on the streetside patio of the Cask and Kettle, just down the hill from my suite.
Up the Downhill
A 3-D aerial photo pair, for those who need pictures.
Speaking of down the hill, though I was expecting the three-dimensionality of Saint John, actually being here is like viewing stereoscopic terrain photos. The perspective in these photos is exaggerated for detail. Reality is not as hilly as those photos made it seem.
Not so with the city. It’s exaggerated for reality. And of course, gravity being what it is, the downhill portion is much, much quicker than the reverse. The effect is such that it seems sometimes as though I’m going uphill in both directions.
As I’m huffing and puffing to boost my carcass to the required altitude to return to my suite, I look around at other pedestrians to see if they are similarly struggling. It’s like being a mugging victim in New York City, bleeding on the sidewalk, while passersby completely ignore you. The same with Saint John-ites and me. Work on your cardio, TouristBoi.
After some breakfast, I think I’ll venture out into the fog, if it hasn’t lifted. Maybe I’ll walk up to the market. Or up to the harbour. Or up to the beach. Just in case, does anyone know the number for 911 in Saint John, in case this Upper Canadian’s heart can’t handle it?
While one can aggravate their hypertension with the salt intake needed alongside the latter stages of a 14-day weather forecast, I’m nonetheless looking ahead to September 28.
Not only is it Tatuccio’s 800th birthday (estimated), I have a whale spotting tour scheduled from Grand Manan Island.
The predicted overnight lows in the area seem unseasonably cool. I’d better pack long pants. Maybe even socks.
On the Sunday prior to departure, some of the administrative odds and ends began to resolve. I received, at last, confirmation of my home in Saint John, on the second floor of a stately old heritage building at the top of Chipman Hill.
Home.
That idea takes me back 6 years, to another September along the North Sea coast in Fife, Scotland. A friend was driving me up the coast, fishing village to fishing village, to the point where I began to wonder if it was possible to get one’s fill of fishing villages, and if I had reached that point.
Coming down a narrow road with a high wall on the right, it wasn’t until reaching the intersection at the bottom that the harbour of Pittenweem unfolded before me. It was a complete, gasp-worthy, take-your-breath-away moment. Clearly, the thought formed, “oh, I must live here,” followed quickly with some form of, “but of course that’s not possible.” Here’s what I was faced with:
Redefining ‘life’
So, why was it not possible?
A tab opened in my head devoted to the question. Travel outside of North America came late in my life, so to see everything there is to see, including the stuff I won’t know I want to see until stumbled upon, there’s no way to devote a lot of time to picking up and moving to every place, like Pittenweem, that steals my breath.
That’s what sits underneath the 15-day rule. Since conventional residency was at best impractical, a new definition emerged.
So, a conventional vacation is a week or two, at least it was when the corporate, suburban routine had a hold of me, long before work-from-home was thing. Fifteen days, though, one day more than a typical two-week vacation, could be my dividing line, given that I’ve already shuffled through more than half of the mortal coil allotment.
Anywhere I spend 15 days or more based out of one location now counts, for the purposes of my life, as residency, even if it’s not recognized by the various levels of government, near or far.
By that definition, I’ve added Maastricht, Holland, Boizenburg, Germany, and Titusville, Florida since 2015 to my Official With an Asterisk “Lived There*” list.
And now I know what the front door of my next home looks like. I get there Friday.
When you take a stab at a long shot, sometimes it pays off. It was sometime last winter when I encountered a CBC news story about something called a Workcation being offered by the City of Saint John. If you can work from anywhere, said the City, why not work here? They not only arranged accommodations, tours and social life, they offered to subsidize the cost of a month’s stay.
Work from Anywhere
I do have the luxury of working from anywhere where there’s a valid internet connection or phone signal, so I certainly qualified in that regard. In 2017, there was a week spent on the Bay of Fundy in the Advocate Harbour area, and enjoyed immensely, so I applied for the Saint John Workcation.
However, I was rejected. Perhaps my mistake was that I’d shared that I would prefer to rent rather than own, should I decide to move to New Brunswick. There was no room to elaborate that I would take some time determine where I wanted to live and would rent in the meantime.
It’s easy enough to project the intent behind the Workcation initiative, to stimulate the local economy by bringing in reinforcements to the tax base without the more complex task of job creation to initiate the influx. And, hey, the real estate transactions would be a cash flow stimulus.
2nd Time Lucky
It never hurts to put the effort into connecting, even through email, and my witty repartee (citation needed) made me memorable enough that, when a vacancy in the program opened, my contact with the Workcation program remembered me and extended a participation offer for the Fall of 2021, even though it was already half past summer.
Well, I’m flexible of schedule if not so much of physique, so my ears perked up and I requested more details. They arrived, they were satisfactory, and since, I’ve been putting together the pieces of the puzzle, and now I’m just a few days away from my pending departure.
As is my wont during travel, I like to take and post photographs, typically at the end of each day. My photographic style is instinctive. I don’t like the camera to stay in between me and the experiences of a new place, so I shoot quickly and often without much thought, my personal take on Cartier-Bresson’s Decisive Moment philosophy, a principle I’ve intellectually struggled with for over 30 years, variously agreeing and disagreeing with Henri’s thoughts on the matter.
Here, in this tentative blog that hasn’t been used much since the original idea a few years ago, is where I’m going to post photos and thoughts, should any occur to me, rather than start yet another single-trip blog. That is, at least, the intent now. We’ll see how it goes.
“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta
The Desert Inn, Yeehaw Junction, Florida
So probably ole Ibn never really said that, in any language, but I suppose the thing with manufactured quotes is that attribution lends gravitas to an orphaned idea that nonetheless has impact. In the case of this Yet-Another-Travel-Blog, the speechless/storyteller idea should, I hope, hold true.
Years ago, before I could really appreciate the essence of the words, I wrote the lyric, “we bear the traces of places we’ve been,” over a weak melody and the song has long since disintegrated into notes and syllables. However, after finding a new muse in travel started later in life, that idea comes back to me in new ways.
There’s this urge to blog — centrally, I’m a writer by both vocation and avocation — however, I’m not a Fodor-style diarist. I seem to hunt for ephemera, the secrets of new places that hang in the air, osmotic parcels that speak truth in metaphor and resist literal representation.
So this idea foments to share my experiences in a non-linear and impressionistic way. I won’t be the sort of traveler you’ll find on packaged tours or ritualistically scouring for the best restaurants. I stumble and look over there. I raise camera to eye for unknown (even to me) reasons and I feel something indescribable when, legs aching, I edit through the day’s photos. The sights and smells return, as does the feeling of these places, changing on a street-by-street basis.
As photographer/writer/musician, all of this fills my grey matter and recombines into imperfect output, words and melodies and images that are perhaps further from the elements of absorption than I’d ever expect, but still tied, in the synaptic circuits that perhaps only I possess.
Yet, both life and travel offer up kindred spirits, and a single connection has value far beyond the cost of a motel room, so I offer up little things here in hopes that someone, somewhere thinks, “I know what he means.” Maybe it is, maybe it’s not. It doesn’t matter. That’s the way of art, I suppose. To speak without speaking and to find commonality without contact.
Plus, I find this stuff fun. That’s enough for now.
Itinerant Impressions 