Cape Pine Lighthouse

Harold, who was our host on Thursday night, is a lighthouse keeper at Cape Race. It was the operators at this lighthouse that picked up the distress signals from The Titanic and relayed them to various ships and other lighthouses in the area. He told us about the Cape Pine Lighthouse, and so this morning we set off on the hunt. We found the lighthouse, after a 10 km trip down a rough and rocky gravel road which crossed the ocean barrens. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any Caribou but the scenery at the lighthouse was amazing. It is operational so we showed ourselves around the windy sight. We saw tons of whales frolicking in the freezing ocean just below the lighthouse. The temperature was around 9C, then plus the wind, it was pretty cold. After seeing the lighthouse we continued on our trek to the very picturesque community of St. Shotts and saw the Cape Shotts lighthouse. I think this is the most southerly tip of Newfoundland. The landscape in this area is quite unique. The coastal barrens are literally huge tracts of barren ground connected by small streams or rivers and ponds. There is literally nothing growing there except ground cover over the rocky soil. Our next stop was the stoney beach at St. Vincents where we stopped to see whales. We did see them way off in the distance, but after Cape Pine, it was a little disappointing. We did stand and watch the Northern Gannets diving in the water - amazing birds which we think may be related to the blue footed boobies we loved so much in the Galapagos. We also had an exciting encounter with John Sylvester (http://www.johnsylvester.com/), a photographer from PEI. Although a landscape photographer, he was trying to catch whales too. He was also very knowledgeable, and gave us all sorts of information about birds in general.

Friday night we stayed in the Salmonier Country Manor. It was an old convent and quite beautiful. I even managed to do a clothes wash!