August 11, 2019
Sunday I left where I was staying in Miramichi, NB and drove north along a continuation of the Acadian Coastal Drive, a scenic road I had driven part of south of Miramichi the day before. I drove past where I would stay Sunday night in Tracadie-Sheila (highlighted in pink on the map below). Just past the town of Pokemouche there were several roads which were on my “primary” scenic roads agenda (highlighted in orange and the basis for this trip).
I stopped in the town of Shippagan to take pictures of the colorful boats (see separate post), then crossed a low bridge and over a long causeway to go out on Lameque Island. As I did this I noticed two or three seagulls hovering to my left, just out over the water and maybe 40 or 50 feet above the causeway surface. It was a very, very windy day and the seagulls were able to point into the wind, extend their wings and just hang there, without even needing to flap their wings. I have been frustrated ever since getting my first digital camera three years ago (I miss you, Canon!!) trying to get photos of birds in flight. Now these were just seagulls, mind you, but a bird in flight has an intrinsic beauty to it, even if it’s a pigeon.
I parked beyond the end of the causeway, donned my Safety Sam vest, grabbed the camera and walked back towards the bridge. The seagulls were gone. A few were down floating on the water. I waited. And waited. I decided not to wait any more, I had places to be and things to do, and went back to my car and left. I’d have to come back this way to get back to the mainland and maybe it would still be windy enough for the seagulls to be here when I got back.
I drove across Lameque Island, making a few stops for pictures along the way, and eventually crossed a much taller bridge which would take me out to Miscou Island.
You can see a full size pickup truck driving up the bridge. Near the top of this bridge, more seagulls hovering. As my friend Shawn would say – Ha!
I’ve got you my little pretty…. (Shawn wouldn’t say that, the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz did).
I parked at the bottom of the bridge, grabbed my camera, this time also donning my floppy hat which covers my ears and the back of my neck (and my bald spot) as it was a bright, sunny day and I thought this might take a while. I walked up to the top of the bridge.
Seagulls notwithstanding, there was something else I wanted to take a picture of. There was a large building on the Miscou Island side of the bridge with a huge Acadian flag painted on it’s roof:
If you look at the bottom right of the photo you will see my car, safely parked off to the side. In the lower center part of the photo you will also see a man walking towards my car.
Forget the seagulls, now I focus my attention (and camera) on this guy. He walked past my car, checking out my license plate.
YEEEHAAA, ha ha, very funny. He continued walking towards the bridge. Then he turned around and started going back.
At this point I started walking back towards my car as well. It was locked but given the events of the past week I didn’t want this guy to even think about getting his grubby little hands on my new GPS 4.0, which I haven’t even talked about yet.
The good news – he just kept on walking (and probably has perfectly nice, normal sized hands). So I walked back up the bridge. Hmmmm….. no more seagulls. Perhaps they were frightened away by the Safety Sam vest which, by design, isn’t exactly an Invisibility Cloak. I waited. It was very, very windy. In fact, up on this tall bridge it was very, very, VERY windy. Since I was wearing my floppy hat I actually thought I might do the whole Sister Bertrille thing (The Flying Nun, Sally Field, late ’60’s, look it up) and get carried off to PEI.
It was so windy that I had already given thought to the fact that I probably wouldn’t even be able to hold the camera still taking zoomed in shots of the seagulls anyway. I had been planning to brace myself along the substantial metal railing while focusing on the seagulls, trusting that it was securely affixed to the bridge but after hearing them making creaking noises (it was VERY windy) I began to worry about the structural integrity of the bridge itself.
I abandoned my plan and went back down to my car. Once down there I started taking pictures of other things, like this Jolly Roger flag on one of the nearby boats at the marina next to the large building.
I continued my journey as I knew there were other things awaiting me.
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