New Brunswick Trip - Day 10, Deer Island

 Although Deer Island is reached by a ferry on the next peninsular, you have to drive all the way back to the main highway, along that for a while and then off and down another road to get to the end of that peninsular. I'm sure it would be faster by boat.

We timed it perfectly and joined the end of the line of waiting cars just as the ferry horn indicated we could start loading. It can take 15 regular sized cars. Due to covid we were not allowed out of our cars, but the trip is short.

 

We just had this tourist map to use to navigate the island. In no way was is it to scale.

The ferry docked at one end and we drove to the other to see the lighthouse. Not very impressive but does the job.

The tide was coming in and from here we could see the Old Sow Whirlpool.

Old Sow is the largest tidal whirlpool in the Western Hemisphere, located off the southwestern shore of Deer Island, New Brunswick, Canada, and off the northeast shore of Moose Island, the principal island of Eastport, Maine. 

 The whirlpool is caused by local bathymetry and a 20-foot (6.1 m) tidal range^[1] where waters exchange between Passamaquoddy Bay and the Bay of Fundy, combined with the topography of the location's sea floor at the confluence of the numerous local currents through channels and over small sea mounts.^[2]

The whirlpools form in an area with a diameter of approximately 250 feet (76 m) From Wikipedia.

Rick made the comment that it was the first time he had ever "heard the tide" as the rushing waters were quite noisy

and you could watch the water creep up the rocks.

The fishing cormorants were floating in circles in the "piglets" (small whirlpools around the main one)

From here we could also see the Campabello ferry. Campabello Island is Canadian but the only road access is a bridge from the U.S. so the ferry has extended  its usual operating season until the border opens.

We walked the Clark Gregory trail.

I was well marked with the square green tags you can see on the tree in the right of this photo but was rough going with exposed roots and rocks.

The forest floor covered with moss and the rocks and trees with lichen.

At the end of the trail

a lookout

and we could see 3 kayakers way out.

We stopped and ate a picnic lunch sitting on these long poles lying beside the road. No idea what they were for or why they were numbered.

We spent about 4 hours on the island, driving every little road

to beaches,

little stores, art galleries (these chairs were made out of lobster pot wire),

big fishing wharves

and small ones.

It seems like the ocean is all business here,

we saw only one sailboat, a Tanzer.

There were numerous salmon farms, circles of nets in the bays,

and when we stopped at a wharf where people were , quite successfully, fishing for Mackerel,

we learned that this barge was flushing the salmon with heated water to get rid of lice.

Lots of bald eagles around

as well as deer. Garden plots of any size have to be protected with fences.

After a soak in the hot tub we were too relaxed to cook - pizza and potato chips for supper. This brand of potato chip is made in New Brunswick from local potatoes and was on the list of recommended New Brunswick foods that Chris sent me. I just looked at their website and they make lobster flavoured chips!