2011: Post 35 – A night at Gulch Pond

The word went out to gather troops for a camping trip in the Placentia Bay.  The e-mails started going around for nearly a week.  Clyde found a trip report by Peter Armitage on the club’s website and sent us all a picture of tents and kayaks on the shore of a place called Gulch Pond and dared us all to imagine ourselves there…  That picture was enough to hook three more of us.

Saturday morning Clyde pulled up in front of my house at about 6:20 am.  We loaded up my gear and then went to Tim’s for coffee to have on the way.  We met Tobias and Hazen at the TCH Irving and we all headed to Garden Cove for the put in.

We took our time packing our gear into our kayaks and got on the water around 10:30 am.  The route had been discussed on the hood of a car at Goobies Irving a little earlier.  We would paddle inside the islands down to Gulch Pond and camp and then come back to garden Cove by way of the east side of the islands.  However, Hazen being himself kept trying to talk us into paddling a little farther to Sandy Harbour.  We kept resisting though.  Hazen is a paddling machine since he got his bionic hip… he keeps enticing us to go just a little farther on these camping trips…

The slipway at Garden Cove

We had been following the shore of Sound Island for a little and decided to cross over.  I was glad we did.   I was in the lead and just as I got to the other side there were three caribou walking along the shore.  I paddled softly while I waited for my camera to turn on and snapped a couple pictures before they found their trial back up into the woods.

Our first stop was Rattling Brook Falls, although we had only paddled 7 or 8 kilometers from the put-in.  We must have been there for about an hour.  We had a little bit of fun splashing in the pool there.  It was a lovely warm morning and Hazen and Tobias got out of their paddling clothes for their dip.  Myself and Clyde both had a little bit of a bug and decided to keep our drysuits on but still enjoyed the little frolic in the brackish water nonetheless. 

Clyde dearly wanted to jump into the pool from the top of the falls but the tide was low and we were not completely sure it was a safe thing to do, although we could not touch the bottom.  But he had to go up and have a look and decided to be cautious.  So he came back down and climbed up a little way from the bottom and at least had a little jump….

I'd say it looked higher standing on top of the falls

All he needs is a Gortex cape and he would be Super Clyde...
up, up and away... 

We continued down the shore.  There was an eagle that decided to stay in the treetop long enough to get a picture…

We paddled down the shore and stopped at La Plante Cove for lunch.  It was a good place as we were sheltered from the wind blowing up through the channels between the islands and the main coastline.

After lunch we had about another hours paddle and pulled into Gulch Pond.  The tide was coming up which caused a little tidal flow into the saltwater pond.  This gave us a little bit of fun as we paddling with the current into the pond where we pulled up to our camping spot.  We had made it to the place of the picture that Clyde had tempted us with earlier in the week.

Clyde straightening up his brand new tent...

Ahhh!  This is the place we imagened we would be...
we were not disappointed...

Hazen must have forgotten that the tide was rising and left one of his shoes too low in the beach… So he had to jump back in his kayak to retrieve it…  we had a good laugh at this.  Good thing his shoe was spotted though as it did float away pretty quickly…

Hazen's shoe floating away.... we joked he could use
it as a spare kayak...

it had floated across the little cove by the time he got
onto the water to retrieve it....

Of course what is camping without a fire on the beach?  It wasn’t exactly a “Tony” fire (see post 21a, 21b, and 31 for pics of a “Tony” fire…) but we were pleased with it. 

The next morning we crawled out of our tents about 6 am to a foggy morning.  It had not rained but everything was covered in morning dew… it was a dreary morning but we got breakfast on the go and got some hot food and drinks into us.

By the time we broke camp the incoming tide had filled up Gulch Pond and we did not have to fight the current to paddle out of the narrow entrance back onto the open water.  We had taken a bearing before we left the campsite and paddled the nearly three kilometers to the southern end of Bar Haven Island.  We encountered a couple otters just as we came around the end of the island.  We just floated there and they would surface to look at us for a little while and then dive under water.  We hung around for a few minutes watching them and then carried on.

We decided to paddle into the south end of Western Cove where we stopped for a while talking to some people staying in the cabins there.  One gentleman told us he had been born in the house there (the one at the right)....   

We carried on up the cove and encountered an eagle sitting on a rock just past Glendon Cove.  Usually they are in the treetops but this one was right on the shore.  He must have been curious about us or considered us non-threatening because he sat there for a long time and let us take pictures. 

After a while he had enough of the kayak paparazzi and took to wing….

From there we paddled up to the north end of Western Cove and decided to pull our kayaks across the sand bar into Bar Haven.  To follow the peninsula shore around and then into Bar Haven would have added about four kilometers.  The morning was getting on and it was four kilometers verses about 10 seconds to pull the kayaks across the sand bar; it was an easy choice at this point of our trip.  We chatted to a couple of friendly fellows there and checked out the graveyard and the community hall.

It was close to noon by this point but we continued up to the end of Bar Haven Island.  The fog was dissipating and the sun was out and so we stopped for lunch before crossing over to Little Woody Island.

From that point we were about half-way back to Garden Cove.  We paddled onward past the Woody Islands and stopped about six kilometers from Garden Cove for our last little break on the beach. 

This point had us at about 24 kms for the day...
we were all feeling tired by now...

The last six kilometers after our break were the hardest.  Generally I like to get into the little coves to see what is there, but I had had enough by then and started to paddle from headland to headland opting for the shortest distance.  Clyde said he was auto pilot by then too.  Hazen was just ticking along.  Tobias found some energy there somewhere and had pulled ahead of us for a while.  We wondered what was in the granola bar that he ate during our last stop...

Finally we made it to the starting point.  The tide was coming up but the water line was still below the slipway and we all had to be careful getting out of our kayaks...  

Hard to believe all this gear fits into the kayaks…

It was a long couple of days - 53 kilometers for the two days.  This trip would have been better done in three days.  That would have given us the time to go to Sandy Harbour (we'll get there yet Hazen, don't worry) and poke around the islands a little more...  But it was a great trip nonetheless. 

Thanks Clyde, Hazen, and Tobias for another memorable kayak camping trip.