Rocks, trees and Mongolian throat singers

4 of us had a great weekend paddling the Outer Canso Islands, where
the Stan Rogers Folk Festival was taking place. The scenery was
fantastic, the water ice cold and the weather...complicated.

We had a tiny squall follow us around most of Saturday, forcing us to
camp on the mainland instead of our destination, Charity Island. We
had a great site on a sandy beach nonetheless, and in fact got a visit
from the members of Chirgilchin, a Mongolian throat-singing group who
hiked out to the end of Glasgow head between sets at the festival.
Although shy, they were amazed at our kayaks and our gear, and asked
many questions about the boats. Their English was decent, and they had
a Russian interpretor with them as an obvious minder. One of the guys
had on a pair of hand-tooled leather boots with up-turned toes that I
would have given my eye teeth for.

Wayne, Tracy, Pamela and my ownself had a wonderful time. We ate like
royalty, drank... um... responsibly (beer, home-made peach wine,
rum...) and paddled our hearts out all weekend. At night, we were
lulled to sleep by the crystal-clear tunes from the Stanfest several kilometers away,
with distant foghorns filling in the gaps. On Sunday, we were
serenaded by seals at our lunch stop on Sherewink Cove. Their "music"
was not so pleasant, being mostly hoots, howls, growls and grunts. I
was reminded of the later stages of our typical Kayak Pub Nights at
The Dock...

Wildlife was plentiful, and included such rare sightings as the
black-stockinged Tart and several mature chubby-legged strippers.
You'll have to ask Wayne for genus and species info on these rare birds...

Cheers to Wayne for sharing his camping knowledge, Pamela for her
amazing culinary skills, and Tracy for her moxie and delicious peach
Chardonnay.

Pics are at: http://community.webshots.com/user/magoo_ns under "Canso '07"



Glenn