Nova Scotia is a nautical place. It's not considered part of "The Maritimes" for nothing. Luckily, I'm a "maritime" kinda gal. Navy brat, coastal affiliations with California, Oregon, and Washington. And I live on an island.
So Nova Scotia looks suspiciously like "home." Even our latitudes are the same. Halifax is at 48 degrees, 38 minutes. Whidbey Island is at 48 degrees, 35 minutes. You do the math.
Other than driving kilometers, temperatures read in Celsius, and that glorious red maple leaf flag, I hesitate to say, IT WAS JUST LIKE HOME.
Well, not exactly, but pretty darned close. So close I could talk about Dungeness crab season to a lobster fisherman, both of us then realizing that our crabbing/lobster seasons begin and end around the same times.
What's particularly cool about Nova Scotia is that there's so much charm packed into a relatively small space. And, as you find in coastal Maine, there are lots of little peninsulas to drive up and down and around, never knowing what sort of weather you'll encounter, what boats might be out and about, and what the light will be doing.
So you're constantly surprised. What? No boats here at all? What? It's pouring down rain! What? It's sunny? What? It's hot and humid? In September? You gotta be kidding.
We had it all. Fog, sun, heat, coolness, rain, boring light, and wonderful light. Never did wear the two sweaters I brought. Wish I'd packed shorts. Or at least a short-sleeved shirt.
So here's my first glimpse of Nova Scotia. Lots of
And you know what I regret? When renting the car, filling out the forms, I wish I'd said to the agent, "And you all drive on the left side of the road, right?" Just to see his expression.
Technical stuff: For this trip I brought two Canon camera bodies, one with a cropped sensor, the other full-frame. I brought a 24-85mm lens for the full-frame body and a 70-200mm "L" lens for the cropped sensor body. Never did use the fast 50mm lens I brought, nor the 12mm extension tube.
©Carol Leigh
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