I finally left Sable Island on Friday, somewhat later than expected but that is the way it is with Sable. Since being back on the mainland and I have maintained a calm even keel, which one develops on Sable or anywhere that is somewhat isolated. Eventually the layers of complexity that define our lives we build, but until then,…
We sit here patiently waiting for the weather to clear for a flight. Rain and persistent fog have delayed our departure. Yesterday I visited an old tank that sits on the South Beach of the island.
This is suppose to be our last day on Sable Island for this trip. However, as often happens, the weather appears not to be cooperating with our plans. We are likely to be here through to next week, although you never know,…
Our last day was a busy one. The morning was spent moving our tractor down to our other camp, East Light. Although its 20 km, the tractor speed and soft sand made it a long trip..1.5 hrs. Apparently, it takes 6 hours to hike to the East camp on foot.
On the way, I stopped and did a contemplative photography exercise on the surf. The idea here is to focus on one subject, in this case the surf, and spend time just looking and shooting, without being distracted.
The weather in the morning was warm but with fog, although this did clear somewhat in the afternoon.
In the afternoon, we went seal catching. We usually capture marked seals since we have a history of their occurrence on the island which improves our chances of re-capturing them to remove the data instruments. However, they are difficult to find so due to time we have started to capture non-marked animals.
So this is the last post for this series. I will post again as our stay is extended. I will also return to my usual twice weekly posting when on the mainland. Thanks for following me and hope you have developed some appreciation of this very unique island.
We are coming to the end of our stay on Sable Island. Many of the maintenance projects are complete (a large part of doing research on Sable Island) but we still have to catch 8 seals. We only caught one today, partly due to there not being many suitable seals around and also because we had to meet a plane that was bringing in an engineer to set up a generator to power our camp.
Many of the dunes on Sable Island are heavily vegetated. At first glance is looks as though much of the vegetation is beach or marram grass, however Sable has several hundred (200?) species of plant, including wild rose, wild strawberry, iris and beach pea.
In the afternoon, I spent some time shooting photographs on the west spit of the island.
Day 11 was a little like Day 10, except we had less sun, more fog and we caught only one seal despite travelling 80 km around the island. I checked the location of the 4 seals we caught before this one; three remained on the island while the other was off in the sea.
At the end of the day, I had some time to do some photography, and the conditions were very interesting for it. When the fog rolls in here you lose a lot of contrast, everything looks ‘flat’ and very simple; I really like it.
Other than the horses, Sable Island is well known for the shipwrecks around the island. While looking around I came across this piece of shipwreck. These artefacts always create an eerie sense of loss.
Our tenth day on Sable Island was spent seal catching. The weather was a mix of sun and fog. There were lots of seals hauled out but the marked seals were difficult to find, and once found they were difficult to catch (very close to the water’s edge). Nevertheless we did catch three and successfully deployed the satellite and acoustic instruments.
Sable Island suffers from continuous erosion due to its heavy surf and wind. The image below shows how dramatic the erosion can be. The area shown below is on South Beach just east of a cove called Peninsula Cove, aptly named from a peninsula that jutted out between two deep sandy coves. This peninsula has now gone and the two coves are barely recognisable as such. To really appreciate the extent of this erosion, the two pipes shown in the image below have never been seen before…they were buried in the dune. Such dramatic changes to the island make one wonder how it continues to exist.
We woke to dark skies over Sable and they soon broke to give a heavy downpour. After a couple of hours however the rain turned to drizzle and then the fog moved in for the day.
In the morning after the rain, we went seal catching but were unsuccessful. In the afternoon we all drove to the second research camp which is about 20 km east. During the grey seal breeding season, December to January, this is where I stay. I really enjoy this place because it is very basic with no running water, an outhouse, and a generator for electricity. It is also small and can feel crowded with four people. The view from the front window is of the South Beach. I feel much closer to Sable when I live here.
Right now and through to July, the area is used for nesting by terns, mostly common and arctic. These birds are incredibly elegant and graceful in flight.
Today was our first day catching seals to deploy satellite transmitters and acoustic tags. There was some other work that needed to be done in the morning but in the afternoon we went out on the search for seals.
The island is 50 km long and the two beaches on either side are known as the North and South Beaches. Seals come up on to the beach to rest and can be found anywhere along the two stretches of beach. Since we are only interested in certain marked seals, we need to drive a lot of the island to find them. So, after 2 to 3 hours of driving we found and successfully caught our first seal. There were a few attempts at several others but they were in the sea before we could get to them. Tricky,…
After the seal catching I spent some time watching and recording video of a couple of horses on South Beach. I find shooting video similar to shooting stills in that its all about seeing. The difference of course, is that although you can start with something that is appealing, you have to let go as the scene changes and transforms into something else. Sometimes it works and you get some interesting footage, but often it just flops.
We are now halfway through our trip. The resupply was completed in the morning and the ship motored its way back to Halifax pulling its load, a 24 hour trip.
The remainder of the day was spent moving the jet fuel barrels (for the coastguard helicopter) on the beach to the helicopter pad at the Main Station. My job was to help rolls barrels on to the trailer of our new tractor, so while the tractor delivered the barrels to the Station, I would do a bit of photography.
One of my main interests is contemplative photography, which involves quietening the mind to avoid labelling what you see so that you can see more clearly. A useful but difficult training exercise is to spend 20 to 30 minutes looking and photographing the same object without being distracted. I did this exercise on the fuel barrels lying on the beach while waiting for the tractor to return, and tried my best to ignore everything else around me.
At the end of the day on the way home I spent a few moments photographing the harbour seals on the beach. Harbour seals breed at this time of year so there are a few pups around. There are also males with obvious scar patterns on their necks and hind flippers from fighting other males while at sea. Male harbour seals do not mate on the beach like the majority of seals, but rather exhibit a behaviour called lekking whereby the males while at sea display to females to attract them for mating.
Another long day on Sable Is. The weather was great, beautiful and sunny for most of the day with a calm sea, but turned a tad cloudy+chilly in the late afternoon.
Once again spent the day moving junk, fuel and dead ATVs around. We are almost done with this part of the trip, but still have some extra work moving fuel barrels (jet fuel for the helicopter, diesel for the furnace/generator and gasoline for the ATVs) once the resupply ship leaves, which is likely tomorrow.
I did however, steal a little time for some funky shots of the island….
