rsc and went for a nice little canoe trip. to Goose Cove. This is an 1890 picture looking across the cove and causeway towards Ipswich bay. I wish I had brought my camera but I need to find a way to protect it from potential water damage before I take it in a canoe.Our canoe is locked up by the shore of the Annisquam River across the road and down two houses. This river is a tidal inlet and it was close to 2 hours before high tide. It is about a mile down river (against a slight tidal current and a mild wind). To enter Goose cove you have to go through a ~10 ft passage under the causeway. Tbere was a nice current rushing into the cove, so we whisked through, but did take in a bit of water amidst the turbulence as the cove widens out. The cove has about 30 houses scattered around it, but other than two guys stapling on shingles we saw no-one else.
We paddled down to the end where a bunch of egrets were sitting on rocks. We drifted a bit too near and they flew away. These were snowy egrets (distinguished by yellow feet) and one thing surprised me was that all but one had pale yellow feet while one had a much darker coloring. We hung around for a while but there was too much scum at this end so we continued onto the other end (it is sort of triangular shaped).
We saw some swans far away and then as we started approaching a dock I saw what looked like four penguins - a closer look showed that they were buoys (and not gulls as Robert first thought).
Then we noticed the swans swimming to near where we were headed. There were four of them in a perfect line with small gaps between them. The front and rear swans were white and the middle two were brown and smaller (kids I suppose). The front swan was the biggest. They stuck to this line, we slowed down to not scare them. Finally I remarked that the line was perfect and then they almost immediately the broke formation - the two kids went out ahead and they scattered. Over on this side there were two egrets and when they took off they didn't have yellow feet so they weren't snowy egrets.
Then we were ready to leave but there was the little problem of the tidal current. So paddled up to the causeway and tried to go through. When about 10 feet away all forward progress ceased. So we waited 5 minutes and tried again. On the 3rd try we got partially into the passage but couldn't go through. On the 5th try we made it but it was a lot of work. I was surprised that there was so much current only 1/2 hour before high tide but maybe high tide hear lags behind Gloucester Harbor which what the tide table describes.
Coming back the wind had changed a bit so it was against us but not too bad. I didn't go to the gym afterward to do shoulders and arms which was up next!