Chéticamp Harbour from Chéticamp Island

Chéticamp Harbour from Chéticamp Island
Photo 38 of 77: Chéticamp Harbour from Chéticamp Island
Taken 2010 June 19 from Chéticamp Island Road
300 m (0.2 mi) southeast of the south end of Lighthouse Road
GPS 46°36.101'N 61°02.056'W

The concert was packed, as I had expected it would be; I arrived three hours early and even then could only find seating way in the back; the music, nevertheless, was fantastic and I had a great evening. The following morning, the weather was less than grand, but I had some time to spend before the afternoon cèilidh at the Doryman, so I drove out to Chéticamp Island to see what I could find for photos.

The view above is taken from the road behind the beach known as la Plage St-Pierre a short ways off the Cabot Trail, close to its junction with Lighthouse Road, whose utility poles you can see along it at the left of the photo. On the south side of the road (directly behind the camera) is the breakwater that rises above the sandy beach and its sand dunes close to the road; on the north side of the road is the south end of Chéticamp Harbour, which ends here in the foreground. The tide was low, so the band of sand in the foreground was uncovered. The steeple of Église-St-Pierre can be seen (barely) right of centre at the south end of Chéticamp village and the mountains that rise to the east of Chéticamp form a dark green backdrop on the right, while the far less lofty Chéticamp Island forms a counterpoint to the Highlands on the left. In the original, it is easy to make out la Grande Falaise (The Great Cliff) on the side of the mountains about a third of the way in from the right edge of the photo, but the compression has pretty much obliterated any contrasts in the version here.

This wide-angle photo was chosen less for its clarity than for its play of colours; in spite of the the hulking clouds that would normally spoil the view for me, I find the reflection of the sky in the water presents a pleasing and tranquil scene with a somewhat strange beauty of its own. I hope I’m not the only one who enjoys it!