Science Made Me Do It

The summer of 2012 brought a :blue tide" to River Ryan, Cape Breton. Caused by the growth of bioluminous bacteria due to a drop in the amount of rainfall over a period of time, this phenomenon lives up to it's name, causing the water to glow a bright and beautiful blue when disturbed. I didn't hear about the occurrence until I visited on the Labour Day weekend in September and when I told my mother about it, we decided to go investigate that night.

Unfortunately, we were too late, and the bacteria had moved on with their little bacteria lives. I know you're disappointed, I was too! So here's a video that someone uploaded to Vimeo to which I have no claim to copyright, but which I'm sure may enjoy some additional views and satiate your need to witness the blue tide at the same time.

On the bright side, what I did get out of the adventure was the inspiration to take a little side trip back in that direction the next morning before I started on my way back to Halifax. It's not a direction I usually drive in, so I wondered what it looked like in the daytime. The Lingan power plant sits on the shores of the very body of water that experienced the tide but was, for the record, completely unrelated to the phenomenon.

The other side of the road...

Thanks to Google Maps and directions from a friend with a substantially better direction sense than me, I managed to navigate a loop that brought me through the town of New Waterford and into the suburb of New Victoria where the highway kisses the ocean and you can pull over and get shots like this practically without leaving the car. 

 If you do want to leave the car, however, there's the now-restored Fort Petrie sitting guard at the mouth of Sydney Harbour. What used to be a haven for drinking and vandalism has in the last few years been designated a municipal heritage property and makes for some fantastic photo opportunities.

 

If you're lucky, you'll also see one of the huge passenger ferries on it's way in from or out to Newfoundland. The fort also provides another magnificent view of the Low Point Lighthouse.

The last stop on my mission was the most rewarding. I passed through New Victoria and into the village of South Bar where, as you know from here, I lived for the first nine years of my life. I navigated the short dirt road (if you can call it that) to the sandbar, where I spent much of my childhood swimming, skating, and hopping from rock to rock, breakwater to breakwater. Much of the sandbar is eroded away now and if the tide is in at all, you can't get out to the other end anymore. On this morning, though, it was absolutely perfect. There was not a breath of wind and the puffy clouds decorated the aqua sky like they'd been painted there. I sat for a long, long time and would have stayed longer if I could have, enjoying the peace and tranquility that only comes with being in a place that you love.