Friday, 12 August 2022

Crown Point - Alexandra, PEI

 


On the morning of August 22nd, I was taking Anne to the Charlottetown airport so I took the opportunity for a paddle at INT’s Crown Point property near Alexandra. The first thing after the airport (7am) was to find a Tim Horton for breakfast and coffee. Around 8am, I was at the end of Wharf Road, Alexandra – the recommended launch point for Crown Point. The tide was high, so launching and paddling away from shore was no problem.  Note: This launch point is high and dry as soon as the tide goes out, so make sure to bring the kayak cart.

Crown Point, INT (Merganser kayak, 10km)

The weather was pretty good but I was worried that later in the day the wind might come up, so I planned to go and explore the more exposed south shore first. I made a straight paddle to the east corner of the south shore (about 3 km) and went ashore for a walk. It’s a beautiful clean sandy beach for a walk with sandstone banks/cliffs and a thick conifer forest inland. At the top of one of those conifer trees, a Bald Eagle was keeping an eye on me. It wasn’t too disturbed and stayed in his perched for the entirety of my beach walk. On the return paddle, I made another stop at the SW point and did another walk on the south shore. Here the sandstone cliffs are more pronounced and due to erosion, there are nice formations and lots of pieces scattered on the shoreline. I did look for signs of fossils but didn’t make any discoveries!

 


 

South shore (SW point)

For continuing my return paddle, I had to go further from shore to find deeper paddling waters. The bonus is that a group of Harbour Seals came to check me out for a few minutes. Once they got bored, I decided that the tide might still be high enough to explore the bay that borders the north boundary of the Crown Point property. But, it wasn’t. I got in about halfway in a foot or less of water and then decided to turn around before getting stuck in the mud.

 

Bald Eagle

 

Harbour Seal

Other iNaturalist postings for the day are found HERE.

Overall, this was a great paddle in a very natural area and I will try to make other paddling trips here over the next few years but with a bit more planning around the tide cycle.

 

West shore


 

North shore

 

Semipalmated Plover

 

Spotted Sandpiper



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