Summer photos 7: the Bay of Fundy

I'm taking things a little out of order today, chronologically, because school starts oh-so-soon and I want to make sure that I get this post written before it does.

In late July, I went on a snail-hunting trip to the northern end of Nova Scotia (Cape Breton). Those photos will be forthcoming. But what matters for today is that this entailed an epic drive across the northeastern bits of both the U.S. and Canada. I had constraints on my time due to things happening in the lab, but also on a more immediate basis because of the tides. Since I can only look for snails at low tide, and low tide is only at a particular time, this means that I often have more time than I need to drive from point A to point B on any given day, leaving me time to do a little bit of sightseeing.

On this trip, I took a short detour through Fundy National Park in New Brunswick. I very sadly did not have time to explore either the bay or the hiking trails, but it was a nice drive.

The Bay of Fundy is notable for having the highest tides in the world. What that means is that the difference between high tide and low tide is larger there than anywhere else (an average difference of 47.5 feet during spring tides). There are also whales in the bay, and tidal bores where the rushing tides run into rivers and cause the rivers to change direction at certain times of the day. For a marine ecologist (or at least for me), this is something of a pilgrimage to go see.

Fundy National Park, New Brunswick. I'm not sure when in the tidal cycle this was, but somewhere in the middle.

Tidal flats at Fundy National Park.

Low(ish) tide at St. Andrews, New Brunswick. At high tide the water would be up near the pier, which is probably 10-12 feet high. Also note the abrupt change in the weather from the previous day. This made for more unpleasant driving.

Another shot of the Bay of Fundy, this one from a previous trip to Quoddy Head, Maine (the easternmost point in the US. This was taken only 1-2 hours before high tide (there's 6 hours between high and low tide), and by the time I left the park all of this rockweed was underwater.

I still have not had the opportunity to really explore the Bay of Fundy. Someday I definitely want to go see its more famous landmarks, look at the whales, and really explore its lower intertidal. For now, I'll have to content myself with pretty views from pretty high up on the shore.