Gravitational pull, how I feel it as I pull my body up the ladder from the YMCA swimming pool, after the weightless freedom provided by swimming and floating. We can’t feel the moon’s gravitational pull so it is so exciting to see its’ effect in the massive tidal display in the Bay of Fundy, where the tide rises and falls by about 46 feet, depending on location, twice a day! Picture one hundred billion tons of water pouring in and out of a narrow bay. To put it in perspective, that is the amount comparable to the average 24-hour flow of ALL the rivers in the world. In Mocton’s Downtown Bore Park, near where we are stealth camping, a clock marks the next Tidal Bore, a one foot high wave that pushes upstream in the middle of the Petticochit River from the build-up of the flowing tide rushing in from the Bay. Too subtle for a good photo on my I-Pod camera, we opt instead for a day at Hopewell Rocks, in the Bay of Fundy.

Arriving at the lowest tide, around noon today, we have three hours to safely walk the exposed ocean bottom below the Hopewell Rocks, before the flowing tide drives us back up the cliffs to safety.

The rocks become small forested islands as all but their crowns are buried once again by the rising sea.

We are so tempted to come back to watch the reverse process as the sea ebbs, and 48 feet of rock and cliff become exposed once more. However, watching the tide flow up or down 6 feet in an hour is still just too meditative for our energy today, and the weather is just too cold and gusty.

Like flotsam or jetsam moved by tides, winds and currents, we’re not certain we will be here again, so we linger a bit by hiking the well maintained trails near the Hopewell Rocks, before testing New Brunswick’s reputation as the Lobster Capital of Canada with a boiled lobster dinner. What’s not to like about ANY food dipped in melted butter with a squeeze of lemon?