Taylor's Lower Lip

For those people who enjoyed paddling entire coastlines, Taylor's Head is one of the challenges to get safely around on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore. As you can see in the above photo, the 'head' is more of a protruding 'lower lip' in the sense that seen here at about mid-tide, there are considerable shoals stretching out to sea, well beyond the headland itself. When I paddled out to have a look, there was only a slight breeze coming in from offshore together with a mixed swell pattern coming from two directions, but both were less than a meter or so in height. Even so, long lines of breaking waves broke well out from the head and often in unexpected places. To get around the shallow 'lower lip' even on this relatively quiet day, it required one to watch for a while to see what was going on before committing to a course through the obstacles. Even then, it seemed to be a gamble and I kept asking myself if I was really where I wanted to be to avoid getting suddenly heaved about by a wave which could suddenly decide it wanted to break over me.


To the north and east of Taylor head, there are a number of islands and shoals again to provide interest to any paddler wishing to explore and play in the relatively sheltered waters. One of the delights is to come around a point of land and suddenly and expectedly come across a beach which abruptly changes from cobbles to sand in the blink of an eye. I landed on one such beach for lunch before continuing my explorations.