Waiting for the Sunrise -- Doctor's Cove, NS

Just a few kilometres down the road (toward Barrington Passage, not up the road toward Shag Harbour), the road bends wide around a broad cove that makes a perfect reflective surface for some pretty dramatic sunrises. The community is Doctor's Cove, and of course so is the body of water. The causeway to Cape Sable Island lies to the east just below the horizon, and provides definition for it. The land that encircles the cove almost completely helps to shelter it from the breeze, so the water is often glassy calm, and there are ledges of rock in the cove that make it difficult to

navigate in anything other than a very small boat, but certainly make interesting accents against the reflected colours of the sky. There's a nice, wide shoulder on the road through Doctor's Cove and a couple of places to park; all these factors add up to a great place to wait for the sunrise, and to enjoy its full scope over the water. Cold mornings even have the added attraction of mist or "seasmoke" rising from the still water.

In 2009, my sister Sally Van Natta rented a cottage in Doctor's Cove -- check out her image of the village with morning sun peeping through the fog here, and while you're at it, stay around long enough to explore her wonderful photos.

This morning was exceptionally mild for March, the second day in a row when southwestern Nova Scotia awoke to clear skies and temperatures well above freezing, a combination not usually seen until sometime in May. The air was filled with birdsong, and light clouds formed a delicate tracery in the eastern sky.

As the light intensified they began to glow orange; I waited in a likely spot overlooking the cove and the sunrise began to shape up into an especially nice one. The trees on a small point of land jutting out into the cove were perfectly reflected in the still water, and the sun burnished its calm surface. With a beautiful spring day on its way, I'm off to explore more of the South Shore and enjoy this wonderful weather!