Three nights on Prince Edward Island: Lighthouses & Water

I spend three nights on Prince Edward Island, which I think is Canada's smallest province.  One could drive between the two furthest points on the island in about 2.5-3 hours, so I was able to see a lot of the island in a short period of time.  I'll break my blog into two posts, because I took a lot of photos and saw a number of things.  Too many for one post.  So not everything will be in order.

Being an island, one is never far from the water on PEI.  Most of the island feels like one huge farm, and there are maybe 4 areas that most people would call "cities," although they are more like "towns."  It also felt like I was at the end of the earth.  Even when I was driving or walking places where I couldn't see the water, and even though PEI is not the furthest eastern point of Canada, it felt very remote and isolated.  That might have been psychological, as I'd been thinking of PEI as my farthest northeast point of my trip, and I'd been looking at the map a lot.  /shrug

These are seals playing in the water.

And, being an island, PEI still has several of its old lighthouses (and a few new ones).  I think lighthouses speak for themselves, so I won't go on and on about them.

From the 1860s.  Furthest point from the mainland.

This is a "range light." Ships follow its steady beacon into the harbor.

Finally, being an island, there is water all around.  I stopped at one of PEI's more notable beaches:  home of the "Singing Sands" where, if you walk properly, you can hear the sand "sing" back at you.  Well, it really sounds more like squeaking or a dog yelping or something.  But I guess Singing Sands sounds more alluring than Squeaking Sands.

While the southernmost part of the Singing Sands was a pretty popular beach (and by popular, I mean by standards of the island, not, say, Florida or the mid-Atlantic beaches), by walking a few hundred yards north, one can have the beach all to themselves!

And in my final bit about PEI and the water... I left the island and went to Nova Scotia via ferryboat.  It's a faster way than driving to the eastern side of NS, and at $70 was only a little more expensive than the toll back across the PEI bridge to New Brunswick ($43!).  It's free to get onto the island, but you have to pay to escape.  I wonder if the high toll keeps PEI more isolated than it would otherwise be, as people wouldn't want to leave and return too often.  I also wonder if I'm getting over my motion sickness, as I've now taken a few ferries recently and haven't felt queasy at all.

Pulling away from the dock.

The view out to sea.