Pronounced B’Door Lake, the lake is really an inland sea, with part fresh water and part salt water. We moved over to the lake, and the town of Baddeck (Ba-DECK) to explore the other half of the Cabot Trail. 
We took one day and drove around the island until we pretty much reached the point where we had left off while exploring from the other side. There are quite a few small fishing villages along the way, but not much else. A few restaurants, I guess, and of course some gift shops.
We were originally going to stop and hike, but decided that it would be a long ride to get to the tip of the island and we might run out of time- so we decided to leave the hike till another day- bad idea, I guess, since it never happened.
We stopped at one of the several beachy areas, and while Paul wandered around looking for sea glass, I set the camera on burst mode and tried to get pictures of the Northern Gannet.
This white bird with black tipped wings, nests on nearby islands, and is a lot of fun to watch. They soar above the water, and when they see a fish below the surface, they literally dive bomb down into the water.
They fold their wings completely back when they dive. It’s really hard to get a picture because a) they don’t soar too close to the shore, and b) I can’t actually see them through the viewfinder, so I just point the camera where they might be headed, and hope for the best. I didn’t do too well getting pictures, but it was fun to watch them. You’d have to click on this picture to really see the bird.
Baddeck was also home to Alexander Graham Bell, so we visited the Bell Museum. Quite handy that it’s a National Historic Place, so our National Park pass got us in for free. By the way, the quote refers to the fact that while testing airplanes, Bell wanted planes that could land on water, so that when/if they crashed, the pilot would survive. I thought there was some interesting information in the museum, but it was presented in a very dry and uninteresting way. Although he is obviously known for inventing the telephone, (he gave all but 10 of his shares of Bell Telephone stock to his wife as a wedding present), he had numerous other inventions, and was a founding member of The National Geographic Society.
With the temperatures soaring yet again, hiking came off the “to do” list. We headed instead to the Highland Village Museum. With only 3 cars in the parking lot, we were a little skeptical, but went ahead anyway.
This is a Living History Museum detailing the lives of Scottish immigrants, from before they left Scotland, until the early 1900s. Most of the buildings are original. This interpreter did a fabulous job of describing the conditions in Scotland that led whole families to leave the country. I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with her, even the fact that she sometimes said things in Gaelic, then translated to English.
The afternoon temperature reached 90+ degrees so we elected to take a sail on the Amoeba, a small sailboat that does a 1.5 hour tour of the harbor area. It was a little cooler on the water, which was very nice indeed!
The captain had a great sense of humor, even pulling out a Sailing for Dummies book to “look something up”, as we got underway. He had great local knowledge and pointed out things like Alexander Graham Bell’s estate. 
My favorite part, though, was the eagles!He had fish to toss overboard for the eagles to get, so we got close up views of the birds swooping down and grabbing their treat. Once again, it was practically impossible to get pictures of them grabbing the fish, with the boat moving and the sun shining, but I did the best I could.
I did get a few decent pictures of the birds soaring directly over our head.
We've now moved on to Sydney, Nova Scotia. where we’ll spend only one night. Tomorrow we board the ferry to Newfoundland, and you’d think we were headed to a different planet. We went to the liquor store, Wal-Mart , two grocery stores, the auto parts store and fueled up the truck. We could probably live for 3 months with the amount of food we have!
