Jim and Kim's Travels: The Sea Caves in St. Martins, New Brunswick

The weather forecast looked great, so we decided to take a day trip to St. Martins. Even though it's only about a two hour drive, we hadn't been there since the 1990s.

St. Martins was first settled in 1793 by a group of Loyalist soldiers. It later became a great shipbuilding community with the first ship being launched in 1803 and the last in 1919.

One of St. Martins' claims is that you can photograph two covered bridges and a lighthouse at the same time. Had I known that before we left, I would have tried a little harder. Here is one of the bridges...

And the other...

Hardscrabble...I am sure that's what it was like in 1946.

We wanted to get there at low tide to take advantage of the sea caves...mission accomplished!

Here is an aerial shot of St. Martins with the area we were exploring on the left...

Oy...my aching head. Translation--these are very old rocks.

It's a rocky beach and we would soon see why...

It was low tide, but you still had to pick and choose where to walk if you wanted to keep your feet dry.

Heading towards one of the caves...

Ooh...I wonder how far you can go into the cave? These are part of the Fundy tides, well known for rising quickly, but there wasn't any indication of the next high tide.

It looks very much like the Hopewell Rocks, which isn't surprising as they're all part of the same Bay of Fundy formation.

Jim standing at the entrance to the cave...

The recent tide line was evident on the wall of the cave...

Looking out from the entrance of the cave. This so reminded me of our day at the Hoodoos with the beautiful blue sky and the rock formations.

Huh! And that is as far as you can walk in the cave. So there's no danger of getting lost, but it was still pretty cool.

Doesn't it make the prettiest picture frame?

I was quite fascinated by the seaweed. Instead of the dried up stuff we normally find on the beach, this was bright green and alive...and slippery!

I'm still not quite clear how these indentations are formed. I don't think the tides are that high.

You can see the beginnings of a smaller cave on the lower right. These striations in the rock are harder than the other rocks which are very pebbly. Jim easily pulled several rocks out of the wall so it wasn't too hard to see how these caves are formed.

Which explains the very rocky floor. This wouldn't be ideal for swimming.

A pretty scene complete with the contrail from an airplane...

This seaweed was firmly attached to the harder rock and was as smooth as silk...

Jim spotted a waterfall a distance away so we picked our way across the rocks towards it. Looking back at the caves...

And here it is...it cracked me up because from a distance it actually looked quite large. It reality it was about 5 feet tall!

Our big waterfall!

Rather than walk back across the rocks, we figured we would cut across the steam. Jim be nimble, Jim be quick...

Yeah, there was no way he was not going to get his feet wet.

I had on my Keens, so I just waded through and stopped to take this seaweedy shot. The water was so clear.

A picture perfect day...

Cute little touristy shop...

It was definitely still low tide...

Oh yes...here is that lighthouse. I think you would have to be up quite high to get the two covered bridges and this lighthouse in the same shot. Look at that beautiful blue sky.

Don't these people have a pretty view from their backyard?

The lovely St Martins Inn, which hasn't changed much since we stayed there twenty years ago. It was built in 1857 for Captain William Vaughn and his wife, Jane.

There really isn't much in the line of shopping in St. Martins, so this general store is your one-stop shop.

You'll find just about anything here...

Mmmm...fresh lobster rolls...

This side of the sign looked quite normal...

The other side...not so much. Ice cream shrimp?

I decided to stick with my favourite splurge, a hot dog, while Jim went for the lobster roll.

Waiting for our lunch, we killed time like the tourists we were...

Lunch! Honestly, we should have just ordered fries. They were superb. The rest was a little disappointing and maybe not worth the $23. But it was 3:00 and we woofed it down.

Leaving St. Martins, we saw an interesting rock formation in the distance. We decided to try to find it and headed down a road that turned into a dead end. It had this little path at the end of it...

Where we found this neat still functioning lighthouse...

We met another couple down there. She was quite nervous as he went out further and further on the rocks. We laughed when she said she was just worried because he had the car keys.