Around Vancouver Island 2013

Day 3 – July 7, 2013 Sunday

This morning I awoke early having to make a trip down to the cabin. The morning was so peaceful and beautiful that I decided that 6:00 a.m. was not too early to stay up so I made myself a cup of coffee and sat out in the cockpit reading my book and watching the world wake up. I sat there enjoying the morning until Moe got up. He was quite surprised to see me up as he is usually the early bird and I am the one laying in bed catching the last of my sleep.

For breakfast I made some bacon and French toast with the last of our cranberry sourdough from Cobbs which we ate with the syrup that Jane brought for us. We made our plans for the day which included a trip to John Henry’s store and a trip into Gunboat Bay.

Breakfast and cleanup completed, we hopped into James and rowed over to the Garden Bay pub and tied up at the dinghy dock. If you ever go there, you must go around to the back and take a walk through the small garden. It’s quite nice with lots of shade trees and plants and wooden walkways. The walkway leads to the path to John Henry’s store. This is an amazing store! They have everything you could possibly want from the wine for your dinner to the flip flops to walk home in. We were looking for batteries and brass tacks to finish some trim that Moe had put up. Of course, we found what we needed.

Our purchases in hand, we decided to do a little more exploring so walked down the road and found the Fisherman’s Resort. The lady who came out to talk to us was very informative and we discovered that we could tie up at the dock there if we needed to use power or just wanted the dock experience. We didn’t stay long and headed back down the road. There was a yard sale sign at the junction of the road and another road leading up a hill. We thought, why not, and headed up the hill. Moe, at this time, was talking on his phone and as we started walking up the hill I spotted two small chipmunks chasing each other through the grass on the side of the road. Suddenly they jumped onto the road and started charging directly at us! I’ve never seen such a thing! Just before they reached us they ran back into the grass. Silly chipmunks!

We found the yard sale at the top of the hill. A lady greeted us with a smile and let us know it was our lucky day as it was half price Sunday! We browsed through her offerings and picked up some very old books, including a first edition woman’s magazine from 1911 in pristine condition and a couple of silver wine glasses and all for $7.50. What a bargain!

We walked back down the hill, past a very calm deer munching the grass on the side of the road, through the garden and back to our dinghy. Moe had made arrangements with Jane to pick us up about 3:00 at Madeira Park so we had time to go fill up the gas can for James and motor over to Gunboat Bay. The entrance to Gunboat Bay is narrow and the tide is definitely a consideration when choosing the time to go into the bay. We had no trouble going in as we went with the tide, with me at the helm. We had a leisurely putt around the bay, as well as a little snack on the water. When it was time to start heading back I found the flooding tide to be challenging to get through. I had to run the motor full speed and even then wasn’t sure we would get anywhere against the tide, but slowly we made our way out of Gunboat Bay. We stopped to pick up some things from Reborn and then made our way over to Madeira Park.

Just as we were tying up our dinghy a little bull dog came racing down the ramp right beside us. He ran over to the end of the dock beside our boat and stood there looking up and making noises. I looked up to see his person talking to someone. The dog was beside himself with anticipation and kept whining and looking up. Finally the man looked down and said ‘ok’ and the dog jumped right into the water! He was having a great time just swimming around and around cooling off on a hot day. We were a little concerned about how he would get back up onto the dock and asked the man but he said not to worry, the dog knows how to get back onto the shore.

Jane came and picked us up and after picking up Lisa we drove to the home of Moe’s cousin Pete and his wife Shen, and also the home of our excellent deck hand, Angelo who met us at the driveway. Moe’s Auntie Ann and cousin Peter were also there. We had a delicious dinner with them, sang songs and took a forest walk through their six acre property. It was a very good evening!

All good evenings must come to an end so Jane and Lisa drove us back to Madeira Park where our faithful dinghy, James, awaited to take us home. When we arrived back at Reborn we pulled out our charts and books and made our plan for a 6:00 a.m. departure the next day and headed to bed for a good night’s rest.