Still Suffering
14 June 2010 | Poet's Cove - Bedwell Harbor on Pender Island
Ray here - Sunny and Warm out
Picture: Leaving the boat...headed to the grocery.
We're both so way overcooked by the hot tub!...talk about suffering from PCHTAS (Poet's Cove Hot Tub Abuse Syndrome). Symptoms include...not able to do or care much about anything...I was so cooked I had to just lay there and watch my ice cream melt...no energy to even go save it from the sun! Sad ending for chocolate sunday I couldn't finish. This is bad...Sandy felt nauseated in the shower and had to run straight cold water to cool off...and I almost passed out in mine...good thing they don't mind you sleeping on the shower floor!
Yesterday the pool helped cool us off...not so today. First, the water was hotter today both in the pool (over 80) and the HT (too tired to spell out Hot tub so I'll just use initials)...anyway it had to be 110-111...I don't know how hot that is in metric...anyway...i t was sunny out again...and it's in a cove so there's no wind....and we're not too bright when it comes to overdoing stuff...thus severe vacationism set in.
Our day started out in dead stillness and silence...errie...we woke up and the water outside was so still you could hear moon beams bouncing off the glaze. Then the wind picked up a bit and held steady at about 15 knots....which means for us...no generator!...just solar panels and wind generator!! For us that's really nice (and quiet)... We decided to go on our epic journey (to the grocery) through the channel between islands... what a trip it was!
Grocery run...
So...we left our floating home and went downwind in the dink following the Island's inside coastline. About a mile or so, we got to the end and started into this most amazing channel. Amazing because it was "S" shaped...very shallow, narrow, and running pretty fast. We zipped along in the dink...fighting off current and wind (and a few dragons) until we went under some type of high bridge and came out the other side....not big enough for regular boats but just right for our dink! It was fun and we were looking forward to the return trip....(weird things in that water...creepy stuff waving at us...Sandy says it's just grass but I think it's ghosties...the whole thing looked like a path out of a Frodo movie....)
Onward to the grocery...
So we kept going and the channel opened into this second huge inlet on the island...actually, Pender Island North....until we got to what could loosely be defined as a marina....(yeah sure in it's day)...anyway... We went ashore and were told that it was about a 5 minute walk to the store from the marina. For those that know me...you know that I require a certain...shall we say...level of correctness when it comes to anything remotely resembling work or pain....What they forgot to tell us in this case...was that it was over Mount Everest!...Miles and miles we hiked...clamp-on's and carabineers...ropes...and survival kits!...I even thought we were going to have turn back or go on oxygen at one point...Sandy says it was just a little hill but I think she's was exaggerating for effect...I swear it wase like hours and hours of walking uphill all the way...Sandy says maybe 10 minutes...but I think it was more like an hour...and we were lost... So finally got to the summit and started down the other side...as we walked along all happy-fied and everything (because we were over the top and the pain of the climb was subsiding)... it began to dawn on me that this current downhill walk was going to be another Wild Kingdom trek coming back up...I knew we'd be like pack mules too...'cause we we're going to to have to carry vitals and other types of sustenance. I thought very seriously of going for help...or at least calculating on how to form a chain like they did in Alaska over Whitehorse pass! When faced with certian types of discomfort my mind likes to work out solutions in advance...anyway... We continued to walk, and walk, and walk through the jungle/forest for ever and WA-LA!...out of a clearing came a shopping mall! In it we came to our first civilization-style grocery store...with very uncivilized island-like prices. Aside from that...everything was mis-named and mis-packaged...over .half the stuff was in French...and the other stuff was printed in Canadian and I don't speak either...so I had to rely on my witts...I thought about going and asking them if anyone spoke English but instead just took a loaf of bread to the front and asked if it was bread...they looked at me as if I were from outer space...being polite they told me it was Wonder Bread...I should have had a clue as there were red, white, and blue balloons all over it with big letters "WONDER BREAD" stamped about a hundred places on it...never dawned on me it might be an import...I thought about asking them if it tasted American but decided against it...because Sandy says sometimes I'm a bit racist...which got my mind spinning...how can you be a racist against Canadians? Maybe I'm just a nationalist but I don't even know what that means...but it's something I'll work on for the next few months...anyway... So we shopped and shopped amazed at all foreign stuff you don't see in the states...like hamburger, and chicken, and Cheeto's...amazing what Canadians will come up with! Some of it they even labeled so we could read it...like hamburger, chicken, and Cheeto's! We left...happy to find exact duplicates of every single item we have in the states.....oh... just a tad more expensive! Which is island-speak for make that "one-half of your life savings please!...but I seriously think part of that comes from some type of weight and measure marketing scam they have to work on American's in these foreign places...Im sure they were using a type of foreign measuring system...I mean...what is .337 of 1 kg? Now, I'm not totally dumb...and I know that 2 ½ lbs equal a kilo...but .337 is that .337 metric something of a kilo or is it some type of digital fraction converted into non-metric fractions then re-converted into lbs?? I went to my calculator and by my calculations discovered a chicken costs like... one hundred ninety-eight dollars and forty seven cents! But I forgot my calculator was made in Japan and only calculated in YEN!... worse than that...I didn't know what GST or PST meant or how to calculate it...I just winged it and figured that must have put the chicken up over $200!!...I figure it must have been one really rare and special chicken...maybe free range with it's own condo or something...Canadian money in itself requires a college degree to understand...and a very good sense of humor...come on...Loonies and Toonies??... okay... So because I couldn't figure it out, I thought about settling to just get a box of Cracker Jacks and get out of the store....but even there they get you...only bags...no boxes and only by metric weight! I mean what is 300 grams Cracker Jacks? I figure a 300 gram Cracker Jack might be just one giant Cracker Jack kernel...which makes a bag of them cost like $300 or so! Again, I couldn't figure it out...and I don't speak Canadian...so I settled for a glass of water...no cup.
Fortunately, Sandy has foreign savy and was able to procure our necessary supplies...and she does it with patience and simplicity...something about common sense...I don't know....she amazes me with her fluency of foreign understanding. I figure I could only survive in a foreign country if I ate dirt and didn't drink anything.
Well, we finished grocery shopping and now it was back over Chilcoot Pass...down the Dawson slide through Dead Horse trail to the dink... I almost didn't make it there either...if it weren't for the hot tub waiting at the end...and the fact that Sandy carried the heavy bags (only because somebody had to protect the Cheeto's and donuts that might otherwise have gotten crushed or stolen...or worse...eaten by her while she was lagging behind!)...so we made it...I managed to savage the donuts and save my own life (and Sandy's too while doing so)...with the huge trip under our belt we needed to de-stress and take a break...so we went to the hot tub....but I think we underestimated our stress level and ability to judge how long one should sit in 110 degree water! I figure an hour was about as long as we dare...the sign said something about 10 minutes and less if you were older but I wasn't sure if that was Canadian minutes...and besides I couldn't difine older...older than what? Like when I was two I was older than...never mind... besides my watch is not metric...so I can't do metric minutes anyway. An hour seemed appropriate....way wrong!
Now we're back aboard from the HT...waiting on the shrimp boat which is late...this suffering is going to have to stop!
Ray out for now.