Bowen Island, and homeward
I woke up when I smelled coffee.
Ruth toasted muffins (or English muffins, as they call them here), and, early, we were heading north, driven by Dave.
We parked at Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal, and took a big ferry, not all that far, to Bowen Island. Not a hop and a skip from the ferry landing, was Bowen Island Sea Kayaking, which was to provide our morning activity, arranged enthusiastically by Ruth. It was raining, in stark contrast to the previous run of hot sunny weather. This was probably better. With strong sunshine beating down, I’d prefer to be in the water than on it.
A friendly man named Tim dressed us in kayak skirts and life vests, and schooled us in the proper handling of paddles. Then our canoes were adjusted, and before long we were in the water, with nobody wet. Dave and Ruth each got their own kayak, while Debbie and I shared a double.
I don’t mind confessing that I found it a bit of a slog. The kayaks have a foot operated rudder. I was in charge of our rudder, and it always went in the opposite direction to the one I expected. Hence we probably traveled twice as far as necessary, as were were going in a very wavy line. Tim seemed to be moving with barely any effort at all. I could feel the lactic acid building up in my shoulders, and discomfort building in my back. It got especially difficult when we were heading upwind on choppy areas of sea. Debbie didn’t seem to be struggling as much as me, and some of the time I let her do all the paddling, which makes me a great big wuss I suppose.
We saw an eagle early on, and Tim told us lots of interesting stuff about the shoreline and the surrounding area. We now know what an arbutus is!
At least, when we returned to shore, everyone else admitted they were shattered too (except Tim, who promptly took another group out).
We checked the ferry timetable, to see when the next one was. To our surprise, there was a three hour gap in the timetable, meaning we couldn’t get back to the mainland for a little over two hours. On the one hand, this had the potential to make things a bit hectic for getting to the airport on time, but on the other hand, it relieved any pressure to rush our lunch, and we had a leisurely meal en terrace at a pub. There was an island community baseball match on, just out of our sight beyond some trees. An excitable waitress explained to us that after her shift she’d be serving beer at the after game party, and that she’d composed a humorous t-shirt caption to wear. The caption made reference to her breasts, while punning on the teams’ nicknames. I forget the details. She had once worked at Butlins in Bognor Regis.
We caught the ferry back to the mainland, eating ice cream cones as we boarded. Dave drove us home through heavy downtown traffic. In fact we had ample time to shower and change, pack, and get a taxi in plenty of time for our plane.
Fancy tickets or not, getting on a plane at Vancouver airport is not especially interesting, so I won’t get into details.
Before long we were being served wine on the plane. Then we ate some rather nice food. Then our beds were made up for us and we slept. Thanks Tesco.