After four days driving on the Island, visiting five sites, across 650km of road, Good Friday involved a drive to Granville Island to pick up a Swedish ham from Oyama and then straight to the ferry terminal. We had a reservation for around 1pm, but managed to make it onto the 11am vessel for the 40 minute trip to the Sunshine Coast. We stopped in Gibsons for a walkabout before heading up the coast.
We stopped in Sechelt and found a good pub for lunch, rolled back out to the truck and continued up to Madeira Park where we picked up some ice and a couple of things we’d needed for meals. Then it was north a little farther, and into Garden Bay to our destination.
The yacht club we belong to owns an outstation in Pender Harbour, in Garden Bay. It has a quonset house attached to it and, because it isn’t really into the throes of boating season yet, it was vacant. The place has 6 rooms/cabins and we had the entire place to ourselves for the entire weekend. Waterfront, hot tub, wood burning fireplace, peace, quiet….all ours.
It was glorious!
We lazed about, drank wine, read books, went for walks, stared out at the ocean, took photographs, watched the local loon swim past, and then past again…and again….
We watched boats come in and anchor, we played some trivia, cooked a ham dinner Saturday night (yeah, we skipped the actual days that are of any relevance to Easter, but I’m also an atheist, so it was just a long weekend and a great reason for a ham dinner). If you’ve never cooked a Swedish ham, you’re missing out. Four hours at 275F delivered the most delicious ham. Sweet, salty, moist. Just heavenly and so much better than turkey….and just as addictive where the ‘can’t stop nibbling after a dinner that stuffed you’ comes into play.
The weather, considering it was the first weekend in April, just couldn’t have been better. And the environment provided an opportunity to play with some of the more unusual lenses in my drawer. The Lomography Lomogon 2.5/32 Art lens, the Lensbaby Twist….two fun little, fully manual, creative toys that I am still learning to see through and work with.
We watched the sunset, watched satellites pass overhead, saw a shooting star, heard the loon, soaked in the hot tub, and drank wine.
About the only thing that didn’t go as planned for the weekend was the ferry home. The reservations were all sold out a week in advance and so we were funny prepared to sit and wait, and potentially not make it home at all. But it’s the Sunshine Coast, not the Island, and the number of vehicles tends to be a bit more limited, so we had optimism.
We arrived a couple of hours before the 11am ferry…and ALMOST made it on. We were the first vehicle to NOT get on. Ah well, it was a sunny day, we had a deck of cards, a picnic table to sit at, and a truck full of food and drink to keep us happy.
And that was Easter weekend…more images than words. It was a perfect long weekend, in all ways.