Do you ever have that feeling of Déjà vu?
You know….the phenomenon of feeling as though one has lived through the present situation before.
Oh wait….
I have.
Like just 12 hours ago….when I was on a ferry coming from the Island to the Mainland…..and now I’m going from the Mainland back to the Island. Not for work this time though.
Even though we sold our boat this spring, we are still members of Burrard Yacht Club and our club has two outstations with suites that can be rented for a very reasonable amount. We hung out at our Pender Harbour suite for Easter, and we’ve decided to check out the one at Maple Bay. It’s only an hour from the Departure Bay ferry terminal to Maple Bay, if you take the boring highway route, which we didn’t.
Instead, we noodled along through Cedar, and Crofton, and Chemainus. We stopped at the Owl’s Nest Cafe for a leisurely brunch, and wandered a bit in Chemainus to enjoy the murals all over town.
I’m not exactly sure how I felt that there was a statue of H.R. MacMillan outside of the Chemainus museum….or that the viewpoint by the statue looked out over a lumber yard. I mean…sure….appropriate I suppose….but….
Anyway.
We took the windy route from Chemainus towards Maple Bay and stopped at the side of a road, by a farm…that had a roadside farm-stand for eggs.
$7.00 a dozen.
Kirk asked if they come pre-scrambled.
I didn’t spend $7.00 to find out. But I admit that I also wondered how this worked. Maybe the door unlocks and taking only one dozen works on the honour system? Because I can’t for the life of me figure out how else this would work.
A little further down the road and we discovered where Jack O’Lanterns go to die (melt? be eaten by creatures?). Just the other day a colleague was telling me that the stretch of road between Cathedral Gove and Port Alberni is fabulous after Halloween because people take their Jack O’Lanterns there and they line the road…hundreds if not thousands she said.
And then we discovered a smaller version on this side of the Island.
This seems to be a relatively new phenomenon, or else it’s just been something I’ve been unaware of. But it was kind of entertaining.
We found the Bird’s Eye Cove Marina, and our little studio over the water. We settled in to enjoy the place, with a book….and that was about the scope of our efforts for the rest of the day.
We were entertained by a dog that ran up and down the dock at the next marina; it barked at things we couldn’t see…and then an otter came bouncing down the ramp to the dock immediately outside of our little home away from home.
And suddenly the barking dog made more sense.
An otter is NOT something you want around your boat. If an otter decides to make the back of your boat its playground or, worse…if it finds a way into your boat….you will have a mess the likes of something you really don’t want to deal with. So someone at the next marina has a golden retriever (that we randomly named Dexter) to keep them away.
Smart!
This little monster hung out for a bit before slipping into the water while Dexter practically frothed over its presence. Later it was joined by two others and the threesome swam past under our overhanging deck and towards the shore. I looked out to see where they’d gone and noticed some bushes just on the other side of the concrete planters outside our patio door were rustling. The bushes quivered up the bank towards a little building above us and when I one tup the steps to see where they’d gone, a little face poked out from under the deck. I guess they have a home underneath.
And now we will ensure that we don’t leave the door open!
