Halfmoon Bay
Sunshine Coast is Sunny
The August long weekend is pretty special - best weather and lots of
regional activities. Many local destinations in BC require you
to book at least a whole week at a time and often weekend to weekend
so if you want a place to stay over the long weekend, you need to
book well in advance. I got lucky and found an ocean front
place on the Sunshine Coast for the long weekend so we booked it and
went!
We wound up leaving Wednesday night (ferry reservations) and we got
to the ferry terminal to find the battery in our car had gone
dead! BC ferries was able to give me a jump to get started but
clearly the battery was on it's last legs. We made it to the
house but the next morning we needed another jump to drive the car
to the Canadian Tire for a new battery. It's surprising how
much one degraded part makes you question the quality of your car,
but every authoritative start made me feel better again.
Claira wanted waffles so we drove to Ricky's for breakfast and
grocery shopping for the weekend.
I didn't take my first photos until after dinner when we used the
included kayaks for a paddle around Halfmoon Bay. It was now
Thursday afternoon and the weekend party hard people were
arriving. As we paddled around, we saw decks full of loud
drinking parties, people on stand up paddle boards and kids jumping
off docks into the ocean. Nara and I paddled to the Halfmoon Bay
public dock and Nara was feeling ill so we paddled back.
There are a
few rocks sticking out in Halfmoon Bay and I was happy see actual
ocean birds on the rocks.
Halfmoon Bay is famous for it's sunsets (there was a coffee table
book of just sunsets available) so I left my camera out to take a
timelapse of the sunset. I wasn't disappointed.
Mornings on vacation are a bit controversial. My kids often
see vacation as a time to relax - sleep in, eat a late breakfast,
read a book, that kind of thing. I see vacations as the
payload on a rocket - I spent effort working to pay for this trip,
researching and booking and the time actually getting the family to
the vacation. For me, day spent sleeping in is a waste of all
that effort to get myself on vacation. I checked in the night
before and no one else wanted to go so I slipped out early and went
to the trail head for secret cove. I wasn't going the full
way, but I remember their was a nice wetland right at the trailhead
so I went there and looked for birds.
Back to the house and picked up the kids. I have wanted to go
the Skookumchuck Narrows for a long time and today happened to be a
big tide change day. We packed up and drove roughly 44km to
the North end of the Sunshine coast - Egmont. There is a small
cafe at the trail head where we picked up lunch and we started out
hike.
The path is wide and there was a decent number of people on the
trail out the falls. The walk out took about 45 minutes.
The narrows were spectacular - standing waves and whirlpools flying
past the coast.
On a
previous
trip to Davis Bay, we visited Wobbly Canoe for dinner every
night - the kids really liked their Mac and Cheese. We decided
to visit again for a rerun.
Claira had the Mac and Cheese but
sadly thought it was too salty. The Wobbly Canoe kindly took
the Mac and Cheese off the bill. The rest of our meals were
fantastic.
After
dinner, we walked across the road to the the pier and watched what
was going on - kids swimming, people fishing.
Saturday
Saturday morning we
visited the Sechelt Farmers Market as we did on a
previous
trip. The farmers market has several farms selling fresh
produce and another dozen that sold cooked food. Probably half
of all stalls were operated by local artists in a wide variety of
mediums. I don't like taking photos of other peoples work as I
add very little.
This weekend is also Pender Harbour Days so we drove up to Pender
Harbour to see the boats. There are a number of things to do
at Pender Harbour Days but we started with Face Paint while the line
up was short.
Another attraction is a telescope
with Solar Filters so you can see the surface of the sun. The
view was quite spectacular - you could clearly see sun spots and
loops on the surface of the of the sun. Again, short line up
and I was really happy the kids got to see the sun.
The next
attraction was the wooden boats. This is a small neighborhood
festival so the boats were open to visitors and you could go on
board and walk around where you wanted. The kids love the
small spaces and the adaptations that convert dining areas into
bedrooms and kitchens that cook meals without electricity.
A lof
of these boats have heritage going back up to 100 years.
Many of them were used by the Forest Service in Canada or the US
Pacific coast.
The last big attraction is the boat building table. The
festival kindly provide supplies, tools and direction and the kids
made boats.
The
tools are tricky - nails split wood easily so building something
detailed isn't very easy.
We have yet to find a great ice cream place on the upper Sunshine
coast - we have visited Mike's place in Gibsons (lots of selection)
and Gourmet Girl Cafe in Davis Bay. We tried a new place -
Baked on the Coast in Pender Harbour. This kids gave this
place two thumbs up.
Sunday:
Today, out goal was to see more of the Southern Sunshine
Coast. Helen found a food truck called "The Shortcut Gibsons"
on a farm just outside of town. We dropped in for a hot
breakfast.
I wanted to visit the Nicholas Sonntag Marine Education Centre - a
catch and release aquarium in Gibson. It's a small aquarium
but every tank has an interesting animal, many of which I haven't
seen before.
Another beautiful night so I decided to go out with Claira for a
Kayak around the bay. The parties from the first nights?
It was quiet. The kids jumping off the dock? No
more. It was a nice quite night for a paddle.
After we got back, I setup the tripod for another sunset.
Again, we were treated to quite a light show.
Tags: market(5), food porn(3), face paint(3), kayaking(3), sign(2), ice cream(2)
People: Claira(12), Nara(8), Helen(2)
Last Modified Sunday, January 28th, 2024 at 21:45:14 Edit
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