Today was slightly cloudy for much of the day, and at times it was downright chilly. Since most of the United States is suffering from record-breaking heat this summer, I suppose we should not complain.
We had a slow start to the morning. We slept in and had a leisurely breakfast. Finally, we decided to take another walk along our rocky shoreline. The dogs met a friendly Labrador retriever along the way, and we talked to her owners, a young couple from Victoria. His family had owned a place here on Saturna since the mid 1960’s. We mentioned the whales we saw the other night, and he admitted that this was only the second time in all those years he had seen orcas in this channel. John turned to me and said, “You are very great!” It’s an inside joke. Years ago, in Kenya, when we had seen a lion devour a wildebeest, our guide tried to tell us how lucky we were to see this. But his English was a little uncertain so what he actually said was, “You are very great!” Indeed, we are very great.
Not everybody is lucky – or great – enough to afford one of the large homes along the edge of this island. Still, Saturna is spacious and tolerant enough to allow some people of quite moderate means to live here, even if their housing is pretty basic.
All this walking and talking had us a little hungry, so we decided to explore the island’s other restaurant – remember, there are only two of them – attached to the pub near the ferry dock. We had a lovely meal here. John had calamari and I had the Baa Baa Burger, the closest I could come to participating in Saturna’s biggest event of the year, the July 1 Lamb BBQ. We chatted up our waitress and discovered that she is a published author. Here first novel, which we bought in the nearby general store/tackle shop/marine supplies shop/bookstore, is available on Amazon.ca and received good reviews from the Globe and Mail.
Everybody on this island is underemployed if employed at all. Years ago, when I moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles, I decided that scenery was not worth the loss of a meaningful job. I still think I made the right decision for me, but I accept that other people may come to a different decision.
There is certainly amazing scenery in this part of the world. After leaving the cafe, we drove to the highest point on the island, Mount Warburton Pike. From here there are views across the Straight to Pender, Salt Spring, and the other Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island in the distance. You can also see down across the Strait of Juan de Fuca into the San Juan islands of Washington State and apparently even the Olympic Range on clear days. It was not quite that clear for us, but the views were still jaw-dropping.
We went again to East Point to see if we could be “great” again and see whales. We did not, but we found this young seal on the shoreline. He did not seem all that energetic, so I am not sure that he was well. I kept Edie tightly under control so that she did not try to investigate too closely.
Our host had also told us about an amazing, isolated beach at the bottom on a steep cliff near East Point. We found it, but somehow we did not feel like scrambling down and up the steep hillsides, especially when it was approaching early evening and getting almost chilly.
We finished off the day eating leftover chicken and watching a movie on the iPad. Tomorrow, on to Salt Spring Island. With its 10,000 residents, this should be like Manhattan after Saturna!
