We met a woman from England years ago who told us about a trip she took to La Jolla. She booked a room at a fancy beachfront hotel. The bell boy took here up to her room, opened the doors to the balcony, and proudly proclaimed, “Some days you can see whales from here.” Our friend was incredulous. “Wales?” she said. “From here?”
Well, we saw whales from here. But we’ll talk more about this later.
We spent a lot of time traveling today by both car and boat. After packing up our West End apartment, we went down to the Granville Public Market where we bought some provision for our trip to Saturna. We nearly had a minor disaster when John drove off with the camera on the roof of the car, but fortunately it did not fall off when he remembered that a few feet later. We did some more shopping for things like dog food at a regular supermarket near the ferry terminal in the town of Tsawwassen. We arrived at the ferry terminal a little late, but since I had made a reservation some weeks ago we still were able to board to 12:00 pm ferry to Swartz Bay. The BC Ferry system is not easy to understand, and for some reason it is nearly impossible to go to most of the Southern Gulf Islands without going all the way to Vancouver Island first. And that’s what we did. On the first trip, John and I paid 10 bucks each for the first class lounge which had free coffee, snacks, newspapers, internet, and no children. Worth every penny….
On the second ferry trip, however, from Swartz Bay to Lyall Harbour did not have these fancy amenities, so we spent the time on deck. This was fun because we started to meet some of the locals. They are friendly, amusing – and a little wild! Suzie, the woman on the left, pulled off her shirt to sunbathe in her bra after John removed his shirt. She did have the sense to cover up a bit when John then pulled out his camera. She has written a number of things including a published memoir about growing up Jewish in Palo Alto in the 1950’s. (Apparently it was quite a goyische place back then.) The woman whose back it turned to us is married to the island’s only plumber - who also holds a couple degrees in physics from Berkeley.
We were met at the ferry dock by Marian, our landlady. Our cottage here on Saturna is really a small second house right next to hers. The houses two share a common deck. Originally from Liverpool, Marian is smart, funny, and quite pretty: the picture below, with the shadows of late afternoon, is not a good one, but it was the best I had on the card.
She has the most adorable pug named Buddha. He is not at all a shy boy and he dropped in to visit with Edie and Eli and made himself quite at home.
We had not been here more than a half hour when Marian excited called out, “Whales!” Saturna, the southernmost of the Gulf Islands, is well-known as the best place in BC for watching whales on land, but the pod of orcas which came by was close even by island standards. About a dozen swam about 500 feet off-shore from us. It’s hard to have the camera ready when a whale decides to jump out of the water, so the best we could do was this picture of a head.
As afternoon turned to twilight, John went walking through this most rural of all the islands. There are only about 350 full-time residents of Saturna, and over half the island is national park. There are plenty of deer around, and Edie was fascinated by this buck.
Tomorrow, we will start exploring the island.
