Last April, we took a long weekend and went to Tofino. I don't think that there is any such thing as cheap accomodations in Tofino short of camping (but we are big wusses when it comes to rain) so we ended up splurging a bit for a not too shabby place. It was very relaxing, and since a bit of relaxation has been in order lately, we decided to embark upon a similar trip, but up the mainland coast this time. The place we were looking at had cabins for up to eight people, and of the people that we reached, Michael, Cynthia, and Mike wanted to and were able to go. It was situated on the east side of the Malaspina Peninsula, on the Okeover Arm of Desolation Sound. (Near Lund on this map, and just south of the Okeover Arm Provincial Park on this map.)
Our journey to the eastern coast of the Malaspina Peninsula involved some 100km of driving interspersed with two ferry rides. The second of these ferries, from Earl's Cove to Saltery Bay, only ran every two hours with a four hour gap of no service between 12:20pm and 4:25pm. That meant that we had to either leave sufficiently early to catch the earlier sailing or settle for arriving quite late. We opted for the first option and aimed to leave the last passenger pickup point in Vancouver at 8am to catch the 9:20am Langdale sailing.
Mike had decided to drive up from Seattle Friday morning rather than the previous day, and was aiming to arrive at 7am. Although we did show our disgust and made fun of him, he was able to rub it in later by pointing out (several times) the 13 hours of sleep he had before getting up at 4am. Such is the hardship endured by some of those who have chosen to be unemployed...
Debra and I were up a bit late the previous night packing and getting everything ready, so we didn't give ourselves very much time in the morning. But with a frantic furor, we actually managed to get the car mostly packed by 7:30am, when we had planned to start picking up people. We had received a phone call from Mike warning that he would be 15-20 minutes bit late, and calls to both Michael and Cynthia went unanswered, so we took the opportunity to relax a bit and eat some breakfast.
Mike arrived on schedule, we got a hold of Michael, and Cynthia
called while I was putting Mike's car in our parking spot so it
wouldn't get ticketed or towed away, so we were on our way. Leaving
Cyn's place around 8:30am got us to the ferry toll booth by 9am, and
we still made our intended ferry (barely). It is a good thing that
we like to allot a bit of extra time when setting departure times.
Some random pictures from the Horseshoe Bay Langdale ferry.
From Langdale, we made a brief stop at the Tim Horton's in Gibsons to get some doughnuts and some mushrooms from the IGA next door. While on the ferry, we felt like some munchies, but had difficulty finding the loaf of sandwiches we made the night before. Our fears of returning home to an apartment smelling like four day old bologna were alleviated in the Tims parking lot when we found them buried under some bags in the trunk. Phew!
Since we didn't make any other stops, we arrived in Earl's Cove with
plenty of time to kill. (Surprisingly, everyone was awake for the
drive; I don't think that anyone was terribly impressed with the
early departure time eating into their sleep and I actually expected
that people would sleep during the trip.) Poor Cynthia was up until
5:30am getting work done so she could take the weekend off, so she
decided to take a nap in the car while the rest of us went to loiter
near the dock.
While standing on the concrete barrier, we analysed the effects of
spinning one's arms around when losing balance and how it helps with
balance recovery (although I didn't capture any action in this shot).
I'm not sure why the pavement (or more likely the hole in the ground)
was labelled a confined space. There was a similarly labelled piece
of pavement in Saltery Bay too. Odd.
On the ferry to Saltery Bay, there was a no smoking sign on the car
deck that someone had altered to look like a no bird sign.
We arrived in Powell River before 2pm, and the checkin time was not
until 3pm so we stopped at the tourist information in town to get
maps and an idea of things to do in the area. Our attempt to look
for a beach led us to a scenic pullout we had passed entering town;
we hacked there for a while. I hadn't noticed at the time, but the
house across the street (behind Michael) looks quite nice, and has a
great water view too!
The cabins at
Desolation Resort
were all different; we were in
cabin 2.
When we were checking in, I think that the proprietor said that there
were only a couple of other groups there so it wasn't very busy in
the season yet, and we didn't see the other people at all. They were
building a new cabin right beside ours, but because it was down the
steep hill toward the water, the ground on which it was built was
significantly lower than where we were. The top of what was there
was lower than our deck, so we couldn't see it and didn't notice its
presence. The only potential problem with the proximity is that
noisy neighbours are not usually obscured by blocked sightlines.
There were three floors in the cabin, with a staircase running up the turret. The ground floor had a kitchen and a large space that, with a couch and coffee table in one side and a large round dining table in the other, was a living room adjoined with a dining room. There was a potty and a laundry room that we used as a pantry for all of our nonperishable foods.
A patio door from the living room led out to the deck, where there was a gas barbeque under the little balcony from the main bedroom upstairs and a hot tub in the corner near the front door. There was also quite a beautiful view out the patio doors.
The two double bedrooms (with king sized beds) were on the second floor. The master bedroom had an ensuite bathroom and a small balcony above the deck downstairs with a similar view. On the balcony was a small gate that led downstairs to the deck via a steep set of stairs that was not unlike a ladder. There was another bathroom with a shower in the hallway. Michael decided that as the trip organiser, Deb should get the better bedroom; who am I to object? I didn't get any pictures of the room that Cyn and Michael had, but it was essentially the same, just without a bathroom.
The odd thing about the double rooms was that the bedding that was there were all singles even though the beds were king sized beds. They had left two duvets on each bed to make up for the size. But one might think that people sharing a bed might want to share covers too.
Up on the third floor, the stairwell exits to a small balcony where the entrance to the third room can be found. The room is more like an attic although they called it a loft. There were four single beds in the room which Mike had to himself.
In the back of the loft room was a little cabinet door with an "Emergency Exit" sign affixed. As Cynthia demonstrated in these photos, opening the door led to a small space under the sloped roof with the wooden frame of the roof and exposed insulation. On the floor of this crawlspace was another "Emergency Exit" sign, placed in a gap in the frame and insulation. To us, the sign implied that the floor was the actual exit, and using it would involve somehow breaking a hole and jumping through there. After we settled in a bit, Michael and I went up to investigate this exit a bit more and determined that falling through where we thought the exit to be would land the user on the person sleeping in the window side of the bed in the master bedroom. Not only that, but the whole ceiling of the master bedroom was plastered so there wasn't an apparent weakened area for an emergency visit. What a strange design...
Because we arrived reasonably early in the day, there was still some daylight to be had. We quickly unpacked our stuff and went out to play in the boats. Not surprisingly, Mike was lazy and expressed an interest in just being a passenger, so we put him in a canoe with Cyn and Michael while Deb and I each took a kayak. There were only three kayaks that we considered full fledged sea kayaks (two single Kyooks and one double); the others were more recreational kayaks. We got some paddles when we checked in, and also picked up some PFDs and the two skirts they had (they were they nylon ones, not the neoprene ones). The kayaks were more weathered than the ones we were used to at Deep Cove Kayak and Canoe, but they were still more or less functional; the one I used did have a tendency to veer to the right so we didn't use that one on subsequent trips, and the pulleys to raise and lower the rudder on both kayaks were pretty stiff so it was much easier to just have someone come up to the back of the boat and manually move the rudder itself (but that wasn't a big deal to me because I have weaned myself off rudder usage over the past year).
We paddled aimlessly for a while, and ended up crossing the Arm to the rocky cliff on the other side. There was a small waterfall that had cut through the rock over time, breaking off a sizable boulder that was wedged precariously between a small outcropping and the cliff wall. We could see many starfish on the rocks below the water surface, although some people took longer to find them because of ripples caused by our paddles and disbelieved my claims at first. All the ones we saw there were large and purple; most had five legs, but some had fifteen or twenty.
Knowing how wet things tend to get when kayaking, we had brought some disposable cameras. We left our real cameras on this trip and just took along a couple of disposables. Doing so may have affected the quality of some of the photos we got, but it made the boating much more enjoyable because we didn't have to worry about keeping cameras dry; at one point, I was even taking pictures while paddling. The using of disposables also means that we won't have any of those pictures to show until we finish the film in the cameras and get them developed.
We frolicked near the waterfall (but not directly below lest the
boulder decide that it wanted a swim) for an hour or two. As the sun
decended in the sky, our heads told us that it was a good idea to
head back before darkness fell on them. We returned the boats to
their storage racks and returned to the cabin.
I can't remember why Cyn felt unloved and hid in a corner.
After those of us who got a bit wet changed out of our wet clothes,
we set about preparing dinner. Well, most of us anyway. Cyn cooked
mushrooms, I chopped garlic, Deb made salad and baked potatoes, and
Michael barbequed steaks. Mike was pooped from being a passenger in
the canoe took a nap (to be fair, he had been up since 4am!).
We cleaned up after dinner (and ran the dishwasher because we were
lazy and on vacation) and settled in the living room. While Cynthia
dozed off under Mike's really fuzzy blanket, Michael acquainted us
to his tradition of taking midnight jumps into the lake from the
dock when at a cottage like place. Despite his very persuasive
attempts, he was unable to convince any of us to jump into the water
with him.
Since it was fairly early, Michael decided that he would take the plunge at midnight eastern time, so we left Cyn asleep on the couch, grabbed the flashlight from the trunk, and headed down to the dock. The dock itself was lit, but the road leading there was very dark even with a flashlight. There was a sign on the ramp leading down to the floating part of the dock which warned that only one person should be on the ramp at a time, but of course we didn't notice it until it was too late.
Michael studied the dock a little and decided that he would jump off the north end. He removed his shoes and handed the towel to Mike. Then he stood there for quite some time (not unlike the length of time that Esther stood at the edge of the platform atop the bungee jumping crane at the CNE ten years ago) contemplating whether to jump or not. Suddenly, Michael very concisely used "oh shit" to describe the process of changing his mind about jumping while he was already off the dock and over the water after deciding to jump, and there was a splash. The water must have been somewhat cold because as soon as he resurfaced, he jumped free of the water onto the dock faster than he could have fallen in the first place.
After a quick towelling off, we made our way back as briskly as one
safely could in the dark and tried out the hot tub. I did not find
the water to be uncomfortably warm despite my general intolerance of
warm temperatures; we soaked and chatted for quite some time before
my body started to overheat.
We took turns in the shower to wash the chlorine off and reconvened in the living room. Mike taught Michael how to play the psych game and they played a few hands (and Mike kept losing despite the fact that beginners are usually easy to beat). Once the cards came out, we started talking about perfect shuffles, and the number of times that a deck would have to perfectly shuffled before it is restored to its original state. As unintuitive as it may seem, consider that a deck of cards only has a finite number of arrangements, ergo there will come a point after many shuffles when the order of the deck is the same as the order some time ago. If the shuffling is regular (ie. if every shuffle causes the nth card to become the f(n)th card for some function f) then the order of the permutation function f is the number of times that a deck needs to be shuffled before the card ordering repeats.
Ironically, it was the group theory that captured the attention of
the unconscious Cynthia. We determined (through the ever so elegant
brute force method) that the order of the perfect shuffle function
with a regular deck of 52 cards is eight. That started us on a quest
to generalise the result and find the order of f in
S2n (the set of all permutation functions on a set
of 2n elements). There were brute force findings for small
values on n, and attempts to explain why |f| = 8 for
n = 26. While getting ready for bed, Michael came up with
some strange theory about the fact that there were two cards that
switched back and forth under f and that multiplied with a
three plus one from somewhere else made eight, which prompted Cyn to
end the night with "what kind of ass is that?!?"
Getting up late on Saturday was accentuated by the start of daylight
savings time (which Cynthia did mention at the start of our journey
thanks to a reminder from her mother). What I found when I came
downstairs was Mike laying under his blanket on the couch, and his
laptop (the things people take on vacation!) on the coffee table
with a program to calculate the order of f for arbitrary
values of n. We still didn't find any patterns.
Michael made us hockey pucks of death (bacon and eggs in a muffin)
for breakfast. We ate, cleaned up, and made some sandwiches in
preparation for a paddling trip. While at the tourist information
office in Powell River, we picked up a map of the area, and it
showed Malaspina Provincial Park to the north, so we decided to head
out that way. This time, we decided to just take two canoes, so
Michael steered with Cynthia, and Deb steered for Mike and me. The
plan was to go on a short hike after we beach the canoes somewhere.
We paddled to the peninsula whose isthmus joins with the Malaspina Peninsula just south of Malaspina Provincial Park (see map). The waves seemed to get larger as we approached the shores of the southern tip so we decided that it was a good time to stop. It was fairly difficult to approach land at the point because of rough sea conditions, so we headed into the tiny inlet. The land past the foreshore looked private all along the coast so we picked a spot in the foreshore which was not near any buildings and beached our boats.
The original plan was to canoe to a short hike somewhere, but we
weren't too keen with trespassing on private property and there
didn't seem to be anything but, so we just loitered about on the
foreshore and ate lunch. The trouble with being the middle person
in a canoe with two others is that the canoe sits lower in the
water than normal, and there is nothing to sit on aside from the
spare (broken) lifejacket. As the seas got rough, waves started to
crest over the side of the boat and by the time we beached, my legs
were totally wet; a good amount of water had entered our vessel and
had I not been sitting on the spare lifejacket, my shorts (and my
butt) would have been soaked as well. Fortunately, we had brought
extra clothing (in plastic to avoid wetness) but it did take me a
while to figure out that I was wet enough that my body wasn't going
to warm up until I put them on.
Not surprisingly, Mike (who turns on the heat in the summer in his Montreal apartment) was cold. But Cynthia and Deb came to his aid and bundled him up for the tough Canadian climate. Mind you, it wasn't as if the rest of us were all very fashionable. Deb and I looked like Gortex marshmallowmen with our PFDs under our jackets, and Michael had a bag of granola bars tied to his pants.
The foreshore was completely covered with oyster shells (and most likely some oysters too, although I wouldn't know the difference if the shell is closed). There were also some starfish about, including one which was wrapped around an oyster.
Aside from eating some lunch, there wasn't much else to do there so we boarded our ships and set sail for home. Apparently, Mike and I suck at canoe paddling and Deb had a hard time steering us as we zigzagged our way out to the inlet, so on the return trip it was decided that Michael would steer for us and Deb would steer for Cyn. Unfortunately for Mike, the waves had not calmed down, and this time we were heading into them. As a result, he received numerous soakers and was quite a bit worse off then I was on the way out.
After we returned, Michael disembarked from our boat and took the other canoe for a solo trip the other way. (Apparently, he made it to the end of Okeover Arm before returning.) Mike and I stayed in our canoe (after he moved to the back so he could steer) and we took some practice runs at the various buoys around the dock area before landing and putting the equipment away.
On our way out we noticed that there were lots of starfish around
the boat launch where we put our boats into the water. My attempts
to photograph them after our trip however were foiled by a higher
tide. Instead, I took pictures of the interesting carvings that
adorned the log pillars lining the approach to the dock. At the top
of the stairs was a short bearded dude holding a lantern looking out
past the dock at the sea, and there was a fisherman at the bottom of
the stairs. The last six pillars were topped with unusual birds of
various shapes.
As we mellowed out, Cyn requested one of our GameBoys so she could
play the "devil cat game", the name Michael had coined for ChuChu
Rocket in the preceding week. Once that came out, it was pretty
much in use all the time by somebody except while we ate, slept, or
went out for a paddle. There was much bonding happening around the
GameBoy too.
For dinner, we barbequed the pork chops that we put in a marinate
before setting out on the paddling trip. Dinner conversation
included the topic of ruddering a boat, and the effectiveness of
having a rudder at the front of the boat instead of the back. Mike
argued that there should be no difference in the behaviour of the
boat, except that should the rudder pivot fail, a bow rudder would
cause the boat to turn to one side whereas a stern rudder would let
the boat continue moving forward.
We actually used the washer and dryer to clean the salt out of our
paddling clothes and to dry them. Cyn is overjoyed and has a dance
with Michael's fleecie.
After dinner, we slowly migrated over to the couch (some of us much
slower than others because of the continued discussion about front
ruddering). Eventually, that subsided, and Deb and I were able to
teach Michael and Mike how to play
le jeu de tarot
(rules can be found
here,
but they are in French).
We played for a couple of hours until around 1am when Michael decided that it was time for Michael to take his traditional dip. Having already seen a spectacle, Mike decided not to brave the "cold" so only Deb and I accompanied Michael down to the dock. There was less indecision this time and he even stayed in the water for a shorter-than-average minute before getting out.
Of course, it was time for a soak in the hot tub after his cold dip so Deb and I joined him. Unlike the day before, the water was very warm, to the extent that none of us could actually sit in it. I'm not sure if it was because it was on since the previous day, or if it was because we had moved a dial which we though changed the strength of the jet streams. In the end, we had to add cold water from a hose attached to a tap at the side of the cabin before we could comfortably sit in it for even short periods of time.
Coming downstairs on Sunday morning we found Michael cooking bacon
and making French toast. As with the previous day, we planned to
set out on another paddling trip after breakfast. Having learned
the day before that putting three people in one canoe in not so
calm seas was a bad idea, we decided to go with two canoes and one
kayak this time. Also from experience the day before, I went out
and took pictures of the starfish around our boat launch while the
tide was low before setting out.
The weather was a bit rougher than previous days, and some of us felt that it was better to head into the south wind on the way out so that we knew that we would be able to get back. However, Michael had already been to the south end of the arm and prefered to go the other way, and Mike also felt that we wouldn't have any problems getting back. Michael decided that he wanted the kayak, so off we went with me steering (or at least trying to) with Mike in one canoe and Deb steering with Cyn in the other.
We travelled about as far as we did the previous day, but this time on the east side of the peninsula. The wind was quite strong and it did not take much effort to get there. But given the conditions, we decided to land the boats, again on rocky foreshore, and reassess the distance we should attempt to paddle. Wisely, we chose not to go on further, and stayed there a while to eat lunch.
My only prior experience with a canoe was in Dow's Lake in Ottawa, and my recollection was that it was very tippy. Our two days out on the water in windy conditions didn't help with my comfort in canoes, so I opted to take the kayak on the return trip and Michael took my place in the canoe. Just before we set out, I found a starfish that was moving across a gap in the rocks, and managed to take a sequence of pictures showing its movement over about a minute.
The headwind while paddling back was very strong; it took quite a bit of effort to make much headway, and my kayak would start drifting backwards as soon as I stopped paddling. Fortunately, I did not find it too tiring to paddle at a rate to continue making progress. I was able to propel myself much faster than the canoes, and because I did not want to lose ground to the wind, I aimed myself at the sheltered side of a large rock island at the south end of the peninsula. But as I neared the point, I looked back and saw that Cyn and Deb were landing their canoe. Mike and Michael, who were behind them because they launched last, followed, and I turned back to meet them. Apparently there is much more drag in a canoe than a kayak, and they were not confident in their ability to make it back before succumbing to fatigue.
Because the beaching was unplanned, the landing site was not the best for such an activity, and was rockier and steeper than ideal. The terrain and the rough seas caused a few bruises and scrapes during the process, but there was not much we could do to avoid that. We hung about the second landing point a bit, hoping that the wind would calm down a bit as it tends to at dusk.
Mike offered the suggestion that picking up and walking the boats southward would be more progress towards getting back than just standing about, so we portaged the boats a bit and they came to rest again in front of a sign labelled "shellfish lease". There was also a large rock with the word "lease" painted on it. Apparently people lease the rights to harvest shellfish from a stretch of coast in B.C., and this was probably to indicate that the land there was for lease.
Someone discovered that there were lots of crabs hiding under the various rocks and each time a rock is moved, the crabs hiding under it would scurry off looking for more shelter. We loitered there for a lengthy period of time before someone pointed out that we were not that close to the point and so we could portage some more. Poor footing is not the only hazard when portaging on the rocky foreshore; I managed to scrape up my leg on the barnicle covered side of a rock.
Near the south point of the peninsula was a woman who was digging through the sand harvesting clams. We stopped just past where she was working, and did not have to wait too long there before the winds seemed to die down a bit. We decided that it was a good opportunity to attempt our return trip, and the plan was that we would cut across the little inlet and follow the shore back. It was not too difficult a paddle in the kayak, but I think that it was still fairly hard work for the canoe paddlers, so it made sense for the kayak to escort the canoes and ensure that all paddlers were okay. I think that the trip was less than 3km and took well over an hour.
I suspect that Cyn may have been somewhat annoyed at Michael for his dock jumpings because it didn't seem like the safest thing to do in the dark. But he is a capable swimmer, and the water was very calm. In contrast, I think that our paddle was far more risky. Although we remained close to shore and could just walk back if we had to (the road to the cabin continued at least as far as we paddled), the winds were strong enough that there was no guarantee that we could maintain our proximity to that shore. As well, the water was very rough and I am not sure how well we would have managed a rescue in those conditions should one of the boats tip. The proprietor did say that no boats were to be taken out in stormy weather, but the weather was not stormy; it was drizzling and there was a strong wind, but it was not a storm.
After our return, those of us who weren't Cyn took a soak in the
hot tub to warm up and relax a bit. Cyn busied herself in the
kitchen preparing dinner and even delivered a tin of Pringles to
the hot tub for those of us who were quite hungry but were too
lazy and wet to make the trek across the deck and into the living
room to get it ourselves.
Deb assisted Cyn by cooking the linguini while Cyn made the sauce. One might think that Deb has the easier task. But the only pot there sufficiently large for our desired amount of pasta had, in the bottom, something that was not unlike a solidly lodged steamer rack. Deb cleaned it as well as she could and we cooked the pasta. But when we drained the water, we found that there were lots of bits of shells in the pasta. That led to a lengthy washing of the linguini to rid it of the shell bits. We never figured out if the pot was one specifically made for steaming shellfish, or if someone just managed to wedge the steamer plate there. After dinner, we did try Michael's theory that by filling the pot with a some water and freezing it, the ice may expand enough to force the plate out. It did not work at all, and the plate was just as stuck afterwards as it was before.
Once the contaminated linguini fiasco dinner was cleaned up, it was back to the couch for ChuChu Rocket for some.
As usual, Cyn succumbed to unconsciousness on the couch later in the evening. The rest of us played a game of Pictionary before heading off to bed. Mike made great use of earlier conversation (about how Kevin and I have used this particular association in the past) by drawing an elephant to indicate Manitoba to me.
It's amazing how settled we were in the cabin after just three days.
The last morning, we spend all our time packing and cleaning up the
mess we had created. Eating breakfast involved sneaking a waffle or
two while running around gathering our belongings. We managed to
get everything together and into the trunk before noon, and even
took a moment to take in one last breath of the setting and scenery.
Since there was a silly four hour gap with no ferries between Saltery
Bay and Earl's Cove. we decided to kill some time in Lund. We drove
to the end of highway 101 (or the start, from the perspective of the
sign) and loitered around the dock. It was drizzling, so when we
got tired of getting wet, we entered the bakery beside the dock and
grabbed something to eat and hung about there until it was time to
leave. The baker was really nice, and there was a picture on the
wall of her as a child making something in the kitchen.
The notice posted in place of the missing coin box on the dock
really added to the small town feeling.
Our food planning was fairly accurate, and we didn't have too much leftovers save an extra loaf of bread and a few waffles, but then we didn't really get to sit down and have breakfast the last day. The one thing which we ran out of our last night was beverages, so we stopped in Powell River so Michael could get himself something to drink. The convenience store there had quite a few books, but most of the ones on the romance shelf seemed really sketchy (even more so than the usual romance novel).
We caught the 2:30pm sailing out of Saltery Bay and the 5:20pm ferry from Langdale. Entertainment on the ferries consisted of Cyn's MEC hat and head scratches. And Mike had a craving for French fries, so we made a stop at the Wendy's/Tim's in Gibsons between the ferries. That worked out well because we didn't have to kill lots of time waiting for the second boat.
Horseshoe Bay pretty much marks the end of our trip.
We topped off the trip with dinner at Martini's before dropping
everyone off at home (or their sister's as the case may be). It
was a lot of fun, and perhaps we should do this more often. The
total cost of the trip was about $800 for the cabin (for three
nights, split five ways) plus about $130 for food, and another
$132 or so for the ferries.
