Ahhh, it’s been a fabulous few days cocooned in at the outstation in Garden Bay, Pender Harbour. But everything comes to an end and today we had to spend the morning cleaning the house and packing things up. But our ferry reservation wasn’t until 6:40pm and we are grateful that we didn’t manage to get a Monday booking given the ferry breakdown near Horseshoe Bay and the many hours that that ferry sat there needed a tug to push it into port…and then the many cancellations that resulted from the event.
We had to be out of the house by noon, and were out a bit earlier than that. We drove part way down the coast and hung a right along the way, ending up at the parking lot for an easy hike into Smuggler Cove.
About 15 or 20 years ago we took the boat up here. We’d had a rough trip up given some weather issues and when we arrived at the entrance to the cove I had a bit of a panic attack. The opening is SO narrow and there are nasty rocks pushing above the waterline that make it horribly intimidating, particularly when one was a fairly new boater.
I’d done an “OH HELL NO!!” and spun the boat away for a little bit of an anxious think-about-it moment. As we paused in fear, a much larger vessel came around the corner and headed right through. I recall saying…”Well…if THEY can go through there, we sure as hell can with our four foot draft”…..and in we went…breath held, and passed over the visible shallows with ease. We circled the little bay, found a pin in the rock wall, dropped the anchor, flipped the dinghy out and rowed over to the pin and ran a stern tie through it, and snugged everything up.
It was perfect.
A beautiful, very very expensive Grand Banks Europa anchored and stern tied close to us. Close enough that we jokingly said we could pass cocktails across.
It was a peaceful and enjoyable evening.
The next day we blew up our air mattresses, poured a drink, and puddled around the cove with our beverages and visited all the boaters settled in for the day.
It really was perfect.
Until sometime after we’d gone to sleep that second night.
When a thunderstorm arrived and there was thunder and lightening beyond belief.
Kirk happily slept through it all.
I crawled up on the counter and stared out the window for the next…I don’t know….eight hours!?!?!
In other words, one of us slept and the other did not.
I kept waiting for the wind. But there was none. No wind, no rain. Just. Non. Stop. Lightening. And. Thunder.
When the morning finally arrived, Kirk crawled out of the v-berth refreshed, and I was knackered. I remember walking to the front of the boat and seeing the owner of the Grand Banks sitting on the bow and he looked over at me and commented on a lack of sleep. I commented on having seen him put his rubber dinghy between our two vessels because he too was waiting for the wind that should have accompanied the thunder and lightening.
I remember seeing some people on shore and wondering how they got there. They clearly weren’t boaters, they’d come in on foot. And I always wondered what it was like from shore. We’d never set foot on shore when we’d bee there all those years ago. So…since it was on the way and we had time….we decided to do the easy hoof into the cover and see if it still looked like a terrifying entrance.
It did.
And the hike in was delightful. Pretty easy, which was good because both of had bum knees this morning. The trail went over a hump and then across a bog for a distance. Several bridge/boardwalks gave a great view of the beaver engineered marsh and there were ducks galore…included several wood ducks. So beautiful!
Then the trail meandered over rocky sections, roots that had no soil to drive into and wormed their way across boulders, through a dense forest blanketed in thick moss and with the odd native fawn lily dangling like a decorative living room lamp. And then the trail opens into the cove, and it was as gorgeous a spot as I remembered from the water-side.
We took our time, plunked ourselves down and just enjoyed the day, in various places. We sat and ate a packed lunch and quietly just drank the coastal environment in.
Eventually we had to leave, and we backtracked out of the scenic area, and made our way down to Langdale for the ferry home. The ferry was running late, but not crazily so.
What a fabulous place to have so close to home. It was a fabulous retreat from chaos and stress.