Thursday: Blind Bay, Shaw Island to Beaumont Park, South Pender Island

We woke this morning to the sound of fog horns from the inter-island ferries, and looked outside to see … nothing. White out. Fortunately, we were in no hurry and slowly but surely the fog began to lift. Here’s a picture of a ferry coming into Shaw, after the fog had lifted a bit.

Once we could see enough to get to our crab trap, out we went. Sorry to say our banner catch of last year was not repeated, but we got two keepers – enough for dinner – and so Kristine didn’t have to put up with me pouting all day.

We hung around most of the morning, watching the fog lift, and finally about 10:30 decided it was time to go.

Our destination today was Beaumont Park, just across the Canadian border. It’s a beautiful national park and a place we haven’t been to in several years. There was no wind as we headed across Boundary Pass and into Bedwell Harbor on South Pender Island, where there is a very fancy resort hotel and also the customs dock, where we pulled up to take care of the formalities. Canadian customs is much different and easier that US customs: you tie up at the dock, pick up a phone that dials in automatically, talk to a friendly agent who asks a few questions, gives you a clearance number, and wishes you a nice trip.

Once that was done, we motored about 5 minutes away to Beaumont and dropped the anchor. Here’s a picture from the shore; you can see the resort on the far left and between the points in the middle you are looking back toward the US.





We went ashore and explored the beach a little, then started on a hike to the top of “Mount Norman.” The trail sign said it was a little over three kilometers, but what it didn’t say is that Mount Norman is 890 feet high, seemingly straight up, a fact we looked up when we got back down. It took us about an hour and some huffing and puffing, but we were rewarded with some good exercise and a fantastic view of the surrounding area. Hard to capture in a picture, but this may give you an idea.




Once back to the boat, we prepared for the main event of the day, our first fresh crab dinner of 2009. I cleaned and cooked the crab while Kristine made some “Canadian tomato” salad. (At the customs dock, we were informed that we weren’t allowed to bring tomatoes into Canada, and were to dispose of them in a box on the dock where other people had left their unauthorized produce. Kristine made a deposit, unwillingly, but luckily for us she found a few “Canadian tomatoes” on board by dinner time.) It was a very hot evening, but we found a little shade in which to sit and consume crab, tomatoes, bread, and wine while listening to a CD of Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock playing a live concert on two pianos. I defy anyone to dream up a better evening than that.