After Gerry left on Sunday morning, Nick and I were left to fend for ourselves in Port McNeill. The Captain left us a list of projects to work on while he was gone. We promptly divided these jobs into to lists: “sunny day jobs” and “rainy day jobs."
Our general strategy for the past few days has been to do work in the mornings, then find some other for of entertainment in the afternoons.
Oh and just as much as teak oiling wood is unsatisfying, polishing brass with metal polish is satisfying. Results can be mindblowing. Nick and I have decided on a "30 minutes of polishing a day" policy. The boat is looking shinier everyday.
On Thursday, we decided to take advantage of the sunny weather and take a day trip out to Sointula, BC located on Malcolm Island, just north of Port McNeill. Sointula was founded by a group of Finnish immigrants who wanted to start some kind of communal, socialist utopia. Not sure that the socialist part worked out, but it’s definitely a quant little town.
Evidence of the Finnish population was everywhere.
Mandatory dog picture
The weather was the nicest it had been most of the trip, so we decided against museums and other indoor things and decided to take a bit of a stroll around the island.
4 miles later we arrived at the trailhead of the Beautiful Bay Trail on the north shore of the island.
Pretty awesome forest with big trees and plenty of view points looking out across Johnstone Strait. Unfortunately there weren’t any whales “rubbing” at the “whale rub” area.
Burl love. If you think this burl is impressive, just you wait.
At a point in the walk, we decided the “gale wind warning” we’d heard in the weather report may have some undesirable affects on the tall trees all around us, which were swaying back and forth fairly alarmingly.
So we headed back towards town, after messing around on a rope swing we found.
Ankle-break-city, but we both survived unscathed.
Our original thought was to have dinner on the island, then head back to Port McNeill. However, during “non-tourist season” (it’s apparently still early season), none of the restaurants (there are 2) in Sointula stay open past 2:30pm. So after a bit of a sprint, we were back on the ferry heading to Port McNeill.
Can someone explain this diagram to me? The "heads to bodies" ratio doesn't seem to work...
...and then we went back to Gus’ (a pub right next to the marina) for dinner. We’re practically locals there now.
This is Val. She’s from Quebec, a Habs fan and has her firearms license. She’s really nice.
Some other highlights of the past week:
- Eva came to visit us as here family RV'd down the island
- Myriam and Ben stopped by for some beers on the boat and to watch Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final (Flyers suck!)
- Myriam introduced us to her friend Joe, who came by and fixed our outboard engine. Big thanks for that!
- Gerry's relatives Chuck and Bev invited us to their house for lunch
- We ran into Jesse at Gus' last night
And last but not least, we saw the world's largest burl.
You know you're jealous. Just admit it...
