Short Trips (Including a Beer Run)

Distance traveled:  10 miles by dinghy, 6 miles hiking

After 5 days of gloomy weather or rain, we woke to spectacular blue skies this morning in Reid Harbor at Stuart Island. We used up almost all our beer and wine before crossing the border back into the U.S. as there are limits about what can be taken without paying additional duty. But in Ganges on Saltspring Island 2 days ago, the Liquor Store was closed due to the Labor Day holiday (we didn’t know Canada celebrates that too). Beer and wine aren’t sold at grocery stores like they are where we live. So last night with our 4 dinner guests aboard, we ran out of wine.

So this morning we dropped the dinghy and crossed Speiden Channel 4.5 miles to Roche Harbour. They always have a great beer and wine selection, as well as a large quantity of great fresh produce which we also needed.

Speiden Island as back-drop to a ferry.

Roche Harbor always has an incredible variety of boats, from small runabouts and sailboats to incredibly fancy 100+ foot yachts. we had to dodge a few huge ones as we came in by dinghy.

We’ve attended a neighbor’s lovely wedding here at Roche Harbor, and we have dinner reservations here this weekend when son Ryan and daughter-in-law Jaime come aboard for the weekend.

So . . . if you had your choice, which of these two boats would you want?  Easy decision for us! We’ve never seen such an odd-looking boat as the blue and red one on the left whose transom says it hails from San Francisco.

The water was dead calm the whole 9.5-mile dinghy trip, and we were happy to have replenished supplies. Uninhabited Speiden Island on the left below.

After lunch we rode the dinghy 1/2 mile to the State Park dock and took a hike to Turning Point Lighthouse.

It’s 6.2 miles round trip, and 500 feet of elevation gain in each direction, the first exercise we’ve had in a while. On the left is the Stuart Island School, still in use today. On the right is the historic old school house.

And here are the rules that were in force back when the old school was built more than 100 years ago. My, things have changed (thank goodness!)  Of course all teachers were women.

We passed this beautiful farmstead when we went into Prevost Harbour yesterday, and again today on the hike.

The Turning Point Lighthouse is now an automated light, un-manned, but there’s a small museum on site with lots of stories of the first 100 years when various men, and usually their families too, lived here. It’s a spectacular location.

This rocky promontory is called Suicide Bluff, and a 10-year-old son of a Lighthouse Keeper once fell off of it into the water, and survived to tell about it because his 3 siblings ran to get Dad to save him while he clung to a log.

We had a last supper with Aaron and Julie on “Eight Bells”, enjoyable as always. They leave to head south to home and work tomorrow.