August 26, 2013 ~ Newcastle Island

The purple martins were very vocal this morning – mornings and evenings seem to be their time to sing.  We are moored right under a couple of their nest boxes, which are on the tops of several pilings.

Erin made some cinnamon rolls for breakfast, along with eggs over easy.  After breakfast Erin and I went for a long walk along the shore of the island, looking across first at Protection Island, then out towards Georgia Strait.  It was hard to determine the sea state out further, but it definitely wasn’t the glassy smooth of yesterday near the shore.  We walked out on the beach for awhile, which is mostly a layer of sandstone.  Between the trail and the beach are driftwood logs, and in some places we saw where some trees had been recently blown over, with their roots exposed.  Where the tree had fallen on the trail it had been freshly cut with a chain saw, clearing the trail but leaving the rest of the tree for nature to take its course.  The park is well used by the citizens of Nanaimo as well as traveling boaters, with many arrivals and departures of campers and day users via the passenger ferries.

For lunch Ray treated us all at the deli café at the dance hall/pavilion building.  Ray and Mary had halibut fish and chips, and Erin and I had hamburgers.  It seemed like the day had just begun, but it was already early afternoon.  After lunch we headed over to the pulp stone exhibit – Ray wanted to get a closer look at the machine that cut the stones.  I

took our leftovers back to the boat and shut down the generator, which had been running for about 3 hours to provide some more amps, then headed over to rejoin the others.  In that time they had seen a buck with antlers down by the pulp stones.  I missed it, but Erin says she took some pictures.  We’ll eventually get connected again and I’ll be able to post some photos.

The morning weather was very nice – some clouds, but warm with lots of sunshine.  Later in the afternoon we had some rain showers, and it rained hard enough to start a few of our interior leaks.  Ray benefited from the downpour, as it rinsed the salt off our front windows – a chore that he was to do.  The salt didn’t come from our Georgia Strait crossing, though, but from the day before while cruising down to Pender Harbor.  We didn’t clean it off then, assuming there would be more of the same as we crossed the strait.

From time to time I can see the wireless connection for the Nanaimo Port Authority, but I’m not successful at connecting to it over here at Newcastle Island.  I’m not surprised, as we had trouble connecting to it last month when we were moored out by the breakwater at Cameron Island.  I thought about going on a dinghy excursion over to Nanaimo to check email, update the blog and wander around in general, but as the afternoon wore on that seemed like a task for another day, especially after the rain started.

Tomorrow we plan on cruising down to Telegraph Harbor.  We like it in there, and hopefully mid week there won’t be a rendezvous going on taking up all the dock space.  Slack at Dodd Narrows is just before 10 o’clock – we’ll arrive a bit after that to take advantage of the ebb current as we cruise south.