With this post, I am finally caught back up in time for my big trip fo the year to the Netherlands with Mom and Mackenzie. It should be fun.

This will be a bit of a long one, with a real random collection of things. We headed over to Galiano on Sunday morning for what was to be our longest ever stay - two full weeks. I had to head back for work for one day in the middle, but other than that we were working from the cottage and trying to enjoy the end of the summer. We had a rangle of adventures, including a visit with Alex over the long weekend, seeing the Northern Lights, bioluminescence while kayaking, whales on numerous occasions and more!

We headed over on the afternoon ferry on Sunday, arriving around 5:30 p.m. We decided to stop at Valley Grill for some tacos, rather than making dinner after we arrived. It was a beautiful night, and we relaxed, had a beer and some tacos and generally got our trip off to a great start!

We arrived up at the cottage after dinner and got ourselves organized. I needed to give everything a good watering and see how the gardens, and everything that we had planted had fared while we were away. The irrigation in the gardens seemed to have done their job, but some of the other things plants that were not being watered were a little worse for it. I gave everything a good watering, and we’ll hope that everythign bounces back. I think I lost my new, beautiful blueberry bush - I planted it too late in the season.

Our fruit trees are still small, and we have yet to get any fruit. Our largest apple tree has 5 apples on it this year, and they are starting to grow and we are hopeful they will ripen properly.

While we were working every day, the plan was t also try and relax. While work has been insane for me of late, it was nice to stop at the end of the day and just chill out. One of our first nights we brought out some Lego - this one was a gift from Justine at Christmas that I had not had time to get to.

One thing I was trying to do was play a lot of golf while we were over. Most days I managed to get out (with a few exceptions) and play at least 9 holes. Ity is such a great feature of Galiano.

Sometimes it’s hard to golf, when there’s so many deer around…

But even at home, the deer are everywhere now that hunting season is over.

Whales!

This year has beena bit spotty for seeing whales from the property. IN years past, we’ve had long stretches where we saw them regularly - this year has not been like that. We’ve seen very few this year, but did they ever make up for it on this trip. Justine say a lot more than I did, but almost every day we either say or heard them. It was pretty great!

Justine caught a pretty great clip of some humpbacks, from the cottage!

Another day we had some humpback whales a lot closer to shore, doing some pectoral fin slapping.

You never know what you’ll see - Justine got this phot out the kitchen window - a woodpecker on the huge flower stalk. Quite cool.

Morning Beach - I managed to sneak a swim in after golf, before picking up Alex from the ferry.

A Visit from Alex

Alex came to spend the long weekend with us, which was awesome! She came over on the Friday afternoon ferry, arriving about 5:30. I picked her up, and we headed back to the cottage. This was her first visit to Galiano, so we were excited to have her stay with us and show her the sights. We had lots of fun things planned. And a few unplanned surprises along the way. Friday night was pretty chill - we just hung out on the deck and enjoyed the evening.

Saturday morning - you guessed it - we headed down to the Market so Alex could see the spectacle. We wandered the vendors, chatted to a few people and enjoyed the warm, sunny morning. It was “Fiesta”, and annual event/fundraiser, so the MArket was even busier than usual. We had come down abit late, thinking to get some lunch at the Market, but the lines were too long, so we passed. We did stop to grab some fish from Henney for fish tacos later in the weekend. It was a good start to the day.

Instead, we headed down to the Galiano Inn and Spa and had lunch on the patio - their pizza is amazing! We had to wait a littl while to get a seat, but it was well worth it. We were hungry, and the pizza really hit the spot.

After lunch we headed back to the cottage and hung out for the afternoon. There may have been some napping… The hammock did not get a lot of use this year, which is a real shame. Saturday night we had a reservation at Lola’s at Bodega Ridge, which was exciting. So basically we spent all day eating.

Dinner was fairly early (actually all dinners are early on Galiano), with our reservation just after 6:00. We saw our friend David and Tova while we were at dinner, which was nice. We had all our favorites - fried chicken, the pomelo salad - and a few new things. Everything was absolutely delicious, as always.

After dinner we drove a bit further north to show Alex the north end of the island. We were trying to time things to see sunset at Spanish Hills dock, and so we thought we drive by the wetland at the north end. This turned out to be a very good choice, for as we were turnign around to head back, I spotted an owl sitting on a tree branch at the side of the road!

The 49th parallel runs through the north end of Galiano. As we were coming back from the wetlands, it was necessary to take a quick stop.

With some of our unexpected diversions, we ended up almost being too late for the sunset! We stopped at Spanish Hills Dock on the way back down, and got out there just in time to see the sun dup below the horizon. It’s a beautiful spot, and we got some nice colour in the sky. And some entertainment - there were two teenage girls, jumping off the dock into the ocean. It’s actually pretty high - maybe 15-20’ up - but they were having fun with it and jumped 2-3 times, with a lot of drama about the whole procedure. They seemed to be having a good time, and their grandmother was getting a kick out of it, trying to take pictures of the whole thing.

We just about missed the sunset. But the owl was worth it.

And while it had been a very full day, it actually got better. Well for those of us that stayed awake anyway…

Justine had noted that they were calling for the potential for us to see the Northern Lights that evening. So whiel Alex dozed off on the couch, Justine and I stayed up, and were treated to a small auroras show.

It was nothing like the aurora event from earlier in the year, but you could see the pulsing in the sky.

With a slightly longer exposure on the camera, the colours became vivid and the sky was alive.

There were these big, vertical streaks that shot up from the horizon.

Sadly, I was struggling a bit with my camera. I could not get the focus quite right, so don't look too closely.

The show didn't last too long - after about half an hour, it faded out.

I managed to sneak off and golf each morning, while the girls slept in. Sunday we did a proper English breakfast on the grill on the BBQ - bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and toast - it was a great start to our day!

The fawns are growing up fast, but still so cute!

Sunday we decided to do the Mount Galiano hike, to get some exercise, work off that huge breakfast and show Alex the view out over the southern Gulf Islands. It’s a nice hike - not too hard, and with the day being clear was sure ot offer some great views.

The map of our hike up to the top of Mount Galiano

I of course lugged my camera up the whole way, hoping for some interesting birds, but we saw almost nothing the whole way up. Still, the view at the top is worth the price of admission, and we were treated to a fine view.

There were bald eagles and turkey vultures soaring - it’s cool to look down on them on the wing.

After a short rest and taking in the view, we headed back down. We had a bit more luck with the birds on the way down than on the way up.

Hairy Woodpecker

Chestnut-backed chickadee

After the hike, we drove a short distance to one of the public beach access points. The tide was fairly high, so we explored the shoreline a bit, looking for whales. They did not make an appearance. But we saw seals and kingfishers, so not a bad consolation prize.

I know it's only a gull, but they are good for practicing getting the birds in flight in focus.

A couple of seals made an appearance.

We think it wa sa mother and pup. Kissing seals!

The kingfisher is much harder to get in flight - this one is a little blurry.

We explore the beach for a bit, before calling it a day and heading home. It was a good hike, and nice ot get out and stretch the legs.

The fish tacos for dinner were pretty great, if I do say so myself.

Monday was ALex’s last day with us. We started off with another hike, this time around the Galiano Conservancy. We’ve done this hike a few times, as it gives you some great views out over the channel, and meanders through some really nice, mature forest with lots of arbutus trees.

One of the many interesting arbutus trees in this section of the hike.

It’s the time of year when the arbutus trees are starting to shed their bark. The colour in the bark really get interesting, and the peeling is wild to see.

Once you get through the part of the property where the Conservancy has all their gardens and buildings, the hike starts up on top of the ridge, with steep drop offs down to the ocean. It meanders along this ridge, with views out over the channel for a while, before eventually descending down to the water at Crystal Cove. We had brought bathing suits with us, but we were at the wrong tide and the entry exit looked a bit suspect. So we continued on with our hike.

I jugged the camera around the whole way and really didn't get a chance to use it!

It's a lovely walk, meandering through the forest.

The trail works its way up and down a few times as you travel along the coast.

Hanging out at Crystal Cove.

The view north from Crystal Cove.

As the tide was quite low, it did give us a chance to explore the tide pools and the rocks that were below the high tide line. There were quite a few cool things to see.

It took a while, but we found a few purple sea stars in the rocks.

There were loads of small anemones shrunken up, trying to protect themselves until the water returned.

A purple sea star and a sea cucumber!

This is the rattiest eagle I've ever seen! It's a juvenile, and so I image it's molting, but it's also hard to imagine how it can fly with all those feathers missing!

From Crystal Cove, you have to climb back up and out, where the trail continues along the channel for a while longer. There’s a nice view point at the end, where we stopped for a little bit before continuing on. From the viewpoint, the trail heads back inland, working its way through some meadows and past a few huge trees. Eventually the trail runs parallel to the road, bringing you back to the parking lot.

The rest of the day was quite relaxed, until we had to take Alex back to the ferry for her trip back to Vancouver. It was really great having her stay with us, and it gave us a chance to show her our little island.

Summer Project - Building a Wood Shed

While the deck was our main project for the year, another one we’ve been meaning to get to for ages is to build a proper wood shed for all our firewood. Most of it has been stacked on pallets, under a tarp, which has not been great. So we thought we’d try and tackling this one while we were over for a longer duration. We didn’t quite get it finished, but we made good progress!

We decided to go with a fairly simple design, just using cement blocks as the "foundation". We went for about 10' x 10' and 8' tall at the front, thinking that will give us lots of storage.

We built a few walls, then propped them up to get everything plumb and (mostly) level.

The roughed together frame.

We wanted lots of airflow for the wood, and to keep it simple we just went with deck boards for the outside.

We were trying to use up as much material as we had lying around from other projects. But sadly is was not enough, and the hardware store only sells them in 16' lengths, which was going to result ina lot of waste.

Justine was in charge of measuring the cuts for the rafters, and did an outstanding job!

We took it as far as we had materials for. I think I will brace the rafters a bt, with some blocks between. We'll need to pick up wood to finish the outside before we head back next time.

Pretty close to done. I was able to salvage a bunch of plywood from work, so next step will be to put the roof up.

Late Night Paddling - Bioluminescence!

Friday night, after working on the shed for a while we took the inflatable kayak down to Retreat Cove to go for a paddle in the dark. The moon was quite small (and so the night would be dark), and we have heard that at this time of year you can see a lot of bioluminescence in the water.

It was quite a magical night! It was very calm and quiet, and the night was quite dark. And the moment you entered the water, every movement was illuminated in the water. It was amazing to see and we spent the better part of an hour splashing and trying to capture a few photos. They didn’t really work, but Justine got close to getting a sense of it. It was quite cool.

Most of these are the result of just passing a paddle through the water. It's pretty awesome.

A Few Last Random Things to Share

This is likely to be my last post for quite a while. I’m off shortly to head to Ontario, where I’m meeting up with Mom and Mackenzie, and we’re headed to the Netherlands for two and a half weeks. We’re all very excited about it, and it will be a great trip. So expect a bunch of posts after we return.

I caught this scene one morning, beore heading out to play golf. It's a mother pileated woodpecker and her young one. Earlier, it looked like she was trying to teach it how to find insects in the tree, but they she flew over to the feeder, grabbed some suet and then fed the young one! She did it a few times before I took off.

Justine's flowers were bouncing back for a second bloom.

This one box, with the squash, cucumbers and kale is really flourishing.

The beans did really well also. We have had a few harvests already.