Margarit and I enjoyed a couples weekend together, for the first time in over a decade. My Mom graciously agreed to stay with our three girls, while the two of us escaped for a weekend together. I had booked a couple of days off work so that we could stretch out a normal weekend to four days. We had to get up at 4:00AM last Thursday in order to have enough time to drive to the airport, park our vehicle, catch a shuttle over to the terminal, pass through security, and catch a 7:00AM flight to Calgary. After a brief stopover in Calgary, we caught our next flight out to Comox on Vancouver Island. YQQ is a very small and laid back airport, and somewhat refreshing and comfortable compared to other destinations. After claiming our luggage, we picked up our rental vehicle, and headed for the hotel we had booked. We had to drive through Comox, and its next door neighbor Courtenay, for a short distance to the Kingfisher Resort. This was a very nice beachside hotel where we would be staying for the next four days. We had made a brief lunch stop in Courtenay, and found ourselves at the resort by early afternoon. We put our luggage aside and relaxed... tired after such an early start.
The beach was right outside of our suite, and by early afternoon the tide was beginning to recede. We took a walk out on the beach and enjoyed the sounds and smells associated with the ocean. It had been a couple of years since either of us had been seaside, and it was nice to be back. This was a rocky shoreline, with some boulders and tide pools. We enjoyed seeing all the marine life including crabs, sea stars, oysters, mussels and snails. There was a lot of bird life around as well and we saw ravens, gulls, herons and eagles. In fact there were a lot of eagles around... soaring over us, scavenging on the beach, and sitting in the adjacent treetops. Initially we thought that some of the darker colored ones were immature bald eagles. But, after I returned home and took a closer look at some of my photographs, the obvious size difference between these dark brown birds and the mature bald eagles suggests to me that they must have been Golden Eagles...
The sound that the Bald Eagles make is simply amazing. If you're hearing it for the first time you might not associate it with such a large majestic bird. I describe it as sort of a "clicking scream". We sure enjoyed the couple of hours that we spent wandering around on that beach.....
Later that evening we walked over to the adjacent resort restaurant, The Breakwater. It was a really nice place overlooking the beach, with Comox visible across the bay, and the Gulf Islands and the Mainland visible in the distance. We shared an exceptional caesar salad... and then came the main course. Margarit had a salmon fillet with squid ink pasta and fresh shrimp. I had a rib eye steak with fresh crab claws. It was an exceptional meal. After dinner we retired to our room, both exhausted by the long day, and the previous long days preparing for the trip. We were both looking forward to spending the next three days together just relaxing and enjoying ourselves.
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