Sunday March 27th was our first full day on Vancouver Island. It was also Easter Sunday. Surprisingly the Easter Bunny was able to find our girls and left little foil covered chocolate treats all over the home we had rented in Courtenay. There were a lot of them, and the girls each ended up finding a basket full. I wouldn't be surprised if the cleaning staff or the next renters continued to find more after we left.
As it turned out this day had the worst weather of our entire time on Vancouver Island. It wasn't really that bad. The skies were partly sunny, but there was a rather cold and brisk wind blowing and we had a couple of showers. After this day the weather improved pretty dramatically.
After the Easter treat hunt and a late breakfast we headed out for the day. We drove down the old Island Highway which followed the coast and mostly just scouted around. We stopped at a little town called Deep Bay and attempted to check out a marine center managed by Vancouver Island University, but it was closed for the Easter Weekend. We wandered around the marina for a little while and then continued on down to Parksville and made a stop at Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park. In the past this had been one of my favorite places for beachcombing. We timed it so that the tide was out when we were here, but this was also the time that the weather turned the worst. The wind picked up and it rained for a while. We wandered around on the beach for a while and then made our way back north up the coast towards Courtenay.
We stopped at the Shady Rest, a nearly century old restaurant and pub at Qualicum Beach. When Margarit and I were here a few years ago, they had the best clam chowder I had ever eaten. We had lunch here and once again, the chowder did not disappoint. They also had a smoked salmon version of it that Margarit and Anna quite liked. I made the mistake of ordered clam chowder and a meal of fish and chips. I was overstuffed and painfully full for the rest of the day.
After lunch we made our way back up to the beach house at Courtenay. We were all full from the big late lunch and didn't bother with much for supper. We did head down onto the beach in front of the house and wander around for a while. Comox Bay is very shallow and when the tide goes out there are sand bars and tidal flats that stretch out for some distance. There were some swans out on the sand that I managed to get a couple of snapshots of.
There are hundreds if not thousands of medium size wood stakes pounded into the mud and sand of the bay. These are arranged in neat lines and rows. They are flooded twice every day by the high tide and exposed twice each day at low tide. We learned that these are the remains of ancient fish traps built by the local natives hundreds of years ago.
At the edge of the property in front of the beach house is a large shapely Garry Oak. It was budding and just about ready to shoot leaves during the time that we spent at the beach house. We enjoyed and admired it every day of our stay, particularly at sunrise and sunset.
The girls spent a good bit of their time every evening in the hot tub on the patio. It got pretty cold outside in the evenings once the sun set and hot tub was a pretty relaxing way to end the day.
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