Denman Island

On Wednesday March 30th the girls and I headed over to Denman Island.  We never really get an early start in a house full of girls.  After breakfast we drove down the coast from our rental home in Courtenay, to Buckley Bay.  Here we took the cable ferry across to Denman Island.  We drove the short distance across to the east end of the Island and Boyle Point Provincial Park.  Here we parked the truck and headed off on a trail through the forest.  Most people hike all the way to the tip of the island where there is an overlook onto the lighthouse on Chrome Island.  We took the side trail to Eagle Point.  Here there is kind of an unmarked trail, rather steep in places, that descends a cliff down to the beach below.  It is quite a spectacular spot with a large cluster of big boulders in the water.  At low tide there are tide pools with all sorts of marine life exposed between the boulders.  We timed it right as the tide was on the way out as we descended the cliff.  We spent a couple of hours here just exploring along the beach.

After exploring here for a while we climbed back up the cliff trail, and hiked back out to the truck.  We then drove up to the northwest tip of Denman Island.  We were trying to get to the sand spit at Longbeak Point and hike out to Tree Island.  But we got distracted by a wonderful spot called Morning Beach.  There was a short trail from the road to the edge of some sandy bluffs overlooking the ocean.  From there we climbed down a rather steep staircase that took us safely over the unstable sand cliffs.  By this time the tide was all the way out and we had lots of beach to explore.  Rocks covered with mops of seaweed, a few big boulders out in the shallow waters, sand banks, and lots of marine life.  The girls really liked it here and we stayed as long we could.  But, on the gulf islands you always have to keep one eye on your watch and the other on the ferry schedule.  By late afternoon we had to climb back up to the truck and make sure that we were back at the ferry terminal in time to get the second last ferry.  You can miss the second last one, but you can't miss the last one or you will be faced with a very uncomfortable sleep in your vehicle.  We didn't want to tempt fate and have to try and sleep all five of us in the cab of the truck so we made sure that we were able to catch the second last ferry back to Vancouver Island.  From there we drove the 20 minutes back north to the rental house at Courtenay, very tired from our day's adventures.  Like all the other nights here the girls hit the hot tub while Margarit and I put something together for a late supper.