Last weekend we were supposed to be back in Penticton for the Pentastic Jazz Festival but, of course, it was cancelled this year. I was trying to remember when the last time we went away was and I guess it must have been for my 40th birthday last November. 10 months ago!
Needless to say, it’s been a weird year and we wanted a little change of scenery while the weather was still nice, so we booked a few nights at Qualicum Beach and it was lovely.
We took our first COVID-era ferry ride to get to the island on Friday. I hadn’t made a reservation because in my head, a Friday after Labour Day wouldn’t be busy enough to bother, but in the day or two leading up to our departure I was starting to have regrets. We ended up leaving in a bit of a panic early Friday morning so that even if there was a wait we wouldn’t arrive too late in the day and then landed ourselves on the 8:45 am sailing.
In our haste to get out the door, Michel didn’t grab his mask, so he was confined to the car. Luckily he has a bladder the size of a camel, so no big deal. I did venture up to the passenger deck to check things out and I have to say, it was much better than usual. It looked like more than half the passengers were still down in their cars because even with every second row blocked off, as well as other groups of seats near main thoroughfares, there was still seating available. It was very quiet and calm.
Perhaps, and this is just a theory I came up with right this minute, putting masks on people encourages them to shut up, like when you wrap a cat in a blanket.
Qualicum Beach is about 45 minutes from Departure Bay terminal, which I think is just perfect. I have been there many times in my life, though I don’t know if I’ve actually stayed there before. I have camped at Little Qualicum Falls quite a few times and passed through on my way to Courtenay.
For this trip, we stayed at a little resort/motel right on the beach. It was nothing fancy, but it was peaceful and convenient.
On our first evening we drove into town to pick up some sushi for dinner. We had a half hour to kill while we waited for our order, so we wandered the streets of downtown (I don’t know if they call it that) Qualicum Beach. It is so cute.
Sushi Hama was in a cluster of shops called Chilham Village that is like a movie set; the exterior looks like a row of miniature English Tudor style shops and they’re arranged around a little courtyard. (And the food was delicious.)
We definitely discussed the idea of moving there if in a few years it didn’t look like social dancing was ever coming back. (I hope this is not a possible outcome of the pandemic, but you have to think about the options.)
Over the few days we were there, we drove to both Little Qualicum Falls and Englishman River Falls to hike the trails and check out the sites. The wildfire smoke from down south had started to roll in by Saturday, but in the forest it was less noticeable.
On Saturday night we made the trek back down to Nanaimo to meet up with our friends, Catie and Dave. Normally, we would be spending this whole weekend with them, dancing to live music and doing other jazzy things, but this year we had to make do with dinner.
We met halfway between their place and ours, at Gate and Crow English Pub. We spent a good 3 hours catching up and enjoying an excellent meal. While the pub was following all the new COVID guidelines, it still felt like a bit of a return to normal.
Then we drove an hour back to our motel through an eerie haze of wildfire smoke, but it was getting dark out, so you could kind of pretend it was just foggy.
Sunday night my phone started blowing up with messages about a huge fire in New Westminster at Pier Park. We watched the live footage from our motel, which was very dramatic and pretty depressing. I didn’t sleep very well that night. (Luckily, it turned out that the damage wasn’t as bad as it appeared and it was just the older part of the pier destroyed, not the excellent new park that we love so much.)
Overall, it was a nice mini-vacation and we’re lucky we live somewhere that has so many great options nearby. We usually don’t go on vacations without there being an event (or numerous events) we’ve scheduled our plans around. I guess now that there aren’t ‘events’, we’ll get a chance to check out more of these places, which is not so bad.
Now, I’m ready to settle in for the fall, which is my favourite season. Bring on the rain.
Dancing In Irreverence 