7/22 Maple Bay

Erin and I got up at our normal time, but we didn't have the usual leisurely morning, as we were supposed to be picked up by Budget Rent-a-car between 8 and 8:15.  We walked up to the marina office where we'd get our ride at 8 o'clock and began waiting.  I finally strolled over to the Perkins diesel mechanic's shop at 8:15, figuring that would cause our ride to arrive.  Shortly after that Erin called over to me that our ride was here.  In fact, he had been there the entire time.  He was sitting in an unmarked car, figuring we'd see the little bookmark sized tag marked "Budget" hanging from his rear view mirror behind the tinted windshield.  Oh well, no great time lost.

 

We headed on into Duncan, about 10 or 12 kilometers (they've pretty much abandoned miles on the distance and speed limit signs, as well as the speedometers here) inland from Maple Bay, where we signed up for a car.  They had set aside a mid-sized sedan, but we upgraded to an SUV, a Nissan X-Trail, for a little more room and comfort.  We were back at the marina by 9 o'clock, and after a few minutes of gathering up cameras and stuff, the four of us were off on our adventure.

 

The Maple Bay Marina is actually in Bird's Eye Cove at the southern tip of Maple Bay, along the Genoa Bay Road.  We headed north along the shore of Maple Bay, and took a brief detour down to the Maple Bay landing, a small government dock in the northern and more open part of the bay.  From there we headed to Crofton, a mill town along Stuart Channel.  They have a small government dock and a waterfront park here, as well as a walkway built up along the shore.

 

Our main focus was to head on to Chemainus, so we continued on along the country roads that followed the shoreline.  We passed pastures and fields of corn, as well as a beautiful salt marsh while the tide was still up.  We made note of some views and attractions, such as an old wooden highway bridge, that we'd look at more closely on the way back.

 

We soon arrived in Chemainus for a look around.  About 25 years ago, the folks in Chemainus invited several internationally known artists to "paint the town", using the blank walls of buildings as their canvas.  Today there are nearly 40 murals and a number of sculptures around the town, depicting various aspects of the town's history.  We drove up and down most of the streets at least two or three times, snapping photos left and right.  Some of the homes were fixed up pretty nice as well – one had several topiary projects going, from elephants to jumping dolphins. We parked the car for awhile and walked up and down one of the main streets that was lined with several shops.  Erin and Trav were hoping that at least one of the several ice cream parlors in town served licorice ice cream, but they were skunked in that quest.

 

We also visited the waterfront parks and saw the ferry landing where you could catch the ferry to Thetis Island and Telegraph Harbour.  Although the Chemainus tourist literature lists arriving in your own boat and mooring at their "enchanting harbour", all the boating and cruising guides recommend staying at one of the marinas in Telegraph Harbour and taking the ferry over for the day for a visit.  We think the cruising guides have it right on that one.  But, it's a great place to visit and spend some time, and we definitely missed more attractions than we saw during our brief visit.  I didn't realize it at the time, but I see by the brochure that there is an artificial reef offshore made from a retired and submerged Boeing 737.  I recall seeing a documentary on TV a few years back on how that was accomplished, but didn't realize it was here.

 

We decided we'd head further north to Ladysmith, another seaport town, to look around and have some lunch.  Erin and I had stopped at Ladysmith a couple of years ago, but found the docks not all that inviting and anchored across the bay, skipping a visit to the town.  The cruising guide describes the town as an "energetic walk" from the sleepy public wharf.  They're understating that quite a bit, although they do concede that you'd best call a taxi to get back to your boat if you buy anything in town.  After taking a drive down to the docks we were glad to be visiting by car.

 

We were looking for a place to have some lunch, and our choices seemed to be somewhat limited, although later we saw a couple of restaurants we had missed in our search.  We eventually settled on the K & S Diner along one of the main streets in town.  It had tables, booths, and a walk up counter where we could place our orders.  We all found items to our liking so did just that.  Trav had previously told us the story of their visit to Ladysmith back in 1992 when they had spent quite some time touring the Gulf Islands.  They had made that arduous hike up the hill to town, and had seen a store front with the sign "Trav's Tav".  It was originally "Traveler's Tavern", but some of the lettering had come off the windows.  To top it off, across the street was "Barb's Kitchen".  Well, it turns out the diner we were in was formerly Barb's Kitchen – there was even a certificate on the wall declaring Barb's Kitchen had the best French fries in town.  And, as we left after finishing our lunch, we saw the Traveler's Hotel across the street.

 

On the way into Ladysmith we had been stopped at a construction site along our country road for about 15 minutes, so on the way back out of town we took the main highway until we were well past that point.  After that we turned off to again take the back roads along the shore, where we passed through Chemainus and Crofton once again.  By now the tide was out, so we saw some different views of the waterfront and shoreline.

 

We stopped at the wooden highway bridge, pulling into a parking lot next to a cemetery.  A small river was running under the bridge, and across the way was a swimming hole, complete with some young boys who were taking advantage of it.  We took photos and admired the structure of the bridge, and also toured the cemetery, noting dates back as far as 1848.

 

By the time we got back to Maple Bay, we still had a couple hours left before we needed to return the car, so we continued on down the Genoa Bay Road to its end, at Genoa Bay.  There we took a look at that marina and looked out over the waters south of Sansum Narrows.  This afternoon the wind was blowing briskly, and the whitecaps were churned up.  We're hoping it'll blow itself out by tomorrow so we can continue on south to Sidney.

 

After dropping Trav and Barb off at our moorage, Erin and I took the car back to Duncan.  We did a little shopping there, filled up the tank and returned the car.  There were two other couples there as well who had returned another car and were waiting for a ride back as well.  They were moored at Genoa Bay.  We all fit into a 7 passenger van for the ride back.

 

Tonight's entertainment was the beginning of a new round of dominos.  We had a good visit aboard the Bar-T-Na for a few hours before retiring back to the Potentate for the evening.