Sunday was Canada Day. The past two years we have gone down to Granville Island and enjoyed the festivities. This year we did something different: we got up early and took the ferry to the Sunshine Coast. The ferry ride is only 40 minutes long and even with reservations, this was almost as long as we waited in the parking lot to get on the ferry. We met some friends on the ferry who were also going to Skookumchuck. After arriving in Langdale, we drove up to make the traditional stop at the only Tim Horton’s on the Sunshine Coast just outside of Gibsons. We fuelled up, and unfortunately Gwen ate a small piece of the apple cheese danish that was supposed to be a cherry cheese danish. Gwen’s allergic to apples, and didn’t have any medication on her, so this made for a bit of a tense time. We continued to drive to the north end of the Coast and headed inland to the Skookumchuck Narrows. Aidan normal travels quite well, but on this day we discovered that he gets car sick! I can’t really blame him — I get car sick too. Plus, the road north of Pender Harbour (highway 101, continuing the West Coast tradition) is mountainous: twisty, turny, and hilly. Add to that the tall trees and high mountain walls, and you get the effect of driving through a twisty tunnel. After puzzling out why he was crying something other than his “I’m not getting my way” cry, we pulled off the road and spent some time cleaning him up and cooling him down. Our destination was still another 15 km away, but we turning back wasn’t an option. Fortunately the bit of apple danish that Gwen had wasn’t a problem. Having two sick people in the truck would have been unpleasant.

The Skookumchuck Narrows are a tidal bore, where the flow going into the Sechelt Inlet rushes in and out a very narrow chokepoint. The current can hit up to 16 knots and you can often see large whirlpools being shed. There’s a 4 km hike (flat by BC standards, a little hilly by any other standard) to two points over looking an inlet. I’ve created a Google map that you can see here.

We hiked in (I had Aidan in the backpack) and were suitably impressed by the display. Check out the video and pictures below:

Note in the video you can hear Aidan singing the ABC’s. Also note that when Gwen turns the camera on him, he immediately clams up. This is why we’ve not been able to capture any audio of him singing. Yet.

Before heading back to the ferry, we stopped at the marina store in the nearby village of Egmont and Lorraine bought some Gravol. We broke up one of the pills into quarters and gave Aidan one in a fruit bar. The subsequent drive back was uneventful! The boy didn’t seem to get sick and stayed pretty happy for the whole trip. We stopped for a bit in Sechelt, and Aidan had a chance to play on a rock beach bordering on the Georgia Strait.

We stopped in Gibsons on the way back to have supper at Molly’s Reach. You know, that place from The Beachcombers? We didn’t get a photo because the boy was pretty cranky, but the one you see there is up on Flickr (click the photo to go to that person’s Flickr page). The fish and chips were good — as usual — but as I mentioned, the boy was pretty cranky so we were in and out of there pretty quickly. We raced to the ferry around 5:45 pm, hoping to catch the 6:50 pm ferry for which (1) we didn’t have reservations, and (2) had sold out all its reservations. We weren’t too sure that we’d make it on, but after arriving at the terminal it was pretty clear that we would.

We caught up with our friends on the ferry ride back, and Aidan spent pretty much the whole ride flirting with the women. He’s pretty shameless. I hope to get some video that Ali shot, and when I do I’ll post it.