We had an early start this morning for our 9:12am tee time at Qualicum Beach Memorial Golf Course. We’ve finally figured out after a few months of living here on the Island, how NOT to arrive in a cloud of dust at the golf course!
We need to leave Newman around an hour before our tee time and that allows us enough time to be comfortable, so we are not running to the first tee as they are calling our names! It didn’t make our games any better today, but there was a lot less stress!
While we had time to wait before we teed off, I was taking note of the Vancouver Island winter golf attire.
Jogging pants are acceptable in whatever colour you want to wear. Yellow ones!
And blue ones. It’s all good on the Island man!
When we arrive early we even have time to stretch before golf! The temperature was a balmy +3C when we teed off.
By the 5th hole we are up to a nice +6C. No jacket! Just a vest and a sweater.
Waiting to tee off.
We finished our round in just under 2 hours today, but the best part of our round (since our games were not stellar today), was we played with 2 great guys! Curtis and Ken. They are neighbours, and both members of Qualicum Beach and hilarious! Curtis played from the red tees with me and they were so much fun to play with. We found out all about their lives prior to moving to Qualicum Beach - one having been a house builder and the other one a landscape Architect. We enjoyed each other’s company so much that we have been asked back to play with them on Friday morning at 9:20am in Ken’s tee time. Ken books a tee time every day - as a member he has 8 day advance booking. He books by 8am every day and if he finds that he doesn’t have another twosome to play in his foursome, he lets the time go, the night before his tee time. By searching last night I found our 9:12am for this morning. that Ken had just released last night. On the 8th hole Ken asked Richard if we would like to play with both of them again on Friday. They said we passed their “muster”, so now we are accepted as being satisfactory to golf with! We have new friends! Hopefully they will invite us back again next week as it is so much easier than trying and hoping to find a tee time!
We found out from talking to Ken where he likes to go for lunch, so we knew where we were going to head for lunch today after golf!
Oh by the way....I must thank everyone who texted or messaged me about what we should use to put the headlight covers back on Jerry. Richard has all of the messages now and he will find something tomorrow hopefully in Courtenay or Comox, to be able to affix those covers securely, so they won’t come off again!
We headed up to the town of Qualicum Beach for a pedicure for me and with Richard looking to see if he could return my new Peepers reading glasses to ”The Step Above” store, above the Quality Foods grocery store. The reading glasses had the screw fall off the arm of the glasses, exactly 5 days after we had purchased them. I didn’t lose the screw, but Richard could not get the glasses fixed last night, as much as he tried.
As luck would have it, there was only one person in the nail salon and she was just waiting for her toes to dry. The salon has plastic hanging between each station and I was shown to the very last station away from the salon’s only other customer. I was happy to get my toes done finally!
Richard had great success too at “The Step Above”. Without a receipt he was able to exchange my broken glasses for the exact same design and strength as we had bought last week!
I had brought my own Birkenstock’s to walk around in after my pedicure and as my toes were drying I popped into the store next to the nail salon to have a walk around. The store had a 6 person limit and it was selling a lot of coastal decor and interesting. locally made artwork.
Newman now has a new sign! I couldn’t resist. The mountains and trees remind me of B.C. aNd the time we have had on the Island this winter. And of course it certainly has been an adventure almost every day with Newman and Jerry! We’ll hang this sign up back home in our sunroom, to remind us of our winter of 2020/2021 on Vancouver Island.
We were really hungry now, but I had to stop and take some photos of the stunning views at Qualicum Beach before we headed back up the Coastal Highway to Qualicum Bay. Richard also had to drop off a book at the lending library on the Beach that he had finished.
Richard dropping off his book. Lots of people out walking the amazing boardwalk today in Qualicum Beach.
These are the Coastal Mountains on the B.C. Mainland. Such a stunning view as you walk along the boardwalk in Qualicum Beach. No wonder so many seniors live here!
Qualicum Beach with the Vancouver Island Mountain ranges in the background. Mountains and sea everywhere you look!
We headed up the Coastal Hwy to get some lunch and arrived at ‘Tidal Tacos’ in Qualicum Bay!
Tidal Tacos is a favourite place of Ken, who we golfed with today. He told Richard if he likes fish tacos he really must try the Baja Style Fish taco.
Richard ordering his Baja Style Fish taco and my Sweet Thai Chicken taco.
Waiting for our order. The lady who is also waiting for her taco order saw my camera, with the zoom lens and said there was an eagle sitting out on the section of the beach at low tide. She asked if I thought I could get close enough to zoom in and get a shot of the eagle. I said, “Let me go and see!”
Bald eagle just hanging out looking for food. I was hoping the eagle would fly and I could catch him in flight, but not today. He was content just hanging around his little rocky beach.
At one point the Bald Eagle’s friend Mr. Seagull showed up to keep him company for awhile.
After hiking down the Coastal Hwy on the shoulder of the road to take these Bald Eagle shots, I arrived back at Tidal Taco to find that Richard had already got our tacos for lunch. Another lunch in Jerry!
Sweet Thai chicken taco.
Baja Style Fish taco. These tacos were amazing! And so was the price! $6.95 a taco and they were delicious, filling and the best we have had since being on the Island! We will definitely have to come back to Tidal Taco food truck another day!
After lunch I mentioned to Richard that we were running low on eggs and rather than stop and buy them at the grocery store in Bowser, we would prefer to support a local farmer. The farm stand opposite Lighthouse RV park is a spot we have not been to yet, either because they are closed a lot, or they are located on a rather awkward corner if we are coming back from Qualicum Beach. Today because we knew we were going to pull into the farm stand, we slowed down around the corner and made sure we could make the turn Into the laneway for the farm stand.
Farm stand. We are expecting to find fruits, vegetables and eggs in the farm stand.
Not at all what we were expecting to find in a farm stand! The top wooden carrying cases are for a 6 pack of beer and the bottom wooden carrying cases are for 2 bottles of wine.
Homemade 3 layer masks and hand knit hats.
More nicely displayed hand knit sweaters and hats.
We bought some homemade strawberry jam and a 3 layer mask. They were out of eggs today! Figures!
My new mask. Very comfortable because the seam down the front keeps the mask from touching my nose!
We arrived home to a flurry of activity in Fanny Bay. Because it was such a nice day at +7C and sunny, all of the fisherman were out taking care of business.
Fanny Bay fisherman fixing the rafts that the Sea Lions had destroyed.
Cory and his crew making another new raft. We have seen him and his crew take apart 2 rafts and build 2 new rafts with the proper new government approved plastic flotation system, instead of the styrofoam covered in plastic that I showed pictures of in our blog a few days ago. While the oysters are not fetching the prices they would usually command, with lots of restaurant’s oyster bars closed, its the time for him and his crew to build new rafts and get ready for when the oyster harvest will fetch higher prices.
Mussels on the beach for the birds to eat!
Mountains of oyster shells to move!
It was nice to arrive home today early enough in the afternoon to enjoy the sunshine streaming through Newman’s windows. I felt like baking, while Richard took a nap!
Oatmeal, craisin, dark chocolate chip cookies. Mmmm! Since we haven’t stopped at the Cumberland bakery this week, I decided I could make us some delicious cookies instead.
We were all set for our Facebook messenger video call this afternoon with our old friends Ron & Lenore from Burlington. Ron and I had worked together for 13 years at Scotiabank in Automotive Finance and have known each other for more than 20 years now. It was nice to catch up with them over the Salt Spring Island goat cheese and amazing wine from B.C.
We thoroughly enjoyed this wine while we were on our call! It was a good price at $17.99 and the wine had a nice ‘pinkish‘ tinge to it. Delicious with the peppered goat cheese from Salt Spring Island.
Whether its old friends or new friends, in times like these it is sure nice to have friends and not feel isolated. What would we do without the amazing technology as we have now to be able to text, call, messenger, Facebook, Instagram, zoom, etc? This pandemic has been so isolating for many, but with the technology we have, if we remember to use it, we can still stay together, while staying apart.
Tomorrow is supposed to be a rain out! We’ve got the strength trainer and osteopath in Courtenay, so that will keep us busy indoors while it rains. Richard has to bring Jerry back to the Chrysler dealership for the 4th time tomorrow as the ‘Check Engine Light’ came on again today just as we were pulling into Fanny Bay! Oh my goodness. Will it ever end with Jerry?
Comments