What a Super Bowl! It seemed so easy for Tom Brady, the G.O.A.T. and his team mates to win today. I’m happy for Champa Bay! Such a winning city! I’m sad we weren’t at our home in Florida to enjoy the game this year. Next year we will be there...count on it! Brady says he is returning, so who knows? Can they do it again?!!
We started our morning today with CBS Sunday Morning instead of playing golf with our friends at Qualicum Beach Memorial Golf Course. There was a major frost delay this morning, so instead of driving down to Qualicum Beach and waiting to see when we could tee off, we decided instead to have a relaxing morning at home.
We always make a special meal for Super Bowl and since Richard loves Mexican food, today’s special meal was chicken enchiladas!
Chicken, shallots, refried beans, black beans, Monterrey jack cheese and jalapeños. Yummy!
After making the enchiladas we decided to go for a hike in Deep Bay. Deep Bay is somewhere that we had only driven through before, yet we can see Deep Bay from Fanny Bay, and we wanted to explore it further.
I found a hike on All Trails which started at the end of a dead end street in Deep Bay and continued through the Deep Bay Community Park, into Deep Bay and the harbour. We parked Jerry and headed down the trail.
Leaving Jerry to hike down the trail.
The trail turned out to be the abandoned E&N railway, which we hiked along looking for the trail we were supposed to turn onto.
It was +3C, but so warm I was able to take my coat off. We had the trail map on my All Trails app, but unfortunately the internet didn’t seem to work where we were hiking, so we hiked to a road which had a ’No Trespassing’ sign on the entrance to the driveway.
We had walked about an hour, so we knew we had probably gone too far to turn down towards Deep Bay. We headed back along the railway tracks and came upon what looked like another trail, but it turned out to be another wrong turn.
We saw this building and water tower down the trail we turned down. We had stumbled instead on the Deep Bay Marine Station Parking, not the Deep Bay Community Trail. We headed back to the railroad tracks we had been hiking on and decided we would hike back to Jerry and then we would drive down to Deep Bay. That way we wouldn’t get lost again and we could walk around Deep Bay.
When we were almost back to Jerry, we saw a small blue sign in the woods on a post. The trail we had been looking for was almost immediately near where we had parked Jerry. Oh well. We had a nice hour hike down the railroad tracks instead today and now we know if we ever want to go back to Deep Bay, where the trail is!
We parked at the end of a dead end street in Deep Bay that had houses on both sides of the road, but none at the end of the road. We could see this trail in the background that led us down to a small beach with picnic tables.
Another photographer! We saw more photographers today than any other day we have been out on hikes. In the background is Deep Bay and the Vancouver Island mountain ranges. It was snowing in the mountains today!
Fishing boat heading out in Deep Bay.
Deep Bay is aptly named because of what happened to the Bay after the 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake. The 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake hit on June 23, 1946 at 10:15am with a magnitude of 7 and 7.5 on the Richter scale. The main shock epicenter occurred on the Forbidden Plateau area northwest of Courtenay, B.C. While most earthquakes in the Vancouver area occur at tectonic plate boundaries, the 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake was a crustal event. Shaking was felt from Portland, Oregon to Prince Rupert, B.C. The 1946 earthquake was one of the most damaging in the history of B.C. Damage was restricted though because the area was not heavily populated., although 75% of the chimneys in the communities of Cumberland, Union Bay, Courtenay and Comox were demolished. The bottom of Deep Bay actually sunk from 9 feet to 84 feet as a result of the earthquake! Imagine being able to see the bottom of the Bay and then having the Bay sink another 75 feet!!
We drove back down this narrow dead end street to see a house that was for sale for $1.2million and looked at realtor.ca and realized it needed a lot of work, but it had a very nice view and location. We parked just down from the house that was for sale and started hiking towards a point that had quite a few birds hanging around on the point.
Both of these women were also photographers and the one in the purple jacket directed me to the point where these birds were hanging out.
Sandpipers!
A dashing young man I found on the beach today. Notice he has just his ‘inside jacket’ on today from his ’3 in one’ coat.
A very unique bench on this beach, right behind the super mail box. The view was lovely, and I could imagine sitting here on a warmer day and taking in the beautiful view.
View from the bench over to Denman Island on the left, Chrome (Lighthouse) Island in the middle and Hornby Island in the background.
After our walk on the beach, we drove back to the harbour in Deep Bay. We could have walked to the harbour in 5 minutes, it was that close to the beach.
Ship & Shore restaurant, at which we now have a reservation for dinner on Friday February 19th at 7pm. The restaurant has been closed since mid December and is re-opening on February 18th. The restaurant is owned by a husband and wife fisherman and we can’t wait to try it. The patio looks like it has been freshly cleaned and mulch put around the plants. Imagine sitting out on this patio overlooking the harbour on a sunny day enjoying a cold beverage and some fresh fish and chips!
View from the Ship & Shore restaurant over the Deep Bay harbour.
The Deep Bay Harbour store has two totem poles guarding the entrance to the store. The store had no provisions in it. I think the store only functions as a place to pay daily docking fees for the use of the boat launch in the Deep Bay harbour.
We walked down the gangplank to get a closer look at the ships in Deep Bay harbour. There were quite a few working fishing boats, as well as many pleasure sailboats.
Fishing boat in Deep Bay harbour. It was snowing on the Vancouver Island mountains in the background.
Looking through the fishing boat to the pleasure sailboats. I think if we lived here we would definitely need a boat...but not a fishing boat! No second career for me!
I think it was a premonition seeing this flag in Deep Bay harbour today! Tampa Bay Buccaneers logo perhaps? There are certainly no pirates in Deep Bay harbour!
While we didn’t find our trail today in Deep Bay, we definitely got a lot of steps in regardless, and enjoyed behind close to home, so we could get back to watch the end of the Waste Management golf tournament from Phoenix. Brooks Koepka came back from injury to win for the first time in close to 2 years and Jordan Speith -one of my favourites, came 4th. Nice to see Jordan playing well again!
When we got home from hiking around Deep Bay, Richard spent quite a bit of time trying to get the diesel generator running in Newman. He was texting St. Stephen to try and find out why the diesel generator wouldn’t work. Apparently we need to run the diesel generator every few weeks or so to keep it primed. When we boon dock (on the drive home in April in Walmart parking lots), we will need the diesel generator to work, as it gives us electricity in Newman. So what St. Stephen and Richard have determined is that Newman has a blown fuse!! Where the blown fuse is, is still TBD (to be determined). We have extra fuses though, once Richard figures out where the new fuse is to go!
We watched the first half of the Super Bowl and then just as the half time show started, the sky in blue hour over Fanny Bay was amazing! We had a very low tide tonight, so I put my coat, hat and boots on and out I went to shoot some beautiful shots of sunset on Fanny Bay.
Oyster nets roped together to form a beautiful curved line. In photography lines are so important for the composition of a photo, and this curving line is beautiful taking your eye through to the background of the photo and the oyster barge in the distance.
The beautiful sky over the mountain was reflecting off Fanny Bay this evening.
I love the peep of red showing through the clouds and the circular lines in the water.
Again, more nice reflections of the sky off the water. It was such a beautiful sunset this evening and I missed most of the half time show, which from texts and social media, most people my age didn’t like anyway!
We had our dinner watching the Super Bowl, with my Ipad set up on the dining room table, eating our amazing chicken enchiladas. We still can’t get scheduled TV programs on our TV here, so we reserve the TV in Newman for watching Netflix, news channels and Amazon Prime. Thank goodness for the Bell Fibe on my Ipad to be able to watch live TV!
Chicken enchiladas! We have enough leftover though to feed an army and I don’t want to be eating them until next Sunday!
The weather is getting colder on the Island this week! Thursday will be -4C and Friday -3C. I haven’t had to wear the winter waterproof parka I specifically bought for Vancouver Island yet. I’m hoping I don’t need it, but we’ll see. There won’t be any golf this week unfortunately with temperatures as low as we are expecting. Let’s hope this is the winter ‘cold snap’ and then spring arrives soon on the Island!
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