July 30, 2025
Day 8 — Beach day
Marilee here again.
Yesterday, riding along Denman Island we passed an old schoolhouse now being used as a sort of community hall and surrounded by a fence decorated with hand painted signs with inspirational messages, presumably crafted by local kids. “I dream”, “I grow”, “I ponder”, “I imagine”, “I hope” etc, and then …. “I like snakes”.
Personally, I like to think of the kid who decided to take the assignment in a different direction, and the teacher who hung the sign along with all the others anyway. It feels so Gulf Islands, that accommodation of the independent thinker.
That ideal of the offbeat paradise was a little harder to find on Tribune Bay amid the throngs of beachgoers, but we had a great, relaxing day off the bikes nonetheless. We pretty much spent the whole day moving from sun to shade and back to sun on the beach, depending on how scorched we were feeling. We rambled around on the rocks, climbing over a point to the next bay (which turned out to be a clothing optional bay — maybe that’s where the locals go). We watched tiny crabs battle each other in a tidal pool over scavenging rights to a dead minnow.
It was that kind of day — sunny, sleepy, slow-paced. We managed to avoid getting sunburned (well, mostly), I hit a new record of five dips in one day and Tom allowed himself to be coaxed in for a swim. In the early evening light the sky and the water were the same pale blue, the horizon disappeared and the boats in the bay seemed to be floating in the air. Or maybe I’d just had too much sun.
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