Nanaimo, Day Two
What a glorious day! Those of
us anchored in the bay were surrounded by beautiful blue skies and sparkling
water. We couldn’t wait to get out on
the skiff and explore more of the city. The temperature was in the mid-70’s most
of the day…perfect.
On our “To-Do” list was to
find the chandlery for some boat materials, find David a barber and then shop
for groceries. We brought our computers along with us so that we could
communicate with the rest of the world and perhaps jumpstart my blog. We found
a Starbucks and logged on.
David walked to the chandlery
while I fussed with technology. When he returned I was “waving the white flag”
of defeat and wanted to forget about tying to blog for the time being. We then
walked to the barber and while David was being groomed, I found some fun shops
to browse. We were on Victoria Crescent, and it was used book store central. No
problem finding some mystery books and books on tape to bring back to the boat.
We found another coffee shop,
Serious Coffee, whose wifi worked perfectly for David so he finished up some
necessary correspondence. The modern
world…computers are still a necessity when we travel and when they don’t work,
it is maddening. I have so little patience when it isn’t working and so little
know-how to make it work. I still cannot retrieve my photos from my picture
files…when I try it just gums up the works.
David felt I needed some
“chill out” time so we headed back to the skiff. On the dock, we were
approached by a young lady looking for a ride across to Protection Island (300
residents, no cars, only golf carts). At first we just said we were headed back
to our boat but then decided to give her a lift. She was born and raised in Naniamo
and loved the island lifestyle. She was so carefree and cheerful…such a free
spirit…like one of those flower children of yesteryear!
Once we dropped our grateful
hitchhiker off, we took a tour of the bay checking out the marinas. Along the
way, we came upon a strange sight. It was a tall post coming out of the water
with bras attached to it…a totem of bras!
We understood it to be a tribute to the ladies who race the long sleek
dragon boats. Not sure if the winners of a race get to place a bra on the post
or what…but it sure got our attention!
A totem of bras
The hearty and perhaps bra-less women of Nanaimo
Late afternoon we found
ourselves back at the pub (fancy that!). David had me repeating over and over,
“Computers are our friends” just to get me out of my technology funk. Took another walk on the park island; this
time to the old sandstone quarry. It was fascinating. Found out that this
quarry supplied all the sandstone for the Mint Building in San Francisco. One
of the ships hauling a delivery of stone, sank off Mayne Island and in the 90’s
they found the sunken ship and lifted up some of the sandstone columns that
never made it to San Francisco and have them on display in several places…one
being right there at the quarry. It is massive!
David at the end of the sandstone column
We went back to the pub
because we heard there would be acoustic music performed in the evening. The
first duo we saw had their voices drowned out by the blasting electric
guitar…we were looking for something a bit mellower. The next group was
wonderful with great harmonies. The grandparents of two of the boys in the trio
were there whistling and clapping…regular groupies. Proud Grandma came over and
visited with us for a short time. We gave the group two thumbs up on her video
camera. The group is called Toy Zebra. Want to look them up and find out more
about them especially since we know their biggest fan is their Grammy.
We toyed with the idea of
staying here one more day. Apparently, the weather is supposed to be just as
lovely and there will be sailboat races tomorrow night near the pub. But there are so many places to see and we
are quickly running out of time. This coming weekend is a three day holiday
(Victoria Day) so it is probably wise to get to Ladysmith tomorrow before the
holiday weekend begins.
I am definitely fascinated by
boat names…was before we even owned a boat of our own. It’s just a curiosity to
me how some owners come up with and choose their boat names and what
significance the name holds for them. For us it was like naming another child…it
had such great importance for us. Like ours, most are named for women…the
Lillian Belle was named for David’s 104 year old grandmother. I can’t help but wonder about all the
inspiring women whose names grace the sterns of so many boats.
Here are some more names we
thought were fun…
A gigantic green rock frog along our trail
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