Close the Book

Now thousands of miles from where I left off, much has changed. Warm sandy beaches have turned to towering wooded mountains, shrouded in cold rains and specked with impressive waterfalls. Intense squalls and lightening storms have been replaced by 2 tonne logs as the primary navigational hazard. Shallow coral and sand bottoms have become fathomless, and torquise waters are still torquise, but 20 degrees colder, glacial runoff being their source.

Annie Laurie is put to bed for the time being, in Palm Coast, Florida. I'm now aboard my friend's sloop, Nirmala, in Squamish, British Columbia. I'm so happy to be back in Canada. Although it's 4000 miles from my home province, I feel like I'm home. Effie's on fake pregnancy number 3, I believe. We're just home from an exciting day at the Logger's Festival, where no one in suspenders or plaid shirts were out of place. The spectator turn-out for the events was somewhat impeded by the landslide that occurred last Monday on the Sea to Sky highway, which has left Squamish cut-off from the outside world, unless you travel by boat or float plane.

So far, we've sailed to Gibsons, a small town on the Sunshine Coast only accessible by water, and paid a visit to Molly's Reach, to all you avid Beachcombers fans who recall the little pub from the longest running series on CBC. Tomorrow we leave for Vancouver Island where we hope to meet up with some very important people in our lives, after which our journey north will begin. If everything goes as planned, we will make our way to Alaska by the end of August.

I'm on the fence as to whether or not to keep this blog going. I enjoy writing, but there are times where there's too much living to do to justify spending time behind this screen.