Canada Day on Saturna Island
Two weekends ago I got the opportunity to go to Saturna Island, one of the Gulf Islands just off the mainland. One of my boyfriend’s friends has a family cottage on the island so a few of us headed over to spend the weekend enjoying each other’s company, getting a solid dose of vitamin d, and going to the annual Canada Day lamb roast.
Because the cottage was pretty small and there were six, sometimes seven, of us, a few of us slept outside in tents set up on the lawn. Even though I’m not the outdoorsiest of people I loved the tent. Waking up every morning to the sound of birds singing and hearing the trees gently rustling in the wind was a wake up that I definitely didn’t mind. It also didn’t hurt that the view coming out of the tent was the ocean.
On our first morning there, Jordy and I got up before the others and went for a little stroll around where we were staying. Everywhere we looked there was greenery, and not just in the form of trees - there were all sorts of different kinds of plants, rocks that were covered in the softest green moss, and fields that were full of tall green grasses.
We spent the rest of the day exploring and adventuring with the others and in the evening we all took out two small motor boats and went for a ride. Although it started out as a leisurely ride around the coast of the island it ended up being a pretty hectic, stressful end to the day. One of the boats flipped over, spilling the contents of the boat - including a cooler full of drinks, a couple pairs of shoes, a hat, and two people - into the ocean and causing the motor to stop working.
The first priority was to get the boat right side up. Thankfully we were close enough to the coast that we could get to the rocky, barnacle-y shore and flip it over. After that the water that had collected inside it needed to be dumped out. Once that had been done and we established that the motor was definitely not working, we connected the two boats and slowly rode around collecting as much of the stuff that had fallen out as we could. Then, with a very quiet crew, we rode slowly back to the dock, unloaded our soggy stuff and headed back to the cottage for dinner.
The next day was Canada Day, and I’m not sure if you know this, but this year is Canada’s 150th birthday, which basically means that most Canadians are feeling extra patriotic. We put up our flag, ate a delicious pancake breakfast, then headed over to the other side of the island for the annual lamb roast. We spent most of the afternoon there, eating, drinking, watching the musical acts, and being overall goofballs. When we got back to the cottage I was feeling tired and hot and needed a little break so I spent some time by myself napping and going on a little walk while the others went out on the boats again (after hours spent patiently working on it the night before, the motor of the flipped one was fixed!).
On our last day everyone piled into the car and we headed to East Point Regional Park. The rock formations were incredible and the water was so clear. We spent an hour or so there frolicking around and taking pictures before heading back to the cottage to collect our things and hit the road, well technically, the ocean.