... but honestly that would have been the least of our problems.
Hello and welcome back to Right Now. The sporadic blog detailing the significant and not so significant happenings in Claire's life. Our episode tonight brings you tales of great adventure and courage. The story of five young girls alone in a tent during their March project week. Sit back and enjoy the show. Perhaps turn on the kettle, this could be a long one folks. (ps. who knew sporadic had a d rather than a t ... not I)
The week starts off with the culmination of the One World show ... now but a whisper at the beginning of this long journey. After dancing/ singing/ speaking/ presenting/ playing/ setting/ calling an excellent show, 200 (ish) weary Pearson students pile into three buses that take them on a direct route back to the college. There, they pile out of the buses, thoroughly exhausted. But still looking glam due to the inordinate and copious quantities of make-up on their faces. This weary performer struggles up the hill and flops in her room. Not sure what to do next or when she will next get to sleep. Why? Because early the next day she must be packed and ready to head off on an adventure called: Six Islands in Six Days. Okey ... so that wasn't the original title of the project, but it seems appropriate now. The night is spent cleaning the room, visiting with Etta, packing and trying to find time to clean the laundry room (not to be mistaken with doing laundry!). The weary student drops into bed around two in the morning. Which apparently was actually three in the morning because of the nasty/mean/downright cruel time change.
The morning comes bright and early. I slip out of bed and stumble my way to the cafeteria. Only to find the most wonderful meal has been prepared for those of us still on campus. Cinnamon buns. Fresh melon. Cheese. Yogurt. Crackers. Cereal. After pocketing cereal for the week ahead, I head to my room to grab my pack and then skidaddle down the buses.
When I reach the buses, I realize that I am in fact not late as I had thought. Oh well.
Okey. It's going to take a very long time to tell the story if I continue at this rate. Erm ... so for those of you who don't know, my project week was spent in the Gulf Islands. They're a couple of really really beautiful islands off the South Eastern tip of Vancouver island. Really beautiful. So anyways, Eve took responsibility for renting us all a house to stay in. On Sunday afternoon we got there. It was MAGNIFICENT! Very small and very isolated, but beautiful. There were 11 of us staying in it on the busiest night (some of us came late, and a few of us went camping in the middle). The house was just two floors and honestly shouldn't have been able to hold 11 people! The downstairs had a decent sized kitchen (think two meters wide including counters and fridge, and three meters long?) a big bathroom (relative to the rest of the house) a bedroom, a living room/eating area. Then there was this lovely wrap around deck. But we'll get there. There was a treacherously steep staircase that led to a loft upstairs. The loft had one wall made entirely of windows. It was wonderful. There was not much else there. A small closet that you couldn't stand up in that was likely meant only for suitcase storage, but Sarah, Marina and I slept in there on the nights we spent at the house. So the first night we had a glorious meal (yay for friends who can cook), fresh cookies, a nice little fire in the corner of the living room. Then, when the sun went down Yarin, Tawab and I headed out to the deck. Why? Because there was a hot tub. Yup. So we lounged for quite awhile. And then Sarah came to join us. Twas lovely as I'm sure you've guessed. Eventually I went to bed in my closet. The plan was to leave the next morning on our camping trip. But, lo and behold when we woke up the next morning there was a layer of snow covering the ground and more falling. Now usually a little snow wouldn't phase me, but we really weren't equipped to camp in the snow. So we stuck around the house for another day. Tear (quote: Becky).
Of course, I ended up falling asleep again almost as soon as we decided we couldn't camp. I woke up around noon. Those who hadn't planned on going camping had gone out for a walk, those who had planned on camping were relaxing around the house. At about one o'clock we switched. The would-be campers bundled up and wen t out to scale some rock faces, play in the snow and explore the "city" of Mayne. (oh yes, by the way, we were on Mayne island). So we did that, found a nice little beach close to the house, walked into the main area of the island and back. It was nice. Then there was another wonderful meal. Followed by Sarah and Sherdina's Baked Alaska. Not sure if the ice cream was meant to melt, but it tasted great anyways. Nothing like all my favourite desserts in one bowl (brownies, ice cream and meringue ... not sure if thats how you spell the dessert, definitely how you spell the dance though ... hmm ... ). That night a few foolish people went skinny dipping in the ocean and then came back to the hot tub. Needless to say, I was not amongst them!
The next morning, though there was still snow on the ground, the campers set off. We first caught the ferry to Salt Spring Island. Our ferry ended up on the northern tip of the island, our camp site was located on the bottom tip. So we caught a bus, hiked a bit, hitch hiked, hiked again and then set up camp. In the middle, we encountered a biffy surrounded by turkeys. Had quite a bit of fun with them. Here's a run down of our camping group: Kandra, Marina, Sherdina, Sarah and I. It was nice. The first night we set abotu cooking and realized that our camp stove was worthless. Wouldn't light. Great. So we had to make a fire. With all the snow-covered/wet wood. Took some time, but we got it going well enough to have the most amazing macaroni and cheese ever. Here's the trick. Buy the white cheese stuff. Then, instead of using milk and butter, just throw in a chunk of cream cheese along with the package of cheese they give you. Magnifico! So we slept well that night. Woke up in the morning, managed to get the fire going again for oatmeal and toasted bagels. Then we packed up and started the long hike north to the ferry terminal again. Of course, we got picked up by some kindly drivers, but we did have to walk for at least an hour. We rode the ferry to Galiano island and unfortunately got there quite close to dark.
The whole island seemed miserable. We stopped at the ferry terminal's ticket booth to ask about camping sites since that was the only person we could find and she seemed downright concerned for us. So we meandered through "downtown Galiano" (22 km long island, population 900). However, we hadn't even reached the island till about five o'clock at night so not only were all the stores and places we could access fresh water closed, but the sun was about to go down. Finally we set off hiking for the only camp site that was accessible. A mere 8 km down the monstrously hilly round. Some angel picked us up about halfway through our venture. And thank goodness because apparently we hadn't reached the worst of the hills yet. We got there just in time to see the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen (rivals Simonhouse my friends, it was that nice). There were ducks swimming and the mountains and a driftwood beach and sun and ocean. Just lovely. Then we set about making camp. Of course, this island had also gotten snow (some of which was still at the site) so making a fire was again a challenge. We were much later to bed that night. We had climbed into the tent and were sharing stories when Sarah says "guys, shhh. I hear something outside." We all shut up and sure enough, there's a clatter from our picnic table. It was some distance from the tent, but we were so tired we had left the pots and bowls out there. No food or anything, but the dishes were apparently dirty enough to attract unwanted visitors. As we're listening, a growl comes from outside the left corner of the tent. Oh dear. That's not a raccoon. Not only that, but there's two of whatever it is since there are still sounds coming from the picnic table. Honestly, there is no one else I would have rather had in the tent. All five of us kept our heads. No one went into hysterics. Sarah our wilderness expert thinks it may be a bear and what do you do to get rid of them? Make lots and lots of noise. And don't leave the tent. Especially since there are two of them. One bear the five of us could take on in a worst case scenario. But not two. Fresh out of hibernation. Nope. So we set about singing at the top of our lungs. We made quite a racket. But apparently, not enough to scare off our visitor. Then we realized that all of us so loud and singing so low likely sounded something like a growl or at least a challenge. So we moved waaaay up in pitch. Think ... erm ... well high. After about an hour of this with frequent checks to see if our friend is still there, Sarah and I decide it may be a cougar. We had not heard another growl, but thanks to the crisp snow we could still hear the considerably heavy footsteps and the breathing. A bear should have left after all that noise. But cougars stalk. And "the thing" had been circling our tent. Not constantly, but enough to be worrisome. So we start making plans of what to do if this unwanted visitor comes through the walls of our tent. So we prep the others in our very high voices (apparently I get a Maltese accent when I speak that high). We all have hard things to use as weapons, Sarah and I have pocket knives. Personally, I don't want to get close enough to use the knife, but hey, we are sort of sitting ducks in the middle of nowhere. So we go on making noise. We keep checking, the visitor is still around. The initial scare happened at 10:30. It's now one in the morning and it's still hanging about. This is not good. Our voices are starting to go, so I take my water bottle and start banging my pocket knife on it. It makes a fairly loud noise and relieves at least a few voices of singing duty. At abotu 2:30 the singing peters out, the bottle banging gets considerably less violent. And all of a sudden the footsteps get VERY close to the tent. Sarah and I shake the others awake (they had drifted off) and we start making a racket again. The pots on the table get thrown to the ground. We know. We can hear it.
To make a long story short, we stayed awake all night. Bottle banging and singing. The thing never left. The sun came up again around 6:00 in the morning. At that point we checked to see if the thing was still there. It was. But it left at 6:30. Around then we were formulating our escape plan. The thing is, we were still so unsure of just what "the thing" was. Bear? Cougar? Those were the only two options we could think of. Couldn't be deer, the footsteps were too heavy. Same for raccoons.
So the escape plan. The initial plan had been to peek out the door, but the ten cover unzipped in such a way that it wasn't possible to discreetly check. So the final plan was this: burst out of the tent in ranks of two, with our packs on our fronts. As soon as we were out of the tent we would all pee. Because goodness knows our bladders had been killing us all night. Then, three people would stand watch while the other two took down and packed the tent. We would then move out of the clearing and over to the picnic table to clear off the rummaged through pots and bowls. Then, we would grab the thicker bits of wood from around the fire to use as weapons. You see, we weren't home free as soon as we were packed up. No siree. We still had a mile hike through the woods to get out of the park. So we got our weapons and then marched in a straight line out the park, singing all the way. It was extreme. But we made it. When we got out of the tent we also took a moment to check out the footprints that had been left in the snow. There were tonnes. Clearly, we weren't imagining things when we thought it was walking around all night. It actually was. They were too small to be bear. But cougar was possible. Seemed more like coyote size though.
So we hiked out of the campsite. Stopped a ways out of the park for a breakfast of granola bars. We basically just wanted to be off Galiano island at that point. Miserable place. No one would pick us up hitch hiking either. Come on, we'd gotten no sleep all night. Well, not quite. Most people grabbed at least a half hour of sleep. I was the only one who got none. I must talk too much, because apparently my vocals chords are the strongest, they didn't give out as soon as everyone else's. We finally got to a general store. When we asked the locals about any creatures on the island they happily informed us that there were no predators on the island. Ha! I don't believe that for a moment. Anyways, we finally got to the harbour, payed for our ferry ticket and rode away to Pender island. It stopped at Mayne island on the way and Kandra got off to head back to the house. Fair enough. It was one heck of a scary night.
When we got to Pender, the atmosphere was completely different. A lovely British woman picked us up as we were hitch hiking, though not before we visited with the horse farmer. She took us to the only camp site in town, right behind the local bar/cafe. But a lovely spot. And hey, it meant we had access to toilets. A girl deserves a little luxury after a night like the prior. We had arrived on the island relatively early, so we sat in the sun, wandered around the beach, read our books. Had a great time. Night came, we made a fire, had more pasta. We were a tad tired of pasta at that point. Sherdina and I snuck to the bar/cafe to go to the bathroom. When we were there the waitress offered us a free tea/coffee. Sucha change from Galiano island. We welcomed it. We went back to the tent with a few nice trails to hike the next day. We slept a long time that night. Despite the cold air coming in off the ocean. The next afternoon (thats what time it was by the time we were done breakfast/ taking down camp/ waking up and getting out of bed) we set off in search of the local fire hall to take a picture (it's a long story, better not to ask. it has to do with obsessed Pearson College fire fighters. a strange bunch if you ask me). We were a good ways down the road when we realized that perhaps we had mistaken our ferry time. We pulled out the schedule and guess what? We had. Quite severely. In fact, it seemed we had no way to get off the island. After much deliberation and flipping of pages in the ferry schedule we determined that we had an hour to get to the ferry. So we promptly turned around. And yet again were picked up by a lovely person. This woman was actually the sister of a Pearson College year ten graduate (to put things in perspective, I'm year 34). She drove us all the way to the terminal which meant not only did we not miss the ferry, we were early. We headed down to the dockside cafe thinger where the lady gave us all the expired chip bags since we were taking such a long time to decide what we wanted. Much later that night, we finally turned up at Mayne Island again. Think 9:30 ish. It was dark. So of course, what better thing to do than crawl under the deck at the house and freak out those who were not hardcore enough to go camping with us? Duh. So we did.
It was nice to sleep in a proper bed again. The next day, just Sarah and I caught the ferry to Saturna island in order to achieve our goal of six islands in six days (seeing as which the next day we would return to Vancouver island). We just went for a day trip. It was nice. We climbed the most gorgeous hill/mountain thing. And I lived out a childhood dream: stand in a cloud. It was a great day. Very stress free/ go with the flow/ refreshing. That night we got back to the house for our last night night all together. All eleven of us. It was good. We had barbeque and lots of fresh vegetables. Music, reading, good pearsonesque discussion. In the morning we packed up and headed back to Victoria.
And that, was project week.
Interesting side story/economic crisis update. So the first day as we caught the ferry to Mayne Island, there was a strange cargo ship just sitting in the water. Then, when Sarah and I went to Mayne, it was still there. So we asked one of the locals what it was. Apparently, it was a shipment of Nissan cars that had come all the way from Japan but there was no market for. So the ship had simply been sitting in the waterways in the gulf islands for two months. I mean, I knew we were in a recession and that there was extra production somewhere, but I definitely did not imagine it in the form of a cargo ship full of cars nestled in amongst the Gulf islands. It was crazy.
So yes, that has been life. Hope you enjoyed.
