Boat Ride In Canada

My parents spend most of their summer cruising up the Canadian and Alaskan coast and back and Ben and I were lucky enough to spend the last 5 days going from Campbell River up to Port Hardy with them--a last hurrah without the kiddies before Wyatt comes along. I was a little lazy with the camera, but that doesn't mean that every second wasn't quite unbelievably picturesque.

Some of the highlights were:

• Spotting an enormous cascading waterfall while in the dingy and jumping onshore to climb up and get a better look. Bridal Veil Falls has nothing on this one--sorry camera was out of batteries.
• Rapids and whirlpools. My parents have a little dingy that they tow behind the big boat so it makes it easy to explore and ride some crazy rapids--I made my dad stay out of the crazy ones, but we still had a lot of excitement. We were in and amongst so many small islands and the strong tides create rapids and whirlpools. It was crazy, huge whirlpools would all of a sudden come out of nowhere, and all of a sudden you would be looking down into a 6-10 ft. hole. Not to mention the huge waves and drop offs that this also created. It was definitely a thrill, but the stories of boats capsizing and bodies never being found made me a little nervous.
• Being served three healthy meals a day, never cooking, and never doing a dish.
• Scenery, Scenery, Scenery
• Bald Eagles. Also the whirlpools and rapids would suddenly bring fish to the surface and in one place there were hundreds of Bald Eagles flying all around us and diving into the water to pick up fish.
  
• Spitting clams. We went to a beach that was full of clams and they were all spitting. It looked like the fountian at the gateway mall. It was crazy. Some of them would spit 4-5 feet in the air. Crazy. Not to mention all the other sea creatures close at hand. Star fish, crabs, anenome's, cucumber things, jelly fish. My kids would have loved it.
• Not to mention we also saw many seals, dolphins, and sea lions.
  
• Beautiful walks and hikes.
• And of course, the company.
  

Every once in a while we would come up on these floating houses. How would like this to be your home?



If you look right in the center of this picture you can see one of the spraying spits. I really wish I had my video camera.

This one you can see a spit too. Center lower third, at base of rock.

The view from the boat where we anchored the first night.

This is just the start of one of the rapids. You can get an idea of how the water just starts to fall away.

One night we moored at a fishing lodge where they had a great workout room and hot tub that was right over the water. So this is us having a soak after a workout. Don't worry. I only had my legs in, but scooted in for a second for the picture.