Shop till You Drop

Where do I start? So much, in fact everything is different...except for the weather. It's been on the cool side ( translation- cold ) foggy, some drizzle and windy, although to be fair late in the afternoon the fog will dissipate, the clouds will part and the sun will shine....sometimes.

We are becoming reacquainted with our home. Takes a bit of getting use too the small quarters after the grandeur of the Outpost. From “my” spot at the table it is 4 steps to the coffee. No longer do I have to repeat myself endlessly nor do I have to drop what I'm doing in the kitchen, walk out to the living room and ask “What did you say?” Another upside to this downsize is that Mike can no longer use the excuse, “Sorry hon, I didn't hear you ask me to do that.” There is always a silver lining.

  Our anticipated trip to Campbell River was exhausting, we are just not use to so much activity. Having got such a great deal on a rental car for the weekend we decided to go that route instead of the bus. Driving is always a new experience for us, thank heavens the road to Campbell River (2.5 hours) is not busy. I think we counted 5 cars in the first 2 hours. Our little KIA “Forte” was peppy but couldn't hold all we had purchased. Who knew that bikes now come assembled. All those gears and some new type of braking system is best left to the professionals, we were told. All right by me and the courier charge to Hardy was unbelievably reasonable, unlike a lot of things we came across.

            Main street Port Hardy. There is a stop light in town but it's over by the mall.

We call this “The Mall”. Grocery store, drug store, $ store, 2 clothing stores, a sports shop, craft shop and an A&W. Now there are a number of other businesses scattered around the town so it's not as restricted as it appears.

I no longer hear the sound of the water  but that has been replaced by the cry of eagles. They are everywhere you go. Today there were about a dozen diving for fish in the shallows close to shore. This is a just a youngster.

                                                  Almost got him.

                                                Getting a bird's eye view.



        I still haven't found out what type of tree (?) this is, but it's pretty.

Just a few more pictures from our trip home. This is the “Clubhouse” where we spent a wonderful evening.

Moments after arriving and settling into our room, we shared a glass of wine with Brian Legge, one of the owners, had a great dinner up at the penthouse than finished off the evening in front of the 60 inch flat-screen TV. First time we have seen the 11 o'clock news in months.

            Gorgeous rooms with a view to match. Yes this is a fishing resort.

These are the stairs that lead from the lodge to the penthouse, which is what everyone calls the crew quarters. Eighty-one steps in all.

Another helicopter ride to Masset where we board our flight to Vancouver and than we hop a smaller plane to take us to Port Hardy and home.

On board “Canadian Freight”

Heather & Mike

                           

 

Week 38 - The Last Few Days

We are back on board our home in Port Hardy and I feel like we haven't stopped since we arrived. I'll need to backtrack a bit since we still had 6 days at the OP before we flew out so lets start there.

Friday morning I get a email letting me know that 2 guys will be coming in tomorrow for 3-4 days to do some work. Always love to have company but I am right in the middle of getting the lodge ready for the new crew and really hadn't planned for this. Oh well, the beds are already made up and there are lots of goodies in the freezer. For some reason I checked my emails later that night, ohhhh around 9 o'clock and guess what......Tim and Mike were on their way by boat. The weather looked good so they decided to head out tonight and should be arriving by 10:30 or so. So much for popping open that bottle of champagne to toast our last evening at the OP.

                           10:40 pm... Welcome to the Outpost!

After a day of taking up panels and pumping out floater tanks it was decided that the heli pad had to be beached to do repairs.

Tim and Mike were literally burning the midnight oil. Having to work according to the tide you can find yourself up at all hours, morning or night.

Mike's efforts at scraping the tanks of the heli pad paid off.....in scallops!!!!

                                                      A little pre-dinner appie.

                            How can you go wrong with scallops and bacon?

                                                         Hey Mike, how are they?

 

Monday afternoon saw another plane and another worker. Robert, the welder, got off the plane said a quick hello, dropped his bag on the dock and got to work. He did make it up to the lodge for a late dinner than off to bed. “Early start tomorrow”, was all he said.

True to his word he was out welding away at 5:30 am. What is really surprising is that I was up at this time to take his picture.

  Mid afternoon the heli pad was pushed, pulled and towed back into place.

             Time to get wet. All the mooring chains now have to be reattached.

            Yep, another plane. The OP is just a hive of activity these days.

     The first of the summer crew has landed. Roberta is one of the OP chefs.

                                         They come by air, they come by sea.

This is Ken, our boss and manager of the Outpost, he's already started a daily blog. A “must” to check out. http://www.westcoastfishingclub.com/

That's Tim in the corner, popping up to say “hello”.

Nice to see so many around the table. This dinner is the last that I will be cooking for some time. Just show me the menu!!!!

I take my hat off to these ladies. The totes were heavy but they found a way to get them back to where they should be.

                                        One last trip down the boardwalk.

As a fabulous send off Ken had the helicopter come in for us and than back to the Clubhouse at Langara for the night.

Well folks this is it, time to head out. We only had 24 hours with some of the new crew but what a great bunch. I'm already looking forward to talking with them at the end of the season to hear of their experiences.

                                                     This is the only way to fly!

So we're on our way back into the real world. There are many more pictures and thoughts but I'll save that for the next time.

Aboard “Canadian Freight”

Heather & Mike