While Colette was tutoring this morning, I visited the local museum to learn more about the area. It’s nicely done. Small. Casual. You can sense the collective investment in preserving artifacts and stories.

Afterwards, I tried to earn my keep, and I tackled her thick wet grass. Vegetation growth on this island is no joke! It was my first time using a battery powered lawnmower.

It didn’t have a ton of power and no side hatch to release the thick grass, so I kept raising the height to get through the grass without choking. Unfortunately the battery croaked before I got it completely finished!

Afterwards, we picked up Kayleigh (Colette’s daughter) and went in separate vehicles to find a private unmarked beach! (Thinking 4 people and 3 dogs in one car would be chaos.)

We followed Colette and were a bit concerned about hauling our camper down these roads (paths?) but we kept following!

After only a few kilometres, the road stopped and we parked and walked into the woods.

Have you ever walked into the coastal woods on Vancouver Island? It’s dark, cool, damp, foggy, and maybe even a bit spooky?

This was Suquash, an area where there was once a coal mine.

There are mining relics here. And the chimneys of the old mine manager’s house.

After exploring the forest, we went down to the shore.

It was a gravelly shore. Lots of shed crab exoskeletons and shells. No garbage. Really quite nice. Even some coal relics!

Kayleigh showed me how you could flip a rock near the water line and see all the live little crabs scatter!

Can you spot Hank above? He led the way back up into the forest.

Afterwards, we took Jeff to see Colette’s house building progress.

We spent a ton of time this evening with the house plans, a book of siding samples, and ChatGPT generating images of what the house would look like with different colour schemes, trying to help her narrow her choices!

Kayleigh made us a delicious supper of pasta and garlic and lemon and tofu and vegetables. Yummy! These gals know how to prepare lovely dishes for us!

We are sleeping in the camper on her front lawn again tonight, feeling the damp cool coastal air settle in.

Good night!