Today in the harbour

Frantic activity by little Bonaparte gulls attracted a crowd to see what the fuss was about.

The dark area is thousands of fish!

Turns out to be a seal stirring up a school of (probably) herring.
More like, as Nora Lea said, "a university".
He swam through the school with his mouth open having a tasty snack and in the meantime, the waiting gulls dove in and cleaned up the strays.

Love the reflection in this one.....
Bonaparte gulls are so neat---tiny, and dive right under to get a fish.

Usually have it eaten by the time they surface

Changes

You may recall that I sent this picture shortly after we moved here. All the land across the road was wilderness and ideal blackberry picking country.
I took these pictures today to show you the difference.

11 houses are in the process of being built- 3 more to go. All sold we are told. Many buyers are local people down-sizing. The houses are selling for about $270,000 without basements or crawl spaces-underfloor heating though.

I have been directing people to our house for months by telling them to turn at the bulldozer......

"Race starts"-or 'Why I'm on shore"

Blake Hoffert sent this picture of his "Aiolos" at the start of a race.

Ken sailed with him 2 weeks ago, out to Rebecca Rocks (about 5-6 miles) and back again.

It's a large new racer, with dacron sails, made for this type of thing. Needs a crew of 6 in a serious race

Ken loved it.

Yesterday was very calm, we motored around the strait and followed a whale which was heading south. I can't find anything on the Internet showing a similar dorsal fin.

No camera of course-we'll try again today, then time for the tarp again as we prepare for rain.

the mother of all windstorms

I've never tried to upload a video clip, but we'll see if it works. They are huge-like this one is 26MB
I'll add a picture, just in case it doesn't work.

Beach Gardens is a small beach where we walk 2-3 times a week, but after last night's wind it is a sight to behold-the wind seems to be dying down and word is it's going to switch now from south east to northwest.

Lots of fences down and several trees-power was out for a few hours, but by the news reports, the island was hit harder than we were.

The boat survived, but the tarp didn't-oh well...

How did Kenzie get to be 16 years old???

A surprise birthday party was apparently enjoyed by all.

We can't understand how this happened-we certainly aren't old enough to have a 16 year old grandson, are we?????

Try to look at this without smiling

It's fall and my thoughts turn to knitting.

I found this pattern in a local yarn store and although I don't even know a baby,

I have to make it.

Auntie Evelyn is helping me.

She was the best knitter before her death a few years ago, and she sticks around to check on us.

(mostly Linda and me who seem to need her help a lot)

So far she has told me my tension was way wrong and made me rip out an entire sleeve and start again....she's a perfectionist, but it's nice to have her help.

She was the only person who could get away with calling me 'Trishy"