Blueish Skies

Running Creeks

Sat Sept 18th
Compared to Friday, Saturday was a beautiful morning

Sun Sept 19th 

Friday night's rain which took out our power, also took out the scheduled 18:55 ferry, which was cancelled.  So just as well Nick and Lizzie postponed coming over - it would have been a long wait at the ferry terminal. 

With news reports during Thursday suggesting there could be power cuts, Fred bought a camping gas-lamp (the last one in the shop) and candles during her shopping trip on Friday morning.  Just as well.  At 5pm on Friday there was a loud bang outside and we lost power. We didn't anticipate needing them quite so soon.

It felt quite cosy without electric lighting.  Fortunately the gas hob and gas log fire still worked.  We were comfortable, but turned in early not wanting to drain phone batteries.  BC Hydro engineers turned up just after 01:00 driving up and down the lane in the heavy rain using powerful lights to check the overhead cables.  

The power came on again at 01:35 and the house lit up like a Christmas tree.  There are so many lighting circuits and two-way light switches even when we can see what we're doing we are still  unsure what switch is what.  If the lights hadn't woken Jack up, the printer whirring back into life certainly did and he kicked off wondering what the noise was in the middle of the night.  Lights out and calm restored, it was heads back down listening to the roar of rain and wind outside.

Saturday morning and the cloak of grey skies, mist and rain had disappeared to a bright but cloudy morning.  Nick and Lizzie were on the 0730 ferry.  I headed off to my Wood Expo, an annual event run by the Sunshine Coast Community Forest.  The event is to promote the use of wood. 


There was some stunning workmanship on display, including a hand-made canoe and rowing boat.  

Having man-handled fibreglass canoes in and out of the water during the summer, I'd be terrified of damaging a wooden canoe, knowing how difficult access to the water can be.

The Suncoast Woodcrafters Guild, whose stand I was working on, had some beautiful pieces of work, including my favourite, a caterpillar whose segments moved by turning a cam underneath, thus making it 'walk'. Quite a challenge to work out the design.  They also had some rather nice peices from Cronkoak BC!

Back from the Wood Expo, Nick and Lizzie had arrived on time, had enjoyed a walk on Hopkins Landing beach with Fred and Jack and had headed off for a run up to the top of Mt Elphinstone...  a short 13.1k, 4 hr, 1000m climb.

Not to be outdone I did a 5k run, 32 minute with a 77m climb.  Just not in the same league!

We had caught some of the Gallagher Premiership rugby before I'd headed off to the Wood Expo having subscribed to a network that was carrying most of the matches, or so I thought.

We had wanted to watch the Bath game, but only the Leicester Tigers v Exeter Chiefs game appeared available.  Telus, our local provider, was only carrying four of the seven or eight channels.  More work needed on this, we can't be without our rugby.

Saturday afternoon I wanted to check out the creeks in Cliff Gilker park after Friday's rain, so headed off with Jack.  Nick and Lizzie were still trail running.

The differences in water levels was significant but not surprising.  We learnt that we'd had 114.5mm of rain in Gibsons in the 24 hr period.  Just over 4".  The first video is Wed Aug 15th, the second Saturday afternoon.



More heavy rain overnight on Saturday but not as prolonged as Friday.  Nick and Lizzie headed back to Van for the 10:50 ferry which was full and the car in front of them was the last to get on it!  Fred popped down to pick them up, got some donuts from Beachcombers (some of the best I've eaten) and chauffeured them back to the 'business class lounge' rather than have them wait in their car in the queue.  They managed to get on the 13:10 ferry.

The low cloud still hung over Keats Island this morning.



As Fred hadn't yet seen the high water in the creeks at Cliff Gilker, we headed back for our Sunday afternoon walk.  We love it there, reminiscent of Savernake Forest but with waterfalls.

Found it had just as much water as yesterday.  To think we still have an acute water shortage on the Coast, people are not allowed to water gardens and yet there's so much of it pouring downstream into the sea!

From Monday for the next two weeks, 30,000 applicants from last year's Permanent Residency programme who did not get through the 2020 ballot, will be invited to apply under the 2021 programme.  It's going to be a nervous two weeks.






 






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