Woke up to a cloudy morning and a Happy Birthday wish from Darrel. I also received birthday phone calls from Jan and Yvonne, and many Facebook wishes too! Thanks to everyone for all the good wishes.

Kind of a lazy day for me. Darrel washed the boat with fresh water! We are finally in a marina where water is free and you are allowed to wash boats with it. It is so nice not to have salt-crusted windows.

Packed up a small bag for Darrel to take home with him, then we went out for a birthday lunch. We walked up to the Riptide Pub just up from the marina. It was a pretty nice place, dark and pubby. I had an oyster and bacon sandwich – yes, we did just shuck a bunch of oysters last night, but it sounded good. Darrel had beef stroganoff. Both were really tasty.

It started raining quite heavy as we ate. Darrel had planned on walking to the floatplane dock but hadn’t brought a hat or coat. So, we asked the bartender to call a taxi. Took the taxi 30 minutes, but luckily we had allowed enough time for him to walk. So, off he went and here I sit all by myself in the rain on the boat.

I was going to do laundry but don’t feel like hauling it back and forth in the rain. I guess I will just hang out and read. I think the weather is supposed to improve somewhat tomorrow so there is plenty of time.

Shortly after writing the above (I was waiting to post until I could get a picture of the marina) I had a visitor!  It was Suzanne that we met at Homfray Lodge on Monday.  She came to invite me to dinner for my birthday.  How sweet is that?  They are going to ‘pick’ me up at 6:00 so I will add more when I get back before posting this.

What a wonderfully nice couple.  Suzanne & Richard took me over to the White Spot, a Canadian chain restaurant.  It was a very nice place with a varied menu.  Jim Ramsay, to get the food part out of the way – I had a Southwestern Chicken Salad, Suzanne and Richard had specialty burgers (the White Spot is known for their burgers.)  Richard, however, was thinking ahead and got the special one with a little blueberry pie!  All was delicious!

Suzanne & Richard are from Victoria, BC.  She is a kindergarten teacher and he is retired – Navy, I think.  They were so thoughtful to invite me out and she even bought me a book that she told me about the other day.  Her husband died of cancer young when their kids were only 2 and 4.  The book she got me as Love, Medicine & Miracles.  She said it helped her a lot so it was really nice that she was able to find one here in a used book store!

They also insisted on buying my dinner.  It is unbelievable how many really nice people you meet boating, and the Canadians seem to be extra-special.  That is a shout out to my Canadian peeps too!

So, I have had a wonderful birthday even though I thought it would be lonely.  I have made two new friends and can’t wait to see them tomorrow.

Oh, yeah, Darrel made it home even though his place was an hour and fifteen minutes late and Courtney was texting me like crazy.  He couldn’t find the place, then didn’t find dad, then waited for the guy to get off his personal phone call!

Night, night everyone.  Thanks for a good day!

Oh, and I forgot to take a picture of the marina so here is one of the fish cleaning station behind our boat.  The guys there got two nice Chinooks!