June 4 – Beaches Around Parksville

Once again I had checked off all of my must do things around Parksville. The weather has been so good that we haven’t had to take any days off. Yesterday and today we just walked some of the area beaches as an excuse to get outside.

Yesterday we went to the close by Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park. It is set in a bay with another massive tidal flat. At low tide if you want to swim, it is about 1 km from the “shore” to the water’s edge. Today it was only 3/4 of a km.

There is water out there somewhere.

I walk a lot faster than Jennie because she is always beachcombing. She is a long way back.

Made it. There wasn’t a heck of a lot to look at that was unusual but it was a nice walk.

Back at the RV, the campground is much fuller for the weekend.

In the evening we got another clear blue sky so I walked out to our beach to see what high tide looked like.

Off in the distance there was a fishing boat and the first cruise ship that we have seen heading north.

Today we headed over to the neighbouring town of Qualicum Beach.

First we stopped at the seafood store at French Creek harbour.

It was a really clear day so the mountains were easily visible across on the coast.

Looking south along the island’s coast I could see the top of some far off mountain poking up in a notch in our coast.

 

Testing the zoom on Jennie’s camera (65x).

I have no idea what mountain it is but it must be very far away. From the map and the direction I think I was looking, it must be somewhere around Vancouver.

We bought some halibut and salmon.

The guy in the picture above sure had a nice car parked outside.

On to Qualicum Beach. From the map it looks like the beach is at least 5 km long, especially at low tide. We walked for about 2 km before turning back.

There were a few interesting things but again was mostly a good walk on a great day. Any place with beach, water and snow capped mountains in the background is good.

I thought this looked like a face in the sand.

One thing that we haven’t seen before is so many sand dollars. I think this is the first time I have seen a live one.

The hairs all over the bottom were moving and it sort of sparkled in the sunlight.

As I was walking down the beach I felt what was like a splash and my butt was suddenly wet but the waves were not nearly high enough. Then I noticed these little tubes sticking out of the sand.

Every once in a while I would see a squirt of water come out of the beach, sometimes several feet high. Something else that I had never seen before. From what I read, it is from buried clams.

We always love the patterns in the sand.

In one pool we saw this small fish. It was only a couple of inches long.

There were lots of birds around so we wondered why it hadn’t been eaten.

Speaking of eating, by now we were hungry so we heading into downtown Qualicum Beach to this place. We had a great bruschetta pizza and a very decadent chocolate dessert called Nirvana.

When we got back to the RV we heard an announcer on a very loud speaker coming form the community park next door so we headed over to investigate.

Our beach was busier but still not as much as I expected on such a nice Saturday.

There was a high school age beach volleyball tournament going on.

Next to that was some very loud music.

Most of the kids were lined up, taking turns at the one ramp. It seemed like they were being judged.

I watched for a while and then headed out on to the beach to find Jennie, who had not been interested in any of this.

Not this way.

There she is.

The water was really warm and I had been wading my way carefully along the shore (with my camera, phone and wallet on me). I finally convinced Jennie that the sand was soft enough for her to go in.

Someone had pilled up the sand to look like a fish and it was staying intact as the tide washed over it.

After dinner we went back to check out the sunset.

Tomorrow we make the short move west to Port Alberni.