Happy Birthday, Canada

Ah, the holiday weekend. Saturday morning, I headed out for a morning kayak paddle around Point Grey and Kits seashore, spotting a Bald Eagle land above me on the Kitsilano Yacht Club's pier! Stayed there a few moments to admire it, and the Heron down below the docks, waiting patiently for a morning meal. Ad was off to Commercial Drive to watch an 8 AM start on the England vs. Portugal soccer game with a friend. The afternoon was spent biking over to Yaletown to watch some of the International Jazz Festival taking place in David Lam Park as well as the Roundhouse Community Centre nearby. We got ourselves over to Main and Broadway intending to catch a Main Street bus to Nat Bailey Stadium to watch the Vancouver Canadians vs. Eugene Emeralds baseball game, but wound up sharing a cab with two ladies over to the Park, as the busses were delayed to the point of our not wanting to risk missing out on the game (we had one complimentary ticket and needed to purchase a second one in time for the 7.05 start). As Nat Bailey has fireworks every July 1, and this was its busiest day of the year, we wanted to arrive in time to enjoy a good old-fashioned ball game. The fireworks started out very mellow and later built up to the standard high-in-the-sky numbers. We were almost wondering if the 'big ones' would come out, but sure enough, all was not lost towards the end of the show!! We bussed back, this time catching our two busses in good time.

Sunday…First off, we rented a car-cooperative auto and headed to the Buntzen Lake area for a hike. With the heat on, everyone had crowded the parking lot by 11 in the morning and we quickly made an alternative plan to head to Belcarra Regional Park, right at Bedwell Bay and the Indian Arm area. We noticed cops giving out tickets at the waterfront. What for? Crabs that were caught and not released due to their size. There's a huge crabbing community here, and licences and size are everything. One licence will permit two traps set out to sea. There were several crab people out on the dock with plastic templates in order to measure the crab's length between its claws. About 50% were tossed back to the water, with a flock of geese waiting in the wings for any crumbs of people food to drop into the water. Here's a photo of one person's 'catch'. Obviously, it had to be thrown back out, as the sealife is dutily protected on these shores.



Once out of the busy picnic/bbq/fishing pier area, we opted for a hike along the Jug Island Beach Trail, heading higher and higher up the mountainside until we hit the ridge, opening up to gorgeous views down below.



Lots of recreational boating in the summer heat! A bigger bonus: the gorgeous and colourful birds we spotted up there while on a lunch break. As I've become somewhat of a bird fan, I picked them out of my bird-watching book: a few Western Tanagers and Pileated Woodpeckers! Now I'm on a mission: to one day spot a Mountain Bluebird, a piece of sky come to life.

We had iced coffee back down in Port Moody, picked up some produce at the same outdoor shopping centre, and headed back home to rest and unwind, before heading out for some gorgeous Greek food at the Ouzeri on West Broadway. Living here over one year and not having had one Greek meal out in our Greek neighborhood was almost a sin. Now there's about four other Greek places we're going to try in the future.

Today was another very warm day. Ad and I chose to hang out for this Canada Day around the house, doing various things that needed doing, and tonight Ad's planking a large salmon fillet for dinner on the BBQ!

What we have here is a photo taken last week on our evening stroll along the Seawall, at (very) high tide! Happy Canada Day, and 4th of July to our friends and family down South!