Sunday, October 12
By 9:30 am, after a restful sleep, Walt and I were on the little shuttle boat that ferries people between Newcastle Island and Nanaimo. Skies were leaden, but only a few raindrops had fallen since we’d left Braesail and walked the short distance to the ferry dock. We were happy to chat with the boat’s operator and then with a pleasant couple whose sailboat was anchored near ours.
After a 15-minute trip, the ferry deposited us in a beautiful park
from which we walked for another 15 minutes to St. Paul’s Anglican Church, arriving there about a half-hour early. I enjoyed sitting quietly, “reading” the beautiful stained-glass windows, and listening to the organist warming up. The people were very outgoing and warmly welcoming, and they invited us to join them for a Thanksgiving community potluck that would be held following the Eucharist, but we had to decline, having arranged to meet our chorister friend Eleanor, who was driving from Parksville to meet us at the church and then share lunch with us at a nearby restaurant. I enjoyed the worship: the hymns were appropriate and well-sung, the sermon on gratitude was well-delivered, and the mother of the family seated to my left kindly gave me a drink from her water bottle to help me quell an uncontrollable coughing spasm (her handsomely-dressed young son, who was sitting next to me, was drawing quietly with a pencil through most of the service, and I was glad to join his mother in encouraging him to sing and to follow the texts printed in the service bulletin).
Eleanor appeared in the church’s nave at noon as scheduled, and we walked a short distance, in increasing rain accompanied by a brisk breeze, to the cafe at which she had made a reservation. Following a delightful over-lunch visit, we popped into a bakery across the street, and I bought our favorite treat, a large Nanaimo bar (something that one MUST buy in Nanaimo!) to eat later. Eleanor gave us a ride back to the park in which we were to meet the Newcastle Island ferry, and we were most grateful—heavy cold showers had become a true down-pour by this time! We scurried off to the dock and scrambled into the shelter of the little boat as the only passengers, and were rather wet by the time we’d made our soggy way back to Braesail from the dock at which we exited the ferry.
We turned on the cabin heaters in the boat, hung up our foul-weather jackets to dry, made tea, read and did German exercises, ate a lettuce-soup-and-bagels supper, and successfully tested our StarLink system for use in our weekly online Compline sessions. The rain-faucet had been shut off at about 4:30, and as the clouds thinned, I could see a powdering of snow on the tops of the higher hills—the first of the season, falling on Canadian Thanksgiving Day! It will probably be short-lived, since sunny weather is predicted for the next several days, but the snow was lovely to see, and I finished the day with thanks for it and for the gifts of worship, food, music, friendship, and God’s goodness!
Braesail - A grand yacht in the Salish Sea 