Day 15 - Comox and Powell River
Our destination for today was Powell River on the mainland. Our original intention was to take the ferry there around mid-day. This ended up being a lesson on how far ahead you have to book with BC Ferries. Some ferry routes are show up and go. Some require reservations to be ensured a spot. Today's ferry was one of those and we tried to book two days ago and found out all ferries except the last one of the day were fully reserved. This gave us a bit more time on the island so we decided to explore the area around Comox. The town has a population of about 15,000 and has a nice downtown and well kept properties. The shoreline has multi-million dollar seaside homes.
We had met some folks a couple of days ago that recommended the Museum at CFB Comox. We started there and really enjoyed the history of west coast Canadian military aviation that has been based out of there. The exhibits were really well done and spanned WWI to the present day.
They had lots of artifacts and personal stories. One that really interested me was an original diary from one of the Canadian airmen who participated in "The Great Escape". Very interesting and you can read it at https://comoxairforcemuseum.ca/wp-content/uploads/ColwellDiary_Web.pdf
The log book from "the Great Escape"
There were also about a dozen decommissioned aircraft that had flown from the base over the years.
The next time I am in Trenton, I'm going to have to visit their museum to see how it compares.
From here we went to 40 Knots Winery and sampled a tasting flight, looked more like a tree of wine. I had the reds and found them surprisingly good. Must be the longer growing season than in Niagara.
Next was a stop looking for legal drugs, specifically Children's Advil for our granddaughter who suffers migraines. Pediatric pain killers are non-existent in Ontario at this time. Comox is a retirement community so we figured this was the place to find a pharmacy with some stock. Scored some at Rexall.
Comox has a very nice protected harbour so we spent a couple of hours dock walking then grabbed supper while waiting for our ferry departure.
The tidal range here is around 13 feet and they have a feature I have not seen before, a couple of stations in the marina where you can tie up your boat at high tide and when the tide goes out, you can get underneath it to clean the bottom or do any other maintenance that would normally require a lift out. These two photos were taken about an hour apart.
We heard a bunch of splashing and about 8 Otters flopped onto one of the docks!
We had a beautiful calm "sunset cruise" to Powell River. Bonus was the Harvest Moon as we arrived at the mainland.
