ALBERT HEAD :(

The last time we were out at our local paradise aka Albert Head, we had a pretty negative experience that I didn't tell you about. At 8:30 a.m. on the Monday morning (after spending two nights there), we were up on the bridge of the boat enjoying our morning coffee and listening to the kingfishers (read: peaceful, quiet, calm) when a soldier drove up to the head of the DND dock there, and came walking -- quite purposefully -- out to the end of the dock. He yelled 'Good morning,' and we yelled 'Good morning' back to him.

(Let me back up here to tell you -- or remind you if you've heard it before -- that Albert Head is a military establishment with a little dock, and signs all over the place warning visitors not to come ashore, anywhere, ever. So we don't. We anchor usually about 100' off that little dock, tucked into the cove, and behave ourselves admirably.)

Back to our soldier on the dock, who then yelled, "You people will have to pull up your anchor and leave immediately. It is against the law to be within 150 metres of Department of National Defence property -- and it's a boaters responsibility to know that!!"

To which I yelled back, "We've been anchoring here for five years, and no one has ever said a word!"

To which he yelled back, "As I said, you'll have to pull up your anchor and move now. Right. I'll be back in ten minutes."

The guy had an attitude a mile high, and he'd already ruined our peaceful morning coffee, so we did what he said -- pulled up and left. At the time we wrote it off as someone who was having a bad day, and decided we'd go back and try again, soon.

Well, yesterday morning that was the plan, but the wind came up before we could get off the dock. But later yesterday afternoon a fellow from our marina who went out sailing (I hear those sailboats like the wind much better than we do) reported that he'd just set down his anchor at Albert Head for a little lunch break, and the scene was repeated -- same bully soldier, same bad attitude, by the sound of it.

Unfortunately, if you anchor 150 metres from the shore at Albert Head, you are not in the protected cove anymore, which means there's not much point in going there.

I think I'm in mourning. :( Finding a new spot that close to the harbour and that beautiful will be a real challenge!

To top it off, I'm still sick -- terrible cough, no energy, and not having fun. Accomplished pretty much nothing all weekend. Well, I was an 'armchair athlete' at the newest playground on Saturday...





I expect I'll accomplish more of the same nothing today. :-)