129 Catch Me If You Can

One of the better places to camp back in the early ‘70’s was out on the west coast at Pachena Bay. The only negative about this place was that it was quite an ordeal to get there, as the only way other then by boat was to drive on logging roads that were not always well maintained.

Today except for the older generation, most people can’t conceive of what it was like to drive on gravel, but as anyone that has, knows, you are either covered with a fine muddy spray or with volumes of dust, depending on the weather.

Pachena was one of Claude’s favorite spots and it soon became ours, but neither of us particularly liked to travel in each other’s dust. This called for one or the other waiting until the distance between the two vehicles was such that the clouds of dust had time to settle.

Using the above strategy we had made it out to the beach that holiday weekend without any mishap and minimal dust only to find that the fog that usually hangs off shore had moved into the bay and the sun was now hidden in a blanket of dense fog. It goes without saying that the beach at Pachena Bay is one of the finest sand beaches on the west coast but with no sun and a wet drizzle because of the fog bank it was not an inviting place to spend the holiday.

One night of fog and drizzle was more then enough so the next morning we left for the Gordon Bay campsite on the south side of Cowichan Lake at Honeymoon Bay.

I led in the trip back while Claude followed as planned using the don’t eat my dust protocol, the error in strategy proved to be that I took a wrong turn and Claude inadvertently passed me in his haste to not be left to far behind. Claude was virtually flying as he tried
to catch me, not realizing that I was now virtually flying in my haste to catch him. At times I could actually see him as we raced through some of the open clear cuts on our way back to Gordon Bay and the campsite.

The foolishness of the situation was not fully realized until after as what difference did it make when and where either of us made it to the campsite at Gordon Bay as we were to wait there regardless.