Ride Day 11: Powell River to Sechelt

Another ferry ride today, with 2 bike legs on either side of the boat.

First, we ride from Powell River to Saltery Bay:

The raccoons (or some other nocturnal devils) showed up at 0400.  The neighbor’s dog took issue with them shortly after and rattled the walls of the Cozy Cabin with his enormous bark.  I figured that within a minute or two we’d hear a shout of “Hey, Fido, shut the hell up” emanating from the neighbor’s house.  But no, apparently the neighbor sleeps far more soundly than we do since Fido continued with his rants for an hour, at least.  And not to be left out of the fun, the dogs (plural) on the other side of the Cozy Cabin chimed in.

Sleep would be a rare thing in that kind of cacophony so what the heck, fast internet, catch up on work.  That’s what we did this morning as the sun rose brightly over the Sunshine Coast, Powell River (which we’ve found to be our favorite town so far (except for Fido and friends)).  The Cozy Cabin had bourbon (off limits, according to the proprietor) but no coffee so at 0630 we were down the road to River City Coffee to get fueled for the 45 km ride to the Saltery Bay ferry.  We were not in a hurry today and had actually planned to shove off later, but given the early a.m. wake up, we went with the script.

Two espressos later, we were jazzed to head to the ferry to see if we could catch the 0915 sailing.  We had to cover a lot of ground fairly fast (well, fast is a relative term when you’re talking tandem). The road was littered with rollers, pesky 100 meter hills that were nasty steep – 14, 15 and up to 17 percent. Of course the other side of the hills was just as steep down, but the ups hurt. Ouch!. We were beginning to think that we were not going to make it, but then we hit the downhill to the ferry: straight road, 14 percent downgrade. In a word, fast. “Hold the ferry, we’re almost there.”

It turns out that the ferry was 15 minutes late, so we made it in ample time.

Dropping down to Saltery Bay

Saltery Bay ferry landing

Thank goodness the ferry was late this morning

Das Bike tucked away for the voyage

This area is indescribably beautiful

Approaching Earl's Cove

The ferry from Saltery Bay to Earl’s Cove takes about 1 hour. Oh, it is a beautiful ride.  Again, our photos don’t do justice.

We ride the ferry from Saltery Bay to Earl's Cove, the ride from the latter to our night's destination of the Sechelt area:

Once off the boat in Earl’s Cove, we were going to hang with Earl at Earl’s café but we decided to continue to Madeira Cove.  We still had 50 km to go, but had lots of time and we wanted to take a civilized pace.  But the rolly rolly steep hills were in abundance here, too, so it was a hot and painful ride (for a ride of 90 km we did about 1,800 m vertical, and that was just on short rollers that were really steep).

We stopped in Madeira Cove for a bite and met a couple on bikes, hailing from Pemberton, and on a sailboat moored in Garden Cove.  We talked for a long time about sailing and riding and had a nice visit.  Then we met a young couple from Santa Cruz who are kind of going where ever the road turned – they figured maybe Tofino.  We had a nice visit with them, too, and we warned them not to ride from Port Alberni to Tofino (I think that I might have used the word suicide; Lorie says that I scared the girl but it was good advice).

Ruby Lake on the way to Sechelt

Halfmoon Bay, BC (not the other one)

Halfmoon Bay

Again

And again.

Down the road.  Progress.  Driving on the grass at the side of the road to avoid getting sideswiped by big RVs on a road with no shoulder.  Tonnage rules; always keep that in mind when on a bike.

We arrived at our destination, Welcome Beach, where we have an AirBnB again.  The guy who runs it is great and we have a private room above his garage.  And his dog, George, is a blind 13 year old Golden Retriever who is as sweet as could be (and I’m pretty sure he’s not going to bark).  Our host is a total audiophile and he has an old Kenwood tube amplifier and a turntable hooked up to Klipsch speakers with about 100 old vinyl albums.  How cool!  We started with Chet Atkins.  I had to.  We’re now well into Super Tramp and Lorie is making me play Carly Simon.  We’re toasted from our ride but this is a pretty good way to wind down the day.

To Vancouver tomorrow.