Canada, eh?

Captain Gene - arrgh

Kai and Molly in the dinghy at Pirate's Cove

Robert took this one by setting the timer and running really fast:)

Holly cooking fresh shrimp scampi!

One of our poor little crabs - RIP

Today marks the completion of our first week and the half-way point of our trip! We've been travelling around Vancouver Island, and did some crabbing and shrimping along the way. We (and when I say "we" I mean everybody but me... I'm just the photographer!) dropped some traps down about 200 feet, left them there for a few hours and then returned to collect our "booty" as the pirates say:) Although the trap was full of crabs, we only ended up keeping two - the rest were runts. Our first shrimping attempt was unsuccessful, but the next day Robert and Gene set the trap again and caught about 50 big ones! Needless to say we had fresh shrimp scampi that evening. I must say the whole hunting thing makes me sad... even with hard-shelled water creatures. I could not believe that those cute little crabs would meet their end in a pot of boiling water... or that the poor little shrimps would have their heads brutally ripped off while they were still alive!!! Someday I really will become a vegetarian...

I've still been doing plenty of reading, but Robert and I have been taking Kai on really long walks too. We anchored in Pirate's Cove last night (arrrgh!) and took the dinghy boat over to a little island. It was incredible because it was so wild and desolate. We saw plenty of sea lions right off the shoreline, and even saw two bald eagles from a distance. I was sure we were going to be eaten by bears, but Robert reassured me that bears do not live on tiny 2 mile-wide islands.

Today we are in Nanaimo (one of my new favorite words), and ran into a guy who breeds Chesepeake Bay Retrievers just like Kai! We naturally had a lot to talk about with him (a very friendly Canadian who kept ending phrases in, "eh?") as he has TEN "Chessies"! Kai was his friendly self and kept taking turns dropping his tennis ball at each of our feet while we chatted.

Stay tuned for more Bennington boat adventures!!!