The Sunshine Coast

To celebrate our 3rd anniversary, we took a trip to the Sunshine Coast. This is the coast area which is north of Vancouver and only accessible via a ferry. The weather there is known for being sunnier than most other places in B.C. (hence the name), and it lived up to its reputation.


Our first B.C. ferry ride - except for the free one nearby that just goes across the Fraser River.


The very first thing that we noticed was this painted electrical box. Beautiful.


Then we saw another! The Sunshine Coast is known for the many artists living in the area, and one of the artists displays her work on these!


This one is our favorite.


This is where my mom would live if she lived on the Sunshine Coast. The houseboat (seen on the right side of the picture with gray spaces on top) is actually smaller than the floating garden attached to it!

The beaches were mostly rocky, yet still made a nice picnic spot. The water felt great for swimming in the heat!


One of the big attractions of the area is the Skookumchuck Narrows, an inlet so narrow that rapids are formed when the tide is high. This only occurs in two places in the world - the Sunshine Coast and the Bay of Fundy. Here's John hiking to the Narrows.


Anybody know what this is? We saw a few of these in patches on the hike and couldn't decide if they were more closely related to mushrooms or flowers.


Once we got to the Narrows, we actually found extreme kayakers playing on the rapids. They were a lot of fun to watch.

Check out this video if you want to see a kayaker's trick!


We spent the night in a B&B and had a great view of the Sechelt Inlet on our porch.


The restaurant for dinner also had an amazing view, as you can see. We also watched two bald eagles "fishing" and a great blue heron pruning.


Married for 3 years!


The next morning found us at Francis Point Provincial Park, which provided a beautiful hike along the coast. Check out the starfish we found!


If you took the time to look, you could find them all over the rock outcroppings we were hiking on.


A sea anemone!


Before we boarded the ferry to come back to regular life, we hiked through the woods and up Soames Hill to this gorgeous view.