Today is the day of turning.



Every July there is one day during which it seems that all of nature has reached its pinnacle and is turning towards decay. I can always sense this moment; it comes in the middle of a hot and still day when there is just a hint of wind, but where the stillness is like the point at the top of a parabola where an object is neither rising or falling, but is held still in itself, and perhaps begins to look at the next half of its journey.



Today things are held like that. It is very hot here, 30 degrees C in the shade. On the deck in front of my office, the wood is too hot to walk on. The sun is baking the oils out of the cedar decking and so the air has the scent of cut wood.



The ground is dusty and dry, and our rainforest tempered trees and shrubs, the cedar and salal, oceanspray and sword ferns are desperate for moisture. Only the arbutus trees seem to be truly in their element.



The night air is still except for the occasional katabatic breeze from cooler air flowing down the mountainsides towards the sea. The breeze refreshes, and is just enough to make sleeping possible. The ocean water beckons, cool and inviting. It no longer chills the body when you enter, and there is no urgency to retreat to the beach.



The salal berries are ripe and drying on the bush. Blackberries are already in season, a month early it seems. Some canes are loaded with the dark purple fruit while blossoms still flower on others. Everyone seems widely astonished by the early black berry season. Every other berry this year except for the thimbleberries have enjoyed a great season. The thimbleberries were small and dry and flavourless.



This is what the months of growth and vitality have produced in the land around our house. And today seems to presage the decline that will accelerate with the shortening days. Already by midnight, Pegasus has moved into view in the gap to the southeast of the house. The summer triangle is moving off to the west and the Andromeda galaxy is climbing high into the sky. I think about ordering firewood for the winter.



The I Ching advises that the fullness of a moment contains the seeds of its opposite. Today that seem more apparent than ever.

Full on summer time now. We've been swimming in the luscious water and the berry seasons are moving through their progressions. Good year for all berries so far and especially for the elusive black raspberries, a large patch of which I found near the Municipal Hall.



It's a season of festivals now too. Tir Na Nog, the island theatre school just wrapped up it's spring festival of plays which this year included The Tempest, Arcadia and adaptations of Cold Comfort Farm and The Neverending Story. All of these works were performed by young people, including Aine. The Canada Day festivities took place in the picnic field in the Cove and Artisan Square held their third annual car show and festival at which I played music with the island Celtic orchestra, Contraband.



There are lots more tourists this year and more and more new faces moving to the island. This is changing things, to be sure. A couple of friends and I were talking about the changes and we discovered that we have all asserted our "islandness" by resolving to drive at the posted 40km/h speed limit this summer. In addition to being safe on these windy and unpredictable roads, we've discovered that it slows people down, including ourselves.



Some of the long time residents are making noises about moving, but I am finding some great connections in those who are moving here. Determined to find ways to surf the changes, I look at each of these minor epochs as characters in our island's story, playing out before us.

With all the election furor around here, I missed out on our third year anniversary of moving to Bowen. We set foot permanently on the island on June 28, 2001, and this blog started that very week, as soon as the computer got hooked up.



To those of you who have been following our exploits over the past three years, thanks for riding shotgun.

We're already under drought conditions here on the west coast. Yesterday a big sign went up in the Cove indicating that there is now a burning ban on the island. Now is a good time to use your rainbarrel if you have one, which we don't, owing to the fact that our gutter system is problematical at the moment (i.e. it lleaks all over the place making water collection a problem). Our lot however is ideal for rain water collection, so maybe next year.

My good friend and business partner Chris Robertson lives over in Grantham's Landing, which is a small community on the Sunshine Coast. That's on the west side of Howe Sound, about three miles away by boat.



He has a 16' Hurston Glascraft which he uses to putt around the inlet. Yesterday he called up in the morning and asked if we wanted to spend Father's Day on the water. Duh. Anytime, I say.



He and his son Nairn picked us up at Galbraith Bay, at the Mount Gardner government dock and we headed out to Keats Island, a populated but unserviced island at the mouth of the Sound, between Bowen and the Sunshine Coast. We pulled up on the beach above and spent the day swimming, eating Brie and baguette and generally just enjoying the sun and the sea and the view. This was the beach that was used most often in the old Beachcomber's days, when the film crews would need a shot of Nic and Jesse out on the water.



We admired the odd boat that pulled into the bay, and then a beautiful gillnetter slipped in and dropped anchor. It had gorgeous lines, kayaks stowed beneath a boom and three people who kept themselves cool by jumping from the flying bridge into the water. It wasn't until we were leaving that the captain hailed us, and it turned out to be our mutual friend and sometime business client, Mike Mearns and his family. He welcomed us aboard and gave us a tour of his boat, which was originally his dad's boat, operated full time as a commercial fish boat. Mike uses it now for touring in the summer and for catching his quota of food fish the rest of the year. It's a pleasure boat which is fully equipped for west coast fishing. It's so well designed that neither use impedes the other in any way.



I don't have a boat (yet? hmmm...), which seems kind of absurd, living on an island and all. Days like yesterday remind me that it's really the only way to know the coast, and it bestows a precious degree of freedom to wander through the islands and pitch up on whatever remote beach suits your fancy, away from the crowds and the cars and the tourists.

It's hot a muggy now, and in f act over the last couple of hours a squall came up and a couple of thunder claps were heard. It made 30 degress today here on the coast. Summer is two days away but we're living it now: sweat, ferry overloads, ripe huckleberries and dusty lavender in full bloom.



Off to the beach!

Today a lesson from Finn in how to release juvenile coho salmon into the wild.







Begin with a tank full of coho fry which have been raised at the Terminal Creek Hatchery and are ready to make their journey to the sea.







Place a dozen or so in a bucket and carry them through the forest to the creek.







Gently tilt your bucket into the creek so that the coho swim out into the cool water.







Repeat as necessary or until the 9000 or so fry are in the creek. Reward yourself with a handful of juicy salmonberries.