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| ANOTHER GREAT NEWSLETTER FROM SHOAL BAY
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December 30, 2004. Here's a late Christmas present for you. As usual, Mark MacDonald's missive is both poignant and laugh-out-loud funny. Shoal Bay is located between Dent Rapids and Greene Point Rapids on Cordero Channel, north of Desolation Sound. If you take this route on your way to the Broughtons, you pass right by. After reading Mark's newsletters you won't pass right by, you'll stop.
I'll stop now. You read. Enjoy. -- Bob Hale
P.S. The pictures are captioned. Hold your mouse cursor over the picture for a second, and the caption will come up.
Shoal Bay Yacht Club Newsletter
New Years 2005. Another year passes by the cool green waters of Shoal Bay. Around the world tens of thousands are killed by tidal waves, ridiculous war rages in Iraq, massive civil unrest in the Ukraine and elsewhere. In Shoal Bay this time of year, its front page news when a heron farts.
For the first time I have spent my entire holidays here at Shoal Bay and I have decided to make it a tradition. I do think that I would prefer to do with at least one other person around though. I have been out here for two weeks and have not laid eyes on, little alone spoken to, a single human being. I spent twenty minutes yesterday on the porch in deep conversation with the squirrel. When he started to answer back I left. Little bugger never came back today. I told him I was sorry.
It is beautiful, and it is quiet. More beautiful than I could ever describe and quieter than anything you have ever experienced or likely to experience in your entire lifetime. Deaf people are used to more ambient noise than this. At night when I walk back to the cottage after turning off the generator, I will stop and stand sometimes , look up at the stars if it's clear, and listen. Nothing. Not a distant car, not a television, no kids, no horns honking, nothing. Absolute, pristine, silence. You have no idea how few times in our modern lives we actually have a chance to experience this kind of quiet. I can't quite decide if I love it, or if it is driving me right out of my bloody mind. I'll check with the squirrel later.
Like every year I can hardly wait for spring. The trees will bud, the daffodils will be everywhere, and the bay will come to life for another season. I will be back to chopping wood, building things that I never knew I was capable of, flippin' burgers, and serving beers. Every year I think that I could not possibly be happier than I was this last summer and every year I am happier. Each year I wait with untold anticipation to find out exactly what I will screw up beyond belief this time. How many boats will sink, how many motors will go, how much bodily harm will I cause myself, and how much will it all cost me. Ah, the mysteries of life, they're what keep us going.
So we count on 2005 being as fun filled and unforgettable as all of the others spent here at Shoal Bay. The health department has insisted that I install a new fresh water system and sewage treatment plant before I am allowed to reopen. They have since informed me that it could take six months for the permitting procedure alone. The cost estimate for the combined systems is eighty thousand dollars. It would take another four months for construction that could only be done naturally in the summer. The business generates about ten thousand. You don't have to be Alan Greenspan to realize that those numbers just don't add up. This is to let you know that life here is not completely devoid of bureaucratic red tape. We just try not to let it bother us as much that's all. Still another reason to secede from the dominion and become an independent sovereign nation. I, of course, would be King.
The regional manager for the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans, owners of the Shoal Bay Government Dock, had informed me, (the Wharfinger) that they would be doing some extensive maintenance on our beloved structure in the spring. This news was greeted with whoops of joy and much celebration. However, when I tried to contact said regional manager last week, I was informed that he had retired and I was duly transferred to his replacement, a Mr. Levi Timmermans (no kidding). Levi had no idea what I was talking about so it seems that the air has pretty much gone out of that balloon. This type of crap just wouldn't happen if I were King.
So 2005 is upon us and the years keep slipping by. It is true that the older we get the quicker the years just vanish. In every newsletter I insist that those of you who have never been here should really try to make it here to Shoal Bay just one time. I do not ask this for my own benefit; truly it is for yours alone. Those that have been here I am sure would say the same; it is a truly magical place. I would be so much less of anything had I never stumbled aimlessly into Shoal Bay. My life has had the most wonderful direction ever since. I have no desire to be King of anything. I just want to be at Shoal Bay. Always.
I've got a cold one waiting here for you.
Mark
www.shoalbaylodge.com
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