What A Weekend! UBCTC Cottage Weekend Recap

This past weekend marked the first of what I hope is many UBCTC cottage weekends. Claire Askew graciously offered up her cottage on Saturna Island so we all piled up and made our way to the ferry on Friday afternoon. On Friday 8 of us were heading over, Matt Andrew and Lauren came over on Saturday morning because exams held them up.

Friday was a spectacular day, weather was amazing and we rode out quite casually to the shuttle across the George Massey Tunnel and then to the ferry. Once on the ferry we had some time to relax and plan out the events for the weekend.

View From the Ferry Looking Back At Vancouver

Group chilling out on the first ferry.

Arriving at the transfer stop (Mayne Island), we were supposed to hop right onto the second smaller ferry to head to Saturna, however, there was a suspicious "Marine Rescue" which delayed the ferry nearly 2.5 hours. Obviously we didn't know there was going to be such a delay, I guess the details of the rescue were Need to Know basis so we had to just patiently wait.  

Waiting for the ferry to Saturna. Look at how optimistic we still are!

We decided to go check out the water, it was beautiful watching the sunset!

Unfortunately after the sunset, it got really cold. Most everyone was still in their bike spandex so this wasn't exactly ideal. 

Finally at around 10:30PM the ferry came and we boarded on and made it to Saturna Island. Here a the group had the fun of riding 50 feet in front of the car (for light) along a twisty non lit island road. Little did they know they would have to climb an epic hill to get there.  Upon our return Sunday, I checked and the hill had a sign saying that the incline was 15%. YIKES!

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to another great day. It was a little overcast at first but by noon it had cleared right up. This was perfect because we had planned on running in the morning and then enjoying the outdoors after that.

The day started off with a large breakfast where we put Nutella on pretty much everything we could think of. It was awesome. And to digest a few of us went for a walk around the bay. 

Claire gazing into the deep blue of the water

Vince thinking intently of a workout for our team run.

The run workout we decided on a was an awesome 1k trail loop. Lots of ups and downs and always winding. There were also two bridges, Exhibit A:

Bridge we had to run over

Running on the trails was tough, I was running at roughly the same effort as last week (3:30/km) but my times were coming in around 3:50-4:00. Lots of fun though. When we got back from the run, the last trio of UBCTC members had arrived. We finished off the run with a nice dip in the ocean for a nice little ice bath. Jared went first...

After seeing Jareds face, people weren't too motivated to go in.

But then he gave us the thumbs up so we knew it was good to go!

I jumped into the ocean (rough temp 8*C) but didn't stay in for nearly as long as Jared, I was straight in and out. 

Following a huge lunch 10 of us, (legaly) piled in to Claires Volkswagen and headed out for a hike on Brown Ridge. It wasn't far, only a few km. 

You can't see me but I'm actually on all their lap

At the beginning of the hike Nathaniel Matt and I were complaining (As we usually do), that the hike was lame and not hard enough. Like come on, we were just walking up a dirt road. Then we started complaining that everyone was walking too fast and we got left behind. But first we captured these sweet action shots. 

You can see people already pulling away in the lead

The rest of the group eventually pulled away from Matt, Nathaniel and I when we decided we need to start breaking logs to create walking sticks. As a result we just had to pull up the rear.

Found a walking stick suitable for my needs

With some teamwork, Matt helped me jump on it

SUCCESS!

Blazing sunshine as we reached the top

We are pretty gangster

Beautiful view from the top

The hill was really cool, very steep, probably 50* and there were very few trees. 

Although we were messing around, if someone fell, they would probably roll all the way to the bottom

There were feral goats all over the mountain so we were walking along their path.

Then we spotted some sweet goats so we stopped for a bit.

There were honestly hundreds of them

Then I got artistic with the camera, despite the fact you can't see his face, Nathaniel has never looked so good.

After the hike we relaxed at the cottage, I attempted to play guitar (badly) and then before dinner we went out beer in hand to watch the end of the sunset.

Claires cottage would be just behind that tree across the bay.

People were nagging me about dragging them out, however I think it was well worth it. 

After the sunset and another feast (we had many of these), we settled down for a riveting game of Cranium. The game itself wasn't necessarily noteworthy (other than the fact my team won), but this one creative cat question sure did stand out. Winston incredibly whipped up this garden gnome in seconds. 

Impressive

The next morning we went for a LONG run. Some went for 24km others (me) went for 15.5. It was so nice out and really enjoyable. 

Unfortunately really small but this gives you an idea of what we were running along

Reaching the East Point of the island and goofing around

While we were running a few people decided to go for a kayak instead, and they lucked out and saw a whole bunch of sea lions frolicking around. I'm pretty jealous. 

Pre or Post sea lion adventure.

While we were running, a third group prepared lunch, which was probably the largest feast of all! We had so much food left that we just kept eating. We were going to need this since we were riding home and weren't going to get any food on the ferry. 

Finally after two awesome days at the cottage we got dressed up in our biking duds and hit the road once more. 

Andrew, Lauren, and Winston who is sporting his California Casual bike jersey.

Group piled in the shuttle

All in all an awesome weekend! Thanks a lot Claire!