beach – Rainwater Rambling

A week in Aruba

February 25, 2018 richardt

Aruba2018

We took a break from winter and flew down to Aruba for a week. Angela and Gillian were on their Reading Week and Claudia had a short week due to Family Day. We flew out of Toronto on Saturday morning.

Waiting for the bus to the terminal.

Immigrations was busy, Claudia was 3 months shy of us being able to use the self serve lanes. Made it through and found our luggage and our bus to the resort.

We spent the week at the Tamarijn Aruba Resort.

The girls ready to hit the beach.

Our rooms were on the second floor, we were in the rooms 3rd and 4th from the left.

Sunsets were spectacular every night.

We didn’t spend any time at the pool.

Every night they had something going in the main area, however it also coincided with the regular evening rain showers.

On Tuesday we headed into Oranjestad for some shopping.

There were two cruise ships in port that day.

Tuesday nights entertainment was a Carnival show, since it rained they moved it into the lobby.

Us sitting under our palapa.

A double rainbow after one of the early morning showers.

The main lobby area after another morning shower.

A couple of guys repairing one of the palapa.

The evening sky.

The buffet food was pretty good, we ate at four of the a la carte restaurants. The last night was at the Palm Grill.

We picked two mains (i.e. chicken, shrimp, beef, salmon) and there were veggies, rice and fries.

The last couple of days had some big waves.

Our flight departed at 17:05, our bus pickup was 14:15. A few pictures while waiting for the bus.

Check-in, immigration and security were very busy on the way out. It was an uneventful flight back to Toronto, customs wasn’t that bad when we landed, and it didn’t feel that cold when we stepped out of the terminal.

It was a good week, even after the early hospital visit by Angela, Susan and Gillian. Temperatures were a steady 28°C during the day and a cool 26°C in the evenings. It rained every day, often for a couple of minutes at a time. In the evening it would rain for at least 5 minutes, and overnight it would last a little longer. The consensus was that we would go back.

Florida Work Trip

March 17, 2017 richardt

Work Posts

beach capmon florida

Work took me to Florida for the March Break, I flew into Gainesville, FL through Atlanta. A colleague and I were visiting the Amec Foster Wheeler laboratory on the Tuesday. Then it was a drive over to Jacksonville Beach for 2 days of meetings.

It was a cold week in Florida, the temperature never got over 10 degrees C, and the one night they issued a frost warning.

The meetings were at the Courtyard Marriot in Jacksonville Beach.

On Thursday it was back to Gainesville to catch our flight back on Friday morning.

The Hippodrome State Theatre.

Despite the chilly temperatures, it still beat the snowstorm that dumped on Mississauga and the GTA.

Brad and Chelsea’s Wedding – Jamaica

May 11, 2016 richardt

Jamaica2016

beach brad chelsea jamaica ocho rios riu wedding

Susan and I were down in Ocho Rios, Jamaica for Brad and Chelsea’s wedding on the beach. In total they had 46 people join them for a week at the Hotel Riu Ocho Rios. I am starting off with the wedding post and later will post photos from other days from our week. As you can see the day they got married was beautiful, sunny and hot.

Susan posing for me on our way to the ceremony.

The ceremony was at 3:00pm, and thankfully the seats were in the shade. One of the workers raking the sand by the gazebo.

Dead man walking…

Lori and Dale.

Brad checking the time.

The three grandmas.

And one Grandpa.

The bridesmaid, Chelsea’s sister (right) was her maid of honour.

Chelsea coming down the aisle with her Mom and Dad.

Not sure if there was some sand in Brads eye or if he was wiping away a tear.

All is good Brad, all is good…yah mon.

Congratulations Brad and Chelsea!

Making it official.

Picture time.

The groomsmen, Brad’s best man was Josh (second from the left).

Brad giving G-pa a hug.

Lori, Melissa and Dale.

Brad’s buddies.

Chelsea with her Mom and sister.

Papparazzi shot.

Brad and Chelsea with the parents.

Melissa yelling at a couple of guys to stop photobombing the photos.

The photographer moved the wedding party further down the beach.

Susan and I.

Brad was our Ring Bearer 23 years, and 3 days ago. I’ll have to dig up that photo of the two of us.

The photographer went through a bunch of poses and shots with the wedding party as follows.

Some were a little goofy.

Here he was showing the guys what they were suppose to do.

Take 2.

Chariots of Fire?

Even after the photographer said “release the cheeks”, the guys held on.

Eventually it got to hot and headed back to the shade and some more family photos. Here are Jesse and Shanna who made it from Rossland, BC.

Mom and Dad and the kids.

Mom and the girls.

Lori’s friend Sue sweeping the beach.

Sue, Lori and Di. They are a couple of Lori’s friends who made the trip down.

Shanna having a cocktail at the bar.

The reception was at the other end of the beach.

Dad was able to get a wheelchair to use for the night to get from one end to the other.

Mom and Dad.

The wedding party making their entrance.

Brad and Chelsea had quite a few friends make the trip.

Chelsea’s Dad did the first speech of the night.

To Brad and Chelsea!

Dale made a good speech to the happy couple.

The wedding cake, one of the waiters decorated it with the leaves after they brought it out.

Brad giving his speech.

The speeches were short and sweet!

The DJ’s.

Time for a few more photos Brad!

Melissa said a few words.

The final few speeches of the night.

The first dance.

The traditional dances.

Me and my sisters.

It was a great day and Susan and I enjoyed ourselves. It was great to share in Chelsea and Brad’s wedding. I’ll post more on Jamaica this week.

Lighthouses Visited On This Trip

September 6, 2015 richardt

PEI2015

beach lighthouse maps pei

While it wasn’t planned, the theme of our trip to PEI turned into lighthouse visits. I started mapping the locations of the lighthouses and it became clear that we needed to visit the south east part of the island to fill in the gaps. Below is the map of all of the lighthouses we visited. In total we visited 17 lighthouses.

The were ones that were open and we were able to climb to the top. The were the other lighthouses visited.

A map of the beaches we visited.

Day 14: Points East Lighthouses

September 4, 2015 richardt

PEI2015

beach big things birds lighthouse pei tamzooka

On our penultimate day on Prince Edward Island, we wanted to see two more lighthouses to fill in our map. I’ll post that later. We stopped at The General Store in Murray River, the lady at the store told us about a beach and lighthouse close to where we were headed.

We arrived at Cape Bear, it is in the southeast part of the island. This lighthouse was built in 1881. It went electric and was de-staffed in 1960. It was decommissioned in 2011.

Cape Bear is open to the public. Unfortunately the Marconi museum wasn’t open. The first distress signal from the Titanic was received at Cape Bear.

The girls in the glow of the light.

A view from the top, the clouds look a little ominous here, but it turned out to be a great day.

Coming back down the hatch.

Even though all the lighthouses could use a coat of paint, the weathered look gives them character.

At the end of the cape.

Avoiding the edge of cliffs with our car.

This the Beach Point beach.

Sisters on a stump.

The Beach Point Front Range Light. It was built in 1878.

Claudia holding the lighthouse in Gillian’s photo.

The next stop on our list was Panmure Head Lighthouse.

This one was open to the public as well.

The light a top the lighthouse.

Everytime we went up a lighthouse, we said afterwards that I should have run down and taken a picture of them at the top. Finally on our last lighthouse I remembered.

I took few pictures of this to get the horses in the foreground, in the end the best photo was this one with the wider view.

We headed into Georgetown for some Lupper or Linner.

We finally stopped at the big cow at Cows. We waited for Gillian to come before taking a photo.

The last sunset,

The heron.

This was taken with the telephoto zoom lens, it looks like a painting.

We had one last fire. The night sky was the clearest in two weeks. There were lots of stars out. If you look closely you can see the Big Dipper.

Day 10: North Shore and Fisherman’s Wharf

August 31, 2015 richardt

PEI2015

beach birds lighthouse pei tamzooka

We headed up to the north shore today to visit the PEI National Park beaches. We had a lazy morning before heading out, here is Claudia relaxing on the deck.

We started at Stanhope Beach.

It was pretty empty.

The girls playing monkey in the middle.

Claudia mermaid.

It was windy and the fine sand on the beach was blowing around. We packed up after a couple of hours and headed to another beach. We stopped at the Covehead Harbour Lighthouse. It was built in 1975 and was never manned. It is also one of the smallest lighthouses on the island.

Not drifting snow, but drifting sand.

After the lighthouse we headed to Brackley Beach, however it was even windier there and we didn’t last very long with the blowing sand.

Tonight’s dinner was at the Fisherman’s Wharf in North Rustico. It is an all you can eat salad bar, which includes seafood chowder and steamed mussels.

We all ordered the lobster add-on to the meal. The seafood chowder was very good and I ate probably a few pounds of mussels.

We needed to walk around a bit after dinner so we went out to the North Rustico Harbour lighthouse.

It was built in 1876 and was electrified in 1960. It is one of the few lighthouses that didn’t have the dwelling removed when it was de-staffed.

Some of the sights around the harbour.

We started back for the cottage via Cavendish. We stopped at Orby Head. There were lots of Great Cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo) in trees and flying around.

I was able to get some close up shots with my telephoto lens.

This is close up of Orby Head, a trade off when using a telephoto lens. There were a few idiots hitting golf balls into the ocean from the top of the cliff. Have they not seen Seinfeld?

It started to rain as we left Cavendish, it was quite the lightening show as we drove back, just after we got into the cottage, it poured down rain. Most of the rain has occurred in the evening, overnight or early morning.

Day 9: Chelton Beach, Sold Out Lobster and Ceilidh

August 30, 2015 richardt

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beach lighthouse pei video

Today we ventured out to Chelton Beach Provincial Park. It is located out past the Confederation Bridge on the south side of the island.

Our first stop was the Seacow Head Lighthouse out near Fernwood.

Our first family photo.

The Seacow Head lighthouse, named for the walrus that use to frequent the waters, was built in 1864. It is one of the oldest lighthouses on the island. It is octagonal shape and was automated in 1959.

A different perspective of the lighthouse.

Next it was on to Chelton Beach Provincial Park, we arrived just after high tide, so the girls played on the playground for awhile. Here they are enjoying the “recommended for 5-12 years old” play structure.

Can you spot Angela’s foot?

We visited this beach when we were here in 2012, but we came at low tide, by the time we left, it had gone down quite a bit.

The girls finally, kinda of going in the water.

On the way back to the cottage we stopped in Victoria at the seafood store to buy some lobsters for dinner, it was around 3:30pm and they were sold out?? We only came out with a 2lb bag of mussels. Instead we ordered take-out Chinese food in Cornwall.

After dinner we went to a Ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) in nearby Afton at the Community Centre.

The place was already busy when we got there and the majority of the audience had grey or white hair.

The performers were Alan Betts, Clive Currie, Darlene Bradley, and Wade Murray. The special guests were the step dancing Dalziel sisters who were suppose to be accompanied by a fiddler, but he couldn’t make it. Clive Currie played the fiddle for a couple of songs.

Here is a video of his fiddle playing.

They sang some traditional maritime music, some covers, and some original songs. Here they are singing Heave Away.

Day 7: Southwest Tour of the Island

August 28, 2015 richardt

PEI2015

beach lighthouse pei

Today we headed out to the south west portion of the island. We drove out on Route 11 west of Summerside. We started at the Cape Egmont Lighthouse.

Unlike some of the other lighthouses, this one has no barrier at the edge of the cliffs.

It was built in 1884 and was manned until 1958.

Not far from the lighthouse is Fishing Cove Harbour, we made a quick stop to look for sea glass. There wasn’t much there only a few pieces.

Down the road from the lighthouse are the Bottle Houses. The last resident light keeper of the Cape Egmont Lighthouse built these houses when he was in his 60’s.

Here are the girls sitting in the Chapel.

The original houses were built in the 1980’s.

The original houses were rebuilt in the 1990’s due to damage to the foundations from the frost.

It is a pretty cool place to visit.

The next stop was the Notre Dame du Mont Carmel Church. It was built in 1898.

We walked through the cemetery, the majority of names were Gallant, Arsenault and Richard. It is an Acadian area of PEI.

Our first beach of the day was the Union Corner Provincial Park.

Angela’s shell collection.

No sea glass, but lots of shells and hermit crabs.

We stopped in Summerside for lunch, we ate at The Deck House Pub at Spinnaker’s Landing.

Susan in the stocks outside the pub.

Before we headed home we stopped at Argyle Shores Provincial Park, it is only about 10 minutes from the cottage but we had never stopped before.

It was low tide and the beach went on and on.

The girls washing off their flip flops in the waterfall. I think this waterfall is fed by a spring, unlike the one by our cottage that is fed by the heavy rains.

The grass actually ends at the top of the cliffs, it doesn’t transition to sand like the photo indicates.

I ran out to take this photo of the sunset. Tomorrow Gillian arrives for our second week on the island.

Day 5: Shopping, Sea Glass and S’mores

August 26, 2015 richardt

PEI2015

beach pei

We headed out to Borden-Carleton this morning to do some shopping at the shops at the Gateway Village by the Confederation Bridge.

Angela with the fisherman statue.

The girls with Lorenzo the Lobster.

Click to enlarge photos

We stopped by Victoria-by-the Sea on the way back and bought a salmon and 2 lbs of mussel’s. I cooked the mussel’s up for lunch on the bbq. The salmon is for dinner tomorrow. After lunch it was back down to the beach as the tide was going out and it would be the lowest we have seen.