This story is not really about the Lady Rose but she played a small part …… a story about how we can go out on one adventure only to find a twist in the story by discovering something totally unexpected. This story is about Floyd Mosier, my ex’s dad and a good friend of mine.
Mona and I had moved to Vancouver in 1979 and bought our house in Horseshoe Bay, West of Vancouver in 1983 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_Bay,_West_Vancouver We usually did some kind of summer vacation between 1983 and 1992 before we moved to California. During one of those summers, the following story took place.
Mona`s parents, Hilda and Floyd, came to the west coast for a visit and we did the tourist thing on Vancouver Island. We went to Victoria for a day and did other things like visit huge stands of old growth forests ….. Having lived and grown up in Ontario, none of us had ever seen anything like those trees.
Hilda and Floyd had seen some of the “old ways” of doing things in their “good old days”. There were novel things out here that Mona and I had never imagined ….. LOL …. The Lady Rose was one of those things. I only bring the Lady Rose into this story because she may have inspired a choice that Floyd will make later in the story. I would like to think so anyway!!!
The Lady Rose is an old wooden steam driven ship that was “the” supply ship to the Alberni Inlet on Vancouver Island. They have replaced her with a newer boat but we were lucky to experience the TRUE Lady Rose. https://ladyrosemarine.com/
It sailed from Port Alberni https://www.portalberni.ca/to Bamfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamfield on schedules days. She would leave Port Alberni in the morning and return later that night. I am an adventurer and after some conversation we agreed to take the journey. You could sail on the Lady Rose as a passenger and watch as she did her work, enjoy the scenery and if you were lucky you might see wildlife like sea lions, orca whales, sea birds of various species. I don’t recall seeing wildlife ……
As we left the port the ship was loaded with the supplies for every one down the Alberni Inlet. Just like the old days, your supplies arrive when the Lady Rose arrives. Boxes of stuff, equipment, food, cases of milk, hardware, newspapers …. all the stuff that you might imagine one needs to live life …… the Lady Rose was the lifeline as she worked her way down toward Bamfield and the Pacific Ocean …. at every stop the load was lightened …… fishing camps, cottages and whatever other settlement existed along the way …… It was a wonderful day.
We returned to Port Alberni then drove on to Tofino https://tourismtofino.com/news/2018/11/03/11-top-rated-things-to-do-in-tofino-bc/ on the west coast the island.
We stayed over night in Tofino and when we got up in the morning we strolled around town and had a nice breakfast at a local cafe. As we walked along the boardwalk after breakfast, we noticed in a restaurant window a small flyer promoting a float plane ride to Hot Springs Cove north of Tofino ….. here is a description I recently found on a web site:
“Tofino Hot Springs – Hot Springs Cove”
“This is a year-round adventure with most charter outfits leaving in the morning and picking up in the late afternoon. The best part about this trip is it encompasses everything that you would normally see on a whale watching trip with the Hot Springs thrown in as a bonus. Hot Springs Cove is actually on the mainland of Vancouver Island about 30 km north of Tofino and it is about an hour and 20 minute airplane ride in each direction. You will be dropped off at a boardwalk trailhead that leads to a 30 minute walk through an old growth cedar forest. The geothermal springs come out of the ground at 120°F and cascade down a waterfall into a series of soaking pools naturally cut out of the surf rocks“ ( http://www.tofino-bc.com/hot-springs-cove-tofino.php accessed Sept 30, 2012).“
Remember, this trip was a long time ago (mid 1980s) but as I read this description today it describes exactly why I would have wanted to go to Hot Springs Cove ….. the adventure, the Beaver airplane, the beauty, the Pacific Coast!!!! The cost was a little on the expensive side …… I think $20 dollars each, if we could find two more passengers to fill the 6 passenger seats on a deHavilland Beaver ….. https://www.harbourair.com/about/our-story/ we found the two other people that wanted to go, paid our money and off we flew into the wild blue yonder.
Oh my ……. but I get ahead of myself ….. the Lady Rose adventure from the day before …… and as we had done the day before …… the four of us studied the poster, talked over whether we should spend that kind of money to fly up to the hotsprings. We all talked about the flight, the adventure and the ad ……. it pointed out an important consideration that passengers should be aware of …….. there could be people at the hot springs pools that would be nude ….. our reaction .. … “whatever ….. after all, this is the wild wild west and there are wild wild people” ……… right? …. We did not consider ourselves wild but a few nude people couldn’t be all that bad …. LOL …. so we discussed the issue …… paid our money and off we went.
So, was Floyd influenced in saying yes to this new adventure because we had had such a beautiful adventure the day before on the Lady Rose …. no one will ever know but here is what happened.
We took off from Tofino in the old Beaver (the same airplane is still flying today I think). It was as beautiful a sunny day as could be imagined.
We flew over blue water, the white surf ….. we saw some whales according to the pilot ….. LOL …… if we did they were so small I can’t really recall ……. in any case it was an awesome flight.
We landed at the Hot Springs Cove dock where all 6 of us disembarked the airplane. There was nothing there …. totally rustic ….. To be clear, the jetty was the only thing there …… it stuck out into the water from a very dense forest….. just like any decades old wooden dock ….. we could barely see the trail that we needed to follow. The plane flew away and left us there …… as it faded into the blue skies …… total silence …… serenity ….. and at the same time ….. very exciting!!!
As advertised the walk was about 30 minutes through huge old growth trees.
As we approached it became very clear that the “Nude Swimmers” warning was for real and …… LOL ….. there were mostly young people , some nude, some not. Mona and I had bathing suits and went into the pools but Hilda and Floyd seemed to just disappear (at least to my recollection – Mona may want to remind me here) After soaking in the hot pools for a while we eventually decided to walk back to the dock and our rendezvous with the airplane …… somewhere along the walk we learned that there was a problem …… Floyd was definitely not impressed with the nudity ….. I suppose that Hilda brought it up!!
Now prior to this trip, back in Ontario, Floyd’s family, including me, had been encouraging him to get hearing aids for many years. We learned years later that Floyd had not heard the conversation about nudity back at the Tofino restaurant. We also learned that what upset him most was that Hilda got to see other nude men ….. it is certainly possible that she had never seen a nude man other than Floyd ….. we have had many laughs about that with Hilda!! The day Floyd got home to Ontario he made a doctor’s appointment and ordered his first hearing aids!
Who cares whether the Lady Rose had an influence on the story …. she was part of a beautiful trip with some really great people …… and Floyd could finally hear what was going on in his world!!
Floyd embarked on an adventure with us, saw stuff that he had never thought he would see ….. Hilda saw some things ….. LOL ….. that she probably would never have seen ….. LOL ……. we all had a great time …… Life is funny sometimes!!
