A wee breaking of our fast on the front porch in Sooke.
Morning walk on Wiffin Spit in Sooke. 
Wiffin Spit from our pilotless drone that came with our new Nikon D3200. We are that dark spot beside that light area.
Our first pothole we splashed in, nice and shallow here.
A little dip in the second pothole we visited. Being submerged in the icy water was quite the shock to the human body!
Our youngest did not want to part with his egg that he picked.
After dropping and cracking his precious egg he was more than happy to eat it!
Our middle child prepared with the lid in case the crab escaped the transfer.
Our first morning in the cabin in Sooke was pretty decent, except for the early birds wanting their worms. But it seems that when in a cabin or camping early mornings are a guaranteed occurrence.
We started off with pancakes, waffles and toast and some strong (new coffee makers are always fun to learn) and finished off on the front porch planning our day.
We first headed off to the natural peninsula in the Sooke Inlet called Wiffin Spit, cue the wild crazy laughter from our oldest boy. It is a full kilometer long and almost stretches across the whole opening of the inlet. We were advised that is was a good spot to see sea otters, sea lions, and seals.
After a good hike out on Wiffin Spit, and disturbing many early morning walkers peaceful stroll, we headed back with nothing to be seen.
Until we spied two sea otters diving and swimming near the shore! The kids were excited and watched them for a good 53 seconds and were then off to the Boardwalk down the coast a bit.
The board walk was a cool little walk down a bunch of stairs and then along the coast for a couple hundred yards. It was a great view of the inlet and is supposed to be a great place to watch whales that happen by the area, no sea animals for us though. We dis meet a nice boxer named Lola though. She was rescued by the "Without Borders Boxer Rescue" and taken in by this super nice family when she was only a pup.
Once we made it back to the van we were off to the destination that everyone was excited to see...the Meadery!!!
I think it is called a meadery?
There is a little farm outside of Sooke that is a honey farm and a meadery (they make their own mead!) called the Tugwell Creek Farm and Meadery. After our trek down the coastline we found out that meaderies are closed on Tuesdays. Crap.
So we went back to the cabin to drown our sorrows in lunch, and a nap for the wee one.
After the rest we were off to what the locals called the Potholes, well I gues the government calls them the potholes too because it is called the Sooke Potholes Regional Park. But this is a place along the Sooke river where over many years the water has worn away the rock to form these little pools along the bank that are great for swimming.
So we vanned it up to the park and hiked down to two of the different pools. They we great!
The water was cold, clean, and clear. It was a popular place for people to hop in a tube and float around, swim the little pools (the first one was about 100 feet wide and in the middle we couldn't see the bottom), or to bask on the pebbly beaches.
It was a great afternoon in the sun. And we are amazed at how many different places to swim we have found that have been absolutely different than each other.
It was supper time by the time we left the potholes (which by the way look absolutly nothing like a pothole.) and so we were going ot stop for some fresh prawns at one place and some lettuce at another.
At the first stop we bought some prawns but Dad, in his wisdom, also bought a live 2 lbs Dungeness Crab to boil and eat.
At the second stop we bought some mixed fresh greens and jam and in talking to the owners Ellen and Dick ended up spending an hour and a half touring their farm. It turns out Ellen is from Saskatchewan and has been turning her little plot into her little prairie oasis.
She has a great garden (which she plants wheat and oats!), a few sheep, some goats (which they milk and make cheese out of), a few geese and ducks, a dwindling flock of chickens (a pesky racoon has been taking the hens), and a great little orchard of fruit and nut trees!
This was an absolute fantastic evening! The kids got to pick eggs from the coop, eat mulberries and thimble berries, feed the goats, see all the trees (they spun around the mulberry bush, and picked artichokes from their garden.
Ellen and Dick, or Grandpa Dick and Grandma Ellen as they introduced themselves to the kids, were amazing, and sweet to the kids. Ellen showed everything to the kids and did not just talk to the adults and even picked up our youngest and excitedly walked him to the almond tree they had.
If you are even in Sooke keep your eyes open for a little sign that mentions fresh veggies and baking, Ellen and Dick are busy people (their veggie and baking stand in the yard is a self serve and pay deal with a slotted tin to put your money in) so hopefully you get the opportunity to meet them!
We wantd the kids to eat the eggs they had gathered so we planned on making some scrambled eggs with supper, except our little guy had different ideas. He did not want to part with his egg. He carried it back to the cabin and would not hand it over. But he ended up cracking it pretty good when he was playing with it and toy car he had. Then he was ready for the circle of life to take place, once he realized that the egg that he had gathered from the hen house was nothing but...an egg.
Supper was a buffet of sandwiches, salad, scrambled eggs, veggies, crab legs (receipe below), prawns, hot dogs, and yogurt tubes. We ended the evening with a marshmallow roast over a little fire and plopped the kids to bed before 9:00 pm.
We did end up finding some of the local mead at a pub in town, so Dad enjoyed a glass of honey mead and Mom a cup of tea.
Tomorrow we are back to Nanaimo for two nights then homeward bound.
Dad's Not Famous Crab recipe
ingredients
1 -2 lbs dungeness crab - as live as possible
1 big pot
lots of water
1 stove
First you put lots of water in the big pot. Then you put them both on the stove and boil.
Once the lots of water is boiling, place the as live as possible crab in the water, bottom down, and slam lid on pot as fast as possible so you don't have to see the angry crab boil.
After 20 minutes remove cooked crab and consume!
