More sunshine welcomed us this morning as we headed out to China Beach. It's my favourite beach, and Robyn's too, so we got our swimsuits on, lathered on the sunscreen and took off as early as we could.
We forgot one important detail. The weather west of Sooke is always at least 5 degrees cooler than Victoria, if not 10 degrees cooler. It was 14C in the China Beach parking lot and none of us packed a sweater. The 1km hike down to the beach was mighty chilly. We'd pause to warm up whenever we found a sunny patch among the massive old growth fir trees.
The beach was quite chilly too for the first hour or two, until the sun warmed things up and we could walk about in shirt sleeves. The water was frigid all day though. Cindy and Robyn took a quick dip but I didn't manage anything more than ankle deep. We all got nice sunburns however, in all the places we missed with the sunscreen. Sandal straps, behind one ear, that sort of thing.
After swimming at Parksville on Tuesday, it sure seems like the eastern side of the island is warmer than the Pacific Ocean side on the west. We may have to take the longer drive to Parksville the next time we want to go swimming. Or buy wetsuits.
Sooke had a lot of wildfires high in the mountains this summer but other than the Thank You Firefighters signs in town, we couldn't notice much difference on our route, for which we are grateful.