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Only days after returning home to Squamish from the coast I was headed back to the island; this time to celebrate the union of close friends. The event went off in typical island fashion: camping in a field, local musicians, picinic dinner, bonfires, and island brewed beverages. It was an enlivening weekend catching up with old friends and taking photos in a new environment (it was my first wedding). The wedding alone was worth the journey to the island, but as I’m prone to do I created some extra time in my schedule for a little more play and fun. After the wedding Jordan met me in Nanaimo and we headed back to Sombrio for more time on the beach.

We snagged our favourite camping spot and before long it felt like we had never left. This time overturned stones revealed even bigger eels, and many neat molluscs and crustaceans. We tired ourselves out bouldering barefoot in a wonderful sandstone cave. Deep in the cave tiny markings signified the start and direction of established problems, although we mostly created our own. I’ve spend more nights at Sombrio beach than any other camping location never tiring of it’s charm and beauty. Fog banks roll in and out, surfers appear with the waves and disappear just as quickly, sun appears when you least expect it, and the beach changes characteristic around every point. As much as I enjoy venturing into new terrain I enjoy discovering the intricacies of my native environment: the moods and characters, the pleasant and the challenging, and the often unappreciated.