Catching Up / PEI Adventures, Part 1

Let me start of by saying, I know, I know, real bloggers don't miss six days in a row. In blogger world, that's basically a huge slap in the face to all that's good and decent. I have no excuse,  except for the simple fact that the past few days have been some of the busiest days I've experienced in recent memory!

I know. Excuses, excuses. Even worse, I hardly have any pics - I forgot my camera at some pivotal moments. At other moments, we used a camera for which the adapter is back in Ottawa - those photos will be forthcoming.

What follows is the first installment of a day-by-day account of the last six days, in abbreviated form. There have been some big experiences: joy, sadness, nostalgia, and sunburns!

Thursday: Arrival, Nick's Funeral, Reunion

I left my family at about 8:15am in order to make Nick's funeral at 1pm. It's a strange feeling leaving your family behind for three days, especially when this was Chrissy's actual birthday. We both felt that this was important, however.

I hit PEI's red dirt at about 11:30, giving me time for half an hour to stop and reflect before the funeral. I pulled in to a little-visited stop right at the foot of the Confederation Bridge - the road to get this close isn't advertised; you actually have to drive right through Borden to get here. It's one of my favorite places, so I pulled in and ate lunch at one of the picnic tables by the edge of the Island. It had been years since I'd had the chance to visit PEI in the summer.

At times like these, I totally get why people always seem to drift back to PEI - the smell of salt water in the air completely surprised me and reminded me of the old ferries that used to take us to and from the "mainland." The wind was also pretty strong, which I totally appreciated. The wind off of PEI's coast never ceases to impress on me a sense of my own smallness and the power and presence of God. Notice the red dirt!

Ever since I was small, I've been a sucker for lighthouses. There's something about the idea of something that weathers the elements in order to provide light and guidance to ships in the dark that seems pretty compelling to me. Anyone ever hear the song Lighthouse by Audio Adrenaline? Old favorite of mine. This light house was right beside me, and I couldn't resist spending some quality time with it.

Next was Nick's funeral. I have to say, it was a pretty fitting tribute to a pretty amazing guy.

I met up with my friends from PEI afterwards - Bobby and Mike, of whom I somehow have no pictures. How could this happen? Bobby's wedding was the original reason for my trip to PEI (before we heard the news about Nick), and I stayed at Mike and his girlfriend Maria's house for two nights, but I still inexplicably have no photos of them. Inexcusable.

But I was hugely cheered up by them. Later that night we walked back to Bobby's house and saw his mother and sister, whom I hadn't seen for years and years but were like family during our high school years. It was awesome to see them! I also met a bunch of Bobby's RCMP friends. Have you ever tried to swap stories with an RCMP officer? It doesn't really work. The were telling stories of high speed chases, attacks by disorderly drunks, and awesome motorcycles that they drove. All I had were stories of high-speed... marking... complaints by disorderly students, and my awesome minivan. I felt a little out of place,  but they laughed politely. Then I told them I blogged regularly and they avoided eye contact for the rest of the night....

Friday: Bachelor Party Activities

Bobby's bachelor party was spread throughout Friday, but its main event was definitely the deep sea/tuna fishing. Twelve of us (the majority of whom were RCMP officers that I was eager to impress) travelled to Rustico and, after some shrewd negotiations, chartered a boat to take us tuna fishing on the deep sea.

We quickly learned that in order to catch a tuna, we'd first have to catch a bunch of mackerel to use as life bait. I'm proud to say that I caught about four mackerel in the first ten minutes. Then we travelled much further out and set up these enormous rods to lure the tuna. Then we waited. (We soon heard that another boat had caught a 400 pound tuna just a mile or so away from us.)

Less than an hour in, we learned that my good friend Mike was prone to sea-sickness. No one was more surprised than him! He literally spent the next SIX HOURS vomiting over the side of the rail! It was pretty sad to watch - when he wasn't expressing his sickness in more violent ways, he was sitting on the deck with his head between his knees. I guess that's dedication - he didn't complain, apart from occasional, well-placed sarcastic comments; he just kept his head down and vomited.

I had a relatively successful fishing day. Although we caught no tuna, I personally caught two pretty big cod, one strange-looking spiny fish that supposedly eats lobsters (I'm not making this up!), and my personal favourite, a seagull. I had just cast my line into the water when a group of ravenous, evil seagulls attacked my bait before it could sink! Justice was well served, however, when one of the seagulls found the hook on the bait.

It didn't seem to be hurting him, but he was stuck. I called out for help, and the captain just told me to reel him in so he could get the hook off. I reeled him in as though he were any other fish, and the captain asked my told hold him by the neck while he removed the hook. "Little Wing" flapped at me indignantly, but I was pretty gentle with him. Here we are, posing together. I released him after the picture and he flew away. He'll think twice before trying to steal our bait again!

There are many more bachelor day activities I could bring up, but for the sake of brevity I'll just say that good, clean fun was had by all (if you count being scorched by incendiary fireworks as "fun"!).

Saturday: More Reunions!

Deep sea fishing had left me horribly, horribly sunburnt, so I excused myself from the beach activities and took some time to visit an old friend. This is Father Chris Sherren, a Catholic priest of the parish in Summerside. When I knew him, though, he was just "Chris", and we used to rock out together on guitar. He was one of the groomsmen in my wedding, and a good friend in high school, so I stopped by to see what he was up to. Definitely great to see him and catch up on the past few years.

Finally, my family arrived later that day, so I was briefly reunited with them as well. I have to say, even though it was nice to participate in some fun activities, the single life isn't for me anymore. I missed my wife and kids, and it was really good to (briefly) see them again.

Tomorrow I'll write a little more about the actual wedding and our trip back. Stay tuned....