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Fireworks and rafting in Tod Inlet

Posted on August 10, 2025August 10, 2025 By Debbie Kochel
Vancouver Island

It has been a busy few days. We celebrated Debbie Bulk’s birthday with a passel of their friends and family. It was a good old fashioned crab boil with the prawns and crab being freshly caught that morning. We ended the night by the fire, trading stories and laughter.

Elaine and Paul are taking Crown Prince to Tod Inlet to watch the fireworks that Butchart Gardens shoot off every Saturday night in the summer and invited us to come along and raft. While you can’t see the whole show from there, you get a pretty good view of the big ones. Fireworks? Rafting? Where do I sign up. Heck yes!

We leave pretty early to go get a spot. Paul and Elaine are scouting in their dinghy, Miss Marlie trailing behind. Well, look who’s here! Barbara and Everett from Mollie! We met them at Friday Harbor at a Nordic Tug mini vous. As we contemplate anchoring near them someone weighs anchor, leaving the perfect spot for us. We head over and quickly set our anchor. Paul and Elaine head off to round up some supplies and their family.

We spent a relaxing morning – I made a veggie tray and a lemon pasta salad for later. The salad begged for some parmesan cheese, but I didn’t have any. We settled for adding nutritional yeast. So, while it wasn’t that bad.. At least I made a LOT of it 🙂

We felt like the inlet was packed when we got there. By the end of the day, easily twice as many boats found a spot. You know the saying, “there’s always room for one more”. Even though we know this, it always surprises us. I honestly do think someone is hanging out right over our anchor, so it will be interesting to see if I am right when It is time to leave. We count 55 boats in the morning.

Paul’s sister and her fiancĂ© come hang out with us in the cool of the evening. The firework show started at 9:15 – it lasted quite a while! I think I DO want to go see it in person, but it is an $80 entry fee – okay that’s steep but fireworks ARE expensive and they do this every week during the summer. So, if you think about it, you are spending 50 for the entry to the gardens and 30 for the show. Maybe I can convince Jim of this 🙂

We spent a very peaceful night here – I got up once to look at stars and for Northern Lights. There is quite a bit of light pollution here so didn’t stay up long. It is a glorious morning up on the flybridge, listening to birds (and one very noisy crane!) sipping coffee. Now THIS is what we signed up for!

Talk Soon

Tags: Canada Nordic Tug PNW Tod Inlet travel blog Vancouver Island

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