PEI Vacation

We have just returned from a week on PEI at John B’s Waterfront Cottages on Tracadie Bay with our two sons and their delightful young families and our dear close friends from Istanbul, K&A, with their equally dear and close three year-old boys. It was one of those vacation times that was magical, because of the outstanding people -- five children under five and six young adults all in their thirties -- we spent our time with, because of the fine weather, and because of the beautiful setting.

Here are a few impressions:

• brilliant green of beach grass
• dark red sand
• clear warm water that fills the bay
• boats out in the channel running from the wharf to the mussel lines and back
• voices of small children
• a heron circling slowly and moving on
• the shape of sand dunes on Blooming Point and the sea’s horizon beyond
• young eagle in early morning circling just above the cabins
• blue sky white clouds
• kids in crocs, sun hats
• icy freshwater spring bubbling up down the beach
• a couple of 24 hands and T. pegging 12 in an evening of cribbage with our two sons
• blown bubbles that floated from the steps over the beach and the bay
• a colony of sandcastles around a constructed inlet, driftwood bridges
• bare feet
• reading to a child on your lap
• one of the ospreys diving and disappearing, then lifting off with a fish, shaking itself, and flying to the nest calling
• glass of crisp cold pinot grigio
• rain in the night on the cottage roof
• conversations, explorations
• terns calling and diving out in the channel
• sun’s set
• small starfish and tiny yellow snails as you snorkel over the eel grass
• dinner together with the ones you love, laughter
• herons in the morning or evening, standing, or gliding on long curved wings to the next spot
• the games of young children on the beach, under lawn chairs, in the cottages
• finding rocks to skip across the calm water
• going to bed, getting up, knowing that there is nothing that you have to do
• everyone shouting “PEI” with right fists raised