We decided to run our annual “Christmas Tea and Cruise” again this year, our fourth. What we didn’t anticipate was the response. Due to a Transport Canada limitation, we are allowed to carry 22 passengers and we thought 2 cruises would be enough to satisfy demand. So we let a couple of local radio stations and newspapers know about the event and we waited. But not very long! The first two tours sold out very quickly and so we thought we might run a third tour .. . . but then that one filled too and then we filled a fourth tour! But the phone didn’t stop ringing. In one day we had 18 requests for groups from 2 to 10 . . . we eventually had a hundred people on the waiting list.

We had all kinds of people join us, young and old, local and new to Campbell River, and some who remember, as children, the Columbia coming into their bay carrying Christmas gifts 50 and 70 years ago. Fern made tons of homemade short breads, ginger snaps in the shapes of holly and cookies decorated for Christmas. We had liters of cream on hand and caldrons of tea and coffee . . . . well, maybe not CALDRONS but you get the idea. The weather stayed dry and the wind calm and we even had White-sided dolphins join one group.

The response was so great we will have to think hard what we will do next year . . . how does a “Sing-a-long Caroling Cruise sound??



And everyone wanted a photo of the mast head Christmas tree and its lights as they left.