BLUE SHORE and GINGER WATER

 Probably one of the most beautiful Sundays down at the shore, Discovery Passage  expanding  itself in blue and diamonds, or at least  the glittering water looks like diamonds. Lots of blue. The tide is up.The people are out. The gulls are circling,always circling, watching and waiting . The Cormorants are trying to see how many of them can shove  onto their sunning rock.

 This is part of the Inside Passage between the Big Island of Vancouver and Discovery Islands. The shoreline bends  into sand and rocks. And toes. Many toes of beachcombers paddling in the ocean. Bringing kites, picnics, (yes, picnics still, even this last weekend in September). This calls for Ginger Water.

                                               "The sea can hypnotize...." (Henrik Ibsen) 

  GINGER WATER (1880-1910)                                                

 (Modern Ginger-ale has two ancestors. One is ginger beer, which was brewed and bottled at home like root beer. The other is “Ginger Water”, or “Switchel” as it was called. It was a non-alcoholic drink prepared  to enjoy on hot days,like today.)

 ½ cup to ¾ cup brown sugar

1 tsp powdered ginger
½ cup cider vinegar.
1 quart of cold ice water to fill pitcher.

 Dissolve everything in the cold water in the pitcher by stirring or shaking well.

 

 

I would like to say that Ginger Water is incredibly yummy.................it's an acquired taste.
 
 While Mitlenatch Island ( a provincial bird sanctuary), off in the distance,  is a no land zone  for humans......

 .............. the gulls  land in droves at the shoreline.Shrieking and wailing. Gathering to discuss how to take over the world. They will do a fine job as our leaders. Some day.  But not today. Today there is Ginger water, and toes in sand, and cormorants sliding off rocks, and mountains as misty and wonderful as they always are.

          "For whatever we lose, it's always ourselves we find in the sea." (E.E.Cummings)