Victoria Lapidary and Mineral Society

We kept an eye on the weather to the very last minute and it paid off! We met at the Juan de Fuca parking lot at 10am and by 10;15 we were on our way.
There were 7 of us, plus Megsi of course!
The weather was sunny when we arrived.
We parked at the first parking lot and took the first trail on the other side of the gate down to the water. It was a 2 minute walk from the car – quite manageable even with some snow on the ground.
The beach was great, not a lot of snow and everyone quickly went to work. Lots of conversation and fun.
About 20 minutes after we arrived, the big cloud that had been dumping wet snow on Metchosin caught up to us and within 10 minutes it had passed, giving us only a very light dusting. Everyone kept panning or digging or whatever they were up to.
No gold for me – just a big iron very old spike that took a while to find.
We did get gold, however, as expected, someone before us must have found the nuggets!
Looking forward to the next field trip, it will be announced at the meeting tomorrow.

The field trip to Island View beach was very well attended, with 16 members showing up.

The tide was quite high when we arrived and the weather very cold and sunny. We started off going to the left first to give the high tide time to start going out. After about an hour we turned around and slowly worked our way back towards the cliffs.

One member found a beautiful small agate. Others found jasper, pretty quartz and also a few interestingly shaped rocks. A very determined flower stone hunter managed to find their very first one!
The tide unfortunately did not recede enough to get us close to the cliffs, however now we know the tide heights that should get us there. Island View always has a lot to offer – if not just for the views and the wildlife. And the wild crazy people sailboarding in the cold water in the winter!