Longing for Florencia Bay

I have so many fond memories of Florencia Bay, a place of my teenage and young adult years and now part of Pacific Rim National Park. It’s known as ‘Wreck’ Bay to locals for the ship, the Florencia, that wrecked there in 1861. The ship broke up on the island, seen on the horizon of this painting. In the late1960s, this beach was also the site of a great influx of free-loving, often artistic and, in some cases, draft-dodging ‘hippies’, along with their improvised driftwood shelters, all removed in the 1970s with creation of the national park. I visited last summer but find myself longing to be there again and remembering poignantly, my more-idealistic younger days.