In early August 2023 we attended our first PW RV rally in Seal Bay, just a short one hour drive from home. The annual three day rally at Seal Bay on Vancouver Island has been going for a long time and is always full up – we booked well in advance and still ended up in a site outside the main group (along with quite a few other PW owners).
After settling into our site and meeting a couple fellow PW neighbours, we went to check-in. We were given information about the weekend activities and picked up a nifty sign that says “site occupied by a PW out having fun”.
That evening we attended a meetup which took place in the pavillon. We met and chatted with quite a number of people whose names we recognized from the FB forums and it was good to connect face to name. We also reconnected with friends we had met a year prior while travelling to Ontario – they are the same age and coincidentally followed a very similar path as ours when retiring – moving from ON to BC, and finding the housing market out of reach – they also found a house to rent in Qualicum and bought a PW van to travel. We have some similar interests in travel, RVing, games, and food so I sure we will pursue the friendship further.
As a PW bonus there is always a rep. from the company at the rally’s and this time it was the CEO Phil who attended. Part of the service they offer is individual visits to sort out any issues owners may have. We had discovered an issue with our propane the night before, so we signed up for a visit, and therefore had to hang out awaiting Phil’s visit the next day. Although we had signed up late, Phil made our stop a priority due to the problem being propane related, and showed up early. Chris explained the problem and after a quick diagnosis they concluded it was the regulator (luckily, as recommended by the FB PW family we had a spare on board). Surprisingly, Phil got on his hands and knees under the van and proceeded to change it out – while explaining and demonstrating how – when I expressed my surprise he said he loves ‘getting his hands dirty’ as he is the office doing paperwork so much these days. The problem however was not the regulator. It turns out the company that removed our generator (another long story) had not capped the output line properly. It had been very slowly leaking for a couple months (a possibly dangerous situation – we were quite upset by this). So we shut the propane off and Phil generously offered to purchase a cap in town for us as he was staying at a hotel there. The next day we were sorted out and all was working great.
The following day we hiked from the campground to Seal Bay. Well maintained trails lead to through meadow, marsh, and forest, to the ocean. The hike is about 8km. round trip (it can be much longer or shorter depending on the trails you pick) and is very scenic. With a happy puppy in tow, we returned to the campground and went to have drinks and play a game with our new friends. Afterward, we attended that day’s rally event – a question and answer period and PW tips event. We spied a new model camper in the group and strolled by to check out the nice Kayak set-up they had before heading back “home” to have dinner.
The next morning the rally wrapped up and campers began leaving early – but being only an hour from home, we took our time.