Slaving away at the dock

Whenever we get a brief break in the weather, we are actually starting to work on the backlog of boat projects.

One of the most daunting is trying to the get exterior of the boat to look less like an old abandoned relic. The result of a long, wet winter has left the bright work in a sorry state, along with a nice coating of green slime on just about all surfaces.

Unfortunately, the weather has not been cooperating. It rains at least a little about 2 days out of 3. On the 3rd day it might be sunny but the wind starts up and makes the cool temperatures (11 or 12 degrees) feel even colder. On those few occasions when it is really nice out, we find ourselves just wanting to go for a walk to take advantage of the break.

Still, we are making some progress. Hopefully, these will be the 'before' pictures. The 'after' pictures will astound!

Viva LV

Quick trip to Las Vegas...

First we had to get to Vancouver for an early morning flight. This meant going via ferry to Richmond the day before. We figured we may as well make a holiday of it, so we took a mid-day ferry and spent the afternoon at Granville island - always an interesting spot. And a beautiful day for a visit, as it turns out.

While touring the eclectic collection of artisans, markets and marinas, we received news that the couple we were to meet in Las Vegas might not be able to get away. Apparently winter had returned to northern Alberta with a vengeance. Russ was stuck in Fort McMurray when his flight out was cancelled, and it seemed unlikely he was going to be able to get to Edmonton in time for their flight to LV.

After checking into our motel in Richmond for the night, we walked to the nearby River Rock casino, to sort of get the preview of Vegas. Not quite the real thing but a better imitation that I would originally have thought. Interesting that the entertainment headliner there was Adam Lambert, the American Idol contestant from last year. He also shared our flight to Las Vegas the next morning, apparently on his way to appear on the show again.

In the end, everything worked out. We had an uneventful flight and arrived to find that our friends did make it after all, thanks to an all-night bus ride for Russ - now that is going above and beyond!

As for Las Vegas, lets just say that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Our flight back was a little more trying for us, as we sat on the tarmac for over 2 hours due to an erroneous warning light for the starter motor on one of the 737's engines. Fortunately for us, it really did not matter when we got back, as we had no critical connections to make and just caught a later ferry (the 8:15 instead of the 5:45). We were home by 10:30.

Back on the boat, we have dived into our boat projects with the best of intentions, at least until the weather again turned cool and rainy. We did get a couple of really nice days, but we are now again huddling down below, updating blogs and working on other computer projects, etc.

At least the geese are still enjoying it. Here is our neighborhood couple going about the serious business of protecting their territory, mostly from reflections in the windows on the houseboat next door.

This really blows!

The southwest winds have finally let up, only to let the northwest winds have their turn.

Because of our starboard tie-up, we can now stop worrying about the strength of our lines, and start worrying about the strength of our fenders. So far, no problems.

If we really start to feel sorry for ourselves, at least we do not have the problems of this poor boat (a result of the windstorm Xynthia in France last month).

Tomorrow we will be taking the ferry to Richmond to spend the night before catching a morning flight to Las Vegas. We are celebrating Susanne's birthday (don't ask which one) with some friends who are meeting us there.

Ping Pong

Lately we have been feeling like a ping-pong ball, bouncing between Nanaimo and Edmonton.

Our latest trip lasted about a week, just long enough to attend our medical appointments and see a few friends and family again. The good news is that we have been given a clean bill of health, and can now get back to planing our futures.

Each trip through the mountains gives us more appreciation for the wonderful land we live in. Right now spring is just starting to appear on the southern sections and it gives us hope that this winter will soon be over. It is interesting that Edmonton has been one of the warmest places we have seen in the past few weeks - the coast has been rather cool and rainy for the most part. All of the warm weather has apparently gone east to Toronto and beyond.

We elected to come back on the Thursday before Thanksgiving in the hope that there would be extra ferries on to handle the rush. As it turns out, it was a close call - by the time we got to Horseshoe Bay, the only ferry that was not sold out for the day was the one we wanted to take. They told us we would probably be on the last ferry at 9PM, but we managed to squeeze onto the 7PM instead and were back at the marina by 8:45. Of course the ferry was so busy, and we were one of the last cars to get on board, so we were not able get any food. That, coupled with the cold, rainy weather, prompted us to have a late supper at Miller's Pub before venturing onto the boat.

Over the last few days, the weather has continued to be mostly miserable, punctuated by one of the worst wind-storms they have had here in years. We sat on the boat, heeling over dramatically in the gusts, wondering just how strong those dock lines really were. In the end, no damage was done and everyone here survived OK - the same could not be said for some of the other, less well-constructed marinas. One of our latest acquisitions is a new wind-data instrument, which I hooked up the day after the storm. As a result, I don't know how hard it was blowing during the worst of it. The picture here was taken the next night - we were getting gusts up to about 35 knots, but certainly not as dramatic as the night before.
One thing that did come to light was the fact that a lot of the ferries were cancelled and the ones that did go were facing extremely high seas and crossing times of up to 5 hours (instead of the usual hour and 35 minutes). So it is just as well that we did not wait to come back on Friday as we would most likely have had to stay overnight in Vancouver.

The weather as usual is very changeable here, nice one minute and nasty the next, making for some dramatic skies.

Oh, and with the coming of spring, the geese seem to have decided that our neighbor's fishing boat would be the perfect spot for some noisy courtship, making it completely unnecessary for an alarm clock in the unlikely event that we have any desire to get up early.

With the storms, it has been impossible to get any work done on the outside of the boat, so I have been concentrating on some inside jobs, and some progress is getting made. There really is nothing that is all that important in any event.