False Creek, Vancouver

Gilbert, the cockapoo first mate and I actually got off the SV GIRI anchored off Kitsilano Beach. The surprise burst of sunshine and wind blowing away some of the cloud had me figuring this was a good time to go ashore.  With the Honda 20 hp and AB inflatable hard bottom dinghy Gilbert and I headed for the dog beach.  There he had a fabulous time.  He really knows how to work a party.  I’d hardly landed the boat before he was ranging all over the beach sniffing asses and genitals of every dog there. And there were a lot of dogs.  Great place. Great dog people.
Next stop, Granville Market dinghy dock.  I love False Creek. So many memories.  When I first bought the boat my ex wife and I lived on it at Stamps Landing while I worked in Leg in Boot Square. Later we’d move to the Fisheries Dock when we had the commercial fishing license and were outfitting for offshore. We studied sailing at Coopers.  They were good years for me.  She said they were then.  I remember the joyful novelty of shopping at Granville Island Market carrying groceries back to the sailboat in the dinghy.
Today I walked Gilbert all around Granville Island (not an island really, a peninsula).  At Starbucks I stopped for coffee.  Then I walked down to the Granville docks where I stayed after the separation.  I looked at the houseboats and remembered dreaming of living there with the boat tied alongside.  The cement factory has had some famous painters turn their old silos into art nouveau.
Keeping to the 5 knots/hour speed limit, I drove the dinghy down to Science World.     I’d lived  at the marina by the stadium.  (When I say lived, I mean, I’d live aboard for months at a time, taking the boat out most weekends.)  I used to shop at the Yaletown for groceries but today it looks like there’s no dinghy dock to let boaters go ashore.  I remember anchoring in Sausalito and how dinghy docks were every where so boaters could go ashore to shop.
Passing Burrard Street bridge I saw my old west end high rise apartment building. I had a great view high over False Creek. . Vancouver has so many great views.
I enjoyed circling False Creek in the sunshine seeing how development has occurred.   I remember anchoring in False Creek on occasion.  Now a permit is required and there’s three or four times the number of boats there than used to be.  It’s all so much busier and so much more built up.  The city is becoming  dense and  more metropolitan.  The police went by on quads.  I remember when they rode bicycles.
It was a beautiful day.  I loved the water taxi ferries.  Passing out of False Creek beyond the speed lane I gunned the engine, rising onto the plane and skimming across the sea back to the SV GIRI.  Gilbert’s resting now after his big outing.  Soon enough though he’ll remember I’m doing nothing and find me a ball to throw.