Vancouver -A Beautiful City

Everyone who visits says Vancouver is a beautiful city.  Situated on the protected English Bay Harbour off the inside passage of Georgia Strait it is a sea port with great tankers in the harbour, marinas, sailboats and beautiful beaches.  Kits Beach is the summer college girl and boy hang out with beach volley ball. I prefer Spanish Banks but Wreck Beach by the main UBC Point Grey site is famous for it’s nudity and historic hippy fests that challenged the city and the police till one day the storm in the tea cup was past. Now even the gay end of the beach with reported lusty hook ups is all but respectable.  Nothing shocks anymore and I say that with some ambivalence.
The UBC Museum of Anthropology on the cliffs above never grows old. Concerts at the near by Chan Centre, especially classical are a treasure.  I so enjoyed the Bach and Handel perfomances I attended in recent years.   Kitsilano is the suburb that’s kind of yuppie. The houses are astronomically priced now but the people are more than approachable. Vancouver’s wealthy sections are old Shaughnassey and West Vancouver.  North Vancouver and Kitsilano have that middle class feel. The lower class was once East Vancouver but there housing prices have sky rocketed as well making poor people rich when they sell their houses. The West End is quintessential Vancouver, downtown with mostly apartments and the highest density.  Robson Street in the main uptown shopping street with Davie the once gay now gay plus or minus part of town depending on perspective.Granville street is the central core.  Bridges cross over False Creek where the dragon boats make a racket and Coal Harbour where the main commercial port is.  Commercial Street in gentrifying East Vancouver  and attracted the lesbians more so along with a younger crowd while Davis street maintained it’s corner on the bears and leather set  The drag  queen shows still take place on Davis where a different night life persists. But there’s really a chic and mixed set that have always been part of the Davis scene. The Avant Garde and the city live and work near here so it’s where they eat and increasingly shop for books and clothes.  St. Paul’s Hospital with the surrounding medical offices is nearby.
Howe is where the Courthouses are. Then there’s Georgia and Burrard where the very very old and very very baautiful Christ Church Cathedral is located.The new Bells contribute to the audioscape of the city.  All around there are magnificent hotels. The Vancouver Art Gallery is central with nearby Pacifc Centre shopping mall, Hudson’s Bay and across the street  the new Nordstroms.
Vancouver’s architecture is dominated with glass giving it a lightness of being look so different from the heaviness of New York and Chicago.  There’s a sense that fairies live here while trolls live in the east.  One really can imagine unicorns flying on rainbows amidst these almost delicate buildings not surprisingly built to withstand earthquakes.  The ground does shake here on occasasion.
I rode my Harley Davidson downtown simply knowing I’d be able to bypass rush hour traffic with a bike whereas with a car I’d be frustrated no end. Also on my motorcycle I see so much more. I really appreciated once again the incredible beauty of the solid circular architecture of our main library.  The Queen Elizabeth Theatre is near by.   I so enjoy performances of Ballet BC.  Rogers Arena, a grand structure, is where we most recently enjoyed the magnificent U2 concert with Mumford and Sons as the opening act.  It’s where I’ve also enjoyed games of the Vancouver Canucks hockey team.
My favourite Apple store is in the Pacific Centre. I’d thought I cracked the glass on my new iPhone 7 but found it was only a scratched protector.  "Kaloo Kalay he chortled in his joy."  Leaving there and admiring the beautiful people uptown with some fine fashion examples, increasingly a phenomena.  Vancouver was once better known for it’s grunge. This is still popular in the DTES where the homeless sleep on the street and fentanyl overdoses and taking their toll.
Here and there perhaps because Nordstrom’s arrived recently there are Vogue models are walking about downtown along side GQ men.  I think of it as an improvement. I do like people watching and wish there we’re more cafe’s on Georgia where the real lookers flock.  The best coffee and people watching for variety though is Granville street. I’ve had tattoos and peircings there as well as attended the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra at the Magnificent Orpheum Theatre.   I like to sit in the outdoor cafes  and write about nothing, Much like I’m doing now. Journalling.  But there I do more  observing.  Lots of visual entertainment.  I don’t like the amplified music.  Non amplified music is a wholly different thing. I like that. More audio sphere art but amplification creates raucous distracting noise. There’s an arrogance to it in a public space. Like ghetto blasters. Like my loud stereo on the Harley which I justify because ‘loud pipes save lives’ . I’m often playing bag pipe music too  Recently i’ve been very partial to U2, Steppenwolf and Led Zeppelin.  Steve Bell is who I really like on the open highway.
The Claude Monet Secret Garden show was on at the Vancouver Art Gallery so I walked over and caught a splendid hour of visual impressionist delightsbefore the gallery closed. Then I rode the motorcycle over to Davis Street. I used to live on Beach Avenue and enj sitting and writing outside the Blenz across the Q Centre and Mary’s Hamburger’s.
I found a parking place across from Bean around the World so sat there and reminisced about living in the west end before moving onto my sailboat in Coal Harbour.
When I got back into motorcylcling after a fifteen year hiatus or so I started with a scooter. Laura and I would ride around Stanley Park on the little 50 cc Aprillia. Next it was the Trev Deeley 600 cc Buell Blast, then the Barnes 1200 CC Harley Roadster and now the Trev Deely 1600 cc Electroglide I have now.  Each bike we’ve enjoyed the pleasant downtown forest ride in Stanley Park. Earlier I’d biked and walked and even roller bladed the seawall. Then when I was involved again with the sailboat it was me seeing others on the sea wall while I motored my sailboat alongside beneath the  Lion’s Gate Bridge.
I loved Lost Lagoon. When I lived on my boat in Coal Harbour I walked my Scotty dog, Stewart,  around the Lagoon almost every day. That’s when Denman Street was my principle dining area.  It’s not that I haven’t loved and appreciated areas of Vancouver, it’s just that since I moved to the North Shore and then later  Burnaby, while I worked in China town and the DTES, I’ve not has as much time to appreciate the city as I once did and do like,  I certainly loved North Vancouver and now love Burnaby especially the  green spaces.
I love Grouse Mountain. It’s been a decade though since I hiked the Grouse Grind and longer since I night down hill skied there or even since I  cross country skied on Cypress Mountain. I just think it’s amazing to have so many play places within the city itself where there’s everything a modern city has to offer plus this extraordinary proximity to natural wonders.  I was relatively immobilized by accidents for some years.
Yet here I am still blessed to be able to walk and ride my motorcycle and enjoy the city. The city’s  beauty in the summer causes me to catch my breath. Riding around Stanly Park then up Georgia I just loved the sky scrapers and the sun mirrored in the beautiful glass. There truly are awesome views.  At the lights I was able to look up and appreciate the workmanship that went into the Fairmont Building, the old facades beside the new glass towers.  Too often i’m in functional mode in the city just working and going from place to place. I saw the city as a tourist this day.  It really is beautiful.  I really must not take it for granted.  It’s so important to be in the moment in the present, in the the place where I am rather than in my work and my head and my business.
 I rode out to the freeway and headed home to Burnaby in the HOV lane.  I’m living and liking the suburbs now for the river walks and fabulous green of the coastal rain forest. You can still smell the sea air and sometimes sea gulls fly over though it’s mostly robin song I hear. In the north I can see the snow capped mountains.  Vancouver really is beautiful, the  city and it’s surroundings.

Friday Afternoon Sailing

Paul, John, Jeffrey and Karen were the all for escaping Vancouver and enjoying English Bay.  In the end Karen and Gilbert made it out on the bay for the few hours.  Winds were even lighter than the Friday before and without the Jeffrey, Tom and Carter to manage the sales I just motored to the glorious sound of my new Volvo Penta iron jenny. We anchored off Kits beach. Karen wanted  a photo to send to her maritime family.  Being maritimers they get concerned  when the mermaids are too long on shore.  “I grew up down the street from the yacht club. Everyone owns a boat where I come from.  We were always out on the water.”
She arrived wearing white, not realizing my ‘yacht’ is more of a working boat and a perpetual beloved scow in process.  After busting the mass on the way back from Hawaii, I’ve had  welding, the cabin torn out and put back in, new autopilot and major electrical improvements and just recently the new motor.
“When my wife I were first on this boat I had visions of blue blazers and white trousers.  I think she fancied a white pleated skirt and maybe a little white parasol to keep the sun off her face.   The closest we came to that was one day we accidently joined a line of yachts leaving the harbour, only to find ourselves in a sail by being  saluted by the Commodore and Wife of the Royal Yacht Club. My wife  had a streak of oil on her face and hair, oil stained t shirt and torn shorts.   I came up filthy with soot from damaged exhaust.. There were this immaculate elderly  couple on a pristine yacht saluting at us.  I just waved back with my wrench.  It’s always been more Captain Ron than James Bond on this boat. ”
“The last boat I was on, ‘  Karen said, “the Captain hovered about ready to wipe up anything anyone might spill on  his teak."
“Gilbert and I aren’t that particular”, I responded.
“I can see, I should have worn the shorts I paint in.”  Karen is a painter and jazz singer.  I found clean cushions though she didn’t really care.   She was all for helping me  with lines and any other task on the boat.  A real mariner.   She had wild tales of  all manner of friends boats off the eastern coast.
When we returned to dock my neighbour, another maritimer, was enchanted to talk to her. I couldn’t understand a word they said.  “My accent comes out when I”m close to the water, “ she said later. I could almost hear Stan Rogers  singing from the grave aand fiddles coming down from the heavenly spheres. Canadians wouldn’t need to get Navajo to speak in war, we just have to get a  couple of maritimers to talk over the radio and no one would know what they were saying.
It was another great Friday afternoon on the water.  Fun to be out of the city. The clouds had looked ominous in the morning but the afternoon was sunshine and blue sky. Great to partake of the spirituality of nature.
 

Vancouver summer -sailing, boat work and church

Sailing really is a part of Vancouver Summer. If not sailing then the glorious beaches.  It’s a port city and English Bay is one of the greatest protected harbours in the world.  The great freighters anchor there all the time.  Coal Harbour and False Creek are even more protected but many is the night I’ve anchored out in English Bay.
This Friday I was sailing there with a group of guys.  With all the boat repairs these last few years I’ve rarely felt comfortable with more than one or two all the boat.  Those who’d come out with me were no strangers to boat world and the finicky issues of scows and breakdowns.  But now that the hull and rudder, masts and rigging are restored, I’ve a new engine and a new genoa, I feel the boat is no longer one surprise after another.  The damage the boat took in ocean crossing and heavy wear is all repaired.
With the old engine on a couple of occasions the exhaust system failed and filled the cabin with smoke.  Not a pleasant experience for guests at all.  My sailboat is once again reliable. For me it’s always been safe and seaworthy but as a solo captain I could be fully engaged in such issues as roller furling jams or starter motor failures or bilge pump issues. Now I can actually trust the boat to not need me.  It was a delight to enjoy the ride and the company.   Fun to show people facts of nautical life and associate these with daily life. What’s true north and magnetic north?   Why two people winch better tailing than one alone.  The boat is a marvellous thing for seamanship but also extraordinarily experientially.  The sea and sky and mountains are all so inspiring and calming.
The Volvo Engine remains a joy.  Silent and clean running.  I love my Volvo D2 -40.  The Ray Marine autopilot got practically no use at all.  Jeffrey and John were more than capable helmsmen.  Then sailing, Carter and Tom with their small boat racing experiences got the maximum knots possible with the lightest of winds.  With my knot meter being replaced, Jeffrey found an Android app that gave the speed and heading off gps.  Next we were ‘racing’ in my old cruising vessel. The SV GIRI, old lady she is, was quite surprised with all the attention her tell tales were receiving, after my rather lazy sailing: point, set up the sails, put on the autopilot, drink coffee and correct course hours or days later.  Not these guys.  4.6 knots and finally 5 knots with only 12 knots of wind from the SE.  My boat doesn’t fly in light winds. It’s 13 tons with a full keel. But the new North Sail Genoa and the bottom freshly painted and all the attention to detail, well,  the GIRI  really  outperformed herself.
I’d got this magnificent lemon tart from East Vancouver Bakery on Hastings on the way to the boat.  It was devoured along with the ginger cookies and raspberry cookies.  I should have brought sandwiches but I was late and glad the bakery had the pie.  So soft drinks and carbs were all the crew were fed.  Together we suffered on tart, feared scurvy but somehow managed to survive.  There were no pirates and we lacked cannon subdue West Vancouver.  We did fish but only caught kelp.  I’d forgotten the fishing line but John heard the spool zinging out so we didn’t loose the tackle and did see we’d caught kelp.   No one was left behind. No one needed to walk the plank.  The cat of nine tails didn’t come out.  Gilbert utilized every crew member at some point to toss the tennis ball.  The sun was hot.   Vancouver is awesome for sailing.
We motored back under Lion’s Gate Bridge and across Coal harbour, stopping at Lonsdale to let folk off  before finally docking.
Tom stayed the night. Pizza is a terrific food requiring little preparation except making the request. Gilbert went back and forth between our beds not wanting to short change either of us on his doggie company.
Next day we worked together on the fine tuning boat electricals.  Rather Tom worked on  fixing the wind speed indicator and later the electrical outlet and radio.  I read Patrick O Brien.  Gilbert got Tom or I to toss the tennis ball. When a tool or extra hand was needed I shone.  The glyph was solved.   Tom had sorted through my offshore spare box and claimed all the new Yanmar parts for the old engine,  starters, alternators, water pumps, injectors, impellers and a mess of other parts I had as necessary back up. With the new Volvo and no plan to go offshore this year I certainly don’t need spare engine parts for another engine.  What was lacking through this process was music.  That did occasion my shaving and going out. The radio was dead.  Ralf’s Radio had a newer Clarion model which could be fit into the existing harness.
Armed with that, back at the boat, Tom installed the new radio.  I got the Chinese Food. Eating dinner we listened to Handel’s water music.  The boat hasn’t had tunes for over a year.  I don’t even know what I did to short out the old radio but the new one is spectacular.  It works. I have a wealth of songs on my I phone so we checked out the stereo with symphony, opera, Third Day, Steven Bell, Joni Mitchell, Fleetwood Mack, the Animals, Garth Brooks, Cohen, Lightfoot, Phish, Old Blind Dog,  Pink Floyd, just about anything that seemed like it would be a ‘test’ of the sound system.  The radio passed with flying colours.  I’d met our neighbours while I was putting together the Canadian Tire Deck Box and installing it by the boat.  When midnight came and we were still playing music loud on the new radio, I don’t know they were thinking as fondly of meeting me.
Meanwhile Joan Baez was singing at the Vancouver Folk Festival.  A friends wedding was going on in Surrey.  I’d wanted to go but Tom was able to work on the boat with me now. It’s not always possible to have a day where we can work together and with all the Yanmar parts , he was glad to solve electrical problems for me. I haven’t a clue when it comes to ‘instruments’  and electrical.  Too many moving parts!  Tom’s quite happy to go through the system with the voltmeter checking resistance and voltage. I quickly get confused and only do this in a pinch. It’s not something I feel comfortable with either, knowing I can blow an instrument worth hundreds of a dollars or a thousand or more not knowing what I’m doing.  Out in the ocean with no one but myself and a ham radio or phone I’ll do the work with an expert on the other end but at dock I’m really glad when someone like Tom knows his way around electrical systems.  Getting the main components of the  electrical systems working last week myself was  a real joy. I’d found a short and a breaker disconnected but I’d also been lucky.  Tom’s approach is more systematic and knowledgeable.
I’d actually planned to be sailing to Nanaimo for the weekend but with the rain and Tom’s offer to help first with getting rid of the Yanmar parts and with doing the electrical work in exchange, well, it was a done deal. I was tired too in the morning too. I’d not been winching sails or living on the lean for sometime and all the use of the unused muscle groups had me happy to do little but assist.  I couldn’t believe Tom when monkey like he ran up the mast. I really don’t like climbing up my mast, but pilot that he is, he thought nothing of it.  Fixing the antennae off the Oregon Coast after a hurricane  solo sailing has somehow put me off to being at the top of the mast. I’ll do it. I’ve done it, more times than I remember, but it’s not something I would have done that day. But Tom had to check out the wind indicator and I downloaded the specs off the Raymarine website and that’s how he found that a wire had been misplaced.  Voila! The wind speed indicator suddenly sprang to life.
Today we made it to church. I say I’m pretty much a winter and spring Christian because in the summer I’m sailing any weekend I can and in the fall I’m away hunting any weekend I can.  Father Mark Greenaway Robbins was happy to see me.  Knowing I’d been out sailing, he says, he’s sure I know what I’m doing but “I pray for Gilbert.’     Gilbert is much loved at the church and everyone was glad to see him. I missed the church family and was glad to see everyone. AJ and Kevin and the kids look so great.   There’s now at least a a dozen or more folk  I feel close to just coming to church, going for coffee and visiting.
There’s a church picnic next week.  If I wasn’t planning on sailing I’d love to go to that.  It’s at the Sea Farer Mission and I love the work they do.  Father Mathew works with the men in the Down Town Eastside around St. James. The Sea Farer Mission works with all the Christians, mostly men,  that usually come to Vancouver on the working boats.  A lot of men away from home for long periods. I was given a prayer poster  with a picture of a young man at helm when I attended the Sea Farer Mission years ago. It accompanied my ocean crossings and was dear to me. In the back ground there’s a picture of rough seas and Jesus.  I just had it framed as it was getting so torn and worn. Tom put it up on the wall in the boat this weekend. Nothing is coincidence.
I did reports last weekend and answered emergency calls all weekend. This weekend I decided against doing reports and only had a few emergency calls.  With Mabel in the office, the anxiety of changing staff is mostly over.  Summer usually is a less demanding time of work though it’s never easy.  Early spring is the roughest time and compared to that this is light duty. The sun makes all the difference. Everyone is outside and exercising more and there’s just less gloom.
I’ve come from a swim and hot tub.  Mida fixed up the boat and my home. She put out pillows with sparkling bling on them. They brightened up the cabin and were a great choice. All the guys and me were thankful for the ‘woman’s touch’ but this was a particularly ‘eastern’ touch.  It really gave the boat a touch of the exotic.  A poll concluded that none of the guys would have thought to buy pillows with sparkling bling on them but all of us enjoyed the effect.
They’re fighting in the Ukraine and Middle East.  Gilbert thinks someone should introduce them to yellow tennis balls.  I think that life is just too full and precious with surviving and maintenance and getting along that I certainly wouldn’t want to have to deal with missiles falling in the backyard or planes being knocked out of the sky.  Two Malaysian airplanes down and whose to say it was the Ukrainians and Russians and not some group that has it out for the Malaysian airline.  Having just been flying around the world back from Russia I’m glad to be alive.  I was in Kuala Lampur last year and it’s not some ‘third world place’.  It’s as modern as New York. A great modern city so what’s happened to the air craft could happen here to Air Canada. There but for the Grace of God go I.
A weekend to be thankful for.  I’m truly blessed,  I just have to hold that thought. I’m looking forward to getting the guys out sailing again.  I’m planning on taking others out who want to go sailing too.  I’ll balance it with solo sailing since given my work and life it’s sometimes just necessary to be alone. Solo sailing is then at times like medicine.  This though was about camaraderie and sharing the joy of sailing together in the glorious English Bay on a sunny summer day.

Canada Day

I’ve grown up singing O’Canada. I’ve been proud to sing God Saves the Queen too.  My dad was RCAF. I was proud he served his country. I’ve been a doctor and as a Canadian served in the north. When I sum up my career I simply say, “I worked in the areas of greatest need.”  Others did too.  Canadians aren’t individual grand standers. Hockey is our game because we believe in the team. There’s hierarchy but also individuality.
Wilderness is important to me. It’s part of what is Canadian.  We have ocean and acts of heroism by adventurers, fisherman and navy on either shore. We have the north.  Then there’s the south.  The Americans don’t like to remember it. I doubt it’s in their history books. But Canadians love to remember when we ‘whooped american ass.’  We pushed them back when they tried to invade. Now we love them as our neighbours. We were a Christian country and the majority still is. Love your enemy is something we take seriously. We work with those who try to hurt us.  We believe more in reformation than revenge. Of course we’ve had Britain and now the US doing the heavy lifting. But we’ve served too.  We are Canadians.
There are fireworks in the distance.  l like that so many participate in this day. I’m reading Colonel Hadfield’s book right now. He’s Canadian. So are Bare Naked Ladies.  We’ve got Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Margaret Lawrence.  We’ve even got Captain Kirk.  There’s Emily Carr and the Group of Seven, Glen Gould and Steppenwolf.  So many Canadians are the stuff of the Guess Who and the best of the culture and science and ideas of CBC.  We’re a railway from sea to sea.  We’re a great nation. We’re all about us and we care for the world. We’re green and we have water and energy and ideas. We share and we profit. We’ve taken immigrants and refugees.  We’ve done more for our aboriginals than any people in the world has done for theirs.  We learn together.  We are better each day.
I woke this morning. I slept in late.  I had two cups of coffee on a deck chair, throwing a ball for my cockapoo while reading Jackie Pullingers’ Chasing the Dragon.  Much to my surprise I got showered and shaved and onto my Harley motorcycle.  Gilbert rode in his little box behind me. We played Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to be Free” loud.  I drove us to the boatyard where my sailboat GIRI is up on the hard. The sun was hot and the sky was a beautiful blue.  Not too many clouds at that time.  Later they were a tapestry. I drilled holes in the steel of the zinc straps and mounted these last two to the steel hull.
Then Gilbert and I drove over to the docks where my fast hard bottomed zodiac with 20 hp outboard is chained.  We took her out for a spin.  It was hard getting up on the plane.  I beached her and cleaned barnacles that had attached to the sides since last I had her out only a few weeks back. Major growth in spring.  Gilbert kibitzed ashore with a poodle while I, in the ocean, used a paddle to scrape away the barnacles.  I’ll use a bottom paint on my dinghy when I take her out next.  Gilbert, with his lifejacket on, joined me, reluctantly, when I called him away from play.  Back in the boat, I pushed off the shore, started the engine, then gunned her onto the plane. Much better.
We drove out to English Bay. The water was rough. It was already 5 pm. I’d thought of anchoring off Spanish Banks and going for a swim but instead buzzed by George’s pink palace to take a picture and text it to him.  Then I drove back along the north shore seawall enjoying seeing all the people out on the beach. Lots of boats out in English Bay too. Fishing boats, sailboats, pleasure craft. Others just like me going for a spin.
I used up a tank of gas and had to refuel out in Coal Harbour off Lonsdale Quay.  Then back at the dock I unloaded Gilbert and tied up the boat.
Back home I had BC Wild salmon and watched Robocop.  What a great day.  Canada Day.  Deck chair, boat work, a ride on the motorcycle and a spin on the water. Blue sky and sunshine.  Out with my friend Gilbert. I wouldn’t want to be anything but Canadian and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here.  The day had started too with a picture of Eva, Gilbert’s girlfriend, my nephew Allan’s cockapoo.  My nephew Graeme, had taken her picture with a Canada Day scarf and sent it to me.
 

Sylvia Hotel, English Bay and Stanley Park

Sylvia Hotel hospitality was great for another night. Room service brought Gilbert a well done burger and me steak.  I slept through the night and at 7 am woke up normally.
I don't like my stuffy nose and sore throat but with rest and relaxation it's not getting worse. I reflect that even royalty share ailments so I'm suffering along with the billionaires and impoverished.  All one really wants is chicken soup and a bed.
This morning I took Gilbert for a walk on the beach early, surprised by all the activity. Joggers galore. Individuals and groups.  Dog walkers I expected but not so many.  It wasn't even 8 am.  I'd figured on just walking Gilbert as long as he needed but then the fresh air and activity had me continuing on to Stanley Park, only a couple of blocks from the Sylvia.
Gilbert and I walked over to Lost Lagoon, seeing Second Beach and the huge heron nests in the trees.  Black squirrels and a variety of birds visited along the way.  The trails in Stanley Park are amazing.  I even saw a huge owl being pestered by crows.  Were it not for the fuss the crows were making I might not have seen the owl.
Back in the Sylvia, we called room service.   I've had the English Breakfast with eggs, sausages and pancakes. Gilbert had a side of sausages. Now I'm drinking coffee watching Cat in a Hat.  One has to be seriously unwell to watch talking fish and wise guy cats. Gilbert is sleeping on the bed. In the movie, the cleaning lady is being used to weight down the crate while the kids and cat go off looking for the dog.  I confess I like the colours and visuals.  No doubt my friends with children have had their brains programmed by such.  This explains a lot.