Waterlogged

Greig's new ride

2009-07-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

Greig has a new ride. With the rationale of "How can I live on the water and not have a boat that runs?" It would be like denying the man cheeseburgers. The Hari Mai was running but the Grey marine has some issues and the repair is going to take some time to source out bits and parts. It is a situation that just wouldn't do.

The tentative name is the Indigo Streak, because well he's an Indigo and there is that big blue streak down it's side. I think Indigo Dreamer is more fitting but its not my decision.

We went up the river for a toot the other night. We saw some boats too.

Oh and these are a bit out of order but for the most part that is irrelevant.

This is the New Westminster Quay. I understood it was undergoing renovations and was closed but according to their web site it is open. There has been an attempt to make it like Granville Island for years and because it is privately owned it has failed. New Westminster is an older community in the Lower Mainland and home to a ton of old Victorian styled houses. For many years they've had problems with crime and drugs down on Columbia Street but it is slowly getting re-gentrified. There is a railroad track that runs along here and a large expanse of tiered parking lots and it just looks horrible. The City keep selling its "on the river-ness" but it is otherwise anti-pleasure boats and until they actually do something about prettying it up it's still a bit of a sow's ear. It is here where the Fraser splits between the North arm and the south so it isn't like there is no marine traffic, albeit it is mostly commercial.

The Profiler II belongs to the Federal Government and does the soundings of the river bottom. Our friend Josko is (or one of) it's captain.

This is the MV Edgewater Fortune. And according to this page on Wikipedia a Bay minesweeper built for the Canadian Navy in 1952.

Tug Island Commander which I've never seen underway but that doesn't mean it still isn't operational.

This is the historic tug the Sea Lion. It used to be down at Kitsilano Point at the Vancouver Maritime Museum but I noticed it moved out of there a year or so ago. Here is the museum's blurb on the vessel as it was a significant vessel on the coast at one time and involved in the Komagata Maru incident.

Various Tugs

Cool...floating shack with its own tennis court out front.

wee projects

2009-07-06T14:53:00.001-07:00

A few wee things going on of late. I lucked out in having two glorious weeks of weather at the beginning of June as I decided to take two weeks vacation. Since I couldn't afford to leave town, my folks came to visit. I LOVE this when that happens 'cos my dad likes to be useful and I usually have plenty of things lined up for him to help me with.

First, out went my broken dishwasher. It gave up the ghost shortly before leaving Mitchell Island last year and I was only using it to store the metal chaffing dishes in the top left corner. Yes, a clear violation of efficient use of space, but I needed my "Round Tuit" to come back into town to assist such an endeavour. I suppose I could have perused the Craiglist in search of a new-to-me dishwasher or gone to see our guy Len as he's got the barn full of stuff and probably a dishwasher he's keen to sell too. (More on him in another post).

Besides, isn't that why one has kids around but for doing the dishes? Bah...storage space makes my toes curl more than the idea of a new dishwasher. I just have to make a curtain to go over it to keep the dust out.

Of course I am coveting the idea of one day getting new cabinets for these are thrashed and in need of replacement.

And falling under the category of a Tana-happy-project is this funky torchiere lamp that I picked up at an antique store in New Westminster. I paid $10 which cleaned up one can find ugly ones for around $175 minimum. But it is destined for my office at work when it gets done. I've been stripping down the metal and it is a mix of brass and pot metal so some of it will get re-painted and I will just polish up the rest of the brass.

It takes one of those Fat Albert bulbs in the top. Those tend to be pricier than regular bulbs but I like the tri-light functionality. Popping the three light part off turned out easier than expected and you can see the durn thing doesn't work too.

Yup, that grotty wire is going and I will replace it with proper insulated stuff. Here is a project Dad would have loved to help with but they skipped out too early for me to add this to his list. That's OK, I'd just as soon do it me-self.

In my "infinite" brilliance however I took apart one of the lights too "joyously in my journey of discovery" when I should have just left it as is. I lost a fine screw when it fell of my work bench, between the boards in the floor and into the river underneath. I have an alternate screw but I'll have to grind off the business end for it is a wee bit longer than the one I lost. Sigh.

And here are some wee babies. Yup, I think these are the same batch of swans Rhianna saw as there are eight babies here too. Mama swan gave me a wee nip in the upper arm when she thought I was getting too close to her babies.

And it was finally wee skiffy's turn for a buff and polish. Greig thought it should be renamed and put out the call for new names but nobody came up with anything more brillant than the name it has already. I think wee skiffy has been with us now some four years. It didn't come with that arch and some time ago Greig had Wei Tang weld it on for us over at Mitchell but getting round to painting it never came to fruition. I felt we were always going to call it wee skiffy and that it should be kept. And so I won.

There is a pile of sand leftover from the hydro installation so when the innards of the boat was still tacky I had Greig get a bucket of sand from the pile and we scattered it onto the wet paint for anti-slip. Oh yes the fancy boatyards like Arrow use crushed glass for that function but we aren't at all fancy down here on the Fraser river Bayou. Just regular dirt please. A second coat made it all really purdy...I printed out and made a stencil for the name on the bow and...

And speaking of purdy don't Miss Stacey (she is mama to Payton, Dyllon and Denis Jr.) look grand in the new life jacket? We lost a bunch when the Goblin sank last winter during last winter's Cold Snap from Hell. Still need more. They are on the list.

And away they go!

Fresh cruising season

2009-06-07T16:22:00.000-07:00

A week or so ago had us getting back into the charter season groove on Eloquent. It was a glorious, but windy day and a wee bit bouncy on the chuck. I think the first cruise was a burial at sea or some such thing. The last burial we did a few weeks previously had the family members all screaming at each other. Thankfully only English Bay that was dramatic that day.

Alas it was so windy my voice on the recording is totally lost. Bah, I probably wasn't really saying anything of significance anyway. But I think you can see from the rise and fall of the railing an idea of the swell height. Nobody barfed. Three stars!

And as we were leaving the dock on the first cruise we saw a few notable things. The first boat is the Lazy Gal and every time Greig sees it he practically drools. He HEARTS that boat large. I do believe it is a Chris-Craft. And soon after a Monk cruised by. It was really the first nice day we've had here in the city after such a long wet spring and it was a bit busy.

We came out of our docks at False Creek and went round Stanley Park (click here to see a Map of Stanley Park) into Coal Harbour. HRH Prince Edward just was in town doing a dedication. (I'd post the link but it doesn't seem to be working yet.)

Just taking his snake for a wee bit of exercise

2009-06-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

On Monday, when everyone else was sick from the heat, we had a gem of an opportunity to do some family fun. Bui had a professional day and was off from school as did Dosha. This rarely happens that we are all off together. Neither Greig, Bui or I had been to Buntzen Lake and so I decided we had to go for the afternoon to see what it was like. I knew that it would have been stupid busy on the previous day for many folk from Coquitlam, Burnaby and Port Moody go up there and it is crazy on weekend.

Bui and Dosha were playing catch just at the water's edge and suddenly screamed when she got started by this fellow taking his snake for a bit of exercise. Funny though as she says she likes the critters but she caught the attention of everyone on the beach when she yelped.

"Gee," laughed Greig, "I actually never thought I'd see the day to witness my daughter walk on water!"

At first I didn't notice that there was only the one snake but there was another up by his neck.

What we found particularly funny is that off to the right of this photo is a partitioned part for people and there dogs. An otherwise lovely thing for not the constant barking of one dog all afternoon. I was amazed at how many on the beach were offended by this fellow out with his snakes. They were quite under control and came to him when he called to them. Best of all they didn't bark either. Funny that.

Off with the tarp!

2009-06-04T11:06:00.001-07:00

Denis Jr, and his gal pal Rowan prepping the wood for Denis Sr.

We've been waiting for a good bout of weather to rip off the tarp and go hard on the roof. Seems like I took my first batch of vacation at a good time too for the weather is screaming hot (breaking records of 41C in the Fraser Valley. Alas the first day off roofing was about 33C and we were so unused to it that the next day had everyone hurting from heat/sunstroke. Well almost everyone as it seems I managed to escape it. Fortunately, the proceeding day gave Denis Sr a breeze so it made all that all so much more tolerable.

Here Denis Jr. and his mum Stacey work on finishing off the sheeting. It has been
partially done since April of last year as Greig started this a week or
two before we did the haul out.

Plastic sheeting covering the bed and Denis Sr. raised the skylite so it can
be removed when we feel like doing so.

I've lived under tarps of various storts for some six years. Once lived for a bit without one but that didn't last very long. I've had a tarp on the floatie for pretty much as soon as we got it for it leaked so bad. I don't know what it is like to not have one on it. Turns out, it is pretty bright.

Greig looking at the beautiful roof and thankful he's not
doing it.Those redhead's can't take the heat very well.

Here Miss Rowan and Stacey take a break on the back of the Express to
do Stacey's hair. A wee bit of roofin' and some hair-doo-in' in between...

It is almost done. Denis Sr. is putting down the last bit of middle as I write and I'll post the finals when it is all done. It looks beautiful and we've added a hatch to get up onto the roof so we won't have to get onto it from the back. I think that I will put down a floating deck so we can put a few chairs up there for it is a primo tanning spot. We have to suss out a proper drip edge for around the front as we've got a slight curve to it all. To have it done for that width would cost more than all the roll on put together. I think we can come up with an alternative that is far cheaper.

Spring and summer do list

2009-05-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

(I have been trying to write this post for about a week now. I thought I would try using newest version of MS Word and try directly publishing from it into Blogger but it didn't work and made a hell of a mess in the back end code. Furthermore it wouldn't publish. Not very impressed Mr. Bill.)

I am a gardener's daughter. Spring comes and I get the itch to dig. Not as bad as my dad does but I do know I come by this urge naturally. Some of the contained plants have survived and some not. The nettle is growing amok in the pots and it has no intentions of waiting for me.

I had great ambitions of growing some hanging tomatoes (not cherry ones, something a bit bigger) and the topsy-turvey bags look a bit stupid to me. Plus there had been a re-call on the things. A cheap and cheerful old pail will work just as well and is certainly more substantial. My ambition got ahead of me and I curtailed myself a bit when I thought of WHERE I would hang then and realized I'd have to ask my landlord about that too. And while he didn't say, "No" to my green intentions, his suggestion for an alternate location had potentially too much work when I've already enough.

And I wondered why it is that I set myself up? I have all these THINGS I want to do and then I complain about not having enough time for other stuff and the plain and simple truth is I just take on too much. It is actually more of a priority to fix the things on my float house this year than it is to ensure I have a nice yield of tomatoes. Besides, there is always next year.

In the meantime, the needs of the float house scream at me a I've got a rather ambitious list to tackle.

Here is the slide show instead.

Muddy Waters, redux

2009-04-28T09:56:00.001-07:00

The freshet is running again and Brian Lewis in today's Vancouver Province Newspaper had another article about dredging of the lower Fraser River. Of course they always talk about the main channel from the Surrey/Delta docks and it is all the other channels they neglect. There other stakeholders along the mighty expanse of the Fraser and they too are at risk. It is Buck Passing 101.

"He also says the lack of secondary channel-dredging is reaching the point where it's about to impact tourism -- especially Delta's emerging plans to redevelop Ladner Harbour as a major tourist destination. "

"They want to make it attractive, with shops, parks and picnic sites. But the fact is that a Fraser River mud bank is not something that's attractive for tourists to look at."

Ladner, New Westminster, Richmond are only a few of the communities affected by it all though they are the most downstream of it all. Oops and Vancouver too...

Why oh why does it take having to swing the tourism bat for anyone to take it seriously? Stakeholders all along the river have been jumping up and down for years about this. It seems easier for the Port Authority to go picking on individual lease holders to make this right without having to do their part in any of it. It is my observation that it loves to sling the mud it refuses to take responsibility for.

Anyhow we will see how this run off will effect us for we're new in this spot. I tell you though I certainly don't have to contend with the logs that we used to at Mitchell and I don't miss that one bit.

Maybe they'll surprise me.

Floating around in the gyre

2009-04-27T08:45:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago, I adopted my cat Tobias from my friend Sparrow who, forty-something and single with a grown child, decided to go walkabout. Her family is Hungarian (though she was born in Canada) and thus, that was her first destination. She has since made her way back to North America by way of Italy, the Caribbean, and now hangs her hat at the Pidgeon Point Lighthouse Hostel where she currently works. Yes she's indeed a bit of a gypsy. She's been making it in the news lately for her discovery of a rig worker's hard hat that wound up on the beach near the lighthouse. She managed to track the owner of the hard hat down too and is getting some 15 minutes of fame from it. The Anchorage Daily News published this, and CBS Morning news has been calling her too.

I had never heard of the Pacific Subarctic Gyre, and this is a pretty neat map to what that looks like too.

Kitchen Chemistry 101

2009-04-22T08:57:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to Sir Seb of the Wendy Ann II for his simple way to clean portholes, I've been putting his method to work in a solution of cola and vinegar for a week or so. Of course they say the real thing is the bomb for cleaning anything that way but I was filling up a garbage bin so I opted for the cheaper no-name variety. He soaked his for a month or so but I don't think it will need to take so long really. And I twelve or so portholes to clean-up to mount into new construction.

These came from the Bowie as we had taken them out before selling it at the end of the summer as they were starting to get ripped off by the crackheads and others over there. At the time it was best to remove them for at least we'd keep them as intact as possible, the provenance. notwithstanding, they could at least go from one WWII subchaser to another WWII subchaser. We had negotiated to return them in the sale pending that the new owner would return a few other things off the Bowie but he failed in his end of the bargain. (Of course we should have known we had yet another wanker on our hands. Did I mention that we found out much after that he was was a convicted pedofile? Yup. Really, how could we have known as we were so glad to just get OUT of there. Honestly, I couldn't dream this crap up if I tried.)

I've had stored them away in safe local and I dragged out a couple of parts the other day to finally have a go at them.

Here I started to chisel away at the old double-thicknesses of ply
before having the where-with-all to photograph.
Oh, and can I have a "YEA baby!" the new workbench?

I wanted to show just how thick that old Bowie ply was!
A double layer of REAL 1" thick. Seems true 1" ply you get these days is shy of a true inch.
Apologies for the overexposure as it was hard to photograph with the left and
hold the ruler with the right.

Cola and vinegar smells just de-lovely, and these were covered
in paint the day before.

These letters spell out Eloquent, the main charter vessel Greig CDs and engineers on and so I threw them into the sauce too. There are two sets of brass letters.
Oh how I love typography!

Here is a view after chipping away for two hours. This one is too big to put in the garbage bin though I had parts of it in a Rubbermaid bin which it stretched all to heck and I could only get a quarter of is soaking at a time.

The screws into it of course are flatheads and covered in paint. (I'd like to change those to Robertsons if I can find them to match). This is one of the larger portholes. Attempting to get a good turn on these is impossible for me as the metal is so soft and you can easily wreck the screw head. I think the sauce was doing a good job of delaminating the ply in what bits I was able to submerge. I figure I was making pretty OK time with all of it. I do enjoy picky chores like this for I putter and get in a meditative zone. Greig is dreaming up of a faster way to do all this. I had also considered doing slices through the ply with the sawzall blade and then chiselling the ply away. However, I couldn't figure out how to put a shorter blade in the sawzall as the one on it was 14" long and a recipe for me to slice off my hand.

I've been nursing a bad thumb for almost lobbing off the end off it with a mandoline cutting prosciutto and as it turns out, thumb. I had visions of another visit to the Royal Columbia emergency given my luck. There has been too much of that too lately I think they are getting far to familiar with us.

Shelter, skelter

2009-04-09T12:01:00.000-07:00

I was kind of surprised it took so long for the real estate bubble to burst. A couple of years ago I used to read a blog called van-housing here on Blogger. I quit reading it for a while and a while back discovered it was now only for "invited readers." I am not so interested it anymore that I feel I need to find a way to be invited. I quit reading as it all kind of became a bit repetitious and I no longer garnered any pearls of wisdom from it. That must have been about four years ago I think and I was just starting Waterlogged. The housing issue was somewhat concurrent subject for me and still is. They were trumpeting the bad loans Freddie and Fannie were lending out and how sooner than later it would all come crashing down. And so it did.

Gee. Surpise.

A few weeks ago I came across an article on the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. Click on the photo will also take you to the his web site. I think I originally found it on Treehugger or the NY Times.
But whatever. Somewhere houses got stupid big and prices out of control too. I keep hearing about million dollar homes (pool, tennis courts, four-car garages) that are going stupid cheap too ($100-200k). And in this article of a of a couple of artists in Detroit going into rather dodgy and falling down neighbourhoods and picking up shacks for $100. Bravo to them I say. Where they are starting others will follow. They will clean up the neighbourhood and build a community. (Of course one day, the prices will go up again and the gentrification will follow and the artists will get pushed out for that is the circle of things isn't it?)

But let us get back to Jay Shafer and his tiny houses and living small. (Yes, I am adding a link on the non-boat blogroll). For when I click on his larger house plans I think of the Floatie and it's hull is about 52' by 20 feet (1040 sq feet). I haven't actually measured the footprint of the log house itself but I figure with the main floor and the loft I've about 700 square feet. Heck, maybe it is more but now I am curious so I will measure it later.

He's got plans of about that size at up to 837 square feet and of a foot print of 24' x 16' and three bedrooms. Well granted it is small but I think they are splendid anyway. I see new home builds all over the Lower mainland and they are still building huge houses that pretty much take up the entire lot and all homes it seems have a basement suite which they rent out to help with the mortgage.

Around these parts the land is often more valuble than whatever is sitting on it. Still as much as I may bitch about living on a boat, it is not so much as the lifestyle as it is the amount of boats we have that I chafe against. I just don't want to be responsible for what I perceive as more than enough. I keep pushing for a simplicty that seems a bit beyond the grasp. But we are now down to three so I guess I am leading the curve? Heck living in a small space forces one to keep on top of things and cull the stuff on a regular basis. Heck it is all I can do to clean up after myself let alone anyone else. I make a for lousy minimalist even though I try to be. Still it all forces one to at least try.

Hey Matt, any chances of slapping one of these puppies up in the rents/or in-outlaws' back forty? I think I could convice mine if I smiled sweetly enough to let my folks put up one of these in the lower forty. Of course if it was on wheels would totally OK for my Pa as long as his property taxes wouldn't necessarily increase. A "non-permanent structure," in the eyes of the tax assessor would probably be a make it a go.

Poor old Dos Amores

2009-04-01T09:47:00.000-07:00

Another guster hit the coast yesterday with winds up to 70 km/h. Here is a photo of the Dos Amores on Sunset Beach just at the entrance into Granville Island. That is the Coast Guard hive behind in the back ground. I think this is a beautiful shot. I thought they had taken all its sails off last fall. Ah well, they were thrashed anyway. I snagged this out of the Vancover Province newspaper as I discovered it on page A4 this morning. (Photograph by Gerry Kahrmann of the Province.)

The Dos Amore ran around at the entrance to False Creek. Apparently Coast Guard had it under tow at some point but lost their grip and it wound up on the beach. It went a ground in the fall too. Alas we don't own it anymore but when something does happen they call Greig.

Its new owner, one of the many "Ken's" in our life, was planning on taking down to Point Roberts, WA, to do renovations. Of course he keeps turning to Greig for help on such matters. It had a heck of an accumulation of marine growth and the $800 tag for a haul out seemed too expensive to undertake a few weeks ago. Greig suggested Ken send a diver down with a shovel. Well, Ken took a shovel to the growth whist it was on the beach yesterday and managed to get most of it cleaned off. Cross that item off the list! Greig is a bit sad to have lost that anchoring buoy out in the bay for it was a handy thing to have there especially during the Celebration of Light.

I think though, it will be coming up to Sather. When the Sea Ferring goes in the next few days there should be room for it as there now.

Ken got it foated on the next tide and Greig took off late last night to help him secure it temporarily in the Creek, (aka False Creek.) It was way too windy to even think about bringing it up the river last night. Greig had been working but they cancelled all water taxi runs due to the weather. He started his evening off to go take one of the boats for a fuel run and the swells out coming out of the Creek were so big that the wind was lifting up on the bow as he was cresting over the wave. He turned it around and came home, sans fuel. I guess even some of the tankers out in the

Well that is two for two for the last 24. Any bets on what three will be?

Minor disasters 101

2009-03-31T16:52:00.000-07:00

I was about two blocks away from the marina when I got the call that Glen's boat (name unknown) that it was leaning over against the bow of the Express. He tells me it was one of the first diesel passenger vessels on the coast.

It has been here for some time. At 90' is 20' less than the Express. Ken has wanted it gone from here for some time for it sits betwixt his lease and the neighbours.

We had an exceptionally low tide yesterday which are expected all week. Thus, Espresso, as the girls call it, listed and fell over. You can see in this first pic the aluminum roof laying on the deck of the Express.

With a huge groan a racket it tipped over further and the Glenn's wheelhouse fell off completely.

Oh I felt just terrible for him! For in spite of its appearance he says it actually was running. It's a big straight eight Gardner. Additionally, I noticed he's got a Lister genset too and a whole bunch of mahogany, oak and cedar that I wanted to help him salvage last night. If only to throw up on the bow of the Express if just to keep it all from floating away on him. But he was so surprised that it actually tipped over that he was in quite a bit of shock.

Plus the rain started to pour on hard as the early evening wore on and as the tide came in to cover it. Greig got coverage for his water taxi shift and they went out to pick up a trash pump for it.

So by this afternoon he had it well in hand and pumped out and a big bunch of clean up to do. Funny that as when we moved the Express in we wanted to have our bow on the inside of him but he wasn't terribly keen to cooperate. Think he may have changed his mind now.

He's got a bit of a disaster on his hands to be sure. That said, I am moreover pleased for Glen that he's been able to pump this out himself for there was no way in hell I was going to let the bottom feeder that "happened" to sneek into the property yesterday, take advantage of Glen's misfortune. He's caused enough misery for enough people and so I took great satisfaction at throwing his backside off the property. The New Westminster Police constable on scene and I had a good chuckle over it too. (Rob, I was really wishing I had a few dumpster loads of carnivore manure to drive my point home to this person!)

Well it always seems to be this. Just when you think you'll have a moment of peace to do this thing or that, some minor disaster lurks just around the corner to throw a spanner into your plans.

Some technology I can do without

2009-03-30T14:05:00.000-07:00

For those of you who chose to Twitter take no offense but I am just not going to Twitter.

Ever.

Notwithstanding this hilarious video I have jacked from Leap's blog and it is reason enough for me to not be a Twit.

I am doing even less of all that on Crackbook these days. Really I am easy to find and if people really wanna know they can call, e-mail or comment here.

Go ahead. Say something nice. And who the heck are you and why are you here?

And now there are three

2009-03-24T22:25:00.000-07:00

At our peak we had six vessels and now we are down to three. We sold the Sea Ferring on the weekend and I have somewhat mixed feelings.

Recently we'd done such a good amount of work inside that I wanted to see it finished. However, our wants and needs have changed and we've been trying to pare down for sometime. At 72' it is a heavy beast and the responsibility for all these vessels has always weighed heavy on me. One or two are fine but I have other interests and find so much of this lifestyle puts the boat, or in our case boats and ships, in the forefront. Wee me was lower on the priority list. I felt a tremendous sense of relief when we sold the Bowie last fall and it was a step in the right direction. I had hoped it would have been a bit easier at the new locale and in many ways it beats the old one in spades. However, the winter and the whole shore power stupidity really took a toll on us. I was beginning to have my doubts that old habits and expectations would rear its ugly head at me again.

Really, if I wanted to be a social worker I'd have gone to school for it. So why choose it as a lifestyle choice? I suppose I wanted to be the supportive girlfriend and things snowballed so much. Boy though, is it ever hard to extricate oneself from such a role try as one might.

It isn't going far, just up the river a bit. The reality is the bigger they are the harder they are to sell...or give away even, especially given the current economy. It is $400 a month moorage that we don't have to spend or improve upon and moreover, to be responsible for. That someone bought it AND they are taking it away?

Ding, ding, ding!

A door ajar

2009-03-18T07:26:00.000-07:00

Lately there has been a wee mystery. I keep going into the bathroom and finding the shower door ajar. It's odd for you can close it an it latches with a friction fit just fine. I like to keep it closed because if a boat does go by, I fear it swinging back and smashing up against the side of the toilet.I thought with all the kids here they were just forgetting to close it but I can't blame them. It isn't so much of a worry now but potentially will be when warmer weather brings more boat action in the neighbourhood. I fear it smashed and glassy bits all over the floor.

Tobias, aka "kitty PLUS," whom I adopted from my friend Sparrow when she went AWOL to Hungary, is the culprit. Seemingly a bruiser weighing in at 15lbs, he's a lousy mouser with a wonderful disposition. The vet only thinks he's a pound or two overweight but otherwise not really "fat." He's a pretty chill cat that has a tiny squeeky voice and he likes to body slam you and get his butt slapped hard. I mean really hard. Who know big Toms loved that?

Please excuse me while I pick my backside up off the floor...

2009-03-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

Crazy Jack emailed me that he just got married...and they are pregnant. Which normally would be not that shocking but Jack is some 74 years of age and has several grown children already who are in their late 20's and early 30's too.

His email to me:

we got married on valentine's day
got pot
got rum
got vodka
got borshcz
got coffee and tea
got pregnant
now, bloody honeymoon is over and got to get to work, buy a land, house,
red truck
do you guys feel like coffee or something on st patrick's?

elena still has a condo on 821 cambie, # 708, corner of robson till april

but we are packing for a gig out of town, marina or fishing lodge or a ship
and i am giving my notice at the end of the month.
mike, the movie maker is now a vancouver cop.
mark has signed a tour with NO HORSES across caNADA AND us.
PLS advise when safe to visit, snow and power outlook still looks bleak in new west.

shalom
jack & Elena 1

Now Jack came to live with us on the Bowie and to say he was a character was an UNDERSTATEMENT. I actually found him rather disgusting at first but he grew on me. He was a pain in the ass but still Greig and I grew fond of the silly bugger. He's a civil engineer, major bullshit artist, polish, chain-smokin' coffee drinking...a plethora of health problems. He once had called for an ambulance and when the lads came to take care of him, asked them for a cup of coffee. Of course, that request quickly prompted the crew to leave.

Jack is the kind of crazy that just starts talking to you about stuff out of the blue and often completely out of context so you always found yourself shaking your head trying to understand what the heck exactly he was on about. Usually it took a moment or two to catch up to speed. He did this intentionally to see what kind of a rise he could get out of you. I think it was to give the impression he was crazy but he was really anything but. I am convinced that for him it was sport to get his digs into some of the guys around there. Much of it on the lesser intelligent ones, hell even the more intelligent one would get so apoplectic! He'd have me howling with laughter sometimes. Did I say he kinda looked like death most of the time? Like some kind of Transylvania grim reaper with a Cheshire cat grin. ~~I actually have a photo of him somewhere lounging on the hood or roof of a hearse. I'll have to dig that out.~~ FOUND IT!

Now the funny thing in all of that when my Mother met him, she LOVED him. He had this deep, smoky eastern European accent and if I ever saw my mother swoon at the sound of a man's voice I am sure she did that the first time she met him. She's so easily swayed...

Jack could stir the pot easily with the other tenants as he was rather set in his ways. He and Evil Mark would have screaming matches over the state of the galley and well, pick anything. Mark once threw a stapler at his head and smeared butter over the doorknob to the his bedroom. Really, it was rather infantile but such was the nature of communal living. Though from what we've experienced, nobody really does that particularly well.

Well then, I suppose it is time for a cocktail party for the happy couple. Wonder if I could get anyone to come...

Spanky new salon walls

2009-03-05T07:08:00.000-08:00

Well it has begun to look like a salon again! Here are some mid-progress pictures of the salon on the Sea Ferring. The exterior walkways that used to go down either side have been eliminated and made for more room. There were side windows that we couldn't salvage, but anyone who ever lived in there covered them up anyway so apparently these were redundant.

Also too, there was lovely cabinetry and storage is gone for the time being. We can build more for there at some point but for now this will do. The sky light has been elevated and in the photo directly below and to the right of that speaker was the nasty spot that was constantly leaking and wet. We've made allowances to put in another couple of sky lights if need be but I would like to put some recessed lighting in the ceiling in the next few months.

Ah it smells so much better in there now. Above the garbage can in the ceiling there is a small hole that leads to the upstairs area of the entrance, galley and bathroom. We are going to make that hole just a bit bigger and put in a fan to move the air about. I think a simple bathroom fan will suffice.

Here is a merged photo of the salon looking forward. Yes, I know it is a bad photo-stitching job but you get the idea which is moreover, the point. Behind the plastic in the doorway is a substantial sized v-berth and we are going to put two bunks in there with below bed storage, plus another ladder for a secondary escape hatch from below decks. That woodstove gets it cooking in there in nothing flat. Behind it Denis Sr. has utilized the exisiting bricks to make a wood storage spot. Over on the right there were also bricks for more storage. These are being removed and in that spot we'll build a small built in armoire of sorts.

I've seen a bunch of the UK bloggers using what they call "rockwool" insulation. Denis Sr. and I discovered some at the Home Depot and while spray insulation would have been nice it was way too expensive. I had thought of a rigid foam - also way to expensive and it just didn't have the R-value that we thought was necessary. It is called mineral insulation here - I can't think of the brand name off hand now. We didn't want traditional fibreglass insulation either for it just becomes infested with mold. The package claims to say the material won't grow mold so and if you pour water on it it rolls right off the surface. So we gave it a whirl. It is nicer to use as the fibreglass is so nasty to work with. We're holding off on insulating the ceiling for a bit too whilst we save up to finish this all off.

The Greg Burger is no longer on the menu

2009-02-24T12:38:00.000-08:00

The LT Cafe (L referring Lucy, Tim's wife) was this greasy spoon upstairs at Northern Building Supply. When we lived over on Mitchell, we purchased many supplies from this family owned business as it was sometimes cheaper than the Home Depot. It is quite the compound with its hodge podge of buildings and lean-tos and a bit of a maze to get around in. We preferred to shop there as the Thomas family is a South East Vancouver institution. It was pretty much the cafeteria for the employees and often as not Bert Thomas Senior 90+, was at the table with Junior. Though doubled over with osteoperosis, the Senior Thomas made daily rounds and still drove and we'd often see them all lunching there.

So Greig went to visit today and found this...

Greig often visited Tim at the LT Cafe and they made great sport of each other, chatting about the politics of the day, Greig the Democrat to Tim the Republican. A bit of a silly business since they're both Canadian...well, maybe Tim's not come to think of it. I guess their "problem solving" got a bit heated at times. Probably about the time in the convo that Greig threw in his various conspiracy theories too which would push Tim over the edge.

Tim had a burger on the menu called the Greg Burger and it was HUGE! Funny though as Greig found it often too much, even for him. Yes, he did name it after him though the spelling was a bit off.

So it was with sadness that Greig discovered it closed today. Tim had one of Greig's acting headshots on the wall and though you can't tell in this photo, it is beside the photo of Don S. Davis, a character actor whose name isn't so recognizable as is his face.

Here's to Tim and Lucy and the LT Cafe and the Greg burger forever resting in grease...er peace.

So proud [sniff]

2009-02-19T09:42:00.000-08:00

A lovely milestone has just occurred for my blog friends restoring the Wendy Ann II over in the UK and mutual blog friend Tim, owner of the Lady Jane, has posted pictures of Seb and Becky tug taking the big plunge. I've been following them along for several years now on their journey at restoring a nearly scrapable tug. I am so happy for Seb and Becky making such a milestone. Bravo!

Here is the link to Tim's Wendy Ann II Flikr gallery. Oh Happy Day!

Sea Ferring Demolition & rebuilding

2009-02-09T21:39:00.000-08:00

With Mama and Papa Laliberte on the Sea Ferring, and Papa being an unemployed carpenter, we set about ripping apart the Sea Ferring just after Christmas. Heck of a time to do so but the Laliberte's were total keeners and well, what else were we going to do anyway but keep on renovating?

It was something I've wanted to tackle for sometime but the round tuit's never materialized. It perpetually smelled terribly musty and moldy in there and, notwithstanding the constant leaks too that it all became TIME to do it.

There were two walkways down the side that were the prime collectors of water. I wanted those eliminated as the windows always got covered up and we had a huge 5'x5' skylite in the centre. I figured we could always add more skylites if we wanted to in the future anyway. The interior had lovely panelling work that had been a light oak colour and got re-stained in a darker reddish mahogany. I saved as much of the oak mouldings and trim to put back on it when the walls go back up and we're flush enough again to do so too.

We've now replaced the roof and we're finally sealing it up again. New walls are going up and we're adding more electrical outlets and potlites for the ceiling. So, here are some of the before pictures.

And some more progress shots here. I took these a couple of weeks ago when we were all socked in with the fog. There are some neat shots here.

Its the Fluff & Fold

2009-02-09T21:33:00.000-08:00

Well one small miracle is with hydro we've now got....laundry facilities!

Woot! Woot!

Now as much I love Moon Sic and his much beloved technique of Underwear Origami, I confess I am glad to be back doing my own laundry...willy nilly...whenever I feel like doing a load.

There is still some re-organizing in there to do but the water is on and the machines are good to go and functioning.

Baby steps. Yea us!

Gone in a Flash

2009-01-30T09:21:00.000-08:00

When our friend and roommate Dave Franey passed away back in August of 2007, our friend Karen wrote him a song. She sang it for his family during the service that we did on the Eloquent but the quality of that video that I shot was too poor to post.

She recorded this again back in April of 2008, and I kind of forgot about it as we got so busy moving boats and relocating to the new marina. I found it again when cleaning up photos and files on my computer and Karen has put it up on her Youtube spot. Really I can't watch it without bawling and it is far and away the most beautiful rendition of it she's done yet.

Foggy bottom days

2009-01-21T09:13:00.000-08:00

*Update (01/26/09)- This photo is making the rounds on e-mail and Crackbook of our now lifted fog bank over the City of Vancouver, taken from Cypress Mountain at dawn. I have no idea who the photographer is so I have no idea how to credit him/or her. Too bad they didn't watermark the image.

Well, we got the big chill and now we're suffering through the big fog. Really for a port city it is rather surprising that we don't regularly have this kind of fog that we do. That said, it is a bit unusual for Vancouver proper. (Have at look at the Kat Kam link on the boat links to view the current conditions.)

The other night, I went out one evening on a run on the water taxi and English Bay was glass and the city was glorious but we came around Point Atkinson, en route to Bowen Island and hit a big fog bank. Greig is trained in navigating through fog but I found it completely unnerving and would find the stress of doing so on a daily basis for days on end a bit beyond the pale for me. That he is one of the only captains managing to maintain the schedule with only a five minute deviation is a testament. The conditions are horrible out there. He says there is lots of noise on the Vancouver Traffic channel and they are really earning their wages out there these days.

He went in to fill in on one shift the other day and had a family on board. The were a bit unnerved too with the visibility at zero. So, to ease their anxiety they started singing campfire like songs. Apparently the tune went a bit like...

No death today,No death today,
NO death today,No death today!!

As always I am forever facinated by the tools with which some people manage to cope with stressfull situations. I think humour is always the best way too.

I feel the same way too!

2009-01-07T15:00:00.000-08:00

The Ubyssey is the student newspaper for the University of British Columbia. A colleague sent me a link to this very clever letter and I found the link to it on their website.

The Breakup Letter (Dear Snow)

Oh I feel the same way too!

Bandiditos!

2009-01-05T13:47:00.001-08:00

They came...

...and they made a hell of a mess.