Indian Arm - March 16-19 2013
Spring 2013 Shakedown Cruise
As spring comes to the "Wet" Coast, thoughts about venturing out in the marginally-pleasant weather come to fruition and a short expedition is undertaken to stir things up in our boating lives. Such was the case when a few days presented themselves as appropriate for making our first trip. There were systems that remained dormant through the long humid winter to test out.
Right off, it is clear that the Port Nut no longer has that "new boat" smell. Once-new materials have off-gassed and past cooking within the vessel's confines has layered it's olfactory patina upon the many surfaces. It's not unpleasant, not yet an old-boat smell with it's nuances of diesel and dampness. It's just boat!
The biggest disappointment of the winter was the losing battle I had against mildew. My usual enthusiastic cleaning of surfaces with bleach or TSP in water following the last of the boating season was abbreviated due to certain circumstances. As a result, mildew thrived, feeding upon the molecules of vaporized bacon grease or spilled beer that had been left on plastic surfaces, fabrics and wood trim. Photos tell the story as it looked before spring cleaning took place.
Right off, it is clear that the Port Nut no longer has that "new boat" smell. Once-new materials have off-gassed and past cooking within the vessel's confines has layered it's olfactory patina upon the many surfaces. It's not unpleasant, not yet an old-boat smell with it's nuances of diesel and dampness. It's just boat!
The biggest disappointment of the winter was the losing battle I had against mildew. My usual enthusiastic cleaning of surfaces with bleach or TSP in water following the last of the boating season was abbreviated due to certain circumstances. As a result, mildew thrived, feeding upon the molecules of vaporized bacon grease or spilled beer that had been left on plastic surfaces, fabrics and wood trim. Photos tell the story as it looked before spring cleaning took place.
We have established a pleasant relationship with our neighbours and fellow Ranger Tug owners. The two couples trailered from home to Vanier Park in Vancouver where we launched our vessels. It was a rainy morning at the boat launch where we were met by swimmers Will and Jenn who will be traversing Georgia Strait on June 29, 2013. Although the Port Nut has served as support vessel for Will Rogers for the past two years, this will be Jenn's first attempt of the 22 km swim which she and Will are undertaking to raise awareness for their charity. Since the Red Current is volunteering to be the second support boat, this was an opportunity for the two swimmers to take some promotional photos while posing with the support boats. Their smiles for the camera were forced for it was miserably cold and rainy. After that, it was time for us to depart and make our way around Vancouver's Stanley Park and enter Burrard Inlet by sailing under the Lions Gate Bridge. Just prior to doing that, the crab trap was deployed in the hopes of recovering it days later on our return voyage, teeming with fresh crab.
We cruised along the Vancouver shoreline and marveled at all the shipping activity. Passing under the Ironworker's Memorial Bridge, we made our way into Deep Cove where we were planning to over-night. Dinner was at a local pub, The Raven (10 minute walk from the dock), where we were treated to good food and drink and entertained with fiddle music between the periods of the televised hockey game. As usual, our team lost but the lively entertainment made up for that and some of the full-house crowd even tapped their feet along to the music in an unusually demonstrative manner. We are a pretty sombre lot when our hockey team does not win. I dare say that, given the same circumstances, our East Coast brethren would be a wee bit more animated. "Hell with the hockey game, boy! There's fiddle music and drink, eh!"
After anchoring out that night, we woke up to a sparkling, blue, sun-shiny day, but with frost on the canvas top. It was 0 degrees Celsius! The first mate was no longer sure this was such a good idea as our winter clothes had been left back at the shack. Nonetheless, we pressed on and had a great time cruising up Indian Arm, passing unusual homes on the way that clung to the western shore's precipitous slopes. Then came Camp Jubilee and soon after that we took a shore walk at one of the Park's recreation areas at the mouth of Bishop Cr. After lunch, we cruised past the Wig Wam Inn (a Vancouver Yacht Club outstation, members only) and ended up at our destination: Granite Falls Marine Park. There, we took advantage of the Park's small dock which can accommodate 2 vessels (under 23 feet) overnight. Exploring ashore, we discovered quite extensive remains of old activities that took place there and burst my idea bubble that there had once been a log-sorting ground here. Bruce & Debbie of the Red Current, said the site was too extensive to be a log sort and they later dug up the real story. It makes for good reading and if one wants to know more about this part of the Park, just click the highlight. In the afternoon we dug for clams which are predominantly the Varnish variety, an invasive species to our shores but nevertheless quite delicious.
From "Happy Hour" to late evening, our time was spent aboard Red Current to take advantage of their full cockpit enclosure. In our climate, if one wants to be cruising in the shoulder season, it is a must-have. That's what I tell the first mate (and Minister of Finance): "It's a 'must-have', honey!" On a small vessel such as ours, it enables the use of a large portion of the boat in inclement weather. While it rained heavily all that night, the Red Current stayed dry inside while the Port Nut was quite damp in the cockpit and unusable in the early morning. Whenever there is wind and rain, then the cockpit is drenched by the rain that comes in from the open sides.
We woke up next morning to snow at the 200 metre level. Happily, the sky cover was breaking up and the precipitation had ended. Across the water, the sun was spotlighting the Wig Wam Inn as we breakfasted and prepared for our trip back to Vancouver. Now southbound, we favoured the eastern shore and viewed the cabins that clustered in small indentations along the shoreline as well as the Gothic-like powerhouse being fed from the Buntzen Lake reservoir. Further along, there is a modest dock at Twin Islands Marine Park where we stopped for lunch. Ashore, we found a plethora of paint-ball ammo among the cedars which I, at first, mistook for yellow cherry tomatoes. Good thing that I didn't pop one in my mouth. Note to self: get eyes tested!
Early afternoon saw a stiff westerly come up. The clearing trend meant a cold front moving through and it's associated high winds. As we rounded Cates Park into Burrard Inlet, we were going into the teeth of it and as it was blowing against an ebbing tide, things looked decidedly uncomfortable under the Ironworker's Memorial Bridge. Red Current led the way through and picked a less-disturbed route through the maelstrom. Although we still got bounced around quite roughly, it was not as bad as things looked to be in the centre of the channel. After re-fuelling in Coal Harbour (2 litres per hour fuel consumption) we docked at the public dock next to the float-plane terminal and walked ashore in Downtown Vancouver for over an hour to wait for slack water at First Narrows. It would have been more prudent to wait for slack at Second Narrows (Ironworker"s Bridge) as it has the worse rip tide of the two narrows, but this would have put us late in arriving at our destination: False Creek.
Crossing under the Lion's Gate, we headed for where our GPS waypoint indicated our crab trap should be. We saw nothing but whitecaps. I concluded eventually that the trap had dragged away and so we carried on. Approaching False Creek, we saw two sail boats that had dragged anchor and were ashore lying on their sides. No wonder our crab trap too was missing. It had been blowing hard in English Bay!
False Creek was our anchorage for the last night of the trip. We stopped at the Boating Welcome Centre and filled in the forms necessary to obtain our (free) anchoring permits. This is a self-serve system and works very well for the purpose it was created: getting long term mooring out of False Creek. If you were to ask the owners of the beached sailboats, however, you might get a different impression from them for these are people who would normally moor in the creek long term and must now locate in the more exposed Kitsilano shore. There was ample space for us to swing at anchor as we settled down for the evening. Now it was time to open that magnum-sized bottle of wine and toast the end of a fine trip. Before we got too far along on it (lucky for them), some family members came to visit. Two of Bruce and Debbie's sons phoned from shore to come and get them, so we dinghyed over and ferried them to the boat where we all enjoyed a pleasant visit. In the enclosed cockpit of the Red Current, of course. With the heater turned on.
After a well-deserved good night's sleep and another great breakfast (I should have taken a picture of that one) we weighed anchor and headed for the area of the lost crab trap to see whether the morning's smooth seas would reveal it's whereabouts. We were not able to locate it but nevertheless felt good that we had given it another try. On the return to False Creek, we powered up to full throttle to "burn the carbon off of the pistons" as they used to say in the old days. It felt good to be out on the water again and to enjoy boating with good friends. Now it is time to get down to work on that list of things that have to be repaired and tweaked for the up-coming boating season. And to find ways to convince the Minister of Finance to loosen the purse-strings for a cockpit enclosure. Enjoy the photos of our first cruise of 2013.
We cruised along the Vancouver shoreline and marveled at all the shipping activity. Passing under the Ironworker's Memorial Bridge, we made our way into Deep Cove where we were planning to over-night. Dinner was at a local pub, The Raven (10 minute walk from the dock), where we were treated to good food and drink and entertained with fiddle music between the periods of the televised hockey game. As usual, our team lost but the lively entertainment made up for that and some of the full-house crowd even tapped their feet along to the music in an unusually demonstrative manner. We are a pretty sombre lot when our hockey team does not win. I dare say that, given the same circumstances, our East Coast brethren would be a wee bit more animated. "Hell with the hockey game, boy! There's fiddle music and drink, eh!"
After anchoring out that night, we woke up to a sparkling, blue, sun-shiny day, but with frost on the canvas top. It was 0 degrees Celsius! The first mate was no longer sure this was such a good idea as our winter clothes had been left back at the shack. Nonetheless, we pressed on and had a great time cruising up Indian Arm, passing unusual homes on the way that clung to the western shore's precipitous slopes. Then came Camp Jubilee and soon after that we took a shore walk at one of the Park's recreation areas at the mouth of Bishop Cr. After lunch, we cruised past the Wig Wam Inn (a Vancouver Yacht Club outstation, members only) and ended up at our destination: Granite Falls Marine Park. There, we took advantage of the Park's small dock which can accommodate 2 vessels (under 23 feet) overnight. Exploring ashore, we discovered quite extensive remains of old activities that took place there and burst my idea bubble that there had once been a log-sorting ground here. Bruce & Debbie of the Red Current, said the site was too extensive to be a log sort and they later dug up the real story. It makes for good reading and if one wants to know more about this part of the Park, just click the highlight. In the afternoon we dug for clams which are predominantly the Varnish variety, an invasive species to our shores but nevertheless quite delicious.
From "Happy Hour" to late evening, our time was spent aboard Red Current to take advantage of their full cockpit enclosure. In our climate, if one wants to be cruising in the shoulder season, it is a must-have. That's what I tell the first mate (and Minister of Finance): "It's a 'must-have', honey!" On a small vessel such as ours, it enables the use of a large portion of the boat in inclement weather. While it rained heavily all that night, the Red Current stayed dry inside while the Port Nut was quite damp in the cockpit and unusable in the early morning. Whenever there is wind and rain, then the cockpit is drenched by the rain that comes in from the open sides.
We woke up next morning to snow at the 200 metre level. Happily, the sky cover was breaking up and the precipitation had ended. Across the water, the sun was spotlighting the Wig Wam Inn as we breakfasted and prepared for our trip back to Vancouver. Now southbound, we favoured the eastern shore and viewed the cabins that clustered in small indentations along the shoreline as well as the Gothic-like powerhouse being fed from the Buntzen Lake reservoir. Further along, there is a modest dock at Twin Islands Marine Park where we stopped for lunch. Ashore, we found a plethora of paint-ball ammo among the cedars which I, at first, mistook for yellow cherry tomatoes. Good thing that I didn't pop one in my mouth. Note to self: get eyes tested!
Early afternoon saw a stiff westerly come up. The clearing trend meant a cold front moving through and it's associated high winds. As we rounded Cates Park into Burrard Inlet, we were going into the teeth of it and as it was blowing against an ebbing tide, things looked decidedly uncomfortable under the Ironworker's Memorial Bridge. Red Current led the way through and picked a less-disturbed route through the maelstrom. Although we still got bounced around quite roughly, it was not as bad as things looked to be in the centre of the channel. After re-fuelling in Coal Harbour (2 litres per hour fuel consumption) we docked at the public dock next to the float-plane terminal and walked ashore in Downtown Vancouver for over an hour to wait for slack water at First Narrows. It would have been more prudent to wait for slack at Second Narrows (Ironworker"s Bridge) as it has the worse rip tide of the two narrows, but this would have put us late in arriving at our destination: False Creek.
Crossing under the Lion's Gate, we headed for where our GPS waypoint indicated our crab trap should be. We saw nothing but whitecaps. I concluded eventually that the trap had dragged away and so we carried on. Approaching False Creek, we saw two sail boats that had dragged anchor and were ashore lying on their sides. No wonder our crab trap too was missing. It had been blowing hard in English Bay!
False Creek was our anchorage for the last night of the trip. We stopped at the Boating Welcome Centre and filled in the forms necessary to obtain our (free) anchoring permits. This is a self-serve system and works very well for the purpose it was created: getting long term mooring out of False Creek. If you were to ask the owners of the beached sailboats, however, you might get a different impression from them for these are people who would normally moor in the creek long term and must now locate in the more exposed Kitsilano shore. There was ample space for us to swing at anchor as we settled down for the evening. Now it was time to open that magnum-sized bottle of wine and toast the end of a fine trip. Before we got too far along on it (lucky for them), some family members came to visit. Two of Bruce and Debbie's sons phoned from shore to come and get them, so we dinghyed over and ferried them to the boat where we all enjoyed a pleasant visit. In the enclosed cockpit of the Red Current, of course. With the heater turned on.
After a well-deserved good night's sleep and another great breakfast (I should have taken a picture of that one) we weighed anchor and headed for the area of the lost crab trap to see whether the morning's smooth seas would reveal it's whereabouts. We were not able to locate it but nevertheless felt good that we had given it another try. On the return to False Creek, we powered up to full throttle to "burn the carbon off of the pistons" as they used to say in the old days. It felt good to be out on the water again and to enjoy boating with good friends. Now it is time to get down to work on that list of things that have to be repaired and tweaked for the up-coming boating season. And to find ways to convince the Minister of Finance to loosen the purse-strings for a cockpit enclosure. Enjoy the photos of our first cruise of 2013.