Wednesday 1 October 2014

Cork Screw

When I was a young boy, my brothers and I spent most of our summer days romping around looking for sticks to make into bows and arrows. We used whatever knives we could find to whittle them into the shapes we wanted, but the knives that were available to us weren't really great for that purpose. My father had this really nice Swiss army knife that he didn't let us use, because in his infinite wisdom he knew that we would very quickly dull the blade beyond all hope of resharpening properly.

Around this point in my life the only steady income I had was my one dollar a week of allowance money. I decided to save every one of those dollars to buy myself a nice knife, just like Dad's. About thirty weeks later I had finally saved up enough, and talked my dad into taking me to MEC. Looking at their wide array of knives, we noticed that there was the exact knife my dad had, with a big knife, a small knife, a can opener, an awl, a little saw, and a corkscrew. Right beside that model, there was a similar model with everything except the corkscrew. In it's place was a phillips screwdriver. Dad turned to me and said "Son, there will come a time in your life where you're in the middle of the forest and your GPS will break. You will NEVER be in the forest and come upon a bottle of wine that needs opening. I suggest you get the model with the screwdriver."

All my life I have have known my father to be wrong exactly twice. This time was one of them. Okay, so he wasn't wrong about never happening upon a bottle of wine in the woods, but I've never had to fix my GPS in the middle of the woods either. There definitely HAVE been times where I've had a bottle of wine, a wine glass or two, and a strong desire to drink that wine, only to find out that I don't have a corkscrew handy, but I have this GREAT little phillips screwdriver!

Thursday 24 July 2014

The Love Story


The Meeting.

It was a Sunday unlike any other Sunday before or hence. It didn't feel any different when I woke up that morning, it didn't even feel different when I went to bed that evening, but it was the day I met her. I went through my Sunday morning routine; get up at 7:30, shower, dress, breakfast, take the 16 down to Granville & 7th, walk to Westside Church about 15 minutes early for the 9:00 service. The sun shone, the birds sang, the sky was clear blue.

"Trevor!!!" Aaron greeted me as I walked through the door. "TheresthisgirlinmycommunitygroupthatracessailboatsandifIseeyouinthesameservicesometimeI'llintroduceyou!"

Aaron spoke excitedly and all his words ran together when he was excited, and he seems to be excited all the time.

"Uhh, great!" I replied, trying to sound enthused.

Truthfully at Westside you meet anywhere between 1 and 10 people each Sunday, and you never remember any of them.

I made my way into the mostly empty sanctuary and sat down by myself, watching it fill up slowly. My friend Kyle joined me, and we chatted. The band started to play. Aaron appeared in front of me with a red-haired woman in tow.

"This is Trevor, he just bought a boat. This is Charmaine, she races sailboats. I've gotta run." Aaron took off leaving us standing face to face awkwardly. Painfully aware that the service had started.

"I'm going to find a seat, and I'll talk to you after." Said Charmaine as she sidled off.

"K." I said.

The service continued, and eventually ended. I leaned over to Kyle and said "I have to find that girl. I can't remember her name. I think she has red hair?"

"Yes?" he replied non-committally.

I looked forward and the red haired woman appeared in front of me.

"I've got to run, but you should come racing with me some time."

We exchanged numbers, I had to get her to spell her name for me. In the end she ran off, leaving me wondering how serious she was about getting me out sailing. I didn't have my hopes up too high.

Just friends.

About a week passed, and I spent most of it trying to figure out how to sail my new boat. I signed up for sailing lessons for the next weekend. Finally my phone buzzed and I found a text from Charmaine inviting me out sailing on Sunday. Disappointed I told her that I was taking a sailing lesson that day, but could I come out another time? She informed me that the boat was leaving for a race around Vancouver island and I had to come out now or wait another month until it returned to its regularly scheduled races.

I opted to wait.

More time passed, until true to her word, one month later I received another text from Charmaine wondering if I could come racing the following Sunday. I accepted.

Sunday arrived, and after church I raced off to the yacht club to go sailing. I sent her a text when I arrived and hoped I would recognize her when I saw her. I went up to the first red-head I saw, and fortunately I had guessed correctly. It was indeed Charmaine.

We chatted during the race, and I invited her to come out on my boat with a number of other friends the following weekend for the festival of lights to watch the fireworks. To my surprise, she accepted my invitation and thus started our friendship outside of racing.

One particular week, racing was cancelled. At that point, I knew I enjoyed hanging around Charmaine, but I wasn't quite sure I wanted to date her. I told her that I had to "pump out my boat" and that if she "missed racing that Sunday she was welcome to join me on my boat for the trip down the river to Captain's Cove Marina" if she liked. I invited her over after work, and after making her dinner we made our trip. She never commented on our activities, but after the fact I was informed that she had no idea that I had never intended for this to be a date, and that she had no idea that "pumping out my boat" meant "emptying the sewage tank".

We like to say that was our first date.

Dating.

It was only a matter of time until we had what kids these days call the "DTR" talk. For you older folk, DTR stands for "Defining The Relationship".

Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months, and eventually we decided that this was the last relationship we wanted to be in. I met up with her father and asked him if he would kindly let me take his daughter's hand in marriage. He said yes.

Engagement.

Charmaine told me she wanted an emerald ring. She wanted a stone with some colour. Everybody else has a diamond, but I like emeralds.

Great. I can do that.

I did some research, and one of the first things I learned was that emeralds make really bad engagement rings. Emeralds are soft enough that they get scratched if you wear them every day. You need to replace the stone every couple years if you want a continually bright stone.

Charmaine then informed me that she would prefer to wear just one ring, and she wanted either a wedding ring or an engagement ring. I suggested to go with the wedding ring because I like the symbol of marriage more than the symbol of engagement.

You would think that this would simplify getting engaged, but you would be wrong. I didn't want to get down on one knee with a flowery speech and present her with nothing. Eventually we agreed that she would wear my engineer's ring which has great significance for me until that time I give her a wedding ring.

I also decided to get her an emerald necklace as icing on the cake. This is really where it gets complicated. I think that one of the biggest reasons diamonds are so expensive is because they are so rare. As it turns out, they're not rare at all. Jewellery stores sell literally tons of diamonds every year, and very few emeralds (or rubies, or sapphires, or...) and therefore they don't stock many emerald necklaces. I didn't like any of the ones I saw in the shops.

Eventually I found one. It was exactly what I had been searching for, so I bought it (after consulting with my sister. She agreed that it was very nice). I was finally ready to propose.

One day I casually mentioned that we should go hiking on Sunday afternoon. Maybe on the North Shore? How does Lynn Peak sound? Great.

Lynn Peak is where we first said "I love you", so it seemed to me as good a place as any to add "...and I want to spend the rest of my life with you" to the end of that sentiment.

Back to the story.

Sunday came, and it was raining.

"This is great!" I told Charmaine, "We'll be the only ones hiking today!"

She seemed to accept my logic, and we set off.

We reached the peak around 2:30 in the afternoon. Neither of us had eaten lunch, so we broke out the food we had brought. Baguette, lunch meats, and Boursin cheese. As we finished eating, all the other hikers who had been up there with us got up and hiked back, leaving us alone.

I wandered off to a flat area with a beautiful view of the dense grey cloud, and Charmaine followed me.

I turned around to look at her, and she looked at me expectantly.

I suddenly realized that she knew exactly what was going on.

She continued to look at me expectantly.

I forgot what I was supposed to do.

I got down on one knee.

Wait, I'm down on two knees? How did that happen?

Ok, fixed it. I'm on one knee now.

"Charmaine" I said. My voice cracked and warbled like I was 13 again, and going through puberty.

"Charmaine, I'm not going to give you a speech. I love you, will you marry me?"

I showed her the ring, and the necklace.

"Yes." She said.

Saturday 3 August 2013

Life Aboard Isabella


It's been approximately two months that I've been living on my boat, I figure it's about time for an update.

It surprises me how people adapt to new environments... or maybe it's just me. By now, and quite frankly within a week or two of moving, living on the boat seemed totally normal to me. There are obviously quite a few differences from living in an apartment or a house.

The big one everybody asks about is my bathroom. Yes I have a bathroom (bathrooms actually called a 'head' when they're on a boat... comes from the time that they was always in the bow of the boat), no it doesn't have a shower. Mainly I tend to do my business and shower at the marina. Occasionally I shower when I get to work.

Food and food preparation is a bit different as well. I don't have a fridge, I have an ice box. If you're not sure what that is, it's essentially a cooler built into the boat. Eventually I plan to convert it into a fridge, but that hasn't happened yet. The downside to this is that vegetables don't keep very well on my boat, so to all my Vancouver friends who occasionally invite me over for dinner, force feeding me salads might not be a bad idea! As for a stove, I have one, but it's got some issues where sometimes it catches on fire. It's not cool, so I don't use it. I plan on replacing that too eventually with a propane stove/oven. In the meantime I have a single element induction cooker and a BBQ (actually a 'SEA-B-QUE') which have served me quite well so far.

I have water and electricity hookups on the dock. There's also cable, but I don't have a TV, and I'm not super interested in getting internet.

Not having TV or internet isn't exactly a new thing for me, as it's kinda how I grew up. Mainly for entertainment I read books or just work on little things around the boat. Alternatively I write stuff for my blog or play guitar. I think I've seen maybe four movies in the past two months.

They say that the test to see if you're ready to buy a boat is to go to the end of the nearest dock, throw a handful of money into the water, and if you enjoyed that you're ready for a boat. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but it seems that everything marine related is just a little bit more expensive than you would normally expect something to be. Despite this, I spend a lot of time looking at my boat thinking stuff like "I really want to fix this" or, "I'd really love to improve that". I guess I'll just start saving up all the money I'm saving on not paying rent, and put it towards boat improvement!

There are so many other things about living on a boat that I'd love to talk about, but I'll save that for another post.

Stay classy internet.

Unnecessary Mountain

Last summer I hiked to the Lions, and it was easily the best hike I did all summer. This year I decided to do it again, but this time to leave from Cypress Mountain. This route is much longer, as it follows the Howe Sound crest trail and before you get to the Lions you have to climb up and over St. Mark's summit and Unecessary Mountain.

We ended up stopping at Unecessary Mountain.

I'll admit, it's a bit hazy, but to the left you can see Bowen Island,
with Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast in the background

The first couple kilometers of the trail are on a wide, fairly level, well maintained gravel trail. Soon enough it switches back to the standard path as you head up to St. Mark's. The view from St. Mark's isn't panoramic, but it is stunning none the less. You can look out over the mouth of the Howe Sound, with a great view of Bowen Island, and the many other smaller islands and rocks scattered around sound. The trail descends fairly steeply on the far side of the peak before coming to a sign "Improved Trail Ends" with a fallen tree across the path. The trail then ascends steeply to the top of the first peak of Unecessary Mountain. In total there are three peaks. We didn't get any further than the second peak, but it has quite a beautiful view of the lions just a few short kilometers further down the trail. To the south you can see the sprawl of Vancouver across the lower mainland.

The West and the East Lion

On the trip back, myself and my hiking partners were watching a helicopter zoom up and down the range, then much to our surprise it landed in the tiny meadow we had just crossed. We backtracked and watched as three men jumped out with a number of large rucksacks. As the helicopter took off, they said that a woman had fallen further down the trail, and would we please help them carry some equipment to her. We acquiesced and ran off after them. After dropping off the bags, we opted to try not make the lady who had fallen even more uncomfortable by standing around and watching, so continued on our way.

In summary, Unecessary Mountain is one more of the many beautiful hikes that BC has to offer. The round trip took us between seven and eight hours, and we were fairly tired by the end of it.

Difficulty: 3.5/5
Enjoyability: 3.5/5

Tuesday 2 July 2013

On Stranger Tides

This is another one of these blogs that I should have written and posted a month ago, but never got around to. To be fair, I wrote it up once but I didn't like it, so this is take two!

I no longer live in Vancouver. I've moved to Richmond.

Let's Tarantino this for a second and go back to January. My roommate whom I've been living with since moving to Van city decided that UBC wasn't doing it for him and he wanted to meet some cute French guys... so he applied for (and was accepted to) an exchange in Paris. I was happy for him, except that now I needed to find a sub-letter. Which I did. He ended up moving out a month or two later, then I found another sub-letter. At this point original roommate told me, "school ends in May, but I want to do some travelling in Europe while I'm here, they can stay until August." I was like "cool", then told this to my second sub-letter. Shortly after she moved in, original roommate decided that he was running out of Euros and he needed to come back sooner.

I was faced with two options, either I could tell second sub-letter, "you're actually going to have to move out next month," or I could find my own place. I've wanted my own place ever since I had a few roommates back in University I didn't see eye to eye with on issues of cleanliness, so I decided that I would pick the "flying solo" option.

I went on padmapper.com (great site if you're looking for a new pad, FYI) and started sending out emails to various landlords. Only one person got back to me, and then a day or two later (after a failed attempt at setting up a viewing) let me know that someone had just rented the place.

Back to square one.

Sort of.

See, when I moved to Vancouver my father suggested that I buy a boat and live on it. Not surprisingly, I found a million reasons not to do that. But the idea was there. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. The more I fell in love with the idea, the more I read about it, and realized that it wasn't as big a deal as one might think originally.

I kept my eyes on craigslist for a few months (starting a while before I knew I needed a place to live) and saw a few interesting options. Then I saw her. Isabella. She was a good size, in good shape, and the asking price was well within my budget. I started emailing the guy selling it, and set up a meeting down in Point Roberts to see it. I read a few articles about what to look for when looking at a boat beforehand, then went over her with a fine toothed comb.

Two days later I made an offer. One week later I owned a boat.

Which was great, but I had almost no idea how to sail! Somewhere in the middle of this I got my "Pleasure Craft Operators Card", but that didn't mean I felt confident motoring, let alone sailing, a 30 foot sailboat around! On top of that, now I had to find a marina to moor it in Canada (if I didn't want to have to get my green card from the USA), and find insurance. As it turns out, moorage in the lower mainland is hard to come by. In the end I only found one marina that didn't have at least a two year waiting list. It turned out to be about 30 seconds from work, but on the downside its an hour or two long motor trip out to the Georgia Strait. It ALSO turns out that insurance companies aren't super keen on insuring 30 foot sailboats to males under 25 with virtually no boating experience.

Two sailing lessons and two weeks later I had it all sorted out, and was ready to move Isabella to our new home. A friend of mine from community group and I parked at my new marina and biked the 30 some kilometers to Point Roberts, tossed our bikes on board (and bungied them down), then set out to sea. 6 hours later we finally stopped in Steveston to clear customs, and a few hours after that, I was tying her up to her new dock.

Epilogue: I'm now at my new marina, have been living aboard for about two and a half weeks, and am looking forward to the next few years living aboard Isabella.


Tuesday 4 June 2013

Norvan Falls

I'm terrible at updating my blog. I've been hiking so rarely as of late (more on why in an upcoming post) you would think I could keep up with them! I guess I don't have a future as an outdoor adventure writer... I guess I'll stick to programming!

I did the Norvan Falls trail in early April with three other people. It was a cloudy Saturday with a bit of rain here and there. The result of the time of year and the rain was that the trail was very wet and muddy for a majority of the way. I feel like now would be a great time to do a plug for Keen, the company that makes my hiking boots, since my feet remained warm and dry for the entirety of the hike! (If anybody from Keen ever reads this, you should consider sponsoring me as an outdoor adventure writer! I swear I would write more often if I was paid to do it!). The trail itself is about a 14 km round trip up Lynn Valley following the river for a lot of the way. The trail is very level, and if there wasn't as much mud when I did it I would wager that it would be a very easy hike!

One could barely see a mountain just across the stream!
Norvan falls itself is about a 50 foot waterfall which feeds into the river. I was personally more impressed by them than I was by Niagra falls (which I find to be way too commercialized, but hey, that's just me).

Norvan Falls (overexposed image, my bad!)

Final rating:

Difficulty: Easy
Enjoyability: 3.5/5

Tuesday 2 April 2013

Airport Musings

I'm sitting in the Ottawa International Airport waiting to board my WestJet flight to Vancouver via Calgary. I arrived in Ottawa a short five days ago, surprising my family. I visited my friend K while here, who told me I had to post something on my blog since it's been so long. Sadly, I caught a nasty cold while here in Ottawa and right now I'm under the effects of some cold medication, so rather than trying poorly to come up with something interesting, I'll just post some observations I had the last time I flew home from Ottawa!

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All the cool kids are bored of flying.

They give their spouse a chaste hug and a quick kiss when they say goodbye, but that is the last emotion they show.

They stand in line at security, staring stonily ahead with their blank faces. They strip off their belts, and put their keys and phone in the plastic container without a word. They do this every day. It's routine, it's old news, it's nothing to get worked up over.

They sit quietly at their gate, sometimes with a coffee, sometimes with a book, but they never make eye contact with their fellow travellers. They smile patiently at the child next to them who got bored and is pointing at strangers, babbling to his bored parents.

They stand in line to board the plane, rolling their eyes at the stranger in front of them, digging through her purse for her boarding pass and ID.

They rush to shove their carry-on into the overhead compartment, and slide into their seat without saying a word to the person beside them. The person with a lifetime of stories, and experience to share, which goes unsaid for the entire five hour flight. Infinite possibilities dissapearing so they can maintain their aura of bored.

They don't acknowledge the force pushing them back into their seats as the jet engines roar, accellerating them down the runway. They ignore the leap in their stomach as the aircraft rotates and wheels gently leave the runway. They glance out the tiny window at the shrinking city below them with bored eyes as they idly put a stick of gum in their mouth.

They mumble "water please" when the drink cart reaches their seat, then they watch a movie on the tiny screen on the back of the seat in front of them.

When they finally land, they rush to stand up, rolling their eyes again at the people between them and the door. They debark the aircraft with a nod to the pilot, not saying a word.

All the cool kids are bored of flying.