The Breton fisherman’s prayer

Oh God thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.

I couldn’t help thinking of that prayer as we left English Bay today.  There was hardly another boat on the ocean – a couple of sailboats heading out, a few fishermen who didn’t dare leave the bay, one ferry and an ocean going tanker on the horizon.

Its not a very good panorama – the lines are pretty obvious where the pictures are joined – but it’s the only way I can begin to convey the vastness of the ocean that surrounds us when there’s no one else out there.  There’s an ocean going freighter in that panorama by the way.  Those things are bloody huge but it was a speck on the horizon today.  And that’s not even the ocean – its just the Salish Sea or Strait of Georgia.

Thursday after we left Bruce in his little spot on McNabb Creek, we got bumped around a bit and then eventually arrived in English Bay.  We hung out in English Bay while we ate dinner and  Marilyn arranged moorage at the reciprocal dock at False Creek Yacht Club.  The guy on the phone asked “how good is your captain?” and with cause because our slip turned out to be more than a little bit of a tight fit. 

To get into this spot we had to thread between the powerboat on our starboard and the sailboat behind us.  There was probably 6 feet to spare so no big deal getting in but getting back out this morning was a bit more of an adventure.  I didn’t want to back all the way out into False Creek because there’s a serious lot of traffic out there, mainly those little harbour ferries but also plenty of other recreational boaters coming and going.  This morning there was even some fruitcakes paddling some kind of war canoe.  In order to avoid backing into False Creek we ended up spinning Gray Hawk in about 50 feet of fairway.  That’s pretty tight because I think we actually measure over 50 feet from the tip of the anchor to the extreme back of the dinghy.  We had to hang the dinghy over the outboard on the boat behind us and the anchor stuck out over the transom of the sailboat ahead of us but eventually we got out.

The big reason for going to Vancouver was to attend the boat show which we did yesterday.  We couldn’t have found a better spot than False Creek Yacht Club to attend the boat show from.  We also made the mandatory shopping trip to Granville Island for some filo pastry stuffed with spinach and salmon and some smoked salmon pate.  Granville is probably the most expensive place we ever shop bar none but in this case it was well worth it.  Today we headed out into God’s big ocean and back to Plumper Sound.  We’ll spend a couple of nights here and then cross back over to the Island.  Tomorrow is supposed to be a rainout and then early next week we’re supposed to get some sunshine which always makes for a nicer crossing.  Wind, or rather lack of wind, is more important but sunshine makes it feel more pleasant.