The Artificial Reef Society of BC has spent several years getting the old HMCS Annapolis ready to sink to form a reef. They’ve already done that 7 or 8 times mostly with big boats but once with a jet airplane. The whole story is here.
Our old buddy Bruce, the bluenose sailboat builder that I have written about before, somehow landed the security gig to keep an eye on the Annapolis until the liars figure out where the society will be allowed to sink her – or even if they’ll be allowed to sink her anywhere. We wanted to see what he was guarding so we pulled up beside him a few days ago and had a good visit. Nobody is allowed onboard but we were able to take some pictures and the website does a good job of documenting the society’s big project.
The striking feature of the Annapolis is all the rounded edges. That’s because she was built at the height of the cold war. The theory was that rounded corners meant that they could wash all the fallout off her if that became necessary. Evidently she also had some kind of a water sprinkler system that could put up a shield to protect the boat from fallout. Bruce knew some of the crew when he and the Annapolis were in Halifax. He said they hated the rounded decks because there was nothing to stop them from sliding overboard which evidently did happen on occasion. There is a bit of a cable railing but otherwise nothing along the gunwale to keep someone from sliding straight into the ocean.
This morning we untied from Bruce’s boat and headed for Vancouver. Its pretty crowded in False Creek but we found a spot, got the anchor stuck and settled in for an as yet undetermined length of time.
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