Afloat Again

Well here we are, back on board our home. Ty Dewi arrived, safe and sound on Tuesday afternoon. We were even there to see the ship pull into the harbour, having driven down to Nanaimo that afternoon. Unloading wasn't till the morning, so we went and stayed in the now famous Painted Turtle guesthouse, and had a very pleasant night. The alarm made for a less pleasant morning at 05:30 but we were down at the ship on time and everything went very smoothly.

We were floated, the engine started first time, thankfully, and we motored off the ship to the nearby Nanaimo marina. We could stay there for three hours without charge, so we took that opportunity to unload and return the hire car and get a few other tasks done before we went a few hundred yards across to the anchorage. Here in Nanaimo harbour we share the water with quite a few marinas, a nice anchorage, a few little water taxis, a couple of big ferries and frequent landings and takeoffs of the float planes to and from Vancouver. For a small city it's a busy place.

Yesterday afternoon, once we were anchored, it started to rain. And it rained and rained. The temperature fell to less than ten degrees and it felt darn cold. Nobody told us about this. Well, that's not exactly true, everybody told us it was cold and wet up here, but the reality can be a little harsh nonetheless. Today I went and ordered a heater....

Then today was a lot nicer, sunnier, warmer and generally a good time to be living on the water. We got some tasks done on the boat and ashore, most important of which was to package up my passport and send it off to London, where the Canadian government will put a visa in it and I can become legal. I'll have to nip down to the USA and cross the border to actually 'enter' Canada and activate the residents visa, then that wil be it, I can live, work and play here in BC. Very exciting.

Tomorrow we sail for the first time up here, a short three hour hop south to a town called Ladysmith where we can meet up again with our friends from Calgary. We have to pass through Dodds Narrows, a small gap between Gabriola Island and Vancouver Island where the tides run up to six knots, so timing is all. Luckily, we have things in our favour all morning. We'll be towing our fishing lines and hoping for salmon too. Gesa and Max are now our official fisher-persons. Until I am resident, a fishing licence costs a fortune, but Gesa's is just twenty-six dollars. Max's licence was free, so we got him one. Issie isn't at all interested!

So off we go, time to begin our cruising adventures in the Pacific.....

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com