Visiting the big city

N 49'46.373, W 123'07.062
Vancouver, BC

Happy Canada Day!

We are now in Vancouver at the Quayside (pronounced 'keyside' by the locals) Marina in False Creek.

Tuesday we had a great sail from Porlier Pass across the Straits of Georgia to Vancouver. The winds at the start were about 7 knots and gradually built to 15 knots as we cross shifting from a beat to weather to a broad reach. Amazingly the only sail change we needed to make was letting out the main. The Yankee and staysail settings held the whole way across. The sun was shining and the wind generator was spinning and the batteries were staying charged with the autopilot, navigation instrumentation and refrigeration humming away. This is great news.

For our first night in Vancouver we stayed at the Coal Harbor Marina next to the Bayshore hotel. After the boat was rinsed and we had showers, we treated ourselves to appetizers at Cardero's. The next morning we did laundry and checked our emails at a Wi-Fi cafe. We left the marina, fueled up and went around to False Creek. We dropped anchor to wait for a slip at one of the yacht clubs but apparently our timing was not working out so we moved to the Quayside instead. In the evening we had dinner with my cousin Bari and her husband, Bob. It was great to get together and catch up on how everyone is doing and hear about their trip to Germany.

Today we plan to get together with Libby and Tony of Silkie C. We first met them in Napa in August, 2001. They were also on the Baja Ha-Ha with us that same year. Looking forward to visiting with them.

The current thought is to stay 2 more nights in Vancouver and then continue north.

No worries,
SV Windarra

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