5:11
5:11
The light was fading in the little grove and Edward, while possessed of slightly better night vision than the beaver, didn’t want to take any chances.
“First things first. Why the lemon?”
The beaver regarded the nosy bunny for a moment and replied, “Why is that any of your business?”
“Just curious. It certainly looks tasty but not what I would have termed ’your thing’.”
“And what would a long-legged busybody like you know about ’my thing’? In fact, what the hell would you know about anybody’s ‘thing’ outside of your own little, self-righteous world?” the beaver spat out with an acid tone. “Seems to me you aren’t capable of seeing anything beyond that twitchy pink nose of yours.”
“But as for the lemon, I think I will indulge your curiosity.” The beaver thought hard: he needed to buy some time. It’s not that he was afraid of the hare — at least not very afraid — but Edward was dangerous and handling this wrong could be disastrous to the beaver’s plans. And while manipulating humans was all well and good, the phrase ‘animal cunning’ wasn’t just a saying. The bunny had teeth, both metaphorically and literally, and knew how to use them.
“Well,” the beaver began, “it’s like this. When I first arrived in the city and was searching for the boy, I was struck by the different nature of the trees around here. I’d never been to this part of the world before, you know …” The beaver could see Edward’s ear relax and knew he had the time he needed if he could just keep the bunny’s attention.
“And well, I thought to myself …” he continued …
Brandi-whine
Well she’s dragged me off to music again. This time it’s Brandi Carlile at the Winspear. I thought I swore never to come see music at the Winspear again after the Los Lobos debacle. Yet here I am.
Still, how bad could an alt Country singer in a formal venue be? I’m sure people will at least nod their heads…
Act I
Scott somebody or other. What can I say: the people beside us bailed and went to drink in the lobby and I wanted to go with them. Leslie wouldn’t let me. Let me sum up by saying there was some nodding… Into sleep.
Act II
Brandi came on with two backup guitar to much hooting and hollering. There’s a grand piano too so I guess we will see
She got everyone a little grooving. Enthusiastic crowd.
And she sure knows her audience: great performer. Too bad I don’t actually know any of the songs 🙁
5:10
5:10
Rowan pondered the the ice-cold glass of water slowly dripping condensation on the old wood table. She always kept a mug or two in the freezer so that on those evenings she needed an extra cold drink she could grab a beer from the fridge and pour it into a frosty mug. She enjoyed watching the ice on the glasses slowly melt, and her furniture was nothing she ever worried about. A few more rings or stains just added more character.
This particular beer was a pale ale she had picked up on the way home. She’d never had it before but the scruffy older guy behind the counter at the liquor store had recommended it. The store was fairly well known for its beer selection, so she took his advice and picked up four 500-ml bottles. It had been a good pour and she’d nailed the head; it had just barely dribbled over the rim, the excess quickly turning to half frozen beer slush and adding to the overall pleasant esthetic.
It was at these times, with a cold beer in front of her that she had not yet tasted, that she always felt in the moment. The moment before the next moment, the next phase, and she like to savour them. The anticipation of the ice-cold mug with its frosty contents soon to be quelling her thirst. But she knew that the instant she grabbed the mug, the picture would change and would become irretrievable. That wasn’t a bad thing, but somehow she always felt melancholy at moments like this. By reaching for that thing that would satisfy her, she would change that little piece of the world. Forever.
She sighed and leaned back with one more appreciative glance at the slowly pooling liquid. And then she reached out and drank.
5:9
5:7
There is, he thought, the old solution. The one that cures all ills. At least for the moment.
While all this change and turmoil and dedication to freedom had quite revised his basic outlook, much of the old still clung to him like an old, worn, familiar cloak. And so with a shrug and a twinkle he smiled and pulled the silver-chased flask from that not-so-metaphorical cloak, spun the top off with practised ease and partook of a healthy swig. “Elixir,” he murmured. “Elixir indeed.”
He gave his head a little shake at the strength of his taste buds’ reaction to an old friend and took one more long swallow before spinning the top back on and slipping the worn container back whence it had appeared. “I think,” he began, “I think I shall enjoy this. I think I shall just bloody well sit here and enjoy this.” His voice was rising to thunderous levels. “I do believe I shall take this time for myself, you bloody bastards!” he shouted, although even he had no idea who these bloody bastards might be or whether they even existed outside of his own paranoid delusions.
Taking a deep gulp of air he stretched his arms out to the sides and threw his head back. “I shall take now, you soul-sucking parasites. I shall decide.” And then, so quiet as to be a mere breathe to the inattentive: “I decide.”
He bowed his head and drew his arms back in to wrap himself tight. “I shall wait.”
Then he lifted his chin and stared across the plain, eyes absorbing the play of sunlight across the grass, the patterns of clouds racing along the hillsides, the play of colour and texture as a distant river wound its way towards the glimmering body of water that took up half of the horizon. His ears opened to the sound of the wind ebbing and flowing across the features of the land, to the distant calls of birds floating unseen in the endless sky, to the brief, tiny moments of utter silence that punctuated the life he beheld in those moments he waited.
In that moment, in a odd sort of way, he regretted that drink for stealing even a little of this from his mind’s eye. It was in truth more glorious than any of the petty fears of imagined injustices. It was more heady than the rarest of brandies. It was, he admitted to himself, quite simply the real reason to be. To be here in this moment truly did justify all the other moments, for without them, there could be no now.
And so he took the time for himself. He breathed and he gloried. And took all that the world was prepared to give him. And you know, that was quite a lot.
5:8
5:8
It all came back to that infernal machine, he realized. A deal with Satan’s worst could not have spun a more Byzantine web around him. It was not so much that he lacked the sheer strength to break free. It was more the incessant compounding of barriers: monstrous doors, cavernous moats, unscaleable walls … No matter what triumphs he found, no matter what hard-won successes he contrived over these blockages, another and another and another stood before him.
Though he stood on the precipice of change, a net beyond any mythic description lay in front of him, removing even the possibility of flinging himself into the void.
Yet somehow, even though he knew himself trapped, even though he realized he had no further resources to move himself forward, even though deep in his curdled bowels he understood that the only way was the way back, even so: he could not move from this place. He could not abandon the hope that had brought him so far before seemingly abandoning him to fate.
He stood under that final span, not yet outside nor any longer inside. And he imagined himself removed altogether from the pushes and pulls of his existence. Free in that moment of non-action.
5:7
5:7
The span of the great Gothic arch framed the vastness that he had thought would spell escape. Out. To shrug off the insidious weight of responsibility and tedious pressure of day after day, all he had to do, he had oh so foolishly thought, was to go. To go out into the unknown. To leave the the cloisters of his current existence and join the broader scope.
But he couldn’t. He stood there gazing out on the desert-like landscape, with hills that gently undulated across the horizon and vast grassy plains that stretched so far one’s eyes blended them with the grey sky to create the illusion of infinity.
Behind him, up those countless stairs and through those twisting passages, lay his responsibility. A life of ease and luxury, punctuated with bursts of fear and dread. A machine that controlled not only its own mysterious imperatives but also his life and the lives of everyone dwelling in this vast manse. An unknowable and unsolvable riddle that permeated the mortar of these cold stone walls. Only by slowly drinking himself to death had these years past reminded endurable. The peaceful blanket of inebriation had wrapped him lovingly in its arms and provided solace and peace: blocking out the absence of hope, gentling burying the anguish of his own helplessness.
But no more. The sweet taste of drink had left him bereft.
The shame and self-loathing had emerged from that tiny little box that had held them hidden away for so many years, and he had sought to break free and once again regain some semblance of control. He had mustered up all of his resources and called upon all of his diminished reserves, and had left the tower that had been the only home he could remember. Why could he not remember? What was it that came before? Doubt drove him outwards. A small but growing sense of righteousness pushed him down the long stairways toward the nearly forgotten courtyard. The merest gleam of hope enticed him to the huge wooden doors that guarded this ancient and mighty fortress from the rest of time and space.
And so he found himself standing in the looming passage, staring at everything that was other, and could not find that last key, that last impetus, the missing force that could compel him to make one more step. And so he stood, balanced by forces that no man could sway, poised on top of the blade of destiny, unable to move forward or back, but assured that not to move doomed his soul to a slow death as he slowly was pulled onto the uncaring and impartial razor that was the deadly edge of the moment.
He felt the wind from the plains blow gently across his brow and he felt the warm of the courtyard on his back and he felt …
… despair.
5:6 Revised
5:6
Gareth spent the night on the couch watching a marathon re-airing of a reality show about a couple boating around some islands. It followed the ins and outs of learning to navigate around rocks and reefs and dealing with the mysteries of tides and currents. He found himself shuddering and wincing as the stars of the show bounced their large and expensive motor cruiser off various docks and other boats. Why anyone, he thought to himself, would want to drive a giant half-million–dollar boat in and amongst other people’s million-dollar boats and think it was fun was beyond him. He’d rather sit here on his couch or go for a walk in the nice safe park.
He did enjoy the episode that featured the otters. They kinda reminded him of the beaver. Where was the beaver right now, he wondered. “And,” he muttered out loud, “where the hell is my lemon tree? Stupid rodent thief!”
5:5 Revised
To Summarize
Gareth has bid adieu to Rowan and remains in his apartment with a date for the next day.
Gareth’s father is at loose ends.
Edward and the beaver are in the park with the lemon, about to have a discussion.
In Magrath, Meredith is looking for the beaver. The mayor is worried he might be going crazy. The beaver has freed the rat and is contemplating his papers.
In Magrath’s past, Barney has found his scheme at an impasse. In Magrath’s other past, Meredith’s preparing to confront Barney.
5:4 Away but not Aweigh
Good morning.
I awoke to a dead iPhone. It had been plugged in all night but was dead as a doornail. I checked the electrical panel –all good– and switched it to a forward receptacle and let it charge a bit, but still no go. Sigh. After a bit of surfin’ and readin’ on my iPad I felt the Google-fu burbling up and discovered the hard reset (hold home button and power button for at least 10–20 seconds): voila!
Meanwhile I’d coffee’d up waiting for the the resident Doctor Slug to awaken and rise from the bowels of her berth and thought I’d start (backwards) filling in this week’s blog posts.
We hit the sack last night after a bottle of wine and were snug in our beds and just asleep when we heard a tremendous metal-on-metal crash and the boat jarred suddenly. I jumped up and headed for the saloon. Unfortunately for me Leslie had left the doorway to the saloon open but had closed the sliding roof.
Well, my head impacted the roof at speed; better yet my head impacted the wooden handle jutting out, just to focus the force a bit more effectively. Manfully shaking it off I ducked and continued up to see a small boat with a light and two men off the port bow. I turned to the door, but for some inexplicable reason we had chosen this night of all nights to lock it. With a key. Which was somewhere.
Eventually I found the key, made it on deck and discovered the boat was the harbour patrol. The wind had caught their aluminum boat and smacked it into our anchor. So no harm done, except to my sleep. And my heart. And my head.
Anyway eventually we got back to sleep.
So now all you readers who have been keeping up will have to go back to day one and catch up. That is if I can get it done today on the flight back. Then again, it might take all week…
Leslie and I took a walk around and visited some boats and popped into a marine supply place (Skipper’s Marine Center) to ogle inflatable life jackets. Man, were the staff people ever bored. We entered a contest, got life jacket demos, were given the soft sell on a 17′ Glastron and were given a free floating keychain.
Back at the boat we loaded up a cart with our gear and hauled it off the dock. L’s parents were there and we loaded up the van, dropped the keys tearfully off to Lorraine and waved goodbye.
Our first stop was Nanaimo Harbour Chandler. Tim had said he had an account there and we could buy anything we wanted–just kidding. We did want to look at some charts. It’s an awesome place–sort of a super hardware store for boats. We picked up a 2013 Waggoner Cruising Guide for the West Coast and Chart 3313 which is 1:40 000 charts for most of the Gulf Islands. We are total boat geeks now.
We stopped for lunch at White Spot and then dropped Stephen off downtown to shop. After a little fussing we decided to drive to Qualicum Beach for fun. Once there we sat on a bench on the shore chatting and watching the gorgeous calm Straits of Georgia. Huh, I guess someone forgot to pay the wind bill, because we didn’t see any days like this while we were on the water.
A couple of picnic tables down, someone had left a neatly bundled bag of garbage lying in the table. Eventually a raven landed and gave it the once over and decided it was fair game. He grabbed it in his beak (it was bigger than he was) and lifted it about a foot in the air. It landed on the grass and he proceeded to drag it around a while before pinning it with one foot and pecking away. Eventually more ravens arrived but the first guy retained ownership. They’d agreed to rip it open and once accomplished, he grabbed what looked like a chicken wing and took off. He didn’t look back. When I lost sight of him down the beach he was still going. I guess he didn’t want to share. Makes him way smarter than a seagull. 1, 2, 3, 4 ravens scattered the remains of the garbage and eventually all left.
We walked down the beach but by the time we had got back someone had cleaned up the mess.
Back in the van and back to Nanaimo. We stopped at the ‘Hortons’ as L’s mom has taken to calling it–first sign of their real West Coast integration I guess–and had a pleasant chat for an hour or so.
Back in the van once more we picked up Stephen (with a few wrong turns–they are still learning the city) and were off to the airport. We are about an hour and a half early but that’s fine because it gives us some mental down time.
Our flight is to Vancouver in a Dash 8 and then on to YEG. Crossing the Strait was fun, looking at all the islands we had visited and navigated around from the air. Fourteen minutes later we were on the ground and had an hour to wait for our connecting flight. So far I have 3 days caught up. I might get this done before we land in Edmonton if my phone battery holds out.
But Ooh the movies look good on the Edmonton bound plane. I think the rest of the updates will have to wait! Now… Django Unchained or The Dark Knight Rises?
Thus ends our week long adventure on the West Coast. We are sure to be back this summer, so stay tuned.
5:3 Windy Way
Morning and up we got. I grabbed a shower and settled up at the marina office: $50 this time, pretty steep. We started on our morning checks and cleaned the salt off the windshields so we could see. I was scrubbing down the glass when our neighbour mentioned he had called the ambulance! Seems his girlfriend had been feeling dizzy and bad and the Nursing Hotline advised him to call it in. The emergency responders ended up on the wrong dock but eventually made their way over. Meanwhile Tim and Donna showed up at 9 as planned and suddenly there were 20 people standing on the finger watching a small sailboat the probably couldn’t hold more than 5 or 6. Eventually it all sorted itself out and the girlfriend was wheeled away. Tim kindly helped the fellow snug his sails downs before be headed after the ambulance.
We said goodbye to Donna and started to talk about how we would get out without any issues. I decided to drive straight out between the two boats in front of me and then pivot my bow into the wind and then leave with gusto to avoid being blown back into the leeward docks. We discussed a few other options and considerations and then, with coaching from Tim, I actually pulled it off as planned. I must finally be getting this stuff.
Since the tide was up we opted to exit south through the shallow channel. The only real consideration was this was also the seaplane landing strip. But all went well and we made it out. I turned the helm over to Leslie and she guided us into Gabriola Passage.
Since we were returning to Nanaimo today we had to negotiate both Gabriola Passage and Dodd Narrows. Leslie and I had done the math and calculated if we left at 10 am we could hit Gabriola Passage an hour after slack which was easy in a power boat, and at 9 knots, make it to Dodd Narrrows at almost exactly slack.
Something must of broken loose in the night because Leslie had to negotiate Gabriola Passage with 3 other boats and a log boom. Easy-peasy. We rounded the corner of Valdes island and headed SW to Ruxton Passage. The wind was following so it wasn’t too bad and from Ruxton to Dodd Narrows it was pretty protected.
After Leslie brought us through Dodd Narrows though, we were open to the wind coming in off the Strait. It got pretty bouncy. All the way up Northumberland Channel we rode the waves. After securing the cabin more thoroughly we tried some MOB drills and maneuvering with a strong wind. Round and round, pound, pound, pound. Eventually we started angling west towards the entrance to Nanaimo harbor but tried to cheat it enough so that we weren’t too much beam into the wind.
Back to Nanaimo, we could see a 3 ferries in the water: one small one for Gabriola Island, a big one for Departure bay on the far side of Nanaimo and a third coming in behind us to Duke Point. We managed to miss them all.
We headed to back Newcastle Island again to practice on mooring bouys and anchors in a crowded(-ish) harbour. We each anchored up surrounded on 3 sides by other boats and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The only real issue we had was our chain locker doesn’t seem to pass the anchor chain into a nice pile and it kept jamming the windlass. So whenever we were raising the anchor this forced someone down into the V-berth to settle the pile of chain. Fine if there are 3 of us but Leslie and I were trying to do this with just 2.
Next up we tried a mooring bouy. Leslie picked it up from the stern and we tried walking it forward which was impossible in the wind. About 30 minutes of traditional male stubbornness later Tim and I got the bow docking line through the ring; I think Leslie had sensibly written it off much earlier as a learning experience.
It was lunch time and Leslie had not been checked out on the dinghy so we decided to leave the boat on the bouy and putt over to the Dinghy Dock Pub for lunch. Leslie got the scoop on the 4 stroke, 9hp outboard including turtle and rabbit, choke, safety cutoff lanyard and basic steering instructions. It was one of those things: I never quite realized that someone could not know how to handle an outboard or tiller… it just seems second nature to me.
Anyway Leslie took us across the bay to the pub’s docks and I jumped out. The waitress told us here was a lower, protected dinghy dock round back so Leslie and Tim cast off and took her around while took pictures. We had a nice lunch on the deck in the sun and unlike the kayakers across the pub, we opted for ice water. They were sucking back beer and I wondered if they would even be able to get in their kayaks later. A self correcting problem I guess. Too drunk to get in: too drunk to be on the water…
We hopped back into the dinghy and Leslie brought us smoothly back to the At Last. I almost soaked myself trying to hop up on the swim grid before tying us to the boat, but fortunately all I suffered was a tear in my pants. We hauled out the dinghy, cast off the buoy and headed back to Nanaimo and Stones Marina.
I finished the trip with a reasonably competent docking in the fuel dock where a helpful young man with a cigarette hanging from his lips (on a fuel dock?) helped with the lines. Unfortunately it was now 4:10 and the fuel dock had closed at 4:00. I called Lorraine and she said to bring her in to the slip. Tim intimated that I could try but he that was leery about doing it himself. I sensibly opted to watch Tim maneuver it in stern first amongst the crowded fingers with the wind blowing the bloody bow around like a kite. Beautifully done. Ian was at the slip to help with the lines, and we were home.
Tim sat down to finish off the paperwork and we went through where we were and what he felt was our current level of competence. In the end his assessment was pretty much on par with our own self-assessment. We both passed our coursework, both Ashore and Practical components for all three courses: Competent Crew Power, Day Skipper Power and Coastal Navigation. His recommendation was that I could be turned loose on the charter industry, but I need a lot of practice and it would be a good thing if I didn’t wait a year to get it. Leslie also passed on paper, but needs to work on taking charge and more practice on basic boat handling.
After that he packed up and and we walked him down the dock and said our goodbyes. I would highly recommend Tim to anyone, and he does have his own 42 ft sailboat that he is setting up as a boat and breakfast.
Leslie and I grabbed the keys to the Ocean Pearl, the 38ft Bayliner, and looked it over. That’s the boat next up on my agenda. Walking back I wondered out loud if Paul Kantor was in port. He was our ashore instructor in Edmonton for the ISPA Sailing courses that L, C and I had been taking. He was supposed to be doing on-water stuff this week with Nanaimo Yacht Charters. Next thing you know, there he was sitting in the cockpit of a powder-blue 40ft Hanse. We chatted a bit and wandered back to our boat.
I grabbed a shower ashore and came back to BBQ some chicken and stirfry some peas and mushrooms. Leslie contributed the pasta and we had a lovely little repast. A quiet evening of winding down and we snugged in for our last night aboard.
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