happylife

Dinghies

I found some dinghies sailing in the False Creek this morning. They are very small boats with a sail. My sail boat is small, but they are much smaller than mine; they are less than 10 feet long. The biggest difference between my boat and them is that they have no keel which is a very heavy weight set on the bottom of a sail boat so that it wouldn't capsize. It means that a dingy without a keel can be capsized at any time and actually one of the dinghies capsized just before my eyes. Sure they seem to be very unstable and uncomfortable because every crew has to wear a wet suit, but they have a great advantage to our cruising sail boats; they are way faster than us because they have no drag of keels. I'm interested in sailing on a dinghy but the water of English Bay is too cold for me.

How difficult?

This is a shot from Abbotsford International Airshow. The airplane is flying upside-down just over the runway at an incredibly low altitude. It seems to be rather a common performance but as a novice pilot I can imagine how difficult it is. He has to control the stick oppositely to the usual position; he needs to push it to get an altitude and vice versa. It must be confusing and he has to do it with his body upside-down. The blood must get into his brain and his vision must be limited. All he can see would be the runway just over his head and the confusing instruments panel. Of course I have never flown like this not only because it is prohibited with the Cessna152 or 172 but because I couldn't make the airplane upside-down. If I turned the yoke as much as possible, the airplane would only get into a spiral dive losing the lift. Only highly trained pilot with a high performance acrobat airplane can fly like this.

Continental or English?

As my family is visiting Vancouver next month, I was zapping hotel related pages on the Internet and got to know a new word. It was not actually a new word for me and I had come across some times in my life, but I didn't know the precise definition of the word. The word was "continental breakfast." According to my dictionary, it implies a light breakfast consisting of only coffee and bread-rolls with butter or jam. I don't know why it means like that, but it might be because European people take a simple breakfast. As you know, the opposite word is "English breakfast" which is consisting of cereal, cooked bacon and eggs, toast and tea or coffee. This dish would be one of English breakfast.

Happy sunset sailing

It was the perfect condition for sailing with a moderate wind and the blue sky, being not too hot and not too cold. I went on a single-handed, sunset, happy sailing two hour before the sunset. About two miles off-shore of the beach, I made the two sails in a crossing shape which is called "heaving-to." It is a quite useful sailing technique to stop a boat without lowering the sails. The boat headed to the wind and I could watch the sunset in this picture's style. I was extremely happy looking at the great sunset. Birds were flying in the sky and a seal glanced at me. What a peaceful sea! Sure, sailing with friends is enjoyable, but I prefer this kind of quiet sailing.

A street painter

Vancouver is an artistic city and we can see street painters here and there around the city. Stanley Park is especially a mecca for them and it's quite difficult to get the permission from the city to do painting jobs in there. One of my friend got the permission last year and started drawing portraits. She is so diligent that she goes to her position in Stanley Park almost every day with a parasol and chairs for her customers and herself. She works from early in the morning until night, while her husband is playing with me. She can draw each portrait in twenty minutes, which is sometimes in realistic style and sometimes in cartoon style, fitting into her customer's request. I think she is cool because she earns money just by her hand. She is really a self-made woman. If you want to see her, she is working in front of Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park.

The border road

On the way back from Abbotsford, we drove along the border between the U.S. and Canada. Two different roads were running parallel, which was a strange scenery because the traffic sign was written in miles in the U.S. side while in kilometers in Canada side. There was no fence or barbed wire and anyone could go across the border without any difficulty. While we stopped the car to take picture, a helicopter flew over us. I'm not sure whether it was for watching, but it is of course illegal to go across it if it seemed to be easy. We might be watched by satellites or infrared cameras.

Love in the sky

I went to see Abbotsford International Airshow with my friends. It was the first visit after I got the private pilot license, and I could guess what high level skills are required in the acrobatic flights. Different from Cessna 152 or 172, most airplanes had much greater power and demonstrated unbelievable maneuvers such as hammer head turn, snap'n'roll and so on. The bombing by F16 and the slow flight by F17 were impressive. The last of the flight event was the formation flight by Snowbirds. Nine airplanes attracted the audience showing a lot of beautiful formation flights including this "love in the sky." It seems quite simple but I can guess how it's difficult to draw a perfectly shaped heart in the sky. There were quite a few families with little boys and girls, and some of them would become the future pilots.

The end of summer

Since I came back from the Gulf Islands, it has been cloudy or rainy in Vancouver. It looks like the weather in autumn. Has the summer ended yet? I have to think about my life in near future; I have no idea about where to live and what to do after coming October. I have several things I want to do, but I can't do all of them at one time. I need to make a precise plan about what to do next, which I'm not very good at. I have to put my small business into orbit which I intended to do by this spring. I want to get a float rating to fly seaplanes around Vancouver. I want to visit some places in Canada other than Vancouver. Looking like this, I have not done anything. How lazy I had been! I feel that I should force the pace a bit.

Come back from Gulf Islands cruise

Last afternoon, we came back from Gulf Islands cruise to Vancouver in rain. The weather was fine except for the last day and we fully enjoyed the six-day sailing. As we were unexperienced sailors, we had several small problems, but I found it was even interesting to solve them one by one. I will write the episodes during the cruise soon on this blog. I have to also organize the numerous photos of the sailing but it would be an interesting work for me. Anyway, when I returned to my room, the popcorn was still alive with three long leaves. He is really great.

Gulf Islands Cruise 2006 / Day#6

The last day of our cruise was just returning to rainy Vancouver. We left Telegraph Harbor at 7:30, circled clockwise around Thetis Island, passed Porlie Passage before 10:00 which was almost the slack time. Straight of Georgia was not rough this time and no one got seasick. It was around 14:00 when we arrived at Vancouver, but the sailing was not the end; we docked at Beach Avenue Marina to unload the two kayaks before enjoying lunch and beer in a restaurant in Granville Island. After that, we boarded again and sailed back to Coal Harbor, which was really the last sailing in this cruise. It was raining sometimes hard, but I was happy because we could finish the cruise without any serious problems and in a peaceful atmosphere.