happylife

Spring roll

I'm now addicted to Vietnamese spring roll. Different from the Chinese one which is yellow and oily, it looks really beautiful with colorful vegetables wrapped with a sheet of semi-transparent rice paper. It is not only beautiful but also healthy and easy to cook. The ingredients are just same as usual salads except for a sheet of rice paper. What a great invention it is to wrap vegetables with rice paper, which totally changes the taste and feeling of this menu item. Fortunately we can see quite a few Vietnamese restaurant in Vancouver, and enjoy this cuisine for a reasonable price, but it seems to be so simple to cook that I'm thinking about cooking it by myself. It would be better by adding some yellow corns and small pieces of basil.

After arriving at Vancouver

We got up around 6:00 and left Silver Bay. We had a moderate NW wind and could enjoy comfortable sailing across the Straight of Georgia. It was around 10:00 when we arrived at out home town, but we couldn't land before clearing customs. We docked at a custom's dock and our skipper called the custom. He had to talk with the custom's officer for thirty minutes by phone and we waited for minutes before three custom's officers come to our boat place. They ordered us to leave the boat and asked some custom's questions to each of us. It took rather a long time as there were Canadians, an American and Japanese on board, but after thirty or forty minutes later we all passed  customs and we really arrived at Vancouver. I thought that crossing the border was way easier than I had expected. It would be interesting to sail to the U.S. area on my boat next time.

Crossing the border again

Soon after we left Port Townsend early in the morning, the propane tank got empty. Although we had another tank full of propane, we had no tool to loosen the tight valve. As we couldn't bear sailing without hot coffee, we docked Port Townsend again and went into a cafe waiting for the marine shop open. After breakfast in the cafe, we left Port Townsend again. The sea before us was covered with fog, but we didn't worry because we had a radar and GPS. Our boat was equipped with even an auto pilot system connected with the GPS which was unfortunately out of order this time. We sailed and sailed crossing the boundary and passing among Gulf Islands. It was after the sunset when we arrived at Silver Bay at the north end of Gulf Islands in Canada. We anchored there instead of docking because we hadn't cleared the Canadian customs yet. When we cross the border by airplane, even a touch-and-go is not permitted without passing the customs. It seems to be strange that we can anchor after crossing the border without clearing the customs. Does it mean I can sail to the U.S. and anchor there without clearing the customs unless I wouldn't dock there?

Through under the bridge to Port Townsend

We cast off the marina in Olympia after 7:00 which was one hour behind our plan, because we were so tired and sleepy that we couldn't get up. With the help of the current which was ebb, we sailed northward at almost 7 knots in average. The scenery of Puget Sound was much greater than we had expected. We imagined a seaside covered with factories and houses, however, there were few such things and it was full of nature. I could enjoy sleeping at anytime I liked because all the four member were sailing instructors this time. While the skipper was sleeping, we changed the course and made a short cut just before entering Port Townsend. There was a narrow with a bridge whose clearance was 58 feet. The figure is usually tall enough for most sailing boats, but our boat was big and we couldn't find any spec about the mast height. We measured the height using spinnaker halyard and the result value we got was 56 feet! Furthermore, the tide was just the max value at that time. Fortunately we could barely pass through under the bridge. We docked at Port Townsend and enjoyed a dinner in a good restaurant.

Boat checking and good meals

As we had almost finished checking the boat yesterday, we had few things to do today. We waked up around 9:00 and cleaned the boat which was almost clean because the ex-owner seemed to be quite methodical. Before noon, we got into an Indian restaurant attracted by the signboard which said "all you can eat!" The dishes were great and the volume was infinitive. What a happy place Olympia is! After that we went to a cafe where we could use the free wireless Internet and stayed there for hours. In the late after noon, we went shopping to a grocery store near the marina to get food for the coming cruising back to Vancouver. It was almost 9:00 at night when we finished preparing for the departure, and it was a little bit too late to find a restaurant still open in this town. After wandering about the town for half an hour, we finally went into a Vietnamese restaurant near the marina which was unexpectedly good and we could enjoy delicious cuisine. We were happy because all the restaurants we took meals in Olympia were good. It was after midnight when all the four members met together in the boat. We soon went into bed because we had to leave Olympia early in the next morning.

To Olympia by bus

My friend who runs a sailing school in Vancouver bought a bigger sailing boat in Olympia. As he was busy for his sailing instruction, I went there with my friend to receive the boat. We had to go there by bus because we had to come back on the boat. It was 8:30 in the morning when we left the bus station for Seattle. The road and the border was busy and it was after eight hours when we finally arrived at Olympia. We felt that Olympia was further than Tokyo from Vancouver. Anyway, this is the border specially designed for bus tourists. All the passengers had to get off the bus with their bags and clear customs. The old man in front of the bus is the bus driver and the small belt in front of him is the border. He is going to cross the border after all the passengers have passed the custom. It's a reasonable system, but it took almost one hour for a bus-full of passengers to be cleared the custom.

Red dishes

Korean restaurants are apparently increasing in Vancouver. I visited one of them with my friend couple addicted to spicy food. We ordered two menu items, "Dak Kalbi" and "Seafood Tchigae," both of which are really spicy dishes. The former is a pot of stewed chicken and the latter is tofu soup. The red color of them is not of tomatoes but of red peppers. They are both really hot and spicy as the color implies and I couldn't stop sweating. I was actually soaked as if I had just got out of the hot bathtub. We were almost full when we finished, but we needed something sweet to neutralize our red tongues, and we went into Daily Queen which is a popular ice-cream shop to order a soft-cream dipped with Butter Scotch sauce. It was tasty and relieved my tongue but one of my friends said that it looked like lard. She was so full that she couldn't finish the soft-cream though she usually loves it.

A fire in Stanley Park

When I was just sailing off-shore of Stanley Park in the morning with my friends to go to Bowen Island, one of my friends found a white smoke rising from the forest of Stanley Park. It was so quiet that we couldn't believe it was a fire. I was worried because Vancouver without Stanley Park is much less attractive. Fortunately when we came back from a day sailing, the fire had been put out and the forest of Stanley Park was the same as before. According to a local news, it was the second fire in this month which was caused by illegal squatters in the park, and it was barely put out by firefighters. We have little rain in summer here in Vancouver and the forests are almost made of firewood like this picture. They are still in danger of a fire.

A diffraction pool

I found an interesting pool when I was strolling along English Bay. There were piles of rocks partly along the beach to protect it from wave's erosion, and at one place, there was a small slit. I don't know whether it was artificial or not, but it was leaking sea water into the beach shaping a small, semicircular pool like this picture. The waves inside the pool looked like a diffraction stripes. I think it is a miniature of the Gulf Islands where we sailed last week. Of course the rocks correspond to Galiano, Valdes and Gabriola Islands, and the slit does to Active, Porlie and Gabriola Passages. It's interesting that the Nature works just under the same law whether it is about a small gravel or a gigantic mountain or island.

A stroll

The sky was clear but the wind was a little bit strong. I didn't feel like sailing in the condition. I usually enjoy cycling in such days, but my bike got a flat tire weeks ago without repairing. I decided to go for a stroll around West End. The walk way and the cycling course run almost together but partly separate. I recognized that I had not walked around this area so many times. I was happy because everything looked fresh; the houses, the flower beds, the trees and so on. They were fresh for me just by shifting the course. I felt as if I were walking in other city than Vancouver. I took a lot of pictures of flowers, animals, and houses. This shot is one of them. A squirrel was eating something on a trunk at the back of a tennis court. It was so cute!