Monday, Sep 1: Labour DayAs a surprise for Christa, I rented a motorboat from Sewell's Marina in Horseshoe Bay for Monday, which was the ONLY day I could find when we could all go boating before Iris's flight back to Germany!
When Christa and Iris booked their flight to Vegas last week, I had to scramble to change the date for the boat rental, and figure out a way to get us back to Vancouver for Monday (yesterday) without making Christa suspicious. Sheesh, being sneaky is a lot of work! When Iris and I were swimming in Canim Lake the other day and Christa was sitting in the boat, we were trying to come up with all kinds of excuses to go back to Vancouver -- not so easy when we were having such a great time up there.
But our excuse -- to return to Vancouver in the middle of the night to avoid traffic -- was a legitimate one. I didn't fancy sitting in a hot car with no air conditioning on the TransCanada Highway, in an automobile crawl.
What was tougher, though, was trying to hurry up on Monday to make that boat rental time of 1:00. We arrived home from our trip north around 3am and we were bagged. I drove the whole way down, and I felt OK, but by 5am, I was ready to pass out. And getting up was no picnic, either. THEN Christa discovered the Vegas hotel reservation fell through, and she was determined to get another place booked asap. And here I was, nagging her to get off the computer to go to the beach! Christa must've thought I was out of my mind! I knew they had no accommodation, and it was only a few days before their trip, and I was in a rush to get to... the beach??
We got to Horseshoe Bay, and Christa still didn't ask any questions. I think she was still half-asleep. Kristin was privy of our little mission, and I told Christa that Kristin knew of this secret beach in West Vancouver, so that's why we were headed to Horseshoe Bay.
It's a good thing I made a reservation. Sewell's Marina was a zoo, and everybody looked so stressed out there that I thought we weren't going to get any instruction on how to operate our boat!
"What? No brakes?!?"
Only Kristin and Iris were brave enough to jump off the boat when we turned off the engine between Woolridge and Gambier Islands. Iris assured me the water was warmer than Canim Lake, but I've got this thing about deep ocean... I don't want to swim in it! Gimme a lake any day, and I'm fine, but I've got a healthy fear of swimming in deep ocean.
Kristin's very informative but rather alarming ocean seminar on the abundance and species of sharks and other marine life in northern Pacific coastal waters didn't help, either...
And neither did the little scare we got when I couldn't get the engine started again!!!!
You see, Christa is a jinx for anything motor-related... last year she drove my car through Stanley Park and broke down on the north side. This year she drove up to Vernon with May and when she was at the wheel the car overheated and died. A few months ago after our Italy trip her Audi completely died. At Canim Lake the pontoon broke down. Can you see a pattern here??? I was also a bit worried because we were between two islands and my mobile phone signal was going in and out. When I finally got the engine to turn over, the whole motorboat felt a little lighter as our spirits lifted and I moved us forward into the Sound.
As you can see, I wasn't handling the rougher waters, although the boat felt like a bucking bronco when I was heading back to Horseshoe Bay at top speed so we would return on time...
Iris had to manoeuvre the boat in the fairly choppy waters of the open ocean around the islands west of Bowen Island, and we hung on tight. The last thing we wanted to do was capsize or lose someone overboard!!!
But, we made it successfully back to shore, after some crazy navigational watercraft moves in the marina by Gail the novice skipper trying to park the damned thing... let me tell you: when you're trying to operate a boat for the first time in your life, you do NOT want a Swiss-French, a German, and a Swiss-German all yelling out directions on how to park!!!
Addendum: Friday, Sep 5
I've uploaded a video clip of our exit from Horseshoe Bay to my SFU webspace:
Kristin -- Elle Capitano
