We arrived in Vancouver BC for Jeff to look over the dredge he will be working on this summer. It's in dry dock here, but will sail down to the Columbia in a couple of weeks. I came with him for the ride, taking advantage of the company paying our hotel bill. Good thing - it's about $200 per night! We've been here since Sunday and will leave tomorrow afternoon. Jeff's implant surgery is Thursday morning.

We had a nice day driving around and seeing different sights today. We started off going East along the north side of Burrard Inlet and ended up at a pretty little seaside village, Deep Cove. There were lots of homes hanging from the fjord walls, a street of ice cream shops and little eateries and gift shops, and a nice park with scattered picnic tables on a wide green lawn. Everything sloped down to the water's edge where there was a hustling kayak rental and lesson shop. We saw several school groups of a dozen and more kids going out across the smooth green waters to explore the steep-to shores of rocky islands and points of the mainland. We spent an hour or so there, then drove up to the top of Mount Seymour. On the way, we stopped at a Safeway and a Licensed store (they don't sell beer or wine or any alcohol in anything except a licensed store, and we had to pay $12.50 for a bottle of wine that would cost us $7 at Costco) for picnic supplies. Greek salad, chicken salad, nice bread, and a bottle of red wine.

The top of Mount Seymour is about 1040 meters. Which I think is about 3500 feet, or a little less than Government Camp on Mt. Hood. But the road was straight up from sea level to the mountain top, so the little red Honda was struggling up in 2nd and 3rd gear most of the time. By the time we reached the top, we were in the clouds. It was chilly and we didn't have much of a view. So we drove back down to Deep Cove and had our picnic on one of the tables overlooking the water. We watched a group of kayakers getting a lesson on doing 360 flips. Then we took a short hike. Saw some quaint beach cabin type houses, and a little bit of woods. Then drove to the west end. Ending up at Horseshoe Bay where the BC Ferry has a landing. We stopped into an Indian Gift Shop. Beautiful stuff. Beaded leather purses. Carved wooden masks - raven, moon, sun, bear, eagle, etc. Fringed leather coats with Indian totem art on them. Hand painted silk scarfs. Soap stone carvings. Beautiful stuff, nice to look at - but way out of our price range.

Then we stopped for an iced coffee at a little shop overlooking a marina and were given quite the show. A guy w/ a 30' work boat pulled a 100' x 40' barge into the boat ramp. To get there he had to make a 90 degree turn around a boat dock full of little 15' - 20' runabouts. He only had about 5' of clearance on each side of the barge. And he had a little tug (called a log bronco) on the back of the barge to help steer it. Once he had the barge up to the boat ramp he lowered a ramp. The ramp was the only thing holding the barge in place. They didn't put out any lines or anchors. Then they loaded two big concrete mixing trucks, a pickup truck and a big concrete pump truck onto the barge. It was quite the show. Everybody in the area stopped what they were doing to watch. When you first saw the line of big trucks heading towards the barge, you thought, "No way! will all that fit onto that little barge". But it did. And the whole operation went smooth w/ no muss or fuss. Once the trucks got in place. The little crew boat pulled them out into the sound. Getting the barge turned w/o hitting the boats tied to the dock was a good show. But it all looked like "just another day at the office".

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped off at a couple of parks overlooking the water. It was a beautiful view of Howe Sound and brought back memories of sailing in the area a few years ago. At one park there was a bald eagle perched at the top of a big Douglas fir. A raven was swooping at him trying to get him to fly off. The eagle ducked now and then to avoid getting hit. And both birds vocalized from time to time. After several minutes, the raven got tired and landed on the top of the tree next to the eagle's perch. He was about 20' or so from the eagle at that point. After he rested for ten minutes or so he went back to buzzing the eagle again.

It's lovely here, but expensive!!!