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I liked this little sequence of images. The truck crane is used on the smaller islands for building projects and all concerned are so familiar with the procedure that the whole event took less than three minutes – following which tug, barge and truck disappeared in different directions.
Neat!
Tags: Boats, British Columbia, Fuji x10, Gulf Islands, Photo
The Canadian Power Squadron ‘Boating Essentials’ course that is occupying a fair percentage of my time at the moment is fast approaching its culmination. This Sunday last found those of us taking the course – along with our proctors and other members of the Brentwood Bay squadron and of the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue service – participating in the student cruise… an opportunity to put into practice some of the theory that we have been studying these past several months in the classroom.
Courtesy of those generous owners/skippers upon whose vessels we were guests, we started early from Tsehum Harbour, north of Sidney.
The morning was spent working our way slowly north west from Sidney round the head of the peninsula and on towards Cowichan Bay. The object was to enable the students practice navigation the old-fashioned (pre-GPS) way.
Our reward for washing up at the correct location? Hot dogs from the barbecue at Genoa Bay courtesy of the squadron, which – thanks to the excellent tuition we have received throughout – was reached in good time for lunch.
This most welcome repast was followed by an opportunity to learn how to recover an unconscious ‘man overboard’ from the icy waters of the Pacific (kudos to the brave dry-suit clad volunteer from Search and Rescue for allowing herself repeatedly to be pushed into the dock!) before heading for home.
Potential recruits – or just after a ‘dog’?
Tools of the trade!
Tags: Boats, Gulf Islands, Photo, Victoria
“The secret of success is to be in harmony with existence, to be always calm to let each wave of life wash us a little farther up the shore.”
Cyril Connolly
On a delightfully balmy mid-February day we parked the car on the outskirts of Sidney and walked along the seafront into the town. It was impossible not to marvel at the beauty of this exquisite enclave in which we are fortunate enough to reside. I therefore make no apologies for placing before the gentle reader – for his or her delectation – some selected snaps of this sumptuous shore.
To Centennial Park in Saanichton the other day for a most pleasant stroll. The park has a deceptively ‘Tardis’ like quality about it and I have driven past it many a time without having the slightest notion of the manifold delights that lie within. On arrival the sky was dark and rain was threatening, so I decided that the Fuji x10 would not be needed and left it in the car. These images were captured instead on the Galaxy S6 – demonstrating quite how rubbish my judgement proved to be on this occasion.
We broke our Boxing Day journey up to snowy Kamloops (where the temperatures continue to be a bracing minus ten celsius!) at Harrison Mills, the which is situated toward the top of the broader part of the Fraser Valley between Mission and Hope (fabulous – no?) before one hits the mountains and takes to the canyon or to the high passes.
We spent a lovely night at Rowena’s Inn on the River which I cannot recommend highly enough to travellers in these parts. This beautiful old lodge is still owned by the Pretty family who built it (their history being revealed in photos throughout the house) and who now run it as a boutique B & B with a really rather good restaurant alongside to boot. Apart from anything else the place is clearly a twitchers’ paradise (see below)!
As ever – here be some photos…
Tags: British Columbia, Fuji x10, Photo, winter
…to friends, acquaintances and gentle readers…
from the Kickass Canada Girl and the Imperceptible Immigrant.
Have a wonderful Christmas and a splendid Hogmany!
Tags: Celebration, Christmas, Fuji x10, Photo
Here follows an extract from an article on the website ‘thedrinksbusiness.com‘ dating from October 2014:
“Luc Heymans was so shocked by the price of wine in Ireland that he opened up Europe’s first craft wine-making shop in Kells, County Meath, reported the Irish Examiner.
Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Heymans explained his rationale: “When I lived in Europe, I used to enjoy a glass of wine with my dinner, but when I moved to Ireland I couldn’t believe the price of a bottle of wine. I started making my own wine and then I decided to open the shop. There are thousands of similar stores in Canada but this is the first in Europe,” Heymans said.
Unlike similar offerings in the UK, the wines are made with kits rather than on demand from a winery and customers can buy the kits and take them home to make the wine or leave them in the shop throughout the process.
Heymans said: “The wine takes between four and eight weeks to ferment, depending on the quality you choose and, when it’s ready, the customer comes back into the shop to bottle and cork it and add personalised labels.”
“They then take the wine home and leave it to rest for a few months and each kit makes between 28 and 30 bottles,” he said.”
Since being introduced a decade ago (by the Kickass Canada Girl, naturally) to the splendid wines from the Okanagan Valley and elsewhere in BC, I have become a massive fan of Canadian wines. I had no idea – however – that Canadians were also as enthusiastic about making their own wines, whether from kits (which bear absolutely no resemblance to the ‘Boots the Chemist’ home wine kits that I remember from my youth) or from their own produce.
Shortly after our arrival in the province we were introduced to a local winemaker – the wonderful ‘Flying Fish Winery‘ in Saanichton. I was immediately knocked out both by the cost of the wines per bottle (a little over £3 in English money!) and the amazing quality of the product. We instantly ordered four different half kits – a Sauvignon Blanc, a Gewurztraminer, an Amarone and a Carménère – and a couple of weeks ago were told that they were ready for bottling.
You might – incidentally – recognise the symbol on our labels. Yes – it is the Luckenbooth!
With regard to the bottling process I think these pictures tell their own story:
Having spent a laborious portion of the day yesterday clearing up the coniferous detritus left in the garden (yard) by the last high winds I was none too pleased this morning to find that it was once again blowing half a gale. I had occasion to venture into Sidney by the Sea this morning and took these snaps – from inside the Lexus – on the Galaxy S6.
The seas on this side of the peninsula are usually pretty flat calm, as you might have seen from previous photos. We are on the lee side of the island and well protected by the Gulf Islands.
Today was different. These pictures might not really capture the intensity of the winds but you should know that the logs that you can see littering the shore in a number of them were being tossed about like matchsticks. I was not for one moment impelled to leave the safety of our chunky 4×4…
…nor would I have liked to have been aboard that ferry!
When I returned home the power was out again.
Hey ho! West coast winter living!
The weekend was cold but clear with the bright sun low in the sky during the day and the very recently full moon illuminating the heavens at night. A walk with our dear friends’ young sons around Swan Lake – a lovely nature reserve on the edge of town – provided a brisk but beautiful introduction to a part of Victoria that was new to me. On this occasion the Galaxy S6 had to stand in for the Fuji x10 – the presence of energetic youngsters having curtailed my pre-outing preparations.
A little further north – and later that same day – I was in Sidney by the Sea, which is preparing for the advent season by donning its Christmas apparel.
I have previously made mention in these meanderings of my antipathy toward this particular time of the year – which I have always found induces in me a degree of melancholy. Though that is still true on this side of the pond Victoria does have a massive advantage over London in that – even when the temperature in both locations hovers around the same mark – the air here seems to lack that raw damp chill that is a feature of November in the UK. On relatively windless days it feels almost balmy. Time to take a stroll down to the seashore.
On the way to the ocean I passed this strange but rather delightful “Pop-up Sculpture Garden”, which occupies a corner of the road pretty much in the middle of nowhere.
And here is Mount Baker again – looking suitably epic!
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