(308/366) Late Nights at BYC

7

November 3, 2012 – Gads I love this city! I don’t know how else to put that. I suppose I could make some eloquent statement about the beauty of Vancouver, but this photo says all that and so much more. Even on a crappy rainy day, there are moments of beauty, particularly on the water. It’s moments like these that make me appreciate the time I have had, and hope to continue to have, in the boating community.

Tonight was our “calibration” dinner. I’m not quite sure where that name came from. It’s a gathering of a fun group of people, the night before we head out for our twice yearly boating class’s student cruise. It’s a silly evening of foolish bets on things such as numbers of students showing, what colour clothes they will wear, who will walk in first, etc. We BBQ, we eat, we laugh, we share stories, we share encounters, and we remember why we boat and why we volunteer.

We gather students from the current class and take them out on a cruise around the inner harbour of Burrard Inlet and introduce them to on the water plotting and charting. We familiarize them with the hazards of the harbour – planes, freighters, the sea bus, cruise ships, other boaters, etc – and give them a first hand encounter with the weather conditions and the things they may come into contact with out there. We teach them safety procedures, how to take bearings when the weather doesn’t let them do so on the things they think they should be able to, and how to deal with potential emergencies on the water. There are no two trips on the water that are ever the same, no two days with the same water and weather conditions, no two days where docking will happen in an expected manner. Boating is a constant challenge and a constant thrill.

The boating community is a fairly tight group, and there is a level of caring and sharing that you don’t get in a land based community. There is a keen understanding that any one of us could get into trouble on the water at any time, and an appreciation that any one of us would come to the aid of a complete stranger under virtually any circumstance, because on the water, it’s just what you do. There is no safety net, if something goes horribly wrong, it can go wrong in ways that can be life threatening and in a slow motion manner in many cases. I am reminded of that twice a year, every year, when I teach marine VHF radio to boaters and we have discussions about safety on the water and that the net is predominantly made of of other boaters. There is an unwritten rule that any boater will help any other boater under any circumstance unless it puts the rescuer at risk of life or limb.

It gives me comfort to know that in 14 years of volunteering for this organization, I have put that message out there, and helped in the continuation of this safety net out on the water. It’s funny how we touch lives without really thinking about how many we touch and how we touch them…and how they may one day touch us back when we least expect it.

There is a solitude and comfort that I find on the water that I can never find on land. Somehow this image reminds me of that solitude and comfort. There is a serenity here that belies the dangers of the sea. But those who love the water keep going back despite the risks. I think there is a greater risk on the water than on any land based activity merely because of the inability of the majority of people to assist in a situation, but there is also a greater sense of community out here than there ever will be on the roads. There are also many more areas of solitude for exploration than one can find on land, mainly because we can access places the masses can’t.

We have a new boat slip as of a few weeks ago, and there was some miscommunication on what we could put in there. But we seem to have things all ironed out now, and things have been pretty much cleared up. Turns out that two of the three boats we are interested in will be suitable for the slip. So, we are back on track and now just need to find the boat that stirs our hearts and calls us back to the exploration of our coastal waters in a new way.

Tomorrow we cruise and teach a new crop of students about safety on the water, and every student that learns makes us all safer out there.

Life is good. So are all my boating peeps.