18-52-2013: Sail Past Weekend

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May 5, 2013 – What a weekend! I had Friday off so I used it to do some running around and make a quick trip down to the USA to pick up a parcel – all on the motorcycle of course. Friday night was a social function – steak dinner – at Burrard Yacht Club. With the bar open, I always wonder at the logic and sanity since Saturday morning is an early start to get Sail Past underway. We called it a relatively early night since I didn’t relish the thought of a hangover on the water in the morning.

Saturday morning we dressed in our white pants, white shirts, white shoes, and donned our blue blazers and headed down to the club. All the men in their Spring formal uniforms wearing their captains hats make me think of a Gilligan’s Island convention where everyone is dressed as Thurston Howell III.

We sat and listened to the speeches, laughed at some tales, applauded the 100 year old member who was Commodore in 1972 and is still going strong. Then we cheered as our current Commodore declared Boating Season 2013 officially open and wished us safety for the season.

Vessel owners and guests migrated to their respective boats and made way up towards Moody Arm where the Commodore and Fleet Captain were anchored. All the vessels sorted themselves by category – sailing vessels, heritage boats, displacement hulls, and planing hulls last. Basically the fastest boats go last.

Kirk and I joined friends, Burns & Joanne, along with their nervous dog Riley, on their vessel the MV Sol Quest. As Vice Commodore and with Sol Quest being a Displacement hull, we were leading the sailing and heritage vessels, behind only the Past Commodore and his wife on Saldi, a beautiful sailboat. All of the lead boats were fully flagged.

Looking back towards the Narrows was quite the sight. It looked like an armada heading up the inlet. Being early in the season there are still relatively few boats out on the waters. We fixed that in one fell swoop.

As we reached the staging point we looked back and saw that several of the sailboats were tacking their way to the front through the mass of boats that had made their way under the Second Narrows bridges.

A small open speedboat was floating idly with its two occupants dozing on the seats. One can only wonder what they thought was going on as this huge fleet of private boats surrounded them, occupants all dressed up looking fine. They fired up their boat and moved away to a safer distance as they pondered the scene.

The boats all organized themselves in a line and we made our way past the turn boat where the Fleet Captain took photos and waved us on to the Commodore’s vessel.

The Commodore and all of his guests stood at attention, as did we. Our Captain saluted and the Commodore saluted back while Joanne gathered the flag.

Then we were past and on our way up to Clementine Creek outstation. We quickly changed out of our formal garb and into shorts and t-shirts as the day was getting warmer by the minute.

On our way we passed Berg’s Landing. This is a wonderful camping spot. So idyllic and the only access is by boat. In the summer many kayakers paddle up here for the weekend.

Up at Clementine we docked and watched as the 60 or so boats who had decided to make the 16 mile journey to join in the festivities started to arrive. It takes a special skill to fit that many bots in a space designed for a third of that, and Mike went at it like it was a giant jigsaw puzzle. Each vessel captain called in with an overall length and Mike brought them in one by one and got them all safely into berth.

One of the boats at the Club, Due North, has been of interest to us for some time and we finally had an opportunity to board her and have a tour. She is a Nordhaven 40 and the only 40′ boat I’ve even been on that has three floors. She is an amazingly seaworthy vessel, and her owners use her year round and disappear for months on end. I had wondered if it was a boat that could sway me from wanting a sailboat. In the end it wasn’t, but it is still gorgeous. I like to be closer to the water and there is still the appeal of cutting the engines and slicing through the water under wind power only.

I also think it’s funny how widely two of our passions diverge. On land we love the speed and the feel of the motorcycles under us. On the water we love how slow we go.

The rest of the afternoon passed under the hot sun, many of us seeking refuge in the shade. Clementine is a little pocket up at the top end of Indian Arm that is usually out of any wind and can feel like an oven when the sun is high. Funny how we wait so impatiently for the sun, and when it comes we think it’s too hot 🙂

Honestly, I just don’t see how life gets any better than this.

Our current Commodore put it sagely when he said that the members of BYC are a group of great people, with a shared love of being out on the water, and a shared passion….for throwing away money 😉  As much as I love riding, nothing beats boating, absolutely nothing. The boating community is simply fabulous and it’s what has grounded us to the North Shore. It’s why we assume we will never leave North Vancouver.

I love these two panoramas that I stitched together, before and after. I didn’t get it fully empty since by the time we were docked and I made it to shore several other boats had also tied up. But you can still get a sense of how many boats are tucked safely into a fairly small space.

Welcome to boating season. Safe travels to all of those out on the waters.