We’re baaaack! It’s been a little bit of a slow journey trying to close on the boat, make preparations, and get underway during late fall/early winter. While our home in Arizona is non stop sunshine and warm temperatures (same with our time on Zoe), the Pacific Northwest is a whole different environment for us (both on land and in the water). We had a number of projects to complete on Bella Vita before we put her in the water. This came with its own set of frustrations between unexpected complications to bad weather delays in completing some necessary out of water projects. Our biggest challenge came from insuring the boat. Insurance companies have a funny rule. They are very squeamish about boat owners jumping more than 10 feet (3 meters) in boat length (we were jumping 20 feet) from one boat to the next. When I say squeamish, I mean they just won’t insure you unless you have a USCG licensed captain sign off on your competence. We wanted to do that anyway since this boat was a completely different beast from Zoe, and our new cruising grounds come with a whole new set of challenges. We just wanted to do it on our terms. Fortunately, our awesome broker hooked us up with a phenomenal captain.
We were now rolling into November with less and less days of good weather. On top of that, we were scheduled to arrive in our marina slip on November 15th. If you recall, we had found our marina slip before we even had our boat purchased! Waiting for us was an incredible spot, easy in and out, in the heart of Vancouver, Canada. Captain Dave from Seattle Yachts joined us for launch and took Bella Vita out into open water where we began getting to know how she handled. The power this 70,000 pound boat has was like nothing we have ever experienced and definitely a far cry from Zoe’s slow and easy pace. Slipping briefly into and out of gear, had us moving faster than Zoe’s top speed! Twice as heavy and four times fast – what can go wrong? We spent the next several hours cruising around, practicing a variety of maneuvers and talking through various scenarios, rules of the road, understanding navigational charts that were different from the ones we used in the Med, and learning about tides and currents (a whole new set of challenges for us).
We had a couple of days booked at a marina in Anacortes, Washington where we spent our time working with Captain Dave and learning as much as we could. We found a brief weather window and decided that was our best time to move Bella Vita to Vancouver to her winter home. Captain Dave agreed to make the trip with us for our final bit of training. This would give us 6 hours of cruising to cover the 76 nautical miles from the U.S. to Canada to learn and build our experience. We kept our cruising speed down to conserve our fuel consumption, but even at 15 knots it felt like we were flying. I’m not gonna lie, it was quite exhilarating! About the time we were rolling into Canadian waters, we were treated to a couple of humpback whales breaching the surface. That was a real thrill! Our captain called into Canadian Customs and Border Patrol, and we were told to go to our slip in Coal Harbor and wait for instructions for checking in. We will be forever grateful that we had Captain Dave on board for the insanity that was about to ensue.
We finally received a call back from Canadian customs telling us we needed to move the boat over to Vancouver Yacht Club to get checked in. After much debate and argument over being told one thing and then another, we moved the boat. Not only was the sun going down, but we spent an hour trying to find this so called spot to check in. This required navigation down very narrow passageways and in through areas that became very shallow and rocky very quickly. Thankfully, Captain Dave handled all the maneuvering for us. In the end, the dock they told us to go to was a) nowhere near long enough to support the length of our boat and b) there was already a boat parked there! We eventually just pulled into a slip that wasn’t currently occupied and waited for the officials to join us. The interaction was pleasant but another exercise in frustration. I thought we had left behind mixed messages and interpretation of the rules when we left the Med. Yet here we were….back to frustrating interactions and figuring things out as we go. By the time it was all said and done, it was very dark out. Captain Dave brought us back to our slip with expert care. Needless to say, we thanked him profusely for guiding us through what could have been a very scary event for the rookie boat owners had we been on our own.
With Thanksgiving just around the corner, we spent time working on boat projects and getting familiar with our new stomping grounds. We are situated right next to a place called Stanley Park. This is a massive park perched on a peninsula offering miles upon miles of not only forested trails but a beautiful sea wall walking/biking path. We spend almost every day exploring the various trails in and around the park, discovering new things each time. We are surrounded by Vancouver’s beautiful skyline of high rises and across the bay we have gorgeous views of the snow capped mountains. Vancouver is a great walking city which works well for us since we don’t have a car here. We also seem to have some resident sea lions in the bay that like to come in close to frolic in the water.
Our first big boat project was to get the slow leak on our dinghy fixed. We quickly learned that not only did the repair need to be professionally done, but that it could not be done on the boat due to the cold temperatures. This meant getting the dinghy off of the top deck and into the water so that we could transport it to another location where it would be picked up and trailered to a workshop. Here is where things got interesting. Our boat is tied to the pier on our port side (left). The dinghy has to be attached to a crane that will lift it down to the water. The crane only swings out to the port side where the concrete pier resides. We had never operated the crane to lift the dinghy as of yet. Oh boy, this was going to be fun. So, our first solo journey on our boat was to undock her and flip her around and re-dock her. As you may recall, docking is my most favorite thing to do on a boat…NOT. Next, we pumped up the dinghy (praying that it was in fact a slow leak!), lowered her into the water and zoomed across the bay to meet the guy handling the repair. Did I mention it was raining? Seems like it’s always raining here. We then used a very large crane to hoist the dinghy up and onto the guy’s trailer and off they went. We walked back to the boat to prepare to flip her around once again. Since we were already leaving the dock, we figured we might as well go across the bay and top up our fuel tanks (another new experience). We definitely got a lot of docking practice on this day.
Before long, we headed home to enjoy Thanksgiving with the family but returned to Vancouver soon after. Now that Thanksgiving was over, Vancouver was coming to life with Christmas lights, Christmas markets, and other holiday themed festivities. We were very excited about all the winter fun that was beginning to unfold. Our first night back, we decided to explore the Christmas market that was a short walk from the boat. It turned out to be the night of Krampus, so there were numerous Krampus characters wandering throughout the market. If you are not familiar with Krampus, he is a horned, demonic figure meant to punish bad children while St. Nicholas rewards the good children (he is linked to Germanic myths). They are quite scary looking, but we had a great time taking pictures with them. We were also excited that our first visitors to Bella Vita would be arriving soon.
My sister and her husband were our very first visitors. They landed in Vancouver and hopped the airport train to Waterfront Station which is about a 15 minute walk to the boat (another great feature of this city….easy train access to many places). Dan and I walked up to meet them and bring them back to the boat to get settled in. We spent the next 5 days showing them some of our favorites and discovering some new favorites together. We took a ferry to North Vancouver to explore the big Christmas market there which was a lot of fun. Spent a day exploring Granville Island and the public market which is one of my favorite places to shop local and artisanal products. We took a carriage ride through Stanley Park, had some wintery drinks at Stanley Park Lodge, ate out at some fantastic restaurants, and saw a Pink Floyd light show at the planetarium. We also discovered some great music at a restaurant/bar called Cardero’s that sits right in the middle of our marina. The ambiance here is phenomenal with dark wood interior and a fireplace in the bar. We were able to grab seats by the fire, listen to great live music, and enjoy dessert and cocktails to finish off celebrating my brother in law’s birthday. Needless to say, Cardero’s has become our favorite hangout (it might not be long before they start calling out our name when we walk into the bar…haha). We were sad to say goodbye to Kim and Don after their 5 day visit. It went way too fast, and we hope they will become regular visitors now that we are so much closer to home.
A few days after Kim and Don left, our friends Emil and Carrie arrived. Once again, we took them to all of our favorite spots (and found a few new ones). We again played at the Christmas market in North Vancouver (much bigger than the one by us and free to enter) and even talked Emil in to showing us his skating talents at the outdoor ice skating rink. We also explored the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park on the north side. This place was amazing. The whole place sparkles with millions (literally!) of Christmas lights covering every square inch of the place. The cliffwalk is literally that. I assumed it was a walking path on the top of the cliff. Oh how wrong I was. It was a narrow bridge attached to the cliff face perched hundreds of feet in the air (did I mention I’m not overly fond of heights?). To look over the edge of the railing was truly terrifying. Needless to say, I had both hands on the railings at all times. Then there was the treetop adventure where you walk along suspended bridges from the top of one tree to the next all around the park. The final piece of fun was the suspension bridge itself. If you’ve never been on one, they move! They move with every single step you take as you bounce over the river below. Add in a husband who thinks it’s funny to add extra bounce (he’s the guy that likes to make the chairlifts and gondolas swing as well!), and you have me trying to get off the bridge as quickly as possible. Despite all of that, it was an incredible place that I would definitely do again (although it is quite pricey at $50/person).
During Emil and Carrie’s visit, our dinghy was finally finished with the repair and detailing. It was time to get her back onboard. The guys walked over to get her while Carrie and I stayed on board. We watched for them across the bay, and I told Carrie to watch, without me on board Dan was going to open up the throttle on that 40hp motor. Sure enough, the two of them went screaming out of the marina and zipping around the bay. I know my husband all too well. When they returned, we decided to try and get creative with getting the dinghy back on board without flipping Bella Vita back and forth again. Since there were 4 of us to handle things, we were able to try some different techniques. We loosened our stern line and I kicked our stern out into the channel a bit. With Emil and I on the crane and Dan and Carrie handling the dinghy, we were able to keep the stern kicked out enough to pull the dinghy in beside the boat and the dock. She was hooked to the crane and hoisted back on board Bella Vita. We only had one minor glitch in that we hooked it onto the crane backwards with no way to rotate it because of the dock pylon that was in the way. It was quickly solved by spinning the dinghy around in the water and re-lifting her up onto the bridge deck and into her chocks. Success! We happily ended every night of Emil and Carrie’s visit with tasty cocktails and live music at Cardero’s (I told you we were becoming regulars). Emil and Carrie’s visit was also a short one, and we were sad to see them leave so soon as well. Our departure was coming in a few days in order to get home for the holidays with family and friends. Stay tuned for our post Christmas adventures on Bella Vita!
