We said goodbye to Bella Vita around mid-December to head home and get ready for Christmas. Despite scrambling to get as much done as possible before returning to Bella Vita after Thanksgiving, I still felt overwhelmed with final preparations for Christmas. I might take the holiday far too serious and go slightly overboard (ok, maybe a lot overboard) in an effort to create a magical Christmas that honors the traditions and memories I grew up with and tried to pass along to my kiddos. Despite the stress that I put on myself, we did have a magical Christmas with the family. With 3 grandbabies experiencing their first Christmas, and 3 grandkids fully understanding the excitement of Christmas, it was a very special time.
Dan and I were excited to spend our New Year’s Eve back on Bella Vita in the chilly, winter weather of Canada. I know it sounds crazy, but when you are in Arizona running around in shorts and t-shirts well into December and January, I have to draw the line. Sounds crazy, but I love me some true winter weather which makes Canada an awesome home for our boat. We made our way back to the boat on December 29th to begin our next 2 week stint onboard. We were definitely falling into the rhythm (and loving it) of 2 weeks here and 2 weeks home. However, I will admit that when we get a run of 2 solid weeks of rain, I do start to miss home a little bit more. It helps a lot that Dan’s airline retirement benefits allows us to travel between Arizona and Canada cheaply.
We spent a quiet New Year’s Eve aboard the boat. We weren’t interested in any crazy parties or going out. For us, it was a romantic evening onboard with a great movie, wine and fondue. My biggest disappointment was the lack of fireworks! Apparently, Vancouver banned fireworks years ago. I understand their reasoning, but I was still very disappointed. I figured with front row seats on the waterfront, we would be treated to multiple shows around the bay with the best view in town! Bummer.
New Year’s Day brought about the traditional Polar Plunge. Dan signed up for this event and was super excited about it. There was no way on earth that I was going to participate in running from the beach (at 30 degrees F/-1 degree C) into water that was not a whole lot warmer! The vision in my head was hitting that water and my heart stopping. Yep, that is a big no thank you! As we began to read the guidelines and suggestions, we began to realize that we weren’t quite as prepared as we should be. First, we have no swimsuits on board (with water temperatures as cold as they are up here, I’m not sure I will ever need a swimsuit up here). This wasn’t a big deal for Dan….he’d just wear shorts. The bigger issues were a lack of water shoes (the shoreline is covered in shells), a lack of thick warm towels, and a lack of post swim clothing to bundle up in. Oh, I forgot to mention the 20 minute walk back to the boat! Brrrr. I was uncomfortable with this plan even though I wasn’t going in the water. I was suppose to be his support person on shore (along with the thousands of other bystanders!)….eesh.
We spent a quiet New Year’s Eve aboard the boat. We weren’t interested in any crazy parties or going out. For us, it was a romantic evening onboard with a great movie, wine and fondue. My biggest disappointment was the lack of fireworks! Apparently, Vancouver banned fireworks years ago. I understand their reasoning, but I was still very disappointed. I figured with front row seats on the waterfront, we would be treated to multiple shows around the bay with the best view in town! Bummer.
New Year’s Day brought about the traditional Polar Plunge. Dan signed up for this event and was super excited about it. There was no way on earth that I was going to participate in running from the beach (at 30 degrees F/-1 degree C) into water that was not a whole lot warmer! The vision in my head was hitting that water and my heart stopping. Yep, that is a big no thank you! As we began to read the guidelines and suggestions, we began to realize that we weren’t quite as prepared as we should be. First, we have no swimsuits on board (with water temperatures as cold as they are up here, I’m not sure I will ever need a swimsuit up here). This wasn’t a big deal for Dan….he’d just wear shorts. The bigger issues were a lack of water shoes (the shoreline is covered in shells), a lack of thick warm towels, and a lack of post swim clothing to bundle up in. Oh, I forgot to mention the 20 minute walk back to the boat! Brrrr. I was uncomfortable with this plan even though I wasn’t going in the water. I was suppose to be his support person on shore (along with the thousands of other bystanders!)….eesh.
We spent a quiet New Year’s Eve aboard the boat. We weren’t interested in any crazy parties or going out. For us, it was a romantic evening onboard with a great movie, wine and fondue. My biggest disappointment was the lack of fireworks! Apparently, Vancouver banned fireworks years ago. I understand their reasoning, but I was still very disappointed. I figured with front row seats on the waterfront, we would be treated to multiple shows around the bay with the best view in town! Bummer.
New Year’s Day brought about the traditional Polar Plunge. Dan signed up for this event and was super excited about it. There was no way on earth that I was going to participate in running from the beach (at 30 degrees F/-1 degree C) into water that was not a whole lot warmer! The vision in my head was hitting that water and my heart stopping. Yep, that is a big no thank you! As we began to read the guidelines and suggestions, we began to realize that we weren’t quite as prepared as we should be. First, we have no swimsuits on board (with water temperatures as cold as they are up here, I’m not sure I will ever need a swimsuit up here). This wasn’t a big deal for Dan….he’d just wear shorts. The bigger issues were a lack of water shoes (the shoreline is covered in shells), a lack of thick warm towels, and a lack of post swim clothing to bundle up in. Oh, I forgot to mention the 20 minute walk back to the boat! Brrrr. I was uncomfortable with this plan even though I wasn’t going in the water. I was suppose to be his support person on shore (along with the thousands of other bystanders!)….eesh.
After talking to our Vancouver friends, they told us that they participate in the tradition, but they do it off the back of their boat. Hmmm….that sounded like a much better plan to me! Following their advice, we had the shower on the swim step already primed with hot water, a towel standing by, and the boat heated up nice and toasty. To complete the picture of this adventure, I will remind you that our boat is moored on a dock that runs parallel and right beside a major, walking/biking thoroughfare. Translation: Lots of potential spectators. As Dan got himself ready for the plunge, I stood by ready to film the fun. People passing by knew exactly what he was about to do and cheered him on. He did it…no hesitation, no whimpering (oh wait, that would’ve been me), and stayed in far longer than I would’ve expected. His heart didn’t stop, so I am grateful for that. He successfully completed the tradition of the Polar Plunge here in Vancouver on New Year’s Day. I was grateful he did it here after reading the headline that the official Polar Plunge drew 30,000 people to the relatively small beach! Ack! Not a great experience for someone who is crowd averse.
Our regular trips to and from home were working out great….regular time on the boat and time with family and friends. Bella Vita was making for a great condo on the water complete with city skyline, sea and mountain views. Since we weren’t yet taking her out cruising, we spent a lot of time exploring the city and local ski mountains.
Our next adventure was to snowshoe on Grouse Mountain….another popular, local ski area. Here you park at the base and take a large gondola up to the top of the mountain and ski area. Conditions weren’t overly great (snow pack seemed a little icy), but we weren’t skiing so we thought that was okay. The snowshoe trails turned out to be rather interesting. It appeared that most people opted for shoe spikes which managed to etch out a foot’s width pathway on the trail. Since in was icy snow, it made getting the snowshoes to grip in with what was left of the trail very challenging. Then, it got worse. As we headed up a blue trail (rated just like the ski slopes), things got steeper and steeper. The trail got icier and harder to get a grip. It also got much narrower and perched along the rim of a very steep cliff….as in, slip and go over, you are long gone and not surviving….ack. After fighting our way up and still not to the peak, we both decided that this was not a lot of fun. We decided to head back down. If I thought slip sliding my way uphill was bad enough, downhill was even worse. With gravity and an out of control fall not in my favor, I opted to get through the cliff area on my ass. Seemed like a safe plan. I quickly discovered that my trekking poles were no help in slowing my descent down the hill. It now became a situation of finding ice holes to my side, grabbing on with my hand, and jerking myself to a stop. Not the most graceful way to come down, but at least I didn’t plunge off the edge of the cliff when the path took a sharp right. We decided this mountain seemed better suited for skiers than snowshoers. Good to know.
In between our runs to Bella Vita, we enjoyed the beautiful weather that Arizona is known for in the winter. We spent many days out hiking with friends, enjoying the native wildlife. We also had some great 4×4 sunset runs into the desert, followed by a beautiful bonfire overlooking the valley and city lights as the sun went down. If you’ve never seen an Arizona sunset, they are quite spectacular to witness. And let’s not forget the play dates we had with the grandkids. We even rented a house up in the high country of Arizona in the hopes of experiencing the first time our grandkids got to play in the snow. Unfortunately, our Arizona winter did not cooperate and we were skunked on the snow, but had a great adventure anyway.
Before long, it was time to return to Bella Vita. Spring had arrived, and Dan’s entire family would be joining us for a week in Vancouver. Believe it or not, it actually snowed on the boat for a few days prior to their arrival. I guess we needed to bring the grandkids here! We decided to take Bella Vita out for our first solo cruise before we actually had witnesses to our newbie large powerboat cruising skills. We headed out into Vancouver Harbor where we were immediately greeted with 25 knot winds and very choppy seas. We cruised around for about 30 minutes in the freezing cold wind, dodging ferries and cargo ships, before deciding we weren’t having any fun. Back to the dock we went. Despite the shortness of our first solo cruise, we both felt pretty good about handling and docking our new girl.
Our incoming crew arrived from Boston, Arizona and Oregon. For the next few days, we shared our favorite Vancouver haunts and hangouts. We also explored some new restaurants that they had researched. 6 of the 7 members of the group were headed to Whistler for a ski weekend, so prior to their departure, we took them out on a cruise to Indian Arm. This was an incredible fjord just outside of Vancouver Harbor. Overnight, the snow levels had dropped, so the clouds shrouded the cliffs and trees. The snow line came all the way down to the water and before long there were lily pads of ice floating all around us. The deeper into the fjord we went, the more dense the floating ice became. We spotted a few seals and a beautiful waterfall. Thanks to the water being so deep, we were able to cruise in fairly close to it.
It was time to make our way back to the marina. As we left the fjord and approached what is known as 2nd narrows bridge, we were monitoring the radio (an expected requirement as this is a narrow passage that cargo ships have to pass through along with the 2-3 tugboats covering them). We struggled to understand the conversation going on over the radio. Wouldn’t you know, as soon as we approached the bridge, a HUGE ship was slowly making its way through. I immediately slowed down to idle and hugged the side of the channel (precariously close to shallows that I did not want to be in). We were still well outside of the bridge, but I backed up even farther to give him more space. Between his massive size on one side, and the very shallow water on my other side, it was a pretty tense chunk of time. Once he was in the clear, I quickly ducked across his stern and zoomed out of the narrows. All in all, it was a very successful 3 hour tour….haha.
With the rest of the group off on their adventure, we were down to 3 (me, Dan, and his son Jacob) of our party of 9. We decided to head out in the opposite direction through 1st narrows bridge. Yep, you guessed it. Another choke point where huge ships enter the harbor. We once again monitored the radio and discovered a container ship would be coming out about the same time as us, so we floated around waiting. Once we left the harbor, the sea was quite choppy. We were pounding around pretty good in 3 foot swell with whitecaps. We tried to hug the coastline a bit since it seemed calmer. Eventually, we rounded the corner to head towards Gambier Island. Our plan on this day was to find a nice anchorage to do some fishing and crabbing. This would be our first time anchoring this boat. I was a little uneasy. I spent 8 years anchoring in crystal clear water, sandy bottoms, and usually only 5 meters (15ish feet) of depth. I had anchoring mastered in the Med! Now, I was in 8 meters of water (40ish feet) which took forever to find something that shallow, and I could not see bottom at all. Oh boy. Eventually we got the anchor set and bridled (another new learning, since the steep is different than our last boat). Dan and Jacob spent the next couple of hours fishing and crabbing. A number of seals decided to come over and check us out which was fun. In the end, we came back with 3 legal crabs and had to let a few go due to size.
Trolling for salmon….sadly none were caught
Robyn in her happy place at the wheel
As we made our way back to Vancouver Harbor, it became very apparent that the seas had gotten worse while we were happily tucked up around the island. We were now in 5 foot swell with even bigger whitecaps which were coming from several directions. We quickly had to stow things inside as they were crashing to the floor. Needless to say, it was NOT a fun ride back. And the cherry on top? We arrived at First Narrows as another huge cargo ship was coming through, so we had to sit outside waiting as the swell tossed us around. As soon as he cleared, we raced through the narrows and headed towards our slip. As we approached our turn in, another cargo ship (fully loaded with containers) was being tugged away from his dock to make his way out. We hit the gas to clear of him before they got him completely spun around. Whew! Finally in the clear and calm waters to our slip. After a week of both snow, land and sea adventures, our guests departed.
While we were here, we learned that the marina we were subletting our spot from had secured us a permanent berth. This was crazy news as we’ve been told it takes many years to land a permanent berth in most marinas up here. So, Bella Vita now has a new home just around the corner from our old spot. We have her moved and settled in, and tomorrow we make our way back home to Phoenix. It’s been a fun winter here in Canada, and we are really enjoying this new chapter. Stay tuned for more cruising adventures as we begin to roll into nicer weather!
