As a lifelong Raptors fan, it was great to be in their home country and watch them romp to the finals of the NBA championship and defeat the Golden State Warriors in a final comprising of six games, played between toronto and Oakland SF . We were going to be clearing in at Oakland when we go south to San Francisco, but given that this is the first time a non American team has won the NBA finals, we might clear in at Astoria now.
Seriously, Ivana, Jim’s wife is a big fan of NBA and kindly invited me along to the second of potentially 7 games, Jim cooked pizza for the first game and we all sat there cheering the team along. By the end of the first game, I had a basic grasp of the rules of basketball. The rules around fouling makes the UK soccer offside rule look quite simple. The raptors had the warriors on the run for most of the matches. I was invited to the subsequent matches and Jim cooked up Nachos, then Burgers, Ivana produced pies and ice cream, it was all jolly pleasant. By the end of the 6th match they were neck and neck, all the way. with just 0.7 seconds left on the clock, and with the raptors leading by one point and about to claim the title, the warriors called a timeout. Of course they didn’t have any timeouts left and so that caused a technical foul which gave the Raptors a chance to score two more points, but this also meant a few more seconds got added to the clock, giving the warriors a chance to get 3 points should they get possession after a missed shot at the basket. I expect you are ahead of me here on this, anyway it was all pointless, the Raptors scored from the foul and the hooter went and history was made.
Sue and Andy had watched the previous match down the pub, which is now open every night. I met the barman, Vincent, who comes here every summer for 6 months from Waterford Ireland. I told him we used to keep Stardust on the river in Dungarvin, which is close to Waterford, and he knew the exact spot, as he lives just a few miles away. Sointula keeps on amazing me with chance meetings like this. Sue and Andy met up with John (from the Hamble) the engineer who helped me with my water pump. It turns out that John and Andy have had very similar lives in the world of engineering.
A few days ago John introduced me to a different Andy who lives just around the corner and is another brilliant guy, and we had both built the same 80186 computer with wire wrap technology, back in the early 80’s. He was telling me how he struggled with his automatic wire wrap tool, I was stunned, I explained I didn’t realise there was an automatic tool as I did all mine with a manual tool, oh how we laughed, it was along the lines of the python sketch, ‘lived in a cardboard box, you were lucky, we couldn’t afford no boxes’
Sue and andy have been great hosts, providing dinner for me on a several occasions, Doug arrived a week ago and made friends with them and myself and he invited us all over to his for fresh prawns and pasta, so between all of these guys and Jim/Ivana I haven’t been able to eat any of the food I have onboard.
Doug is a lovely guy, with lots of knowledge and experience, he has raced big yachts around the world and has lived in Hong Kong for the last 15 years, he is married to a Chinese lady from Vancouver and given all that is going on these days with Huawei and Hong Kong he has been fascinating to chat with. I have tried to help him solve some of his NMEA data problems on his boat, but he ended up fixing them without me. He’s quite an inspiration for a man in his eighties.
Jim invited me out for a sail with some of his friends, we had heard of humpback whale sightings just a few miles away near Stubb Island in the Johnstone strait so headed of to check it out on Saturday. We didn’t see any but did see puffins, purpoises, dolphins and seals. On the way back, we did a sail-by past the waterfront of Alert Bay, the mostly first Nations settlement on Cormorant Island. They have been cleaning up the waterfront since Kathy and I visited it in 2018, and it’s looking great.
We had left early and I was worried we might get back after the shops had closed and I rushed to see Victor the Chilean baker when we tied up at 17:00. He told me he had sold all the loaves, then thoughtfully said ‘wait’ a few seconds later he said, they probably won’t come so you can have this loaf, and I got somebody else’s reserved loaf. With that small gesture I felt like I had finally arrived, acceptance into the community 😉 , at least by the baker. I presume there is one member of the community who now wants me to leave.
I have learnt a lot about the local community, people have confided the secrets of a remote island world, but I won’t give anything away here, just think ‘Whiskey Galore and Wicker man’. nuff said
There is an old fishing boat in the harbour that has been decaying away, it was beyond repair and just lately the boat has been pumping oil into the harbour whenever the bilge pump went off, which was quite often. The owner was requested to remove the boat and he decided to give it to a local who in return for hauling it out got the engine and a few other useful parts for free. I watched as it was hauled out on a trailer off to the knackers yard.
It’s good that the boat is no longer polluting the harbour, but sad that it’s going to be chopped up and burnt shortly.
Jim introduced me to a local guy who has a sawmill on the Island. He is providing me with some Red Cedar planking from which I can build a new bow platform for the boat. As you can see from the pic below the old one is a bit smashed up. This happened on our trip to Japan when the bow crashed down heavily into a wave that was rising up in front of us. The old platform was weak and splintered into several pieces. I couldn’t get teak in Japan, and can’t get it here, but I liked the idea of taking some cedar grown here on the island away with me. I don’t know how well it will fare, it won’t be as good as the teak, but it will be better than what I have now. It’s high quality cedar and a lot of the boats here use it in their construction so we shall have to see.
I made a template out of cardboard to help build the new one. I’m hoping to do better with wood than cardboard in getting the right shape 🙁
What with all of the dining and sporty activity I didn’t get much varnishing done, I have managed four coats on the port side, but the weather hasn’t cooperated, with rain every other day for a week now.
Today I managed to connect with Sue and Andy via SSB, they are heading south to the Sea of Cortez, and were on the far side of Vancouver Island in Sea Otter Cove, somewhere we will be by mid August. We couldn’t connect on 2 MHz, but did quite well on the 4 MHz Band.
My new radar still hasn’t turned up and the call to haul out at the ways hasn’t arrived yet. I leave for the UK in two weeks time so I’m a little worried that everything is going to happen at once at the last minute leaving no time for errors. Oh well, fingers crossed. I expect all will be completed by the time I post the next blog.
Paul Collister.