Vancouver!

It’s been a busy few weeks – But I’ve updated and simplified the look and feel of our Website - http://raptordance.com/, posted our latest pictures and updated our log http://raptordance.blogspot.com/. You can also see our index of past log postings at http://raptordance.us/TOC.html.

We’re now in Vancouver, safe and sound. We’re back on board Raptor Dance in Slip C18 in Coal Harbour Marina in Vancouver. See: http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=WB6JAO&units=nautical (our current position) and http://www.coalharbourmarina.com/.

We’re planning on being here until Saturday, before we head over to Sidney on Vancouver Island.

After loading onto Dockwise and saying good bye to Mexico, we flew back to the States on Aero California. Stopped in Los Angeles to visit the family and then flew back to the SF Bay area on South West.

A very busy week ensued as we made arrangements for our haul out in Canada to work on Raptor Dance’s bottom (new paint, an additional through hull and strainer, bow thruster cleaning and misc. other chores).

We’ll be hauled out in Sidney at Canoe Cove on Vancouver Island see: http://www.canoecovemarina.com/ and a lot of the work will be done by Black Line Marine: http://www.blacklinemarine.com/ . These folks come highly recommended.

While we’re out of the water, From June 6th to June 17th, we’ll rent a car and explore Vancouver Island, Victoria and environs. We’re planning to stay in a number of B&Bs during our trip and will report on what we find.

We flew up to Vancouver on Sunday the 29th and unloaded from Dockwise on Monday. We’ve posted pictures of the loading and unloading process on our website http://raptordance.com/.

Interestingly, unloading took longer than loading as Dockwise had us inspect Raptor Dance for any problems before they flooded the boat. Once the boats were floating, divers had to remove the remaining stands so we could exit. Also, about half a dozen boats were continuing on Dockwise up to their next stop in Alaska and some of them had to be towed out to make room for us to exit. On the following day, another group of boats was scheduled to be loaded, some headed as far as Port Everglades in Florida. Stops after Vancouver for DE 12 include: Alaska, Lazaro Cardenas (Mexico), Gulfito (Costa Rica) and Port Everglades, FL.

After we finally unloaded, we headed over to the marina (only about 30 minutes away), docked, checked in and cleaned up the boat.

We also called Canadian Customs to make sure our check-in was in order. The Dockwise agent arranged for a CANPASS for us. This lets us check in and out of Canada by phone (with a Customs official visit only occasionally at their option). A short phone call was all it took.
Tuesday and Wednesday we spent sight seeing, going to China Town, the Aquarium, The Granville Island Market and generally playing tourist. Vancouver is a wonderful city – with lots to do and see. Lot’s of good food too! It’s generally priced around the same as the US, with some things higher and a few lower. We did buy 1 pound of Morel mushrooms at the Granville Market for $12 CAN! (at $0.80 US per $ 1.00 CAN that’s less than $10 US!).

Today we’re caching up on chores, updating the web and generally doing boat chores for our departure on Saturday for Sidney. We also have route planning, weather checking and orienting to do.

That’s the update from Raptor Dance.

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary