Godless Faggot-Loving Commie Pinko Bastards

First it was socialized healthcare, then it was gay marriage, now this! This is not The Onion. This is not a joke. This is Canada's national magazine! (If you don't believe me, check out this link http://www.macleans.ca/) Just because the Loonie has reached par with the almighty greenback is no excuse. It's time to knock those pesky Canucks off their high horse(s). Now is the time for all Americans to unite and invade a country that is a far greater threat to freedom loving people everywhere than Iraq ever was. This could happen immediately. No planning is required. The blueprints for invasion are already there. Just watch Canadian Bacon, or South Park (the movie).

The cover story is actually a pretty good one, about how the American forces are now a aligned with the Baathist dead-ender Saddamist thugs from the early days of the invasion. I'm just absolutely amazed that an otherwise rather staid and conservative magazine would actually use this as their cover. I've been out of town (what else is new) for the last few days, but I can well imagine that more than a few on the American right-wing-whacko-lunatic fringe have gone ballastic. But then again, maybe they haven't. I keep forgetting that Canada doesn't really exist in America's mind.

I've been severely remiss in keeping my blog updated this last month. In fact I've been so busy the last while that I can't seem to find the time to write the occasional note. My apologies to all my loyal readers. All three of you.

Bonnie and I just got back from Whistler yesterday. We went up there so I could clean out the owner's closet and say goodbye to the place. It has served me well over the years, but today the sale closes (sale completion, as they say up North), and I'll take the money and run. I'm not sure what I'll do with all those loonies. I've always said I want to die broke, so I may just put the proceeds in my general fund. That would allow me to live a few more years. Or I may buy a more modest place in the Steven's Pass/Lake Wenatchee/Leavenworth area. We'll see.

Back Home

It's good to be back home, but what a trip we had! We traveled over 1400 miles, saw a lot of beautiful places, ate a lot of good food, and had an all-round great time. And yes, we're still pretty much smitten with each other!

We did learn a few things on the way: GPS is not infallible; diesel and water don't mix well; and my 45 years of experience playing crib wasn't enough to keep Bonnie from beating me rather soundly.

For all you boaters out there who have thrown out their paper charts and rely solely on GPS - beware! WaveGuide had three separate, totally independent GPS systems on board, and they all failed! First, the heading sensor on my Furuno system lost its head, and would let the display chart spin around mindlessly. So I fired up my laptop and used a CMAPECS system with a hand-held GPS unit plugged into a USB port. That worked fine until I had a freshly re-charged battery "explode" in the GPS unit, burning off the battery contacts. Then we used Bonnie's Nobeltec system, which really was the best of all until the ultimate Windows "blue screen of death" appeared. The computer never booted up again after that. Fortunately, I had replaced my handheld GPS unit in Port Hardy, so we went back to my CMAPECS system. We would have been fine in any case, because we had paper charts for everywhere we went, and Bonnie is a chart wizard.
Here's Bonnie lashing down her laptop to WaveGuide's dashboard. It didn't fit in the available slot quite as nicely as my Vaio does.












Speaking of good as new, I finally retired my SSYS burgee after four years and many thousands of miles on WaveGuide. I did find a suitable resting place for it - the pig roast tent at Pierre's marina in the Broughtons.









Here's Bonnie, with Pierre himself.














I've already written about my water/diesel issues, so I won't repeat the sorry episode other than to say that 99.99% of the diesel odor is out of the water. After a couple more flushes, it should be pretty much as good as new, so no long term damage was done.

I didn't have much time for reading, but I did manage to finish Waxwings, a book by Jonathan Raban. It was an entertaining, very readable book about three people and their intersecting lives in the booming dot com era of the late 90's in Seattle. All the local Seattle references made it especially interesting. I'm pretty sure that Raban used to be a smoker. One of the most memorable passages for me was when the protagonist Tom, who was under a lot of stress due to the breakup of his marriage, started smoking again after several years. This paragraph describes his second cigarette.

Wondering if a cigarette would taste differently in the open air, he discovered it did. This time, when he took the smoke deep into his lungs, trapping it inside his chest for a few seconds before exhaling, it was as if the last five years had never been, and he was back - in a feat of pure magic - to being himself again, at home after a long spell abroad. There was a fresh ripple to the landscape now, a sharpness of focus he recalled from the past, but which had eluded him through all the fog-bound years of his abstention. He smoked the cigarette down to the filter-tip, marveling at the sudden, intense lucidity that had come to him out of the blue, an unexpected gift.

I haven't smoked a cigarette in ages, but if I did, I would experience something similar, I'm sure.

Some of you have been wondering if my Himalayan adventure is still on track. Well, for reasons I won't go into here, Megan and I canceled our plans. We canceled before we spent any money, so no damage was done, and everyone is happy.

Speaking of the Far East, daughter Megan is in China right now! Yes that China. On business. She's been there all week, and will be coming back on Friday or Saturday. I'm sure she'll have a tale or two to tell.

Well, it about time I got off of here. I've got some of my world-famous ribs on the grill, and the folks I'll be sharing them with should be arriving any minute.

Vancouver, BC

We're having such a good time here that what started out as one night in Vancouver has turned into three. Tomorrow, we'll be leaving for Victoria, and then on to Friday Harbor the following day. We should be back in Seattle on Sunday or Monday at the latest. This has been an amazing trip. What started off as a few day excursion to Vancouver and Princess Louisa Inlet has turned into an almost month long adventure.

We're staying at the Quayside Marina in False Creek, near the heart of downtown Vancouver. Bonnie has fallen in love with the Granville Island Market, just a short water taxi ride away. In fact she is there as I write this update in a coffee shop not too far away. The market has a fabulous selection of fresh seafood, meat, produce of all kinds, deli meats and cheeses, and baked goods. Needless to say, we're eating really well. Tonight we're having New York steak, corn on the cob, and baked potatoes.

I still haven't really caught up on what's going on in the world, but somehow I don't think the world cares. Maybe I'll get back into my political junkie mode when I get back to Seattle, but I kinda doubt it. I'm having too much fun doing what I'm doing.

Kwatsi, BC

I never cease to be amazed at finding gems of "civilization" in the middle of nowhere. Here we are in Kwatsi, miles from anywhere, at a little gem of a marina that even has wireless internet! We got here yesterday afternoon in time for Happy Hour, where people from the half-dozen boats moored here brought their favorite appetizers to share as we sat around talking of our adventures.

On the way here from Waddington Bay, we followed a pod of several dozen porpoises who were on their way to a group of islands not far from here that they call home. I hadn't seen this many porpoises since the Queen Charlottes last year, and I've never seen so many jump so high out of the water. They put on one hell of a show for us, but unfortunately we didn't get any decent pictures.

Lacy Falls, around the corner from Kwatsi Bay. As you can see, my SSYC burgee has seen better days, but it has held up well for many thousands of miles. It think it will be time for a new one when I get back.

I loved this house on a barge at Echo Bay.

Fresh cougar sighting at Echo Bay!

Here's a photo of a totem pole that conforms my belief that totem poles were inspired by the reflections of the rocks and trees along a shoreline.

We'll be leaving here in another hour or so and do a bit of exploring before heading over to Pierre's Bay for a pig roast later this evening. Then we'll be heading north and west and probably back to Campbell River before we start thinking about heading home. What started out a trip of a few days to Princess Louisa Inlet has turned into quite an adventure!

Port Hardy

We arrived in Port Hardy late this morning after a relatively short run from Port McNeil. Port Hardy is a good place to get provisions and charts and all the other things that one needs while cruising. Tomorrow, we're off to the Broughtons for several days of exploring virgin (at least for us) territory.

Yesterday was a great day on the water. It just doesn't get much better. We saw many killer whales on the way from Kelsey Bay to Port McNeil. They were common around Boat Bay, a beach where the whales periodically almost beach themselves scratching their bellies on the gravel. We followed 10-12 different whales around for several hours. At one point, we were drifting in the water when one of the whales stopped about 50 yards abeam of us and just watched us. It was as if she was deciding if we were a threat or not, or maybe if we were worth eating. Then she turned and swam away.

Yesterday, I did something I'd never done before. (And no, I didn't fill my holding tank with diesel or take a crap in my diesel tank.) When we were nearing Port McNeil, I heard a distress call to the Coast Guard from a boat that was dead in the water with three adults and three children on board about 10 miles away from us. I responded and gave the 28' power boat and his new owner a tow to the fuel dock at Port McNeil. He left by boat about a half hour later, saying something about the gas gauge not working properly. He came back to WaveGuide at the dock later that evening, and as a token of his appreciation, gave us a print his artist wife had made, and a bottle of wine.

Here's Sue Bean in tow.

The End of the Boardwalk by Heather Brown.


I haven't been following much news at all lately, and maybe it's a good thing. Some really nasty people in Bush's inner circle have been leaving in my absence. Last week, it was Karl Rove; this week it's Alberto Gonzales. Bush is really the only one left of his original Texas mafia. Maybe if I stay out of touch for another week or two, W hisself will resign to spend more time with his family.

On to other news of the moment, I haven't had any nicotine in any form for over 10 days now. I have been pretty successful in not smoking since I quit on the road back from New Orleans, but until now, I've been relying on Commit, the nicotine lozenges. I've replaced the nicotine addiction with Fisherman's Friend lozenges. I couldn't find any Altoids up here in the wilds of Canada, but the Fisherman's Friends are also 'curiously strong' and seem to work quite well.

Campbell River

Chatterbox Falls and the accompanying warning sign. (I wonder how often it gets updated)


Here's the dock at the end of Princess Louisa Inlet.

We spent a couple of days on Granville Island, a day at Gibson's, a day at Princess Louisa Inlet, and the last couple of days here in Campbell River. The sun is shining for the first time in days, my water issues are all resolved, so all is well with the world. Water issues? What water issues? Well, the truth will come out sooner or later, so I may as well tell you all. Remember a couple of years ago when I put water in the diesel tank in the BVI? And I swore I'd never do that again? Well, I didn't do that, but I did put diesel in my water tank!!! What a pain that turned out to be! First, ecologically responsible person that I am, I talked the Esso dealer here into taking my contaminated diesel. But I had to find something to put it in and get it there. So I bought a couple of 5 gallon jerry cans, pumped the water tank out into the marina until the diesel started flowing, filled the jerry cans, emptied the jerry cans, and repeated until the tank was empty. Then I refilled my tank with water and discovered that my water pump had died. The next day, I bought a new pump and managed to install it myself, but then did a lot of cursing and head-scratching until I finally got the water flowing. So now I've pumped out my tank a couple of times, and refilled it from the bottom (by hooking up the water hose to the outlet of the tank), and put in some diesel-eating bacteria. We're drinking bottled water and will use the tank water for cleanup and showers.

Today we're heading back across to Desolation Sound, and then we'll head north and probably make it as far as Port Hardy before we turn around and make our way back to Seattle. We'll be back some time after Labor Day.

Blogging will be intermittent

Hal and I got back to Seattle yesterday after a good day's ride from Kamloops. The weather was just about perfect, and we had no problems. The day before, we ran into some cold, crappy weather between Edmonton and Jasper, but all-in-all, it wasn't too bad. We're getting used to at least one day of bad weather on these annual trips, but this year was better than most.

The highlight of the festival for me was Saturday when the Compadres gave a concert, followed later in the day by Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. The Compadres play what they call Celtino music, with James Keelaghan providing the Celt, and Oscar Lopez (in my mind the world's best guitar player) providing the Latino side. For some reason, it works. Blackie and the Rodeo Kings are all established solo players, but every year they get together, put on black sequined cowboy suits, make some great country rocking music, and have a hell of a good time. Think ZZ Top, but with more substance.

Blogging will be intermittent at best for the next few weeks. Tomorrow, Bonnie and I are headed up into the wilds of Canada with my boat, and we'll probably not be spending much time in front of a computer. We plan on stopping in Vancouver, Gibson's Landing, Princess Louisa Inlet, Desolation Sound, and any other place that suits our fancy.

It's a tough life, but someone's got to live it!