Where To Next?
So our sojourn in Canada came to an end. We said goodbye to family and friends and headed further east across the Atlantic.
Hello Lisbon
Our flight around the world, gratis due to Aeroplan air points, took us from Toronto to Lisbon for a quick turnaround for the final flight to Toulouse.
No we didn’t fly Aer Lingus
Flying has become more of a trial than an adventure. Poor service, even worse food and flying through hubs makes flying these days something one wants to end as soon as possible. Screaming babies in the seat next to me, a piece of banana bread for breakfast and no movies on Air Canada made for one of the worst flights I have had across the Atlantic Ocean. And, believe it or no,t I have been flying over the Atlantic off and on since my first flight in 1952!
However, no matter how horrible the flying is these days it is always exciting getting to a new port. We ended up in Toulouse after 36 hours of travelling, a place we have never been to and the beginning of our summer in France.
Toulouse Railway Station
Toulouse is not our final destination but rather St. Antonin Noble Val, 75 km northeast of Toulouse where our sailing friends Herve and Evelyne live. However, Toulouse beckoned so we settled in for our first experience in a French environment.
First was a visit to the local cathedral to give Connie a chance to light a candle for her father and one of many needed for me!
Connie in the Basilica St Sernin lighting the votive candles
Not only did we visit the Basilica St. Sernin for sightseeing purposes but in the same evening we went back for a Brahms and Mozart recital with a choir and a violin soloist. What a way to start a visit to France.
Basilica St. Surnin
Toulouse is the manufacturing centre for Airbus,the centre for the SPOT satellite system has a big chunk of the French National Space Agency. The airport bustles with flights from around the world but also seen on the runway are the odd experimental and more functional Airbus industry planes used for a variety of purposes.
What the ? is this plane used for?
Okay this is the strangest plane I’ve ever seen. Sorry I don’t have a better picture but seen side on it looks like the front of the plane is a large porpoise. I have been told it’s used to carry the fuselages of planes manufactured by Airbus and being transported to other locations for assembly. Perhaps someone knows better than me?
So Toulouse isn’t the centre of southern France’s tourism trade but it does lie on the Canal Du Midi and is midway between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. I will tell more about the Canal du Midi in a later blog after we bike along the canal from Carcassonne to Sete.
Toulouse, not being a tourism centre, is a large regional centre with a university and as such the city bustles with students, hi-tech junkies and the occasional French tourist with a heavy smattering of North Africans. It’s a bustling centre but there’s always time for the long prix fixe, or plat du jour, lunch. The downtown streets have lots of people and stores selling all sorts of items from wonderful cheeses to all sorts of hams as well as all the
Hams for the taking
latest fashions. Someone has money.
2 nights later we were off to St. Antonin Noble Val –
Toulouse to St. Antonin Noble Val
What a wonderful little drive. On our arrival in St. Antonin Noble Val our friends questioned why it took us 5 hours to drive from Toulouse as opposed to the requisite 1.5 hours it usually takes them to make the same trip. Well, I said we had to get into the French mood i.e. take our time, sample the food and not to be too serious.
The countryside was beautiful. Fields full of ripening wheat, sunflowers about to bloom and grape vines by the hundreds of hectares. The rolling countryside lulled us into a stupor as we rolled over one hill after the other basking in the warm breezes coming in the windows of the car and taking in the occasional small château, abbey, small village or church.
On top of another hill
Eglise Saint Corneille – Puycelsi
Finally our first French hosts -our French sailing friends, Herve and Evelyne.
Connie, Evelyne and Herve
Ahh, Canada…What a Place
Canada was a whirlwind tour of friends, family, big cities, small towns and even smaller villages. We covered from the west coast to central Canada finally exiting via the east coast travelling by plane, bus, train, bicycle, foot, car and boat.
By Bicycle
By Plane
Umm, why Portugal Airlines?
By Car
Connie’s size of car – Fiat 500!
By Boat
BC Ferries Logo
There are so many highlights to mention and all in all it made us feel very fortunate to have so many friends and family members, to be Canadians and to be able to return to such an incredibly diverse landscape populated by an incredible mixture of people.
From first landing in Vancouver and taking the sky train to down-town and thinking we hadn’t left SE Asia to being out in the Ontario countryside watching the windmills turn and the corn grow we had a great time.
We saw so many friends, slept in so many beds, travelled long distances, went to weddings, went to a baptism, had great reunions, cried, laughed and said too many sad goodbyes that enough was enough. It was time to get on another plane….
A WEDDING
Dorothy McCann and Tony Noakes
The Groom
A future groom, Elias, and his Mum, Eva
Sister and brother – Connie and Terry
The McCann family
BAPTISM
What is he trying to do to me?
Cried and laughed
Who looks happier here? Isaac or my brother, Richard.
My brother Brian and myself at the Belleville train station
Friends for dinner
Louise and Connie at Pagliaccis
AND MORE FRIENDS
Lorne and Simon
Derek and Agatha
Pippa and Penny
Connie, Nick and Annette at lunch
Annie and Connie
And Fred, who’s never happier than when he’s on his boat, I think
AND FAMILY
Brian and myself at the house we grew up in which is now, believe it or not, an historical place
The three stooges AKA Rabbit, Toad and Squirt
Diane – Connie’s sister
Kila, Connie’s sister-in-law
Cliff, Debbie, Nicholas, Connie
Connie and Prairie Rose, a grand-niece!
Travis and Amanda – proud parents of Prairie Rose\
And then there were all those unusual sights and those in-between we remember so well
Nostalgia
A mailbox seen on a rural road in Ontario
BC Legislature
Swiftsure preparations – Victoria Harbour
Beautiful but deadly – a potato moth in all its finery
Cold and happy to be out of the heat and humidity of SE Asia
And to the two people, Miranda and Sue, who make our stays in Canada so special and put up with us sharing their home!
Connie, Miranda, Tony, Sue
A Small Legacy
Many of our friends have recently asked “what are you doing while back here in Canada”. I think many people don’t understand why, when we have a boat in so-called paradise, we are spending so much time back in Canada. There are a number of reasons.
One – it is now the south-west monsoon season in Asia and the humidity, temperatures and rainfall are all in the extreme. Being from a cold country we have found it almost impossible to acclimatize to these conditions. Last year we hung out in India’s Himalayas and this year we thought Canada would be a good alternative.
Two – we like to re-connect with our land based friends
Three – we need to conduct business. What does that mean? Just a lot of little, but major items, like lawyers, doctors, dentists, banks, visas etc
Four – a chance to buy the proper spare parts for the boat
Five – load up the empty spaces in the luggage with our favourite storable foods!
Perhaps the most important item on this stay in Canada was to renew our wills. Yes, we do have to think about that as we are about to head across the Indian Ocean. This includes the pirate infested waters of the Malacca Straits and the Indian Ocean. See recent article on pirated oil taken from a ship only 25 nautical miles away from us – BBC report titled Pirates raid oil tanker in the Malacca Straits
Some people think we are crazy for what we do. However, they are calculated risks and we take all into consideration. That means we try to mitigate the possibilities of piracy by choosing routes that have minimum pirate activity.
So, we have to update our wills and our thoughts in the last 4 years have obviously been around the state of the oceans of the world. We are surprised that since our last sailing adventures in the Pacific 30 years ago the degradation of the oceans is marked. We see all sorts of impacts of our global activities from garbage seen almost every day in the water no matter how far from shore to the incredible decimation to fish and wildlife populations not to mention the unconscionable reduction in shark populations to finning and to rising waters impacts on coral reefs.
We alone can’t solve the world ocean’s problems but we can try to do what we can. Hence our decision, should we disappear into the bilges of a pirate ship or succumb to ocean storms, that we have a legacy left to do what can be done with the limited resources we leave. So, after much searching for something that would fit our ideas we decided to create an ‘Ocean Fund’ to be managed by the Victoria Foundation. The so-called Ocean Fund has been directed to support charitable organizations that work on environmental sustainability of the ocean waters surrounding Vancouver Island.
Our hope is that in some way we can make a difference. The oceans are in our consciousness all the time and they are always points of discussions both to people who make their lives from the seas and to those who use the sea for recreation.
Related links:
Another article on the ingestion of ocean plastics by seabirds
Oh Canada
Whilst in Victoria we had the opportunity of joining in a ceremony granting Canadian citizenship not only to our friend Elsbie but also to some 63 other Canadians. These new Canadians came from 27 different countries.
It was an honour to join in with this ceremony and welcome all these new Canadians. All were beaming and seemed to be genuinely excited and happy to take their vows as new Canadians.
Here are a few pictures from that event
A new Canadian who arrived in Canada from Tanzania
Very enthusiastic new Canadian
And then there were the shoes
And then our friend Elsbie was next for the requisite photo with the presiding Judge and the RCMP officer
And a very happy Sierd to have a new Canadian wife!
Trish, Elsbie (the new Canadian) and Sierd
And They’re Off
We are in Victoria at the time of the pre-eminent yacht race of the season. The Swiftsure International Yacht Race.
And they have started and some boats out past Race Rocks and headed out to the location of the old Swiftsure Lightship
I got to the start too late but here is one picture of where the start line was!
Start of the Swiftsure is at Clover Point
Others want to get in on the fun as well
Other wind freeloaders were there for the start
Of course, there is always the night before leading up to the race the next morning. How many of these sailors will be leaning over the rain but not because of bad weather?
Victoria Inner Harbour the night before the start of the race
Stop 3 – San Francisco
From Port Angeles a bus ride to Seattle Airport (SeaTac) and a flight to Oakland puts us into San Francisco
Where else but west coast of North America can you find a picture of a native American in a fur lined hood on the tail of an airplane? Maybe Canada’s Arctic?
So, it’s off to visit sailing friends who live in the Bay area and our kind hosts are Marilyn and Leo – sailing friends from our 1980s circumnavigation of the Pacific. We were each on 8 metre (27 foot) boats. Theirs a NorSea 27 and us on a Vancouver 27. We have stayed in touch and Leo kindly does weather forecasting for us when we cross large stretches of open ocean. A very valuable asset! Thanks Leo.
Marilyn, Leo and Connie
Below is Randall and another must see San Francisco sailor for whom we wish the best in his future sailing plans to circumnavigate North America combined with a circumnavigation of the Antarctic. See here for his website and the challenges he is facing. And of course we are meeting over food once again. I can recommend his pizza – I think a 4 star! Sorry, Randall, not 5 star – it didn’t have meat!
Randall the proud chef and the intrepid sailor making a great pizza
Off to the De Young to see the Georgia O’keefe exhibit on Lake George
Viewing downtown San Francisco from East Bay
And a little side trip to Maple Grove to view the Ruth Bancroft Gardens – a great example of xeri-landscaping for the San Francisco climate
I hate to say that I don’t remember the tree type but it has great bark
And great cacti in bloom
And then there was the Berkeley Botanical Gardens
Berkeley Botanical Gardens
Berkeley Botanical Gardens
Berkeley Botanical Gardens
And before we leave San Francisco a little fun:
Leo and Marilyn on the Eliptigos
Taking some air
With determination
After buying all the yachting hardware for the boat, eating at great restaurants, visiting more friends, walking through more gardens, eating more food it was time to head back north to Seattle and back to Victoria on the clipper from downtown Seattle to downtown Victoria. The circle is complete!
Flying over Seattle
Stop 2 – Port Angeles
Finally I have my camera back in operation and don’t have to rely on my tablet (perhaps then I won’t subject you to any videos!)
Port Angles is home to our friends Jim and Gail (sorry Jim and Gail there are no current pictures here of you guys!) and it’s only a 1.5 hour ride on a ferry across the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Port Angeles is also the gateway to the Olympic Peninsula, a national park, a forest reserve and cities such as Seattle, Tacoma and further south Portland.
Believe it or not this old ferry is still around but now in use. Love the design
No this is not the Coho ferry from Port Angeles but I wish it was.
Old Port Angeles in mural style
And then it’s back to food and friends. A great gathering with of course plenty of food and laughter.
Dinner at the trough with a full house
And a new cookbook I am introduced to with wonderful Middle Eastern recipes
After eating far too much time for a walk on Dungeness Spit with Jim Lichatowich, the author of ‘Salmon without Rivers’ and ‘Salmon, People and Place’. Great reading about the current state of the salmon industry and the environment
Jim and Connie talking to one of the volunteers at the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge
What magnificent weather. The Pacific North West at its fines
A great little marine centre with lots of live exhibits for kids to watch and learn from
Stop – 1A
Ooops – I forgot our first stop which was Vancouver. A quick stop but great to see some old friends. Not many pictures as was stuck with just the tablet.
Waiting for Louise after an 18 hour flight – I guess some people have to work
Wow! I guess the colour is needed in the winter. Great preservation job
On one of the major bike routes through Vancouver so what better than a lighted bicycle
More photos on a return visit later
Stop 1 – Victoria
I know it’s been a while since the last posting. We haven’t stopped moving. Our first and third stop was/is Victoria, BC. And what weather – glorious May weather can be the best time of the year. And this year it’s greats.
Victoria in all its glory
It is close to Swiftsure Race weekend and boats are starting to fill the harbour.
Cherry blossoms are in bloom
“This is MY home but you are welcome for a short while” – Hubert
Visiting with friends is always best done with food –
Easter table at Sue’s
Hard at work. Sierd working up the saliva glands
Tea with friends – Penny
Pippa
Zak and Connie at Rebar
The glorious rhododendrons. Second only to India
Downtown Victoria – Tourists are coming already. Cruise ships, sun and the ever alluring west coast brings them in the thousands
We are on our way
I am posting again primarily as an experimentation with video. However, we have left and are now on a long trek back to Canada. We left the boat yesterday to stay in a hotel close to the Phuket airport as all the cushions on the boat are turned up, the electricity is turned off, there is no drinking water left in the tanks, and the gate into the rubber plantation doesn’t open until 0700hrs unless previously arranged for someone to get up and open it for us earlier.
Our flight is early and we are off to Singapore for another night and then returning to what the weather forecasters are saying is going to be a rainy Monday afternoon. But we are looking forward to that in that we are going to escape the 36C temperatures and incredibly debilitating humidity.
Please be patient with the videos as I try to incorporate them in a way which doesn’t drive people crazy i.e. not too long and not too often. However, doing videos on WordPress is a learning experience and I obviously have a lot to learn. As it is I am going to expose you to another Premier Boatyard video – watch or discard as you want!
Sage on sail 