LIVING ABOARD
RATHER THAN CREATE A LIVING ABOARD ADVERT, i. e. TELLING LIES, I THOUGHT THAT I WOULD SHARE WITH YOU A LETTER SENT WHILE I WAS OUT IN COWICHAN BAY OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS AND A SELECTION OF PHOTOS TAKEN OUT IN THE ISLANDS.
Hi,
I have been here about 8 weeks now and it has gone by in a blur. The first 3 weeks are a kaleidoscope of pain, bills, painting, bills, Kuala Lumpur belly, bills, jet lag, pain, more jet lag, and more bills, and painting.
After 30 hours of travelling from Kuala Lumpur, I arrived on my boat to find that ‘Barry the Bayliner’ had organised a ‘crabfest’ on my dock, because of its size. It was a good evening, we even had a musician playing guitar for us! Fortunately it all wound up about 9 pm, so I could collapse in peace.
The sunrise the next morning reminded me why I was in Cow Bay. Had to raise the national colours of the boat first thing – the Everton flag. The picture below is an interesting one of Ray the Paint – he is actually painting!!! I paid him $1000 last September to paint the interior of the boat – not a tap. He came down for a day and a half to help paint the outside and then disappeared.
The outside of the boat had suffered over the winter, which was wet and mild – good growing weather. The boat was almost green in places! I had hoped that I would get most done in 3 weeks, and so was working really hard. Got all the work done save for the outside of the Pilot House.
I did get a bit of help from some of the locals one afternoon, but afterwards I had to offer them a beer or two, just to be polite - it ended up costing more than Ray the Paint! We had 3 or 4 days of wet weather, so did some sightseeing,
The weather improved before the end of June, so I was able to finish the painting. I took the boat out on the motor, mainly to turn it round, but motored over to Genoa Bay and back. This enabled me to ‘finish off’ the other side – just an hour’s touching up mainly, and repainting the black and blue bits. Favourite has never looked so good, a lot of work this year, but also I think a cumulative effect of the work done over the last 5 years.
July 1st, Canada Day, was particularly hot. Went down to Victoria early, because it is a massive ‘party’ day there, with all sorts going on. I ‘shopped’ (needed a new sodoku book), listened to music, did the water taxi ride round the Bay, had lunch, watched the water taxis doing their famous waltz routine to the Blue Danube, listened to more music, and left about 4pm. Unfortunately the car, Mario, started over heating on the way back. Three days later he failed altogether, and it cost me $1800 to get him going again (still got overheating problems – but I cannot afford to get them fixed). The weather stayed fine, and I have been training everyday – playing squash at Shawnigan Lake School (where a girl called Leonie Holt works as an assistant coach – Michael, my son, coached her at the Solent Summer Squash School so she recognised me straight away – scary!!!), and using the gym most days in the local hotel, so getting fitter!
I at last got the boat out and had a sail – I am hoping to cruise some of the islands, anchoring in nice bays and enjoying the wonderful scenery around these waters, but need to ‘press gang’ crew each time I go out…. Hey ho?
We have had ‘curryfests’, ‘steakfests’, ‘spaghettifests’…. All sorts on the dock – the Community Centre of the marina. Not all done by us, but our neighbours shared. We have some new neighbours this year, but a lot of the ‘old folk’ are still here.
The weather stays good, last Sunday I took Leonie Holt, the coach, out for a sail. She goes back to England next week, to start playing the squash circuit full-time. We had a great day, ending up in Genoa Bay Café for a late lunch/dinner. We are hoping to go out again tomorrow with a friend of hers from Shawnigan.
That is pretty much my news. I am hoping to come back to UK in the beginning of September but it will depend on quite a few other things. It looks as though I might get a contract to work next year in a university in Kuala Lumpur – fingers crossed that will help the ‘keep the boat afloat’ fund? What more have you got planned?
Take care.
Mike.