FREIGHTERS and SAILBOATS and KNITTING, oh my!

Day before yesterday I just happened to be driving by the Inner Harbour and saw this massive thing making its way into the dock at Ship's Point ...

So of course I had to park the van and watch this event -- which took about half an hour from start to finish...

And what wasn't really obvious, maybe, in those first two pics, becomes obvious in this one...

How do these guys SEE to dock this thing??

Anyway, the 'thing' turned out to be an Alaska-based 'landing craft' (no, that's not a UFO!) called the Greta S. Akpik. The cool thing about these beasts is that they can pull right up on to a beach, anywhere, and trucks or other huge equipment can drive right off! Here's what the company that owns the Greta has to say about her usefulness...

"Because thawing rivers like to collect things along their paths, many Alaskan rivers have no piers. So what do you do when your job involves shipping cargo up these uncharted waterways? If you're smart enough to choose Diversified Marine as your builder, you get not only a great vessel to work with, you get a built-in pier to go with it, rugged enough to stand up to the kinds of abuse the North has to dish out. Because the time to worry about the quality of your vessel isn't when hell freezes over. It's when Alaska does."

The Greta is 150' long and 50' wide, and can carry a total of 600 tons of general cargo loaded into the 4,000 square feet of deck space ... and still only have 4' of boat below the water! You can read more about Diversified Marine, and the Greta, here if it interests you.

Yesterday I spent 3 or 4 hours chasing a sailboat. That's a futile pastime, I know, especially when sailboats are on the water, and I'm on the land -- but this particular sailboat, the 'Pippin,' had Michael aboard. Michael went along to help our friend and neighbour Rennie take his boat around to the Oak Bay Marina, where it will be 'hauled out' today. But the day was a spectacular one -- beautiful blue skies and a beautiful-to-match ten-to-fifteen-knot wind -- so what are a couple of sailors to do? Go sailing, of course! Which they did, from 11:00 am to 5 pm ... while I watched from shore, and knitted.

So you'd think I would have got a lot of knitting done, then, wouldn't you?

Wrong. I started -- and frogged -- a cabled sweater for Gibson, about 3 times. I've decided now to sit down this morning with some graph paper and design it myself (I'll keep you posted on the results! lol) I also worked on a Threads of Compassion shawl and completed about an inch and a half of it. Pics soon...

Hoping to start Clue #5 in the Secret of the Stole KAL today!