A NEW TUG IN TOWN .... and other odds 'n' sods

Seaspan has added to its fleet here in the harbour ... not sure if it's new, or just new to Seaspan, but it's a prettier boat than any I've seen so far!

I was knitting at Clover Point the other day when I heard a tap on my window -- it was my friend Bev from the Guild, and she and her hubby were in the very next car!


Marj and a few others have mentioned knitting at Clover Point, too --- maybe we'll start a summer knitting circle there! :-)

When I went there this morning, I was just in time to watch some sort of sailing regatta coming out of Enterprise Channel ...

It was a busy day on Juan de Fuca!

At 4:00 we drove Mischa to the ferry for Vancouver - she has a hair show to attend and then she's going to her sister Hailey's cabin in Whistler to 'chill out' for a few days. Yesterday was like a summer day, so after we dropped her off, Michael and I went to a local (Sidney) market, bought our 'dinner' and headed for the nearest beach...

... which had a view of the Anacortes Ferry dock, and across the channel, Sidney Spit -- lots of boats at anchor this weekend!


In knitterly news, I've FINISHED Sivia Harding's Moonshadow Stole, and I love it, love it, love it! I'll get some pics today if I can (unblocked ... that'll happen this week some time). Now I'm going to start on her River Rock Scarf (which may be for an exchange 'secret pal'-- I haven't decided yet) and get back to a blue shawl I started a month ago.

SIVIA'S BACK (SUBTITLE: Fool that I am...)

It was a busy day off Victoria's waterfront yesterday!

First of all, the military was really busy -- I counted 4 or 5 big warships out on some exercises along the US border (that invisible line in the middle of the Juan de Fuca Strait) along with two smaller (frigates? I want to say frigate!) and a helicopter.

At one point I looked up from my knitting to see four freighters (including the yacht-toting one I'd heard was coming in, and was hoping to get a picture of),the Pacific Swift and the pilot boat.


I parked the van and walked out on the breakwater to get a better picture -- and the yacht-toting freighter sailed right on by me to anchor over off the Esquimalt Lagoon (to save overnight mooring fees, maybe, if they can't unload until today?)

By the time I walked back to the van, all was quiet again, and it was dusk...


Just as well, because I had some serious knitting to do.

There's an old joke that goes like this: "I'm planning to live forever... so far, so good." I've put Sivia's 'Moonshadow' stole back on the needles (you knew I couldn't stay away long, didn't you?) and I'm on row 14 of the border.

So far, so good.

THE OGDEN POINT BREAKWATER

The breakwater at Ogden Point, which marks the entrance to the Victoria Harbour, was built around 1900 and named after one of the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company. Almost half a mile long, it is located at 199 Dallas Road, right next to the cruise ship dock. (The walk that starts here meanders all along the edge of the Juan de Fuca Strait and ends at the eastern end of the Ross Bay Cemetery, a few miles away). Work on this project included over one million tons of rock, ten thousand granite blocks, fifty three concrete caissons and over one million cubic yards of dredged fill, and it took 3 years to complete.

Local resident Ron McLean has created a great pictorial of Ogden Point scenes, some historical, here and here.

Yesterday our brand new BC ferry docked at the breakwater to host public tours before it goes into service in March. It was a great day for a walk along the breakwater - a sailing regatta was underway, several freighters were going by keeping the pilot boat busy, and of course, the new ferry ....







I had no desire to go aboard (especially after I saw the line-ups!) because I wanted to take my Secret of the Stole out to play, since I FINALLY got Clue #3 done...


I'm really hoping to cast one Sivia's Moonshadow Stole (AGAIN) today, but I also need to work on launching the new Victoria FibreFest website this weekend!

DOWN TO THE WATER

Occasionally people have asked me, since I live on a boat, why I need to drive ‘down to the water’ so often.

Well, the answer is that even though our marina is located in the heart of downtown Victoria, and there’s often lots going on right here (and I love it!) – it’s not the same as looking out over the panorama of the Juan de Fuca Strait, which separates us from Washington State. It’s about 30 miles across to Port Angeles from here, and there’s always something going on – whether it’s great storm-watching, windsurfers, or this…

Sometimes several times a day freighters go by, en route to or from Asia (often China, Japan, the Phillipines...) and heading to or from the major port of Vancouver, BC. They all have to go right past the Victoria waterfront! Here’s a map of the shipping route from open Pacific to downtown Vancouver – the dotted line through the American San Juan Islands and the Canadian Gulf Islands is actually the US/Canada border, but the shipping lanes are pretty much right alongside that:

As you can see, it’s a busy area with lots of tight corners and lots of boat traffic. By international maritime law, a ‘pilot’ – an experienced local mariner who becomes an ‘advisor to the ship’s captain -- is put aboard inbound ships (and outbound pilots from Vancouver get taken off the ships) right here, at Clover Point. Pilot boats, built to withstand heavy seas, are usually painted a bright yellow, orange or red, and they are used to transport pilots between land and the ships they are piloting. These boats literally come alongside 100,000-ton freighters and maintain a speed of 7 or 8 knots while the pilot transfers. The pilot has to be agile, too – he or she sometimes has to climb a swinging ‘Jacob’s ladder’ 40 or 50 feet up to the ship’s deck, in all kinds of conditions.

So when I sit and knit at Clover Point, I sometimes witness this event two or three times in an evening.

Yesterday Michael came with me, and he sat and read the paper while I knitted -- I had to frog almost 30 ROWS of the 'Secret of the Stole' so I am slowly re-knitting it now. Good thing I love knitting!

Oh, I promised a pic of the 'Kiri' Shawl that Annie in Taiwan sent me..


It's beautiful, and she says it was her first lace project ... I wonder how much frogging *she* had to do. :-)

A WEEK TO GO

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I'd stopped at the water to knit for a bit, which I often do. I didn't take my camera out, as it turned out, but I had these pics still on the card from a few days ago during a windstorm on the Juan de Fuca...

That was about a 40kt wind blowing, so the waves were about 6 - 8 feet high -- it gets much worse than that sometimes!

Knitting has been happening. I have three projects on the needles right now -- the first is a gorgeous heathery purple shawl in New Zealand scheepjeswol that I started for Threads of Compassion... but I may end up keeping it for myself. I found an easy 4-row lace pattern somewhere, and I just love how it's working up. The finished shawl will be a rectangle about 20" by 70".

I also have a hat on the needles that I can't say much about because the recipient probably reads my blog. Finally, I got a call from the Neo-Natal unit at our local hospital saying they could use about 8 more Christmas-themed preemie hats, so I've done several of those...

PHOTO OF THE DAY: This is what a 'travel lift' haulout looks like -- a boat gets taken out of the water on giant 'slings' when the owner needs to work on the hull. We haul out the Wind Walker every other year, and it's the single most stressful thing about owning a boat!