Cole turns 5, Grandpa visits from Hawaii.

It goes to show that I am a super blogger slacker that I am just now getting to a post about Cole's 5th birthday and Grandpa's visit from Hawaii. Since then many a thing has happened including a visit from Tutu from Hawaii, summer camps, swim lessons, owl pellets. So much I've probably forgotten half of it by now. Please know that it is not that I don't value all these events but that I often have to choose between sleep and blogging and lately I've been choosing sleep. As I'm finishing this up it is almost midnight.

Zecha Family, May 9th 2004.

Cole turned 5 on May 10th, the same day as Mother's Day this year. The year he was born Mother's Day was on May 9th. We've recently met a mother who says she didn't know she was pregnant until week 36. Can this be possible?! You can tell I'm pregnant in this picture right? I could tell I was pregnant too.

Fishing trip day 2-Vancouver!

We left Port Browning the next morning and after a stop for fuel, we headed out through the Gulf Islands for the Straits of Georgia. We got to enjoy more of the cool rocky shoreline so common around here. This picture illustrates how little soil there is for the trees to grow in and hang onto. I'm surprised that there aren't more instances of trees blowing over in a storm around here.
The same situation is visible on my drive to I-5 via Alger. The mountains there are mostly rock, very steep and covered in most areas with only a thin layer of soil and duff. In the winter the hill near Lookout Mountain next to Lake Whatcom Blvd. often shows the rocky surface that lays below due to the soil being washed out and the trees having lost their leaves. It's easy to see how the glaciers had minimal effect on this particular hill. It appears to be one huge rock!

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The picture below shows an interesting view. I suspect this hole was made when the rock embedded in the sandstone fell away due to the supporting structure gradually eroding away. This type of formation is seen in a smaller but more plentiful scale in the rocks at Clayton Beach on Chuckanut Drive.

We got to see a lot of marine mammals on the way out as well. This included several sea otters and a huge group of seals (maybe 20-25). I got a picture of the seals, but they just show up as a bunch of dark spots in the water, since only their heads were out of the water. I told Cole about it and it got his attention.....

But he wasn't to be disturbed from breakfast in order to go out and see them. Of course, he could see them well through the cabin windows.


After threading our way through some tight spots, we made it into open water. It was calm and flat at first, but the breeze picked up as the day progressed, finally topping out at 20+ knots as we approached Vancouver. This made for a lumpy ride. Poor Matthew was asleep on the settee with Cole when a large wave pitched him from his bunk. He didn't seem to fazed by it, though. I helped him back into his bunk and he just went right back to sleep. It must come from being the son of a former crab fisherman.

I took this picture in hopes of getting a good visual of the size of the bow wave that this ship put out, but I don't think I really captured it. Alan pointed out that the BC pilots don't often feel inclined to alter their course for recreational traffic, so he always made a point of staying out of their way. A good philosophy to follow, I think.


As I mentioned before, I really enjoy the panaorama of a city from the water. The way the clouds built up over the mountains reminded me of Hawaii or some other tropical setting. I believe that the big knob on the left in this picture is Mount Seymour. There's a provincial park on the east side of these mountains, startlingly accessible from the urban core. The proximity of these mountains to the water are part of what makes Vancouver such a breathtakingly beautiful city. Idoubt that a similar situation exists anywhere in the lower 48.


The other part of what makes Vancouver so cool is the dramatic skyline of it's downtown. Not so apparent in the distant perspective shown here, but there's a huge number of very modern skyscrapers. In this respect, it reminds me of Hong Kong or Singapore, although on a smaller scale. You can see the guy in this boat leaving the safety of the harbor with a reefed main and a small jib, a good indication of what was going on out in the Straits. Not a scene you get too often in Puget Sound.


There were a half dozen bulk carriers outside Lion's Gate, I assume waiting for berths. I don't know what they were carrying when they left, but there is a facility in the harbor with huge mountains of a yellow powder that I took to be sulfur. I fiddled around with the camera to try and get a perspective that highlighted the size of this 1000 foot ship, but I don't think I was all that successful.


Yet another cool thing about Vancouver is the island in the middle of the entrance of the harbor. This is Stanley Park, connected to the north part of the city by the Lion's Gate Bridge.
After rounding the inshore side of Stanley Park, you get a better shot of the skyline;
As well as a good view of the very cool convention center;
I sometimes feel that architectural styles can be too contemporary if placed in the wrong setting, but this building clearly belongs here, both benefiting from the surroundings and contributing to them in a very complimentary manner.



Of course an uptown marina in a city like Vancouver has to have lots of bling.

These two ladies (or at least one of them), crewing on the yacht Strangelove, shown above, wore so much perfume, that they were overpowering us 100 feet away on Alan's boat.

More bling.

Bling from Italy. Not shown in this picture is how muscle-bound all the crew on this boat were. Either the Italian owner likes buff crew, or there was a security aspect to their duties, or both.


Audrey was very disappointed when she found out that we weren't bringing her with us on the boat, but she was sooooo excited to see us the next day when she and Mom caught up with us in Canada. She especially liked hangin' with Matthew, calling him "Masu". She was quite proud of her summer dress, and rightly so I might add. I know she's my daughter and I freely admit to a bias, but I think she just couldn't get any cuter.

There's a very nice boardwalk along the waterfront in the Coal Harbor area that serves to connect the city with pedestrian friendly waterfront access. While I'm a big proponent of a working waterfront, I think that the planners in Vancouver have done an excellent job of accomodating the various interests in the way the waterfront in Coal Harbor is designed. Great access and recreation, some commercial, some industrial, transit hubs, parking (but not in ugly sprawling lots) and a very pleasant transition from the uplands to the water. I highly reccomend a weekend trip there, especially on a sunny summer day.




After grabbing a bite to eat, we headed for the nearby water fountain park where the kids all got to stretch their legs a bit.


Cooling off!

Not too sure about the water spray.


Warming up again on a big concrete obelisk. I think Cole digs Emily.

However, he doesn't dig being asked to pose for a picture.

We all had a great trip.
A big MAHALO to the Arnesen family!!!

Cole and Dad's fishing adventure

This is Alex guest blogging again.

This past weekend, Alan and Maureen hosted Cole and I on their boat for an overnight cod fishing trip. We went out with Alan and Matthew (his son) some time back for shrimp on the Hood Canal, and Cole talked about it for weeks afterward so I was hopeful he'd enjoy another such trip.

Alan and Maureen actually have two boats. One is 30 feet long and the other is 38. We were on the bigger one this weekend. It's shown in these two pictures.







We left Bellingham shortly before noon. the weather was great, with the usual spectacular views of Mt. Baker.





I always enjoy seeing a city from the water. You get used to the street perspective, so this view yields a feeling of novelty.



Cole and Matthew took some time to survey a tackle box together. Matthew goes out with his dad a lot, so he's probably a pretty good hand already. That didn't get in Cole's way though, when he finds an audience, he doesn't hold back!




Once he found his wind, Cole took the opportunity to teach Matthew and Emily a thing or two about Lego Star Wars. This mostly consisted of Cole explaining "he's a good guy, he's a bad guy" etc. Cole and his contemporaries frequently identify things or people along those lines. When I hear this kind of dialog, I'm often reminded of the lines from the song Bob Dylan's Dream....."As easy it was to tell black from white, it was all that easy to tell wrong from right". I wonder if there's a stage of development where kids start to perceive the world in less absolute terms. Although Matthew and Emily weren't up to speed yet on Lego Star Wars, I think Cole's set the hook pretty well. They seemed pretty interested in what he had to say about it all.

We reached our destination in a few hours, and the clouds had filled in. After about 20 minutes of fishing, the dark wind line that had been advancing on us from the North, jumped all over us. It went from about 5 knots and variable to 20-25 knots out of the Northwest in nothing flat. The Straits of Georgia are very long in the North/South direction, so there's plenty of fetch for waves to build up in when the wind blows in the right direction. This made for some bumpy bottom fishing. Even so, Alan nailed a 5 lb. rockfish and a 15 lb. lingcod. I caught two strands of kelp, but they were both on the small side, so I threw them back to catch again next year.

After a while the wind had set in pretty well and really made fishing impractical, so we headed for the place where we planned on staying the night and had a go at picking up a mooring buoy. Unfortunately, this proved difficult in the breeze so we decided to head for Port Browning and tie up at a marina.




I'm often intrigued by the way rock formations look. I like to try and pick out the way a shape might have come to be or how glacial action may have affected the local terrain. That's certainly the case in the area where we live and, by extension, the San Juan Islands and the Canadian Gulf Islands. This looked to me like perhaps a basalt formation that had been weathered to the point where block-like chunks dropped into the water. I think I would have liked to have been a mason and/or geologist if my career path had been different.





I have to wonder exactly how cod manage to get their prey into their bellies. This one had two smaller fish sticking out of its mouth when it was caught. From the way they looked, I'd say that they'd been there for a while. Since they have gills they probably don't choke on their food, like we would, and just keep on swallowing until it goes down. These cod also have a blue tinge to their skin and flesh.





Catch of the day!




Up close.
These fish seem to have huge mouths!




The boys were Johnny on the spot when it came time to watch Alan clean and fillet the fish. I truly think that there's a strong generalization that could be made for a gender-based preference for guts and animal dissections. Emily had little or no interest in this and spent this time dancing with her mom.




One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.
It cooks to a white color like you're used to seeing, and also makes a killer fish taco.




Port Browning-a nice spot to visit. Casual and slightly funky, like the old-time Canadian marinas (not like Roche Harbor!)




I grabbed this shot on the way out of Port Browning in the morning. I liked it, so I'm sharing. I'm kind of slow at this stuff and its getting late, so I'll post the Vancouver entry tomorrow.