Curare's Adventures

Bringing Curare Home: Part III

When we walked back to the marina the next morning, December 21, it was even colder than the previous day, and we were not expecting much to happen. To our wonder the truck was unstuck and it had moved closer to the crane. We continued working on the mast and after about an hour and a half the marina owner tried to start the crane. Red hydraulic fluid fountained onto the white snow. At this point the owner became a little grumpy and said "We are done here, I am closing the yard, no work will be done until after Christmas". What could we say? It was his marina and his crane. So Stan and Linda unhooked their truck and went to spend the Christmas holidays at a truck stop while LE scrambled to find transport back to Vancouver. With such short notice days before Christmas, not to mention the heavy snowfall, our transportation options were limited. Nothing was available until the Greyhound bus leaving at 9:30 P.M., not our favourite bus company but we needed to get out of there.

Although the yard was shut we continued working on Curare and managed to get all of the rigging reattached to the mast, put the anchor and chain back on the boat, put on the bow pulpit, re-attached the forward lifelines and went below to see if anything had been damaged during transport, or if any of the numerous canned goods had exploded. We could not put on the aft lifelines because the arch was not attached, it was tied in place with lines. About every 15 minutes we would go into the building that the yard manager had left open for us so that we could warm our hands. Without that small act of kindness we would not have been able to get all of the work done because it was windy and bitterly cold. We left the yard at 4 P.M. and trudged back to the train station (3 miles) stopping on the way to warm up in a brew pub and then stopping again to eat dinner by a cheery fire.

The bus stop is at the Amtrak train station and we arrived just as the southbound Vancouver train was disgorging it's passengers. Once they had left it was just us and the security guard. Fairly soon another couple arrived dragging huge suitcases, they were also waiting for the 9:30 P.M. bus. At 10:15 P.M. they phoned Greyhound in Seattle and asked when the bus would arrive. The agent said that the bus had not even left Seattle, Greyhound was waiting for the bus driver who was travelling from Portland; the bus might arrive in Bellingham at 3:00 A.M. At this point GG spoke to the local taxi company, also in the Amtrak building, and learned that we could get a taxi to the border. Thirty minutes later a Crown Vic rolled up and the driver hopped out holding a small dog wearing a pink jacket. We shoved the two huge suitcases into the trunk and carried the hand luggage on our laps, a squeeze even in such a large car. Away we raced at high speed, with the dog sitting in the driver's lap, and made it to the border in 20 minutes. At this point the driver told us that he and his car were not allowed near the official border crossing so he let us out at the duty free store and we walked across. There wasn't a cleared sidewalk so we trekked through the snow in the traffic lane, the other couple dragging their enormous pieces of luggage behind them. At the little booth the border guard laughed and directed us into the building where we were welcomed back to Canada. We arranged for another taxi to collect us and take us into Vancouver, a distance of 50 km (30 miles) and we were back in the condo by 1:00 A.M.

BUT wait - there is more. The next day we were taking the ferry back to Gabriola Island as foot passengers. Normally LE does not make a reservation as a foot passenger but this time she did. A reservation means the passenger (or vehicle) needs to be at the ferry at least 30 minutes prior to departure. We set off from the condo at 9:40 A.M. to take the local bus to Horseshoe Bay and the ferry. The ferry was not leaving until 1 P.M. but we left early because we wanted  time to eat lunch. The bus left downtown Vancouver on schedule and it was standing room only, we zoomed along, until we did not. Near the top of the hill leading down to the ferry dock traffic was completely stopped. Bus passengers wondered why and began demanding that the driver let us off so we could walk. After 20 minutes or so he relented and opened the door; less than 10 people got out. We jogged down the hill at a rapid pace, to claim our reservation prior to the 12:30 cut-off, and made it with zero minutes to spare. The agent told us that all foot passenger tickets had been sold, but we said "we have a reservation". Then she said "you are too late", but the other agent said it was up to the computer and the computer said we had arrived on time. It was only 30 minutes before departure, not enough time for lunch, but then we found out that the 1 P.M. ferry was not arriving until 2:15 P.M. which left us plenty of time for a quick bite to eat. Gotta' love B.C. Ferries.

The rest of the trip home was uneventful, but Curare was spending Christmas in Bellingham by herself. Not what we had planned.

Bringing Curare Home: Part II

Curare left Florida on Monday December 5, 2022, the start of her grand road adventure, and we flew home to the west coast of Canada to await her arrival. We had looked at Google maps and figured the road trip would be around 4000 miles more or less, which at a distance of 600 miles per day would be seven or eight days of driving, so we started to plan for a December 12th or 13th arrival date.

LE had asked Linda, the wife of Stan (the truck driver), to email her when the truck was about three days from Bellingham so when we had not heard anything by December 11 GG phoned the office in Florida and asked for an update. It was bad news. The truck blew it's transmission in Kentucky, only a two day drive from Florida, and it would not get going again until December 12. Then on December 14 LE received an email from Linda with the news that the truck was stopped in Iowa because winter storm Diaz had shut down roads in Nebraska and Wyoming. Despite the weather the truckers hoped to be in Bellingham Monday or Tuesday, December 19th or 20th. Upon Curare's arrival GG and LE had planned to unload her from the truck and motor back to Canada, but this updated arrival date meant they would most likely miss Christmas Day festivities. In the original "shipping Curare home" scenario, started in early October, we would have been back in Canada at the beginning of December and had tentatively organized a large Christmas gathering. Luckily we had not made any concrete plans.

We did not want to drive our truck to to the USA because there was no one to drive it back to Canada, so instead we took an Amtrak train leaving on December 19 at 5:45 P.M. from Vancouver and arriving at 7:41 P.M. in Bellingham. What could be simpler? As the train departed Vancouver it was starting to snow and when we arrived in Bellingham it was still snowing, the temperature had fallen to -5 C, and there was about 10 cm of snow on the ground.

GG had made reservations at a hotel near the train station so we trudged three blocks through the deserted snowy streets and crossed our fingers that the snow would stop. It did not. The snow continued falling all night and next morning the temperature was -12 C. When we departed the hotel at 7:45 A.M. there was maybe 20 to 25 centimetres of accumulated snow, none of the streets had been ploughed, and no one had shovelled their sidewalks. We thought we would take a taxi because the Landings at Colony Wharf marina was 3 miles away, but nothing was stirring so we started to walk, carrying our packs. It was not easy trekking through the snow, we should have brought snowshoes.

  We arrived at the marina at 9:15 A.M. and found the door locked with a handwritten sign that said "Office closed today due to snow". We could not believe it!  GG had phoned the day before to tell them the truck, and Curare, were arriving the morning of December 20 and they said they were expecting us. However, the main marina gate was open so we walked into the yard and, as we were wondering what to do, we saw our boat on the truck travelling down the street. About that time a pick-up truck stopped, the window rolled down, and a man asked "what are you doing here?". This was the owner of the marina. We told him who we were and the name of our boat and he said "I did not expect you today because of the weather". Then he said his crane was non-operational. Surely GG could have been told this the previous afternoon when he phoned the marina; the crane did not break overnight. The truck arrived about 10 minutes later and promptly got stuck in the unploughed yard which meant there was additional time to get the crane working.

GG, LE and Stan started to shovel but it was hopeless, the truck would not budge. It was now -10 C and both GG and LE were cold, despite the exertion of shovelling, so we left for lunch. When we returned no one was around, the truck crew was hiding in their cab and the marina owner had left, sending us a text that they would try to lift Curare tomorrow. It was only 1 P.M. and, although it was still bitterly cold, we decided we had time to get the mast off the truck and unwrap it, maybe even put some of the standing rigging back on. But first we had to shovel a path to the truck so that we could wheel the hand cart to transport the mast to a working area. This was a distance of slightly less than a football field and it took about one hour.

We successfully got the mast off of the truck and started to attach the standing rigging but we did not get far because our hands were cold, the proper tools were on board Curare,and we had to find a place to stay. GG had only reserved last night's hotel for the one night, the original plan was to be on Curare that evening, and we did not want to make the morning's long, snowy, trek again. We eventually found a place that was slightly closer, but it involved an uphill hike. LE didn't know which was worse - the 3 miles in the morning or the uphill in the late afternoon? The saga continues...