family

Well I write this as we sit on the ferry that goes between Prince Rupert, up by Alaska down to Port Hardy on the Northern End of Vancouver Island. We had to get up at some awful hour this morning for the all day sightseeing trip down the Interior Passage. Only problem, as luck as the draw has it , the first 6 hours have been very cold, very wet and very foggy. Not seeing much at all, although I suppose that is probably the way it is most of the time.
We had the most spectacular 83 miles of scenery that Bazza thinks he has ever seen going up to Prince Rupert yesterday though! So I have some pictures from there, although, the camera does not do the scenery justice!

Who is that? Ah well, my father again, leading the life of leisure in the back seat! I think he has gotten used to this not driving thing on this trip! Pay back for all the chauffering he does of us around Victoria. Especiallly my husband to Home Depot!

There was a mommy and baby ducks in the pond here.

We did drive into Diana Lake, as Bazza was intrigued as there was swimming signs there. He could not imagine anyone swimming in this cold water, so he had to see. What do you think? Does it look like swimming water to you?

Some Hills

And a lake. I really like the reflections in the lake...

Ah, we are back at Prince George here! With my Aunt and Uncle just before leaving. My aunt fed us more then I feed the guests on the boat, if you can believe that!! I did not think it was possible.

Back on the road again, a little pond

We were amused feeding the Ravens. We were surprised that they are not as sleek and clean looking as what i imagined.

Some more reflections and rivers.



Now this is a very unusual picture, as every time I ask bazza if he wants me to drive some, he firmly declines. Does not care for my driving! So I am fine with that, but he actually asked me to drive this time...an entire three feet up to reach the water hose!

Here is our little lion in the mountains

The Skeena River. There were tons of fishing camps all the way along with people standing in that (chilly) water fishing.

I saw this slug which I thought was very large until my father told me that when we lived on Northern Vancouver Island they would grow to about 7 inches. This one was maybe 3 or 4.

And how bout these raccons, didn't they pose perfectly??

Na, kidding, did not see them, someone sent me the pic!
I am sure there is too much more that signifies Canada then the trains being reflected in the water! My husband tells me that we are supposed to have two moose saying "Welcome to Canada, Eh!" and has been quite disgusted that we have not managed to find him one, although we have found lots of bear that he seems to think are attack animals as well. We saw a little one yesterday with a diamond spot of white on his chest (yes, he was right on the side of the road)

We also saw Eagles, but my zoom lens broke, so I could not get any pictures!



Our trip across Alberta and BC is almost done, and I think we are all looking forward to getting back to Victoria and settling down. So we will talk to you in a few days! Nice the see the BVi is getting some weather that looks like summer there finally!

Well rolling right along here on entires, lets make it three today between us! Richards underwater pictures are getting spectacular! They will blow mine out of the water! I love the turtle with the divers in the background. Yep, definitely sounds like they have been doing a lot of diving this week! We have cute animals of our own!
Here is a deer...

AND we also saw Bears and Elks but I could not get a picture! So we had to settle for cows on the road. I thought I was back in Tortola for a moment, but these cows were looking much healthier then our island cows!

We were out there with just the right light in the evening and I was really wishing that I had my big camera with me for this picture. BUT, my mom had her camera so she took one!

Oh, I am not sure if this counts, but it is the puppy...really thinking that I should be going in the RV to get him cookies!

And then we have fish! But, this fish is on my plate! And very good it was too at Joeys Seafood in Prince george with my parents, and, yes, more relatives, my uncle and aunt, Donnie and Margaret. Donnie is moms younger brother.

Some more country buildings going to ruin up in Peace Country

and a very pretty lake just as we were leaving my aunts place.

My father, cousin and husband in front of my Aunts farm here..

And when we left the farm we all had our picture taken, including the dog, looking for food!

A chance for some one else besides me to have their picture taken at Bijou Falls, I have plenty of myself thank you!

My mom took this great sunset picture where we are south of Prince George.

And I know the crew on the boat will appreciate this and probably think it is Karma. As people know, for someone who never drank coffee I turned out to love ICED COFFEES. Poor Brent would go through withdrawal every time I left the boat as I would make them for everyone daily. Also, a bit of my obsessive/addictive personality coming out, I would always be so scared that I would run out of all these fancy ingredients for our blender coffees that I tended to stock up. As you can tell from this picture. This is what i had in the RV!

A few months ago I quit and it took me two or three days to get over the headache, and i decided that I needed to go through that again, as it makes me jittery, I don't need the calories and I cannot sleep either!! I picked a day about a month ago, and thought, well 3 days and I will be fine. No, not this time! An entire FULL week of withdrawal, headache, grumpiness and just really trying to stay in bed! It was horrible. Really horrible. I still crave it once a day, or when I pass the billion coffee stores out there. Hey, that is probably why Starbucks had to close 600 stores because I stopped drinking this stuff! Anyways, take my advice. Don't get into the super charged espresso iced coffees like I did, It is not worth it!

Therefore, kind me, took all this "stuff" to fob off on my relatives to feed their caffeine addiction!

They look like they are having some great diving times on the boat! I am ALMOST jealous, but we will be back soon enough! Over the last few days we have seen, bears, foxes, elk, deer, and all those other kind of Canadian things besides a MOOSE which my husband really thinks we should see! I have to share some of the great old pictures of some of the old pioneer homesteads up around Hythe. Hythe is in Northwestern Alberta, west of Grande Prairie almost on the BC border and my mother father homesteaded up here back in the thirties. To the everlasting thrill of my husband, we have managed to find another 30-40 close relatives up here that he never knew I had!
I used to spend quite a bit of time up here when I was a kid on the farm, and it has always been a magical place. My aunt still is on the farm, and our RV was parked looking downhill over the pastures watching the cows! It was as peaceful as I remember! these are all down dirt and gravel roads for miles...
This is an old church, a German Mennonite one, where Bazza found a 1917 penny! That was quite exciting...

An old water pump...

Some assorted old homesteads back in the trees

I am sure that we have a chronological picture of all these buildings for the last 50 years that my father has been coming up here, many of these were courtesy of him!

And, definitely the old cars are from him. They are neat, but he can tell me exactly what year and type each one is!

There is always a lot of old vehicles and machinery rusting and being covered over in the back of farms.

How bout this snow sled...It has seen 60,000 miles, had twins delivered in it and it was the only thing that could get into and out of car accidents way back in the thirties a lot of time. This is in the museum at Beaverlodge.

There is a cute dog on the farm. His name is Buddy and he is actually very good, but I am kind of a suck for animals too and I gave him a cookie the first day I was there! Well, Buddy was now my friend! After a day or so of feeding him cookies I thought they probably were not good for him so I bought some dog jerky treats instead! Well, he turned up his nose, left them on the ground and whined and sulked for hours till I gave him cookies! Now this is a farm dog, he lives outside and eats meat or dog food. I tried to tell my aunt he liked chocolate chip cookies best when I left but I don't think she was listening!

My mother kept on telling us that she was taking us over to our cousins to see the Grizzly Bear that had been shot in the back yard. I was thinking "yeah, I have seen bear rugs before mom" but humoring her, as you are supposed to do with parents! Well, it was a bit more then a bear rug! Pretty impressive!!



An old cart left in the trees..

My dad patiently took my husband around with his metal detector to the old homesteads and stood watch. They seemed to find a lot of belt buckles!! BUT not too many pull tabs which is a good thing. A couple old brooches, an old necklaces and a few coins....

This is my cousin Mabel, the "egg girl!" She looks like Girl of the Limberlost and has 150 or so chickens to collect the eggs from every day.

And this is her daughter Sherry and her grandson (see I have more relatives!)

One day we made a special trip out to one of my grandfathers old homesteads. The house was built by my grandmother and her brother in law, with a few add ons over the years!

Still there!

My grandmother planted this break of trees back in 1947. ! Pretty impressive, somehow I don't see me planting trees.

My mom and dad in front of the old garage where she grew up on the property...

And these are just some great pictures of the old barns that were there, well from the 1930's sometime!

I was trying to go for more "mood" photo's here...





I had to specially get my camera to take this picture, it was an old International Truck in the trees that said EDMONTON on the side!

This is my mothers older sister and my cousin Darleen at lunch one day..

Then we went to a good old fashioned jamboree. I got the door prize for being the furthest visitor away! Go figure!! I told Bazza that this was a first to him a country jamboree and he said they had them in Australia, they were just usually around sheep barns!



The band stage

I managed to get mom and dad being more ambitious then us and doing a fancy two step of some king...

Now, this group, "Yesterdays Country" I have a cousin who plays the guitar and sings in there, a cousin who plays the fiddle and the guy in the white hat played at my mother wedding up here 50 years ago!

good thing I am writing all this trivia down somewhere so I remember it!

After we left the jamboree that night I went out to the RV in the Hay field and the light with the bales and the sunset was absolutely spectacular, so I spent some time taking pictures. These are some of them. Different then the BVI, but just as beautiful!









Then a couple younger cousins came over and figured out how to use some special effects on my iphoto booth really quick, so we killed ourselves laughing taking these!
This is my dad...

My parents and I...

And my mom! Strange things happen when you go up to the country!

This morning it was time to Leave Hythe and make our way over to Prince George in BC, where, yes, you guessed it, more relatives! So, that is what we have been up to for the last few days!

Well, I think I have just about enough time to put up some pictures for my family before calling this blog entry a done deal! I am starting to wonder what goes where!! Right now we are way up in Northwestern Alberta on my mothers childhood homestead, and guess what, more relatives for Bazza to meet! But that is getting ahead of the story.
Last weekend we went over to my oldest son's Chads place to see the new place and the kittens! Here they are!! Aren't they cute!!

This one looks like a little wolf to me!

Mom had a heck of a time "herding the cats"

and the saucy little kitten sat right on top of the computer!

My dad tried to catch a nap on the couch but ended up being attacked by their sharp claws and did not want to let him sleep!

We had a good dinner that night though, to celebrate my sons 28th (yeeks) birthday we went out to Ruth Chris's for dinner. We all enjoyed it!

Including apple streusel pie and key lime pie that tasted pretty similar to the ones we make on the yacht!

The next day we went out to spend the evening with Laura and Kevin in Camrose. Laura was a very good friend of mine back when I was about 20. We have only seen each other twice in the last 25 years, but as it is when you know people so well you easily slip into lots of laughter and it was a good evening where Laura cooked ME dinner and lots of giggles!

Tuesday morning we were up on our way to Peace River Country and i will leave this here until next time!

I bet you are dead tired of seeing spectacular sunsets, interesting underwater fish and pretty blue water, so I thought I would put up some pictures to give you something different to look at today!
Even I miss the islands every time I see the pictures!
My father convinced us that a small walk was in order in Victoria Harbor today, as the Tall Ships were in town! My mother said about 830 or 9 we would go, I just about cried so they set it back to ten! I fooled them, I was ready at 10 after 9 though! Here I am with my mom and dad

My father does this walk about every day from about the house, but he deemed to drive us closer. I took along my camera so I would have GREAT excuses to stop for a breather!! You will be able to tell by the amount of pictures i have here that I took a few!

We started out on this side, and I do have to say that it was a gorgeous day out. They could not have asked for better! There was tons of kayakers around. The water was flat calm...



I loved this picture, all the guys were rowing the boat and the girl was going faster beside them shouting out orders!

This part of Victoria used to be owned by the First Nation people a long time ago, and they exchanged land here at the water front for land in Esquimault. Here is a couple old pictures from the 1800's that show where we were standing today...



And this is the same view 130 years later! Pretty awesome. Except for now we have tall ships, planes and ferries instead of canoes!



And some of the tall ships

I love this picture, with the blue skies and the buildings behind it looks like we are in Curaco in the Caribbean a hundred years ago!


There is a woman who owns a few buildings that are OLD, Last name of Janion. One used to be a hotel, but they have been closed for decades upon decades. Her husband told her that as long as she had property she would never be poor. After he died, she has lived by that and has refused to sell. These properties are worth silly sums of money now. This Hotel, was the first one in Victoria to have hot running water. Apparently it is in pretty good shape inside, I would have loved to have seen it!

You can tell a lot of old glass in the buildings, like in this picture. Apparently it takes a fortune to fix up these old buildings, as they have to be brought up to earthquake codes, and there are also heritage laws, so...

One thing I noticed was the amount of homeless people that Victoria has. I guess if you have to be homeless in Canada, this is one of the best cities weather wise. I don't think I saw this many homeless in Atlanta last time we were there! We walked down a small alley

which had tiny little places that had half numbers on them!

I took a picture of the flowers as my mom liked them...

and this field of poppies was sitting there with the facade of an old building that they were hoping to save and build behind it. good luck! There is not much left, but the poppies were pretty.

We saw a couple water fountains that were pretty...

and walked under the gate at China Town

Someone had helpfully hung up a pink purse on the side of the building that a little girl lost (or at least I hope it was a little girl!)

Then we walked down to the Inner Harbor again and looked at some more tall ships!



My mother just died (did I spell that wrong?) and it was a little redder then she is used to, lets say, it matches the color of her face anyways!

The US Coast Guard had there Tall Ship Training Vessel up here. It was built in 1934. We have seen it a couple places before in our travels. NONE of the boats were as nice as Promenade though!

And walking over the bridge back after this marathon hike we saw colorful kayakers.

It was a good day! And just in case you have not seen a picture of Bazzas latest invention in the last couple days, he tells me that he is working on circuitry now... I just want to know where he is going to store it?

THen I found a few pictures assorted on the internet from recent guests that I really liked, so I am reproducing them here (Facebook, guys, you would not believe what you see on there!) I am just putting up tame ones!

A great picture of the boat anchored in the distance...


This is just a couple pretty pictures I liked that i had taken at the Boat show in May. I love all the different colors of the sail bags! Going on that theme, I am starting to see power boats tacking on hefty fuel surcharges, like a thousand dollars a week, what else can you do?
I have been watching a lot what the boats have been doing with prices and offerings in this economy and climate, and my prediction is that quite a few will go out of business in the coming year. Just like the airlines I guess@




And although I have my doubts on whether the people who are supposed to develop Beef Island are in too much of a hurry at the moment, I was given a few pictures of where they plan on putting in their "commercial centre" in Trellis Bay, whatever that is, but here is where it is supposed to go in!





That is my news for the weekend. Tuesday we start an exciting road trip, off to Edmonton to see kids and family, up to Northern Alberta where my mother was from, up to Northern BC eventually ending up taking the ferry down the interior of BC to Port Hardy on the North End of Vancouver Island, where I used to like about 35 years ago! Big trip in the RV with mom and dad!

This is Kerry checking in from Victoria still. We have not needed the air conditioning here once! Pretty good hey! I am not sure where the weeks are flying but flying there are. For those who follow my husbands projects: It is a good thing we arrived at my parents place where he could spread out, as my RV was not big enough for all this! I am not going to tell you what it is. Lets see if you can figure it out. My last guess tonight once it started being painted was jungle gym furniture! Before that it was just outside patio furniture!!







NOw this was over several days and by the time we got to having blue things hanging on the trees to dry, I though maybe it was a new way of doing Xmas in July!!



Here is something much more recognizable though, my T bone steak from last night and it was quite good as well!


Interesting thread coming in to my inbox on buying a charter yacht at one of the first tier companies. We have always known this, that it is just as inexpensive to charter!
"I have analyzed a couple of proposals and proforma statements from
**** for Charter Yacht Ownership on a couple different
boats. I sat down with my accountant and we looked at the proposals
in detail - guarenteed income, ROI, cost of money invested, buy back,
tax incentives, realistic use, etc.

The bottom line is that it is cheaper for me to charter for 4 to 6
weeks per year than it is to own. In fact, the ROI they offered,
about 9%, would have to closer to 12% to 13% to even breakeven
comparing 4 to 6 charter weeks a year to owning.

One bothersome detail is that should I wish to use the boat for more
weeks than what they offer (both high season and last minute) then
all I get is a 15% discount off rack rates, even the specific boat I
would own. They said "no exceptions." So it appears they would
rather have the boat sit at the dock rather than let the owner use
his own boat should there be no charter. Checking their website, it
appears that I can get more than a 15% discount if I want a last
minute charter. Under those circumstances, they penalize you with
higher rates because you are an owner.

Yes, the **** is offereing me a $100K "discount." But it really
isn't a discount, only a discount on paper on their inflated retail
value of that model. Their proforma ROI and estimated value at the end
of charter are based on the discounted price rather than the their
stated "true value" original price, which means they don't even believe
their own marketing hype. Now if they offered the ROI and a guaranteed
buy back on the original retail value, that would make their offer more
interesting."
End of interesting quote and thread!

The only thing I know is that someone has to be making money otherwise they would not do it...Oh wait, forget I said that, isn't that the airlines strategy?

The very successful Marine Awareness Guide is looking for a way to move forward. Here are a couple notes on it from a recent meeting if anyone has any thoughts?
➢ We are looking at a future run (possibly Aug ???) with edits including:
• Removing “2008” from the cover to have an endless run (or at least until it really needs updating)
• Removing pgs. 54-55 (IYOR) and replacing it with a climate change page and Use of moorings (what to do it gets caught on a prop, proper techniques, etc)
• Addition of NPT moorings & site names
• Editing various minor errors (incl. change of turtle closed season)
• Any errors you have found, please let me know
➢ Costs will be $327.60 per box ($2.73 a copy) for cost of changes, printing & shipping – will need $12,500 up front before printing.
➢ We are looking at seeking partnerships on more of an annual basis (to alleviate numerous letters from both NPT, CFD seeking funding). Specifics still need to be worked out but funding will go towards various activities / projects by both NPT & CFD. Potential to have funds directed towards specific projects (BVI CD Atlas, Marine Awareness Guide, Fisherman’s Day, etc).

And one more exciting thing tonight! It looks like there is going to be a photography competition for your picture of coral on stamps! THat is neat. We were featured on a stamp back in 1992. I shall give more details when they are released, but 2009 they will be looking for great shots of coral!
Basically it is a coral reef photo contest open to everyone in which the 5 winning photos will be part of a 5-year BVI Postal stamp series “protecting our environment, safeguarding our future”.

2009 – Coral reefs
2010 – Endemics of the BVI (photos of species found no where else in the world)
2011 – Coastlines of the BVI
2012 – Wetlands of the BVI
2013 - Forest / watershed