June 2, 2012 – Strongbow, on a sunny deck, overlooking boats at our yacht club. Makes for a perfect afternoon!

We spent most of the early part of the day down at “Eat Vancouver”, our favourite annual trade show that we have only ever missed two years that we were out of the country. Otherwise, it goes on the calendar the second the dates are announced. A food based trade show – it just doesn’t get better than that!

Afterwards, the sun was being fickle and we wanted to catch some to enjoy with Mom visiting, so we stopped at the cold beer & wine store and headed down to the yacht club both to enjoy the afternoon on a sunny patio, and to look over a boat for sale that has caught our eyes. We want a sailboat, but the waiting list for outside slips at our club has been growing steadily and the chances of our getting one are looking longer than we had originally anticipated. We’d planned to have the sailboat in the next year or so, but without a place to put one, we certainly aren’t going to rush out and buy. So, instead of twiddling our thumbs, we are thinking that we may flip, temporarily, and buy an interim boat instead of waiting for a few more years with ours until we can get the rag-hanger.

There is a lovely 34′ trawler for sale within the club, and it would fit in the boat house we currently have our boat in. So we wouldn’t have to worry about a new spot to put it. At least we don’t think so, we’d have to check the height though.

It’s just a consideration at the moment. But it’s an interesting one since we had thought about a trawler long before the sailboat became a sparkle in our minds.

In the meantime, we ended up sitting in the sun, and then it turned into a bit of a social event as more people we know joined us. It’s funny, we didn’t join the club for the social aspect – it was to have the boat closer to home, and have access to the amenities (out-stations, tidal grid, workshop). But as time has passed we have come to realize that the social part has become important, particularly as the numbers of friends from our volunteer group who have joined the same club have swelled. BYC is a fabulous club, filled with fabulous people, all sharing a similar lifestyle choice – boating. And we have this fabulous place, with these wonderful people, only five minutes from home.

And it comes with a deck that is generally guaranteed to be in the sun on a cooperative day, just waiting for us to lounge with a cold drink and enjoy the view and some great conversation!

Years ago we bought the boat because a cabin, and the roads to get to one, seemed too restrictive. The water is an open byway that can take us to far more remote places than any road ever can – paved or otherwise – and the boat brings comfort along with the journey to peace and solitude (or fun and friends). The boat really was the best lifestyle choice we have made, what we never expected was the community that came with that decision.

Seriously, who could ask for more?