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We had our student cruise yesterday, wow, what a great day on the water! We teach safe boating through Canadian Power and Sail Squadrons, via Norvan Squadron in North Vancouver. Midway through each class (March and October) we hold an on the water training session to put the plotting and charting into context. Historically, it has always been held out of Deep Cove and we always seem to get hit with nasty weather (rain, fog, wind etc…). It’s a long haul for some of the vessel owners and we have been having difficulty in the past couple of years because of it.

This year, several of us decided that a change might be a good idea. Since several of us are also members of Burrard Yacht Club, which is much closer to home for many of the boats, we put things in motion to hold the cruise out of there for a change. There was a little bit of debate as one member on our Executive Committee seemed to have something solidly against the idea citing the dangers of the inner harbour. The majority of us felt that the inner harbour was the logical place to hold the cruise for this very reason…at some time, we all need to transit the region and shouldn’t we be teaching our class about how to do so safely?

One member called the Vancouver Traffic Control and spoke to them about it and they absolutely LOVED the idea. And so off we went.

Several of us headed down the night before, Kirk and I were to stay on a boat overnight but Kirk hurt his back that morning so the prospect of a boat bed wasn’t appealing. We stuck around for a potluck dinner and then headed home. Sunday dawned bright and clear, although cold at 3 degrees C. But the sun warmed us up quickly.

It was a fantastic day on the water, clear, quiet, placid….and the students had a great time. We found a few glitches in the cruise we developed so I need to go back and make some adjustments, but other than that, it was great. We came back to the club, had a few burgers and enjoyed some laughs.

And I hear it was foggy in Deep Cove…..