First Trip Out

I am sitting here in the saloon of Anne Marie at 0430 in the morning (can't sleep!) The flight was pretty straight forward. I watched 3 films and slept for half an hour, before arriving at Vancouver. I had purposefully forgotten my customs form they give you on the plane, as I had way too much booze....I seem to remember they didn't do anything with them last time....??? Well they did this time as I was instructed to go and fill one in by the customs man, and faced with the question" do you or any of your party exceed the import allowance", I had to say yes....I would rather pay the duty than lie and be in more trouble....so, expecting to have a firm rap on the knuckles and a load of duty to pay, I was delighted when the fellow looked at it, scribbled on it, and let me through!! Welcome to Canada! The hertz rentacar guy upgraded my car to a saloon rather than a tiny thing, and I am really glad he did that! It would have been a pain living out of a ka....so I got in, got myself sorted and ready to head out to arts place at Langley when the rentacar man ran out flagging me down.....I had left my wallet on the counter.... I navigated to Langley flawlessly, however the problems came after that trying to actually find the house out in the sticks....I made a right instead of a left and headed out into the wilderness....got myself good and lost for an hour or so, but when I found myself again I had a much firmer idea of how Canadian streets and avenues work, although I still hate those crossroads!!! I had no phone or data at this point as my sim was obviously not activated for roaming, so it was down to traditional techniques. I got myself into the correct neighbourhood, but was then beat so I parked up, and was going to ask a local. Bearing in mind that it's pitch black, I was just figuring out which door to knock on when a car screeched into the farmyard where I was parked up and stopped right in front of me. I walked back, thinking that it may be Aart who had spotted my car driving slowly around, but as I walked back a bloke staggered out of the car and relieved himself on the floor. I politely waited...and waited...and finally approached and asked directions. His mate got out of the drivers seat and also helped. Within a minute I knew where to go, but as they were both so nice and helpful and totally hammered, it took another half an hour of chat before I could get away... But get away I did, and it was not long before I found aarts house, and was welcomed in by himself and pat, who were the most accommodating hosts. They live in a lovely house in a lovely area, flat farming land near the Fraser river, and their house is full of boating memorabilia, pond yachts, pictures, books, bits and bobs! We ate a lovely supper from pat and Aart pulled out a great big box of Anne Marie memorabilia, lloyds registers, old photographs, magazine entries and so on. We pored over these through the night, then Aart showed me his workshop later on, a beauty just full of engines, bikes, tools, blocks and all sorts of car related stuff.we chatted about Anne Marie, and I formed an understanding of how she has ended up in the state she is in...successive buyers over a period of years pulling out with cold feet at the last minute. The next day started with a hearty bowl of porridge, before I jumped in arts truck and he took me to a friends big old barn, where we climbed the most rackety flight of stairs ever to the first floor where a real treasure lay waiting. Two topmasts, a spinnaker pole, a jack yard, and a topsail yard all lay there on the floor. All brand new, with bronze fittings and made of the finest Sitka by a fine craftsman. Aart had obviously spent a lot of time and money planning and building these, and it looks like he did a good and thorough job of it. We continued on to the boat, where we spent a couple of hours on board. I met Bruce macdonald, the owner of north star of Herschel island and the wharfinger at the maritime museum. A great help to me over the coming days and I am sure weeks, with the kind of steady manner which just fills you with confidence...much like his fine ship... Anne Marie was filthy...green with slime above decks and dripping wet inside. Her charming interior in need of some hard work, a sad boat in need of much love and attention. Her quality still shone through, however, to my eyes at least, and we drove off with me champing at the bit to get cracking and make a start. We arrived back at aarts place, I picked up my gear and then drove to Squamish to meet up with kevin.... To be continued....