Back to Square one

Today, I mostly helped David with his place. He finished putting in stringers and supports for his floor while I cut styrofoam and insulated the walls. Once that was done, he stapled plastic over the styrofoam, laid down some floorboards and we moved all the heavy stuff back into the back. The building has been listing alot to the front with no weight in the back end. Luckily the weather has been dry and calm the last few days. A storm could have done alot of damage.

At one point I got frustrated with wrestingly with the styrofoam. It was like building a huge jigsaw puzzle. Not one space was the same size, so had to hand cut each piece to fit with a jigsaw. I decided a break was in order and came home to make some lunch. Once there I decided to try and paint the bathroom once again. I had lots of the cranberry colour left and figured if I watered it down with the white/pink colour, it would look ok. WRONG!! OMG what a horrible mess I have going on now. The mix of pepto-bismal pink and popsicle pink created horrible bright pink. I cant even look at it its so bad. So back to the paint store tomorrow for more primer and some very neutral colour. If nothing else , the room will be well sealed against leaks, it will have about 7 coats of paint by the time Im done.

Where There is a Will, There is a Way

I really , really didnt like the lights on the ceiling fan and have been trying to figure out something that would work. The stainglass lampshades I bought didnt fit in the fixtures. Today I tried the floresent bulbs with them. They have a plastic base which holds the lampshade in place. The shades are just resting on the base of the bulb but it looks like its fitted in place. Im so happy now. Ive outfitted the whole boat in the same shades. The fan has been a godsend, it pushes the heat back down and makes it quite toasty in here.Im sure it will be nice to have in the summer as well, as it gets quite stuffy in here on a hot day.

Geez What Have I Done Now

I finally got around to painting my bathroom today. Not too sure about my colour choices tho. I thought I got white with a pink tinge and cranberry for the trim. Well once it was on the white looks suspiciously like pepto- bismal and the cranberry is very popsicle pink. My horrible green bathroom now looks like a candy cane. Im not looking forward to repainting at the moment, so have to see if I can live with it or not. What do you think, is it too much?

Let There be Light

I was looking on Craigslist the other day for an electrician to come take a look at things here. I had David move a light switch and light in the bedroom, but when he hooked it backed up , it kept blowing the fuse.I also had a ceiling fan I wanted installed and wanted someone knowledgable to take a look at my wiring in general.

I answered an ad and talked to Ian ,who came over early Sunday morning to give me an estimate on things. Well one thing led to another and before I knew it he was fixing and installing everything. He did a great job, The ceiling fan is awesome,although I had bought some stain glass shades for it that didnt fit. Too bad, I dont much like the look of the shades on it, a bit industrial looking for me. The bedroom lights are working fine and I now know that I have current backfeeding into my other shore line ( not a good thing). I will have him come back some day to find the short in the system and get things rewired properly so I have my shore power running through my fuse box.

I spent most of yesterday cutting firewood with a skillsaw. It was left-over 40 foot strips of wood from David, who was handmilling huge boards to put stringers in his floors. My stove is round and tiny, so I had to measure the max length I could fit in it and take a marker to the boards to cut them all the same. The boards were thicker than the saw blade, so I had to do 2 and 3 cuts for each small piece. What an ordeal, my elbow tendons are on fire now and realistically, I only have enough wood for 2-3 days. There has to be a better way..... Apparently my stove is a coal burning stove but I cant find a coal salesman in the valley to save my life.

David and I attended a nice Halloween party at Dianas on Saturday night, I was an angel, he was the devil. Good music, food and company. It was great to get off the Island for a night and get away from all the reno's and stress.

More Progress

Well the bathroom renos are still on hold for now. David was planning to redo the frames on my big windows today and while I had a window off, I wanted to move some larger things onto the boat that wouldnt fit through the doors.

I went up top and pulled all the plastic and tarps off the windows only to find that they had never been set in frames at all. Thay were just huge sheets of glass laying on thin rotted boards and the seams covered by Tuck Tape. Scary stuff! The more we looked at it , the more it looked like a much bigger job than anticipated. I decided to hold off until the weather gets warmer as the boat will be open for a few days by the looks of things.

I decided it was a good opportunity to move some stuff that I had wanted in here, so we removed one of the windows. I had a built in couch with storage underneath that was really hard to access. I had some drawer units that I wanted in there instead. I wanted to change the fridge as the one that came with the boat didnt work very well. I also wanted to bring in a small oak filing cabinet and wood chair for the office. I went off to the house to pick up the stuff while David prepared the area. He cut out the old couch unit and removed the fridge. We lowered everything in through the window and sealed it back up with tape. Im going to leave the plastic and tarps off for now as I think the outer tarp will do the job and its brighter in here now. Im loving the new drawers. I can store all my dishes and food with easy access now. Unfortunatly, the new fridge was a fraction of an inch too big (of course!!) so we had to tear out my little counter next to it, so it would fit. Now I have that to rebuild( another project...sigh)

Apparently the Beavers like Davids House Too

Some months back we were woken up to what sounded like the Jolly Green Giant chewing on Davids house. Being the fearless one that I am, I got up to investigate. Thinking it might be the neighbors cat, I was calling "here kitty, kitty..." David pipes up from the other room, " I dont think its a cat, I can hear it growling at you." I finally found the source of the noise when I pulled some sheets of plywood back and found a huge beaver sitting there staring at me. At the time Davids house was still a boathouse, which is basically a boat garage with an area open to the water and a small apartment in the back. The beaver had swum up under the floor and crawled in through the floor opening and was chewing on the door frame to the apartment.He showed no fear of me at all and stayed there for quite awhile just staring at me. I went and grabbed the video camera and got some footage of him. Unfortunately Ive never figured out the video editing program and cant post the footage.

He eventually went back in the water and we thought we had seen the last of him. We were telling Grieg and Tana about it later in the morning. Just as David pointed to the hole where it had come up, up he came again and joined the party. It looked like he was planning on moving in, so David spent the next few days laying flooring across all the open space. We thought that had done the trick and never gave it another thought.

The other day, David had lifted the floor boards to prepare to lay new stringers in for support. He came running over saying you have to see this! The beaver had come back and dragged in all kinds of branches and was building himself a nest under the floor. And you thought you had rodent problems! At least the sea otters have stopped coming in and using his floor for a toilet,but how do you keep a beaver out of a wood house??

The first picture is David with the beaver nest the second one is the floor laying process.

Boys and Their Toys

Well the next morning David got a call from his old boss Steve asking him if he wanted some more boats. He had an old tug that a guy owed him money on and a free small sailboat. Of course David, not one to turn down anything free, said yes.So the morning was spent rearranging things so we would have room to tie them up. A few hours later Steve pulled up with both boats and there was a great flurry of activity as we got them installed and checked out. The tug had to be pumped out as it had alot of water in the hull. The sailboat needs some work and the rigging redone but its a cute little dayrunner. The tug basically needs a complete rebuild from the engines to the cabin, but once up and running would be an awesome addition to Davids floating empire. I would love to take on the sailboat but have so much to do on the boat I already have, it would be sitting for eons before I could get to it. Realistically, what I really need is a small powerboat, so think I will keep looking till I find something suitable.

Progress Report

Its funny how the "to-do list" keeps changing. You go to bed with a plan for the next day and wake up to a completely different scenario.

Saturday night we went to bed with plans to take Sunday off and go into town, do a little flea-marketing, go for brunch, get off the rock for awhile. We woke up only to remember the guy was coming to install the sattelite dish. We waited all morning for him, called to find out where he was only to be told we had been cancelled for the day and he wouldn't be coming till next week. David had some words for them, and the guy showed up within the hour and we are getting 2 free months to boot. Pays to know how to complain effectively!

It was a nasty horrible weather day and it took him the whole afternoon to get things set up. With great excitement I climbed into bed, got my remotes at the ready and turned it all on. Now what??? Crap, the brand new TV I had just bought had no sound. I tried everything, spent hours on the phone with techs and nothing. What a letdown. I dragged my big feather quilt over to Davids and made a warm nest so I could watch his TV. I fell asleep 10 minutes into the first show.Figures eh!

David took the TV in the next morning and had it exchanged and hooked up for me when I got home from work. It's working great now. He built me a cool shelf in the bedroom to put it on and carved a feather in the top. Im loving all the radio stations, no commercials and well- mixed music for whatever genre you like. I got a 26 inch flat screen TV, the picture and signal are super clear and it fits neatly in the bedroom taking up hardly any room. I got David to put a block of wood at the top corner to keep it from fliiping off the shelf in a big wave.Cant be too careful down here.

Nurse Karens friend had come by again to take better look at what he needed to do to install the water heater. He wants to bolt all the fixtures to the wall, so I decided to paint the bathroom first. Its a horrible undescribable shade of vivid green.

Rick gave me half a can of primer, a cute little mini paint tray and a tiny roller. I had to contort myself into all kinds of positions to get it done but what a difference already. The boards along the bottom that are under the water line were damp and I ended up having to leave a heater going in there for a few days so the primer would dry, hopefully it stays put. I chose a pink tinted white for the walls and a cranberry colour for the beams, with all intentions of finishing the job the next day. But the next day was to bring us more surprises which put that days plans on hold. More about that later,stay tuned.

Check out my Slide Show!

Here are some pictures of my finished project. I know the screws look bad. Not my fault. They are cheesy screws , most of them strip easily. I got them in as far as I could and they are embedded deep enough to provide support. Not pretty but functional! So far its holding up well. The heavy winds they were predicting for yesterday ( up to 90km/hr) never materialized, so still waiting to see how it holds up in a good blow. It is doing a spectcular job of keeping me dry though and I have access to both decks, easy entry through the door and windows that function, so I am one happy camper.

Move over MacGiver

Well I finally got a tarp cover built, whoohoo. Jerry gave me an idea to cut thin strips of wood and use them to hold the tarp to the edge of the boat. David taught me how to use the table saw and I cut some 1x4's into 3 strips each. I got some help from Greigs son Buie and his friend Dennis. We all climbed into one of the smaller boats and pulled ourselves around to the water side of the boat.The boys held us in close to the boat while I screwed the wood into place. I used the wood strips to tack down the tarp just above the windows all along the side. Then I climbed on top and cut a hole for the stove pipe and taped it all down. Jerry had an idea to bend thin strips of wood under the tarp to support it, but they were too weak and cracked almost right away. I had to go to work so packed it in early.

The next day was Monday and everyone was away at work. I was determined to get this thing built. I had heard alot of ideas from everyone and still wasnt sure how I was going to do it exactly. Ill be honest, I had no plan when I started. I just stood on top of the boat holding two twelve foot boards and trying to picture them as a frame.

David had given me 2 16 foot beams that I laid on top of the wheelhouse. I grabbed a 2x4 and propped it up under the end of the beam in front. I then cut the 1x4's in half to support it on all 4 sides. I was able to brace the 1x4's into the edges of the deck and only put 2 screws in the boat for the whole thing. I screwed the side supports into the top beam . It feels very sturdy and I was amazed how easy it all went together. I then did basically the same thing in the back, but had to use metal strapping to go around the supports and bent it over the back of the deck and screwed into place. I also used strapping to hold the center beam tight against the boat. I then crawled out onto the motor support and precariously hanging on for dear life, screwed some more thin board to the tarp along the back edge of the deck. I continued pulling the tarp tight down on the other side, and more thin board screwed in, I was trimming vast amounts of tarp off by this point to get rid of all the excess, all the time folding and pulling it tight. It was like wrapping a 30 foot Christmas present.

I wanted a canopy over the door but didnt want to have to attach it to the dock or Davids house as there is a lot of movement here and the chances of it ripping was great. I knew I needed a center beam, so I put a 1x4 on top of the beams on the wheelhouse and tied it down to a heavy anchor and around the beams to hold it out from the boat. I then pulled the tarp over it, rolled up the sides into thin stips of wood and stapled them tight in a "V" shape.

I had just finished the last of it when the rain started to fall in earnest. So far, so good!! The boat is dry, the rain falls softly on the tarp and I can see out all my windows. There is supposed to be a big storm rolling in tommorrow with 30km an hour winds, so that will be a good test to see if the frame stands up. I think it will. I have to work tommorrow but Friday I want to cut some more 1x4 and place them as extra ribs to support any snow ect we might get. I wish I could fly, I would staple the tarp to the outside of the ribs to make it flap even less. Hmm what would MacGiver do??.............

In other news I finlly heard back about the propane furnace. Apparently the burner needs replacing, another 200 dollars so think I will pass for the moment. The woodstove is working quite well. Ive been using presto logs as the stove is so small its hard to find wood small enough to fit in it.

Nurse Karen(another roomate here) brought her friend Mike over tonight. He is going to hookup my hot water heater this weekend. Finally its all coming together. I will be happy to have all the comforts of home. Now just need to get the toilet looked at and Im good to go. Today was a good day :)

Victory at last

So last night we were contemplating our options for a late night pee after a few beers. My toilet is still non functioning, didnt want to bother Tana to use hers so late and if we went to Davids, it meant filling up buckets of river water to flush the tank( he is not hooked up to water yet). That seemed like a lot of bother for 2 half asleep people. So I did something I never thought Id ever do . We went to the edge of the dock and David did his thing while I squatted precariously beside him, ass hanging over the dock, trying not to pee on my socks( too lazy to put on shoes). If thats not a bonding experience, I dont know what is.

This morning I had to go to Anthonys to pick up some stuff I had forgot I stored there. He had this awesome print on the wall that I fell in love with and he sold it to me for the paltry sum of 20 dollars, SCORE! It is huge and I worried it wouldnt find a home on the boat. I finally ended up putting it in front of the woodstove. It is blocking one of the big portholes but that isnt really a problem as I have tons of windows to let in light.

Jerry ( the new roomate) came over this afternoon and decided the first order of the day was to get the woodstove hooked up. I pulled all the tarps off the boat and cleaned all the stuff off the back deck . After much pipe wrestling it was finally time for the inagural firing of the stove. I said a quick prayer to the fire gods, loaded up the stove and lit it. Whoohoo, success!! The stove draws very well, the fire started right away and no smoky leaks anywhere. The built- in table beside the stove was getting quite hot , so I dismanteled it. The beam on the roof right above the stovepipe was very warm as well, so on Monday, I will by some asbestos to protect it. I have to say, I feel alot better knowing I have a good source of heat, bring on winter , Im ready now. Ok well maybe wait a day or two, I still have a tarp frame to build. Its been awesome to have the tarp off the boat. I didnt realize how suffocating it was to be competely covered like that. Today I could have all my doors and windows open and enjoy the river view once again. I wish I didnt have to put it back on but the rain will be back soon enough and I need the protection. Once that is taken care of, the toilet is next. I still have no idea what to do about it, hopefully I can get some help sorting that out.

Well one more load of wood on the fire and its off to bed, goodnight, sleep tight and dont let the bedbugs bite, xxoo

Hmmm.....Now What

Well the tent poles didnt fare too well in the end. That night we had 35 mile an hour gusts and heavy rain. One pole broke right off, another fell out of the bracket and ended up in the water. The one pole left still did a good job of sluffing off the water up front, but the back end got filled with water again. I dragged myself out of bed at the crack of dawn, tied my housecoat around my ass and crawled out onto the motor mount to bail it out. I hope the condo neighbors werent too offended by my mooning them. I finally got 15 1"x4"x12' cedar boards that Im hoping to build some kind of "A"-frame for the tarp . It looks like I will have to screw them into the hull of the boat which I really wanted to avoid doing( the less holes in my boat the better, is my motto) but the storms are supposed to get even worse next month, so I want a solid cover.

I hadnt heard back from the fellow thats trying to get my propane hooked up, so gave him a call this morning. He still hadnt heard back from the company thats supposed to be fixing my furnace, so thats all on hold for the moment. I did get the rest of my stovepipe for the woodstove today only to find out its now 2 inches too long, "sigh".... I will have to tie down David tomorrow for 5 minutes and get him to cut it for me. We have a new roomate at the marina that has some ideas for my tarp frame, so hopefully I can get that built tomorrow, tape the tarp around the exit for the stovepipe and get a fire going in here. I cant wait!!

David got an excellent deal on a huge truckload of material today. Along with my 1x4's he got a huge amount of plywood for floors, enough huge beams to finish supporting the floors, 3 propane forced air furnaces, enough tile to do his bathroom ( and a piece for me to put under my woodstove, now I just need to find someone to cut it), and some other stuff to build a bathroom. My toilet has decided to stop functioning altogether for some reason. The pump is really hard to use and I cant get water to flow in or the stuff thats in there to go out. I dont know much about the toilet so am scared to take it apart. It sits below the water line so I have visions of the sea pouring into the boat if I loosen the wrong thing. I can live without alot but a toilet isnt one of them. So many projects, so little time. I want to take advantadge of this dry weather to get the tarp sorted out tho, so guess thats top of the list for the moment. The list is subject to change at a moments notice .

We have finally put in an order for satellite tv, they are coming on the 21st to hook it up. I cant wait. I want to get a flat tv to mount on the wall. Luckily work has finally picked up again and I should have the money for it by the time its installed. Im not sure when Ill have time to watch it with all thats needed doing around here, but will be a nice distraction in the background. I can always use it to drown out the sound of the flapping tarps. One things for sure, I wont be bored this winter.

I will try and take some pictures tomorrow. Our marina has changed alot in the last few weeks. We now have a monterous huge boathouse that goes right across the middle of the marina. New docks had to built alongside and behind it so people could get to the boats on the other side. We have a few new additons as well. I hadnt been up to the Bowie in a few weeks( funny its only a few feet down the dock, I just never go there), so all the changes were quite a shock.

Well Im suffering from a Grand Marnier induced hangover, so off to bed early tonight so I will have some energy for tomorrows adventures. Nighty-nite........

Every Day its Something New

Well I never thought living on a boat would be easy, but with winter breathing down my neck, this is getting a bit daunting. Its looking like I will have to wait until spring to do the outside of the boat. A friend of Davids who is a wood boat restorer is supposed to come by someday , take a look and give me an estimate on the repairs. In the meantime my priority is to stay dry, warm and get some running water on the boat.

To that end I have covered the boat in a huge 30 ft x 40ft tarp. It was a rush job last week when we got a 24 hour squall with force 10 winds and torrential rain. I basically just threw the tarp over the boat and tacked it to Davids house. Not ideal as every time the boat moved it pulled on the tarp. At one point the tarp had come loose in the back and water pooled in it in the back. I got the fright of my life when I went out and found the equivalent of two full bathtubs of water sitting in the small deck in the back. If the tarp had slid down anymore, all that water would have poured into the boat under my bed. I spent 20 minutes bailing it out and realized I needed a better setup. Today, I installed metal brackets to hold long tent poles and built a frame over the boat to keep the tarp suspended and to give it a better pitch for the water to run off. Its supposed to be windy and rainy tonight so cant wait to see how it all holds up.

As far as keeping warm, I finally got the money together to order some stainless stove pipe for the woodstove. It took me 4 days of wrestling with it to get it to fit over the hole in the woodstove. A good smashing with a wood hammer and some rearranging of the bottom edge with some pliers and I finally got it on. I was thrilled until I got it all hooked up and realized I was still 8 1/2 inches short and needed two more elbows for the outside. I phoned and ordered it but with the long weekend I probably wont get it till late next week. Meanwhile the temperature continues to drop daily. A friend had given me a Force 10 Cozy Cabin propane furnace which he figures should heat this place nicely. I am having a heck of a time getting it hooked up tho. I must have called 50 places trying to find someone that knows how to do it. One place quoted me $1800 to do it, sheesh , not in this lifetime! I finally got a response for an ad I had placed on Craigslist for help. He has been working on it all week, finally got the parts to hook it up to test it, but it was spitting flames out the side, so took it in to get looked at. No word back yet.

The hot water heater is another story. There was a Paloma on -demand propane heater on board when I got the boat, but the seller took it with him. After weeks of searching, I finally found a used one for $250 , a new one is worth $1000 so thought I had got a good deal. It seems that the venting system to exhaust the gas has to be all one brand that comes in a kit. The one I need costs $500. There is an existing chimney but it looks way to big for the heater I have, so somehow I have to change it and make the hole in the ceiling smaller. That should be fun!

Ive been shifted around the marina several times now. I started out in between David and Tana's right up front. That was nice, good view, easy access to Tana's shower, and her cat Tobias used to come visit me all the time. I had to move so David could put his house on shore to get it foamed, so I got tucked behind his place between the dock and the Express. That was not so good. I was exposed to all the noise and dust from the cement factory across the road, got all the foot traffic going by on the docks and every wave that went by was crushing me into the Express which is about 10 times the size of my boat. We needed to have more dock access to work on the boat, so ended up putting a dock along the back of Davids house and tying me up in the corner. This is the safest and quietest spot I can be, so think I will stay put.

I didnt get hooked up to shore power until I got to the last spot. David was running two 50 foot extension cords from the shore to his house and I had an extension cord from my boat to a socket in his wall. I was hardly getting any juice, the toaster and microwave ect wouldnt work, so I bought a heavy duty cord which helped to some degree. When we got home the other night, the extension cords to the shore had pulled loose. We had just bought $200 worth of groceries and needed to get it refrigerated. When I plugged the cords back together, they started smoking and making popping noises, freaked me right out! David had some serious heavy duty wiring cable, so in the dark and cold, took several hours to splice it together and got his house rewired. Nothing ever easy here! We had a long soak in the hot tub after that, well deserved and needed.

Getting internet was another experience. We were having problems with our connection in general, its through a phone line and was down more than up. After a couple of weeks we finally got the Telus guy down here. He said we were too far from the base transmitter, boosted our signal as much as possible and said that was the best we could do, pay for high-speed but get a weaker signal. We cant get cable down here as this island is commercial, we are the only ones living here and thats not exactly on the grid. Anyway, he no sooner got us up again, then my hardrive died. It took me 3 weeks or so to come up with enough cash to get it fixed.Got it home and tried for a week to get my wireless modem to work. Finally gave up and spent another $70 on more computer cable so I could wire right into Tana's modem. It seems to be working ok now, so can cross that off my massive "to do " list.

The bedroom is about 20 degrees colder than the rest of the boat. Part of it is because it has a wall that blocks most of the heat from going into it and the door is much lower than the ceiling in the living room. Im contemplating a small ceiling fan to push the heat back down. The bed is a platform with a large drawer in the middle. However, there is a ton of open air space under it and a hole which goes out to the back lower deck. Ive tried plugging it with plastic bags filled with insulation but need to do a better job. I want to line the whole place with plastic, stuff it tight with pink insulation , more plastic on top. Today I took a caulking gun with silicone and did all the seams in the room trying to block any drafts.

The bed is a huge piece of foam that was resting on a piece of plywood. Because there was no airflow, it was making the foam sweat like crazy. The underneath of the bed was dripping wet and starting to make mold. I had to dry it all with a heater, spray it with Hydrogen Peroxide to kill the mold, take out the plywood and replace it with boards that were spaced apart. It seems to be working but its a bit colder now as the air below can get through. Hopefully, the plastic and insulation will take care of that.

Im really missing tv now that winter is here. I need to get one of those flat tv's that you can mount to the wall and a satellite dish. Might be next winter before I can do that, so curling up in bed with a good book these days. In the meantime I have my vcr set up over at Ricks to tape Survivor lol, I can relate to them these days.

As I spend time here, im finding out what works for me and what doesnt. I want to add alot more storage to the kitchen area. There is barely anywhere to store food and pots ect. Every time I want to get at something, I spend half an hour pulling everything out and putting back in again. I want to hinge the stairs so I can store my drum and guitar out of the way. The bathroom has a clawfoot tub that takes up 90 percent of the space. Im not much of a bath person, prefer a shower, so want to take the tub out and build a shower stall and add a sink. The ceiling in the bathroom is only about 5ft 4 inches tall so I cant just put in a regular shower stall. I will probaly have to build a form and fiberglass the whole thing or some such thing. The toilet has a manual pump that has a habit of backfiring on me. Nasty!! I wont say more. I want a plumber to come take a look and see if I can install a regular flush toilet. Oh the small things we take for granted in life.

Boy I thougth I was Macgiver before , this is taking things to a whole new level. On the whole , this has been an awesome experience. I dont regret it at all, but will definatly be happy when I have heat here. The rest will come in time.

I give Thanks for my new home, my family and friends who are supporting me with this, and for the opportunity to live my dream. Happy Thankgiving to all, Bless you, xxoo

Time for an update

Gosh well I hardly know where to start. I havent had internet since I got the boat until just last week, so catch up time is here. I basically moved onto to the boat the day I got it. I talked to Rick( my roomate at the house ) and he wanted to take over the whole house, so I didnt have to worry about finding a new roomate for him. I had about 10 days to pack up a lifetime of stuff and decide what to do with it all. David got alot of it to furnish his place, I sold some pieces, donated a few vanloads to thrift stores and stored a bunch in the basement of the house. I packed as much as I could onto the boat, but its not much compared to what I had.

A few days after I got the boat here, we got some bad news. Two of our roomates here at the marina were in an accident. The truck they were in crashed through the Granville Street Bridge and landed on the road below, upside down. Dave unfortunatly lost his life and Mark was injured quite badly with a crushed spine, punctured lung ect. He is now back at home with his family and recovering. Dave's Mom and Brother came out from Ontario for his funeral. They had him cremated and Greig organized to use the same cruise ship that towed me home to hold a burial at sea for him. It was a beautiful sunny day, with friends and family in attendence. Just as we were about to start his memorial, Greig spotted whales not far away. We all went to the bow of the boat and watched a large pod of whales that came and swam all around us for about half an hour. It couldnt have been more perfect, it was if Dave was saying dont be sad, Im free now and with my family, all is ok. As his Mom dropped his ashes in the sea, one last whale came right up to the boat and surfaced twice , then swam off to join the pod as it was leaving the area. We will miss you Dave, you were an awesome friend with so much in front of you. Tana wote about it in her blog and has some footage of the whales, you can see it here: http://mvbowie.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html