Dan, Sylvie and Felix Blog

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Les Gulf Islands

Hey y'all,

We recently went on our first shake-down trip to work out some of the kinkis in the boat. We've been working so hard on prepping the boat and finishing our regular people jobs that we've neglected to learn how to sail Ustupu.

In point form and in pig latin, here's how the trip went:

-Ots-le of un-se

-O-ne ind-we

So we had a fantastic trip making our way through the Gulf Islands but with hardly a puff of wind. We got to know the diesel guzzler thoroughly. As a matter of fact, we used the engine so much that on our return crossing of the Straight of Georgia (55 miles between where we were and Vancouver) we managed to run out of diesel, no less while in the main shipping lane to the Port of Vancouver. Here's my recollection of the incident:

Engine: "putt putt, clunk ker clunk clunk, death"

Dan: "Uhhhh, Sylvie, I need to go below for a brief moment to have a word with our brand new engine"

Sylvie: "Should we call the Coast Guard?"

Dan: "Negative"

Engine: "Last rites.... give 'em here"

Dan tries to start engine with horrible dying sounds.

Dan contemplates a quick scuttle to solve the problem.

Dan then understands that he has been motoring for 50 hrs without refuelling and is an idiot.

Ustupu: "You stupid you"

Dan says to a passing sailboat: "Hello gents, we seem to have run out of fuel, can I trouble you for a drop of diesel?"

Gentlemen in passing boat give us 5 gallons and save the day.

Wind then picks up and we sail most of the way home.

Otherwise, the trip was lovely and the weather fantastic. We took some baby steps with Ustupu and she rewarded us in spades. Life is good on the boat.

Here are some pics for your ogling eyes.

Old sailor Dan

Young fisher Dan

My casting form is less than masculine

The vegetarian takes a crack at it. No bites.

Still nothing

Dan's Rock Cod

Portland Island

Winter Cove

Dog Fish. Yuck. I ate it anyway.

Home

Monday, June 13, 2011

Ummmm so this is a blog

Dear friends, family and old weird guys who follow random blogs,

This is the first time I've blogged. I've sent out mass emails, mass texts, been on conference calls and talked to multiple people in person at once but I've never written down my inner most thoughts and posted them on the internet for everyone to see. It's a bit nerve wracking and liberating at the same time. I don't want to say the wrong things and let my blogees down (that's right, you're all blogees).

Anyway, enough with this senseless jibber jabber. Down to the crux of the thing. Sylvie and I are going on a bit of a trip in our brand new 1976 sailboat. We plan to sail from Vancouver to Vancouver, round trip, possibly, with a few stops along the way. Where exactly we'll stop and for how long is still up in the air, along with the duration for the trip. Shit, we're not even really sure when we'll leave. But one thing is for sure, we're heading south along the Pacific coast of the Americas until we get to about, lets say the equator and then we'll hang a right until we hit some islands.

Nautically speaking, you might be thinking to yourself, "Cheesus H Cheddar!?!, Dan doesn't seem to know anything about sailing or navigating or even boating based on the above drivel." Well your unpleasant thoughts wouldn't be totally inaccurate. Let's just leave it at that.

As of about yesterday, we've decided that we'll be departing on Wednesday August 31, 2011. Last week we were thinking Sept 11 (we were actually thinking of leaving on Ludacris' birthday, ludacris indeed), and before that it was in 2012. So let's hope this one sticks. We're also planning to have a dock party in August so stay tuned my little blogees.

Here are some digital stills for your viewing pleasure.

Over and out,

Dan, Sylvie and Ustupu