Our stay at Royal Vancouver Yacht Club was very comfortable and we enjoyed visiting with our friends and getting to know the city. On Tuesday, September 30 we left RVYC and headed to False Creek to anchor. It was a windy day and there was a significant amount of chop in English Bay, but it was a short trip. False Creek is a busy and interesting area with aqua buses and taxis as well as lots of pleasure craft zipping around all day. It is the only area we have been where a permit is required for anchoring, although it is free of charge. Apparently there was a problem with derelict boats littering the creek, and this is the way to handle it. Getting the permit was easy and we settled in to our anchorage nicely.

On Wednesday we took the dinghy and explored the area of the Olympic Village from the 2010 games. The developments have turned into housing and there is still a lot of development in progress in the area, which was formerly quite industrial. Vancouver has gotten into the craft-brewing race, so we had to visit a few places, of course. We visited Craft, which has over 100 beers on tap – very fun. Thursday we took the dinghy to Granville Island (which isn’t really an island). We went through this area with Anne on the bike tour also – the market is wonderful. While there we visited the Granville Island Brewery and tried out a few of their offerings. I liked their Amber Ale and, surprisingly, their Maple Cream ale.

We completed our research on boat yards and decided to keep the boat at Shelter Island Marina and Boatyard, which is located on the Fraser River in Richmond, BC. The mouth of the Fraser is south of Vancouver off of the Strait of Georgia, and we left False Creek at 8 am on Friday morning, timing our departure to correspond with the flood tide in the river. We made arrangements to have our friend, Henri, accompany us on the trip because he is very familiar with the river. It turned out to be a really nice day and the trip was really pleasant. We arrived early, but the boatyard made room for us in their schedule and Toga was hauled out of the water. There was a knot on my stomach watching the process; I was really nervous. It was obvious that the boatyard crew could do this in their sleep and it went very smoothly. Toga is now “on the hard” in the boatyard, which is a huge place with a lot of work happening.

We are spending each day cleaning, sorting, packing and winterizing. We need to make every effort to keep the inside of the boat dry and to avoid any damage for potential freezing while we are away. We are planning to drive back with a rental car, since we have quite a bit of stuff to take home and we aren’t sure when we are going to be done here. It was a great, GREAT, summer and we can’t wait to do it again next year! Video of the haul out is posted at http://youtu.be/1I8mDFBLqV0.  Please excuse the bad videography and the smudge on the camera lens.

Area surrounding anchorage in False Creek

Area surrounding anchorage in False Creek

Area surrounding anchorage in False Creek

Area surrounding anchorage in False Creek

False Creek sunset

Lights at False Creek

Great Canadian snack!

Dead Frog Brewery fearless IPA – Ralph’s #1 beer so far. Very good.

Craft – many beers on tap

Granville Island Brewery sampling

Approaching Shelter Island, Geese give a salute

First stage of haul out

Toga on the road

Power washing

Adding supports

Toga in her new home

Ralph and Henri toasting a successful haul out