Sail Past

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May 6, 2017 – It’s been an interesting few days. Kirk told me to take a week off of work and I’d assumed we were to be going somewhere since it’s my birthday in a couple of days, except that I didn’t want to go far from home because of Loki and what’s been going on with him lately.

Wednesday morning the doorbell rang and my best friends were standing there smiling at me. It took a moment or two to register who I was staring at since I see them so infrequently (they live on the other side of the country). SURPRISE!

Awesome surprise!

Yesterday we had a blast in an escape room, which we beat! And then an evening of colourful incorrectness when we picked up a new game – Personally Incorrect – a more terrible version of Cards Against Humanity.

Bunch of SmartyPantz!

Today was Sail Past at our yacht club and we’d been invited to go out on a friends boat for the day, I’d originally said no since I thought we were going away somewhere. I’d also been asked to be the photographer for the land portion of the event and said no for the same reason. I then assumed we weren’t going since we had guests, but it had all been planned already and we joined a group of others for a few hours on the water for some fresh (but chilly) air, some badly needed sunshine, and some time with good friends.

The weather has been so crappy lately that the we are all starved for sunshine and will take it no matter how windy or nippy.

At dock at the Lonsdale pier for a few days is a magnificicent vessel with the most incredible flag. The ARC Gloria (The ship’s name is a reference to the national anthem, Oh gloria inmarcesible (O Unfading Glory)) is a three-masted barque and is a training ship and the official flagship of the Colombian Navy.

Just look at that flag!

The ship was built in Spain and has three half-sister barques built as sail training vessels for Latin American navies; her half-sisters are the Mexican Cuauhtémoc, the Venezuelan Simón Bolívar and the Ecuadoran Guayas; we have seen both the Cuauhtémoc and the Guayas when they have visited Vancouver previously.

 Back at the dock everyone sang Happy Birthday to me over a glass of Proseco and the most amazing little chocolate artistry from Thoma Haas was handed to me.

I have some pretty awesome people in my life ❤️

But they are kinda sneaky….