Shipping Delays

And Fog

Mon Jan 31st

Howe Sound sunrise

For most of last week Howe Sound and metro Vancouver seem to have been socked in fog, only clearing as rain arrived just before the weekend. 

Once the rain cleared, clear cold skies produced some stunning sunrises.  The pic on the right is looking towards Vancouver (it's behind the distant mountain) just before the sun appeared over the  mountains and bathed the Sound in orange light.

With modern satellite and radar technology, I had thought fog horns were a thing of the past.  It's certainly not the case on BC ferries who in fog, sound their fog horn every two minutes.  It's loud!  On my ferry across to Vancouver on Wednesday for a workshop part, the bridge announced that any passengers on deck "should watch their ears" (is that an oxymoron?), "as the fog horn will sound and it's loud".  Quite why anybody would be on deck in zero visibility, temperatures close to freezing with the ship going full tilt is beyond me.

Listen to the echo

Jack, who used to scurry for cover and hide behind the proverbial sofa whenever the ship's horn sounded has now got quite used to it.  In a strange way we have rather got to like it.  The penetrating sound, which echoes around the mountains for much longer than the original blast, is rather mournful.  Even if we can't see it, we can work out when the ferry is departing or arriving!

While on the theme of shipping, we learnt this morning that there is going to be a further delay to our shipping container, which has been put back another month.  It's now scheduled to depart Southampton on the OOCL Montreal on Feb 16th (Est), with an arrival with us on April 10th, also estimated.  At the moment the ship is heading to Montreal from Hamburg, somewhere off the west coast of Ireland.  It's due to arrive on Feb 5th, head back to Europe before being loaded in Southampton to return to Canada. Such is the challenge of international supply chains.


While our house contents languish in storage in the UK, truckers in Canada have been adding to supply chain woes by driving their rigs across Canada to protest at the imposition of mandatory vaccinations for truck drivers.  Thousands of truckers attended the rally in Ottawa according to CBC, some having driven from BC.  Similar demonstrations took place in Vancouver.  The Ottawa demonstration included some pro-Trump supporters and other fringe groups who seem to pop up in many demos these days.  

It seems that the dislike of mandatory vaccinations in widespread in a number of countries.  Justin Trudeau was ridiculed by protesters for having to self isolate after a Covid contact and therefore unable to meet the truckers.  He has since been diagnosed with Covid.  PM's in our old and new country are not overly popular at the moment!  We watch the UK pantomime with great interest.

From the stern of the Queen of Surrey ferry car deck - fog
Back to ships, my trip to Van on a fog shrouded ferry was the result of a call to a local building supply company in Gibsons
enquiring if they had a particular type of table saw blade (a dado blade for those interested).   It would take two weeks I was told, so off to Vancouver I head.  Irritatingly I discovered while the Gibsons company did not have the part I was enquiring about, they had alternatives which would have sufficed.  So a rather wasted trip on the ferry, though I did get to enjoy a BC ferry cooked breakfast!

House hunting continues and the last property we saw on Friday had an amazing workshop that made it an interesting proposition.  Unfortunately the configuration and size of the house did not work for us and would have needed quite a lot of work.  The search goes on.  We have been rather spoilt by our current rental, with its space, views and access to the ferry.  The only downside is our inclement micro-climate!

We are heading off to Whistler on Tuesday for a few days playing in the snow, after having to cancel our trip last week last trip due to ice fall injury.  Snow looks good and blue skies beckon!







 

  

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