Along with other Wildlife!

Wed March 6th

It will be Major General Sir, from now on!

If you are familiar with the plot of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance, you will know that Frederic's indenture with the pirates has to be extended until 1940 because he was born on Feb 29th. The small print of which (one should always read) indentures him until his 21st birthday, not his 21st year. I mention it only because the production I'm in (I'm still not sure how I got talked into it) which is about to start it's final four shows out of seven this evening, and seems to have taken over every waking moment of my life for the last month, missed the opportunity of doing its first performance on Feb 29th, as it opened on March 1st. It's not only involved me. Fred has been on wardrobe duty making costumes with her trusted 46 year old sewing machine.

Fred with the Pirate King whose costume she made

As part of my research for the Major General role I watched and listened to a range of productions. My favourite was the Opera Australia 2006 version. Methinks the Pirate King in that production carried out his research watching Pirates of the Caribbean. Quite funny!

I shall be returning to choral singing once this is over. It is so much easier with a score than having to remember all the bloody lines. Even once remembered I find they don't always get regurgitated in the right order or at the right time, unlike the youngest members of the cast who read once and remember always. Must be an age thing!

It is inevitable that after two washouts in Whistler, the snow conditions improve while I am "indentured" to the PoP production and we can't escape mid-week for a few days of slope bashing. Methinks this will be my final foray into musical theatre as it's also taken me out of quite a few Sunday sailing races.

Gambier Island in the snow

We've had more snow (6") on the Coast and my drive to the ferry on Monday for a day in Vancouver was before our local roads were ploughed. It was a slow drive. It was that or put the snow chains on. Winter tires are mandatory October to March in BC and they do a pretty good job. The ferry, to my surprise, was on time!

The mountains and islands around Howe Sound were blanketed in a layer of snow adding to the beauty of the scenery in the crossing over to Horseshoe Bay.

In other news, we have finally got BC driving licences. So we have a local form of ID, though the main advantage is that it more than halves our car insurance cost. My Discovery Sport has gone down from a staggering $3,352 (£1,946) to $1,200 (£697). It will further reduce as we build up a NCD. Quite why they penalise non-BC licence holders as much as they do is unclear, though I guess it helps subsidise resident Canadians.

We have had a lot of Bald Eagles around lately and one pair have been seen around the nest high up in
the Douglas Fir along our beach road. Another pair are hanging around the other end of the road where Chaster Creek flows into the sea. The pair nesting in the Fir failed to reproduce last year, so there is a hope they may do so this year. One of them was spotted hooking a fish out of the water by a fellow dog walker, and then proceeded to have breakfast on a tree on the beach.

In addition to the Bald Eagles we have had several pods of Northern Resident orcas. Northern resident
orcas comprise 34 pods, totalling more than 200 individuals. More recent estimates suggest it could be as many as 300. Their range stretches from the north end of Vancouver Island to southeast Alaska. We are just under 400 km south of very northern point of Vancouver Island, so it is unusual, though not unheard of to have them this far south. The last pod that went through comprised 8 - 10 whales.

Like the Southern Resident orca, the Northerners feed on Chinook Salmon. This is different from the Transient Orca who feed on small mammals, seals, sea lions, dolphin and other whales etc. The residents and transients are different sub-species.

Seal pup which still had it's fur

Probably just as well they are the salmon-eating variety as for the first time we, and most local residents can recall, we have had a seal pup on the local beach. Actually it was on the trunk of one of the many logs/trees that litter our beach and would have made a tasty snack had one of the transient pods been in our locale; the same tree that the Bald Eagle was breakfasting on a few days earlier. I rushed back down after my morning Jack walk with my big camera and got some lovely shots.

Last weekend, Nick and Lizzie came over to have a giggle at the Major General and associated cast, which of course meant we had Sebby here for the weekend.

Spotty Chops

He had also been with us 'solo' a few weekends back, so Nick and Lizzie could go skiing for the weekend. On that occasion he went down with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease which he'd picked up from Daycare.

I had never heard of it in humans, only the bovine variety. Apart from a few spots around his chops, he seemed OK albeit not quite his normally bouncy self. Although highly contagious, it is a relatively mild disease. He could not go back to Daycare, so we (and Jack) enjoyed his company for a couple of extra days.

Jack seems to have withdrawal symptoms whenever Sebby heads home and mopes around the next day looking for someone to play with.