Midsummer Meander

July and early August

First we'll take Montreal!

Next weekend a very important guest (Verity)

from T'ronna or the Big Smoke or whatever it is called dropped in on Montreal for a mini-family reunion. The girls and I hit the town. Silliness again!

Then Verity and I winged (wung?) out on a westward swing. First we stopped in Calgary for the Stampede. After buying cowboy hats we dropped in on CJ's famous Stampede birthday party! No matter how hard Clint tries, he will always be two weeks younger than me. But even then, I get no respect!

Then to Canmore to see kin. Mount Yamnuska welcomed us to the Bow Corridor, the east slope of the Rockies and those beautiful springs and meadows along the Bow.

Then into Canmore where we inspect the next crop of Conrads and banter with the last. A great new crop is coming up (as Dad might say!) and a marvellous time in the dance of family life.

By next weekend I am back in Montreal plotting a trip to New York.

Some days later I face this! And its off for a week of Moma, American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan and another cultural overload in New York, New York. Then the cultural hangover!

So much so that I yearn to crawl back to roots and Mother Nature much as Wyeth portrays in what is perhaps the most representationally accessible painting in the Museum of Modern Art (wrong sex of course).

That precipitates my end of the summer meander out west.

Montreal Jazzfest - June27 to July5

Returning from Paris to Montreal is even more delightful when Jazzfest ramps up immediately upon one's arrival.



And when you can Jazzfest with some of the best practitioners of the fine art of festivalling, Trevor and Sonia, it becomes downright wonderful.



It seems everyone got into the act. Even the Chinatown brass band was jazzy!




Felicity and I kicked off Jazzfest with the gala opening concert of Wynton Marsalis, now a living legend.


Trevor and Sonia then jumped into action, joining me on nightly wanderings stage to stage, cocktail to cocktail, performer to performer.




There were acrobats.



And clowns.





A very fetching lobster showed an inordinate and much appreciated interest in your humble author!



Montreal Jazz fest. What a great time in such a great city!


And what a great party!

Paris!

Paris - June 19 to 27



Long ago I saw the light- thereafter Summer Solstice has been my annual celebration of warmth, light and joy. That is not to say I go gonzo pagan - it is only to state that no more positive or symbolic day exists in my pantheon. So I mark the Solstice.

Furthermore, I want to see the world. So what better time to go to a city that has so far escaped me, Paris. Between Summer Solstice and my upcoming birthday I had sufficient scope or excuse to indulge this fantasy.




First I dove into d'Orsay - a museum in many ways a complement (if not perfect lead-in to New York's Museum of Modern Art -MoMA). There I met new-old friends, Paul and Vincent. And so many others!






I spent two mind-numbed, culture-bent days in that massive maze, the time machine that is the Louvre. Sumeria and Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, Middle East of antiquity, Persia, Renaissance, Classical - it was all there in overwheming amounts. Continuing my museum theme I visited other museums, ending up with the more modern art found in a day coursing the George Pompidou Museum.



It was there that a Picasso painting spoke to me - 'lighten up Dude! Paris is also for the living!'





So I wandered the city. Amongst others, Montparnasse, Montmartre, the Pigalle, home of the Moulin Rouge - beckoned me on to explore.


Some sections were rather worldly, perhaps even seedy by my monkish standards. In Pigalle, Parisian working girls cruised the streets, propositioning all.

Always the Canadian, I thanked them for their interest but, in clumsy French, courteously declined their services.





Being a boulevardiere is more my style; the cafes were great, the wine fine and the passing people always fascinating. Wonderful way to celebrate. I must do it again. And the Museums!!

Hot Time - summer in the city

Hasta la vista Mexico!

Bienvenue a Montreal!


Mid-april, after sojourning in Calgary for some days, it is off to Montreal for what will be an unforgettable summer!



Sadly, cyberspace ate my pictures of Felicity's wonderful new penthouse apartment overlooking the commons of McGill campus. But the location is spectacular , the view of campus and mont-real is the best and everything is close at hand.



In early June Felicity and I Amtrak-ed to New York for a long weekend of Times Square, the Chrysler Building, Little Italy and too many other wonderful things and places.



We hit Broadway, Spamalot and Chicago (the play!) and dined on New York's diversity. Wow, what a place!


And then there was the Museum of Modern Art. It so enchanted me that I would return once more before summer's end.

Cast off

Final Days in La Paz


Verity brought Carnaval to an end with a late night mechanical bull ride. Can't remember whether that was before or after the shot of tequila?




With dawn we charter a dive boat to take us to Isla Islotes, some 50 kilometres north in the Sea, where we went diving with Sea Lions and other critters. Brushing the side a 250 kg brute underwater caused a small amount of terror, a large amount of memory.





Then put the girls on planes back to Canada, have a few cocktails with friends, wait for a weather window, and lastly head out on the run to San Carlos. Slowly pacing myself through all that busy-ness, some weeks later finally I cast off the bowline and head to sea.





There is something about being alone on the sea, particularly near day's end. To the side, I see - without my glasses - a rich dusk skyline. The light falls and night comes.


Middle of that night I pass over a giant fish-form, as long as my boat, illuminated by a beautiful bio-luminescence, slowly threshing through the water just off and below my port beam. Then it turned and undulated off into the dark depths, leaving a path of sparks. Must have been a whale shark.

A few days later I am at San Carlos under the twin peaks of what is called "Goats Teat". Take a look and figure it out!



And its back to marina life, at least for a couple of weeks. Then Anya is put up on the hard and I drive with a friend to Tuscon ultimately to fly on to Alberta and then Montreal for the summer.

Mardi Gras 2007

Mardi Gras, La Paz, Feb 18 to 20th


Carnaval folks! And we are right there!


A visiting dignitary from Calgary, el Presidente C.J, aka Clint, appeared on the grande balcony overlooking the Malecon to welcome the commencement of parade and party.



And La Paz turned out in force for the pre-Lenten festivities.





And of course the girls acted up!



And all these dark handsome latin men lurking about!







But it was mostly about the wonderful theatre of the parade. The floats and all the marvellously costumed participants

Sow's Ear, Silk Purse

January 2007


Appearances are important. Perhaps more so here in Mexico.






With perverse pleasure over years, I parried people's thrusts about Anya's hull condition with wit not action. I called her blotchiness 'camoflage' or said she has just the slightest touch of leprosy or syphilis. I jokingly tried to shift blame to Felicity by telling the story about the 'idiot proof' gelcoat repair caper. But really Anya needed a hull job. That would be my task.

Cruiser wisdom has it that you buy a two week supply of beer and sit in the lawnchair in the boatyard while watching over the workers as they do the job. My wisdom tells me that I could not tell if they were screwing me so why bother. Cold north winds were blowing in La Paz. Warm friends, waters and beaches waited for me down in Melaque and Barra de Navidad. So Anya was abandoned to the workers and I to Melaque.


Thus began over two weeks of cerveza, concerts, extravaganza's. Fred and Judy (right and left) proved to be wonderful navigators of the day and night lives of Melaque, Barra de Navidad, La Manzanilla and environs. They introduced me to, amongst others, a sort-of-Captain Canuck, also of Rooster's fame, alleged brother Gary and his charming wife Joyce. And the adventure ratcheted up a notch.


Between night times there were beaches and exploring the terrestrial environment.




One day in neighbouring La Manzanilla I stumbled across David and Jo, defiant 'trailer trash', formerly from my dock in Cowichan Bay and now nearest neighbours (about 100 metres down the beach) of these Jurassic brutes.








Cowichan Bay friends took me to nighttime Rodeos with dancing horses and bull riding. Late one night we stumbled into an event later discovered to be cockfights. We wheeled and fled, Canadian sensibilities still intact.



But Anya was calling me. I bused north, took the Topolobompa ferry across the sea and ended up back in La Paz, in a slightly blue and bulgey haze. There I lay eyes on my glamous boat, Anya, now a silk purse.