Gas prices - who's kidding whom?

While the cost of regular unleaded fuel in Britain remains around £1.30 ($2.00) a litre, here on Gabriola it's been steady for the past few weeks at $1.26 a litre - typically 1 cent a litre more than Nanaimo prices. 

In fact, gas prices across the whole of Vancouver Island appear suspiciously "fixed"  at this level, other than in Victoria where regular unleaded costs around 4 cents a litre more, reflecting local taxation.


So how is it that - according to GasBuddy.com - regular gas is on sale in Courtenay for less than $1 a litre?

At first I thought it must be a misprint, but it's remained steady around 99.4 cents a litre for a couple of weeks now.  If Superstore, Costco and Petro-Canada can sell gas at under $1 a litre in Courtenay, why are we paying 25% more in Nanaimo?

HMCS Nanaimo cruises into town for a spot of fun

Saturday's Open House at the Nanaimo Cruise Ship Terminal provided the first chance to take a close look at the Port Authority's new $22 million showpiece - and the double treat of a guided tour of HMCS Nanaimo - one of the Canadian Navy's fleet of Kingston-class coastal defence vessels.

Nanaimo's cruise ship facility is a far cry from the Manhattan cruise 'shed' through which we were herded four weeks ago on our arrival from England. It's small and functional - but wonderfully light and welcoming. What it needs now is a steady flow of cruise visitors, and the development of a waterside park to link the terminal with the city's harbour area.

No cruise ships in town on Saturday, but HMCS Nanaimo was there, with sister ships Whitehorse, Brandon and Edmonton - and the chance to learn a little more about the former minesweeper's latest role as a coastal defence and training vessel.

 

Passing by the thought of life aboard HMCS Nanaimo as a junior officer billeted (along with five others) in a half size shipping container strapped to the stern deck, visitors were given a sneak preview of the Canadian Navy's latest weapon, the ocean bathtub - being readied for a secret mission around Gabriola's coastline on Sunday morning.

 

 

Supported by a crew of five aboard Nanaimo's powerful Zed, the secrecy of the mission was clearly evident from the full-face protective mask worn by the bathtub's intrepid commander.

Maybe not the most risky mission on Nanaimo's current tour of duty along the pacific coastline from Alaska down to Mexico - but certainly an unusual one.  Regrettably, Nanaimo's crew was unable to keep pace with their prime target, Nathan Barlow - winner of the 2011 Nanaimo Bathtub Race in a blistering 1 hour 11 minutes and 54 seconds.

Blogging resumes......

All is not lost. There is still life to report - though the past six months have been, shall we say, challenging.  Mostly challenging on the other side of the pond, needless to say, and somewhat less so as far as our Gabriola life is concerned.


In February, we put our Aylesbury home on the market and, to our relief, found a buyer within a few weeks. Next we embarked upon the search for a house in Coventry which turned out rather less straightforward, with a deal teetering on the brink right up to 36 hours from moving date. And so we became interim Coventrians awaiting our departure back to Gabriola in July. With renovations (almost) complete, the temptation to get away early became stronger and, to our amazement, it became evident that flying was not always the most economic means of crossing the North Atlantic. And so, the concept of embarking on our new life by ocean liner was born.

We were, as far as I can detect, the only passengers travelling to Gabriola aboard the Queen Mary 2 - and clearly she was not going to take us the whole way. After seven days of benign ocean, we sailed into New York Harbo(u)r and bade farewell to this little bit of the Carnival Corporation still masquerading as a traditional British liner. She may no longer be the largest passenger ship afloat, but she is among the most impressive - especially within in the confines of Gabriola's twin land mass, Manhattan.

After two days R&R in the big apple, the time came to forge westward to British Columbia. No so glamorously this time, departing Newark Airport between thunderstorms aboard one of Mr Boeing's flying machines.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Our home on Gabriola had survived the mild ravages of a gulf island winter and recovered from a springtime ant invasion. Since my brief visit in April, the vegetable garden had flourished - as had the half acre of grass, which was by now approaching shoulder height for a basset hound. Clearly this must be our first priority, to ensure safe passage for visiting bassets, so six hours (and several tanks of gas) later, the jungle was tamed.


Time to relax? Well, maybe. A veritable library of good ideas emerged as we whiled away Atlantic hours and some will no doubt need to be progressed to meet the expectations of management. Meanwhile, there's still time to breathe in some real Pacific air as we relax into our first full Gabriola summer.

And so, Island Blog is back. And the critics who decry the lack of effort in maintaining this unique commentary on a life just slightly more adventurous than their own may, for the time being, fall silent. As for me, I'm off to the dragon boat races. Farewell!

Look out for the Perigee Moon

Tonight's moon will be the largest it's been for 20 years - about 14% larger than usual. It's a super 'perigee moon'. Find out why the moon looks larger than usual at http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/16mar_supermoon/.

This is how the perigee moon looked over Aylesbury, UK earlier this evening. Keep your eyes peeled, Gabriola!

Whatever happened to Christmas?

As the years roll by, some of us start to get a bit tired of all the pre-Christmas razamatazz that seems to start earlier each year. Back here in the UK this year, the elves were waiting in the wings as early as mid November - and, as soon as Remembrance Day was over, the shopping malls switched on that Christmas muzac - doomed to run on a continuous loop for countless weeks.

Maddening as it all gets, it's not until you step outside that you realise Christmas has been neutralised. Like so much else these days, it's been transcended by political correctness. Our local council no longer wishes us a Happy Christmas in glittering lights strung perilously across the street. No, the banner now simply proclaims Season's Greetings. No particular season, just Season. Strangely though, it's only there in December - no sign of acknowledgement to religious festivals from January to November, then suddently the place lights up.

December means different things to different faiths of course - Hanukkah, Al-Hijira, Bodhi, Ashura, Yule and Christmas are all celebrated this month, but let's be honest, if it wasn't for Christmas falling on the 25th, how many towns and cities would put up a single light in celebration? Is it really so awful to acknowledge Christmas in public?

Back in BC, a different phenomenon has taken over. Holidays.

"Happy holidays" say the banners, the greeting cards and the word-perfect shop assistants. Where did "Happy holidays" come from? To a newcomer like me, it's a mystery. Is it more political correctness?  An imported trait from south of the 49th Parallel maybe? Or is it simply a ruse invented by greeting card manufacturers to ensure they can rotate their stock six times a year instead of once?

Whatever it is, it's good to know that,  lurking somewhere just beneath the surface, Christmas is still there. It must be. Walmart says so. 

This year could well be our last Christmas in the UK for a while. With luck, we will celebrate Christmas in Gabriola again next year. We were there in 2007, and again in 2009. Both times, Britain was paralysed by snow (well, a couple of inches, anyway) and Gabriola missed out - then when there was more than you could cope with in 2008, we were back here in the rain in England! It seemed we were doomed to miss out on the white stuff wherever we were. 

So, in 2010, the prophets of doom forecast a long, cold winter for Gabriola - and for Britain too. Who can we believe? Well, it started early on both sides of the pond, and we shall have to wait and see whether the predictions were right both times. In the meantime, here's evidence from the old country that, just occasionally, we do still see some snow. And yes, once there's an inch on the ground, the whole place still grinds to a halt.

Happy Christmas! (ooh, am I allowed to say that?)

Snow arrives on the islands

Thetis Island webcam



Rathtrevor Beach,  Parksville webcam

This morning's snowfall on Salt Spring Island - as captured by Gulf Islands Driftwood

There's always one......

We've all seen them. Drivers who leave long gaps in the ferry line-up; drivers who stop alongside their pals for a chat; drivers making a quick u-turn in Taylor Bay Road to join the line-up ahead of the guy who's just gone round the turning loop.

But today, this idiot just took the biscuit. He (or is it she?) saw the chance to join the line-up at the North Road/Taylor Bay junction and did just that - oblivious of the chaos caused by his or her trailer, which was left blocking the whole exit lane from Taylor Bay.

Never mind how many near-misses occurred as a result - it's good to know that he (or she) avoided all that extra driving to turn round on Taylor Bay Road. Or maybe the trailer was so overloaded that the brakes wouldn't hold on the hill. Either way, you deserved a ticket.

Too good to last.....

Remember how we all celebrated back in October, when BC Ferries hacked a massive 65 cents off the cost of taking your car from Gabriola to Nanaimo and back, courtesy of the government's decision to let the corporation off paying import duty on its new ferries?

Well, let's hope you didn't let it go to your head, because from December 1 that fare goes straight back up again, because BC Ferries has decided it's time to drop the 2% fuel rebate.

It was fun while it lasted I suppose......

BC Ferries still want us to go to Duke Point

Last week, BC Ferries produced a document entitled Opportunities for Enhanced Efficiency in Performance Term Three to the BC Ferry Commissioner, as part of their Performance Term Three Submission, from which the Commissioner will determine price caps for each of the route groups for a four-year period from 2010 until 2016.

Emphasising that these opportunities for enhanced efficiency are not, in fact BC Ferries' proposals, but are "matters of public policy for consideration", the report goes on to propose the scrapping of two southern routes and significant changes to several others. Among the changes suggested is the following:

Change in Terminal Location for Route 19 – Gabriola to Nanaimo Harbour

Cost savings and better utilization of the Quinsam in the form of additional sailings, could be realized from moving the Route 19 terminal on Vancouver Island from Nanaimo Harbour to BC Ferries’ Duke Point Terminal. Please note this option was rejected by local residents in a recent survey.

Also up for consideration - and being promoted in order to deliver cost savings on fleet and terminal renewals - is the withdrawal of Route 12 between Mill Bay and Brentwood Bay, the elimination or restructuring of Route 9 (Salt Spring - Tsawwassen) and the closure of Salt Spring's Long Harbour terminal. Plans for a cable ferry between Buckley Bay and Denman Island are also still on the table.

None of us would argue that some of BC Ferries' vessels are long overdue retirement, and maybe it is time to review the future of the Mill Bay route (the only route in the BC Ferries' network for which there is a road-based alternative) but we must hope that the Ferry Commissioner will not be tempted to reopen the Duke Point debate once more......

The full text of the BC Ferries' Efficiency Statement can be found here.

Long way back

The journey between our old home in the UK and our new home in Gabriola is always long and tiring. No matter what time of year, the uncertainties of transcontinental flights make it unwise to commit to booking floatplane connections at this end, only to find that you're still somewhere over the Rockies as your floatplane soars off across the water, taking your money with it as it goes.

Add to that the challenge of making the journey at the start of Thanksgiving weekend, and all prospect of a smooth return to the island goes out of the window. 24 hours before my arrival at YVR, pretty much every floatplane seat to Gabriola or Nanaimo was sold out for Friday afternoon - and warnings of walk-on passenger overloads on BC Ferries had also appeared.

I hadn't chosen to travel yesterday because it was Thanksgiving weekend, that was just a bonus (?) - Friday 8th October was a date when I could get a return flight from the UK - with taxes - for
just £350 (about $550) with Thomas Cook, and it seemed an offer too good to miss. Especially when you think how much it costs to fly anywhere in Canada these days. But there again, if I hadn't flown to Vancouver, I could have flown to Italy and back for just £20 ($32) with Europe's favourite (and most reviled) low-cost airline, Ryanair. How do they do that?

Anyways, back to yesterday. Having got a good deal on my flight from London, I thought I would see whether I could carry that through on the rest of the trip to Gabriola. With meticulous planning and a following wind, I had worked out an itinerary which seemed doomed to failure at every step of the way - but if it worked I'd be here in time for fresh-cooked pizzas with my cousins at around 6 in the evening.

Getting from home to Gatwick Airport before 8am is always a bit of a lottery, but on Friday mornings the traffic around London's orbital motorway is lighter than usual, as so many people seem to take Fridays off work these days. Travelling with just hand luggage doesn't actually save you any time at check-in with Thomas Cook (you still have to get in line for your boarding pass) but it sure does when you get to the other end. The flight departed on schedule at 1010 and touched down at YVR five minutes ahead of schedule, at midday. So far, so good.

I knew that my itinerary would succeed only if I could be on the Canada Line before 1230, and arriving just behind our plane was a Korean Air 747 no doubt laden with complex challenges when they all reached the immigration desk. My luck held, and by 1220 I was on the Canada Line platform with transfer ticket in hand. Fortunately, someone had handwritten a whiteboard next to the ticket vending machine to say that Horseshoe Bay was a two-zone fare; there was nothing on the machine or the posters behind to tell me that. Maybe TransLink really wanted me to pay $10 for a 3-zone ticket just in case?

Just after 1245 and I stepped out from Vancouver City Centre station to find the bus stop for the Horseshoe Bay Express. I knew it was close to the station, but couldn't remember where. The bus stop outside helpfully said "downtown". Nothing else. I head back into the station looking for an interchange map, or even a real person to ask. Nothing. Undeterred, I crossed the street to where a large crowd of people were gathered around a bus stop. Half of them were waiting patiently in line, the other half under the canopy of The Bay, keeping out of the rain. Bus stop says that the 250 to Horseshoe Bay and the 257 Express both stop there. Just when was anyone's guess. The 250 was the first to arrive and I ponder the idea of not waiting for the Express, in case it's full, or doesn't turn up. About half the crowd packs into the 250 and away it goes, leaving the rest of us standing there. Hopefully.

My mental itinerary told me the express bus went at 1300 and it wasn't long after that the bus appeared and, creaking ominously under a very  full load of passengers, headed off a few minutes later towards Horseshoe Bay. I made it to the last seat, right at the back, and was very grateful that I didn't have a suitcase in tow. Thankfully, only one more passenger boarded along the way and with about 20 standing along the aisle, it wasn't really surprising that the driver was very careful NOT to pull to a complete halt at the stop signs as he climbed 15th out of Park Royal to the highway. I'm not saying the bus wouldn't have started again if he had, but I did begin to wonder.

As we crossed the bridge high above the ferry line-up at Horseshoe Bay, the full joy of Thanksgiving weekend on BC Ferries was unfolding. Diving through the maze of narrow streets that is Horseshoe Bay village, the bus misses all this mayhem and pulled up right outside the ferry terminal just before 1350. I avoid the queue for tickets and head straight for the self-serve machines - and the message that says no tickets will be issued less than 15 minutes before departure. It's 1352 and my ferry leaves at 1410. The machine fails to read my card first time, so I curse, and quickly sort out another card. Done - with 1 minute to spare!

It was good of BC Ferries to schedule an extra ferry at 1410 on October 8th. They must have known I was coming. Saved me an hour's wait for the regular ferry - and aboard Coastal Renaissance the line-up for food goes halfway round the ship. I opt for the easy option - a large Latte and muffin at a window seat in the coffee bar. Sitting with me are a couple from Alberta who joined the ferry line-up in their car a full half hour before I landed at YVR. I'm feeling sort of smug.

As we approach Departure Bay, the rain's running down the windows and I try and remember what time the bus leaves for downtown Nanaimo. It's 1547 as I walk through the terminal. I know that, as I thought to myself that I wouldn't quite make it onto the 1545 ferry to Gabriola.  Next one was 1700 and as I left the terminal, found the bus stop. No information, just a bus stop. My memory said there wasn't a bus until about 1615, so (taking heed of the advice that everyone seems to give about Nanaimo's buses) I decide to walk. The rain's stopped and I've plenty of time.

Walking past Nanaimo Shipbuilders I can see the hulk of the MV Sun Sea - towed in that morning from Victoria, where it arrived on August 13th with 492 Tamil migrants aboard. It beggars belief that someone made a fortune selling weeks of hell to hundreds of people so they could be packed like sardines onto a rusting hulk. It's incredible that only one of them died along the way - or so we were told.

Crossing Maffeo Sutton Park, I pause to watch an impatient wedding photographer trying in vain to choreograph a dozen or so suited wedding guests (bride and groom in the centre) to join hands and jump in the air simultaneously in front of the harbour wall for the wedding album. At the third failure, they all collapse in fits of laughter and I decide that it might be a long wait. 

As I approach the harbour, the floatplanes are roaring in packed with more fortunate souls, and I catch sight of the Quinsam rounding the harbour entrance. I quicken my step just a little, to be sure I don't miss it. I curse to myself as I realise I left my BC Ferries experience card on Gabriola back in August and grudgingly pay my $8.90 for the privelege.  Even so, I've made it; against all odds my itinerary worked and I saved over $50 in the process.

Twenty minutes later, and at the end of my 20 hour journey, I see friendly faces waiting to give me a ride back to my island home. Bad news. They haven't had time to light the pizza oven.