Year end 2014

Aloha,

           it is getting harder for me to find that inspiration, that flare that I used to have for this blog, this is the time of the year where I feel like doing nothing, but nothing, the days are short , the sun shy, the cold bites down to the bones. Here is a short summary of my day , wake up at 5.25 am, cold and dark like hell, kick the dog out of the house to do his number one or two, start the car remote to let it warm up and thaw, yes I finally got lazy enough to  have a remote car starter installed!! If there is a foot of snow on the car, then I know it will be a hectic drive. No snow.. Well it generally means that it’s either windy or extremely cold. Brush teeth, wash up, check the exterior thermometer to decide how to dress up, dog scratching at door, he’s cold and in a hurry to get back inside the house, if I linger a bit too much, louder and more frequent scratch at the front door, run down the stairs to let the dog in, he is either full of snow or shaking, either way he is in a hurry to go back upstairs to his warm cot, finish getting ready, grab lunch bag and head out, dark and cold, deal with the stupid drivers on the roads, arrive at office,  work like a madman, leave office around 4pm or later, already dark outside , start the car to allow it to warm up, a foot of snow on the car, the drive home can take an hour or more, arrive home, dog all excited, kick him out for his number one or two, bring in some firewood, start the fireplace, dog scratching at the door, let him in, he runs to the front of the fireplace to warm up, prepare dinner, feed dog,  wife arrives home around 6-7pm, eat supper, dog wants out for his number one or two, chat, dog scratching at door, let him in, he runs to the fireplace to warm up, relax in front of fireplace, shower, time to sleep.

Who the hell invented this country, who the hell invented this lifestyle?!?  I am really fed up…

Buuutt…as you surely know us by now, there is no single year that goes by without some excitement and you were bluffed into believing that our life was that dull, what’s a year without excitement, risk and events for the Wan’s in the boonies? I have a feeling this newsletter will be an exhaustive one.
We had a greeaaaaaat summer and during summer time, the opposite is true, such as wake up to the rising sun and my neighbor’s rooster, check temperature to decide how thin to dress up, dog is already out and does not want to come back home, yell at him to come back home since I have to leave for work. Make sure all my gear is in my truck for the afternoon race or kitesurfing session, work till 3pm unless it is really windy, kitesurf until 5.30pm, pack up my gear, rush to the club to race the regatta, get back home around 8.30pm, eat whatever we can throw on the grill, go out to shoot some arrows, go to check the employees at the store, fix some equipment,  back home to check the wind conditions for the next day then back to sleep dreaming of the next sailing session.

              So let’s follow the chronology, back to January, our annual vacation, this year started with excitement and stress.  It was January 7^th, extremely cold morning, in the – 25 degrees Celsius, well the usual for Montrealers, but the Polar vortex as they call it in the weather network mumbo jumbo, caused havoc all across North America. We woke up at 4.30am to go catch our flight for Toronto and from there on to St-Marteen and ferry up to Anguilla which was our final destination. We locked up the house, lowered the thermostat, shut off the water system, set the alarm and drove up to the airport, unloaded tons of equipment and as you know we never travel light.

              The excitement started when we walked up to the counter, the screens showed all red..cancelled, cancelled, cancelled. Most flights to Toronto were cancelled due to extreme weather conditions, -50 degrees Celsius in Toronto, Pearson international had over 30 planes waiting on the tarmac for a gate, many were stuck on a plane since the previous evening and the last thing they wanted is another aircraft landing in Toronto and waiting in line for a gate, we heard some cargo doors would not open because of the extreme cold.

           Picture this, Montreal Trudeau, full of passengers with cancelled flights all trying to find another flight option to get out!! I tried lining up at two different airline counters but then gave up, woke up my travel agent at 6am and had him start working on our options, that’s when we appreciate having a good travel agent. And our vacation started back at home , in front of our fireplace with no food in our fridge, no dog, not daughter…no flights options until two days later, luckily, our wonderful travel agent found two last seats for us on Sunwing, direct flight to St Marteen.

        Our vacation was cut short by two days, bummer, but the remainder was nineteen days in paradise, I can call Anguilla home anytime, there is nothing on Anguilla, everything takes time on Anguilla as the locals would put it, you live at your own pace, time don’t fly but crawls almost to a stop on Anguilla, but somehow those nineteen days were over before we even realised and we were back home to our good old routine.

             February took me back to mainland china, but this time I made plans to stay a day in Hong Kong to spend time with the cousins, Uncle and Aunt Valerie. For those who have been in Hongkong, what a lively city, I was staying in the heart of Tsim sha tsui, problem is, people don’t really sleep in the middle of town. 

Many thanks to the family for the wonderful supper and many thanks to Cousin Christophe for being my guide during that short lived evening, you are the best. One thing I noticed while we were wandering around town, people eat at any time of the night, there is a restaurant every fifty feet apart and they are all busy! I have to go back to HK; there are some unfinished business and precious time we need to catch up on, but it was really pleasant to reconnect.               
                 Summer was exciting to say the least, exciting,eventful, stressful, competitive and fruitful towards the end, let me explain. As aforementioned, what is a year without excitement, life would simply be bleak and gimpy, I got a call from my buddy Yuwei asking if I would like to be part of his crew on Tuesday afternoon, “crew for what?” I said and he responded “Crew on my sailboat for regattas at the club”, I first thought, what harrowing ordeal is he trying to put me through, I then said “let me think about it”, which really meant that I am totally unsure.

             Then he added, “I need a skipper and a trimmer”, “Ok” I said, “So what are you thinking?” “Well I thought of you skipping my twenty four feet sailboat and Pinpin trimming the Genoa”
My first reaction was “Hell no! I have never skipped a sailboat that big! Let alone in Regattas!” “I skipped small catamarans but never a sailboat that big!!”

Then after a long discussion with the party involved (Pinpin), we decided to give it a try, what’s life without some spice! Let’s do it and if we crash the boat, well we can always say “Wazznt me!”, Yeah, just do it!! Remember that old adage, just do it!

It took me weeks of research on the web and Youtube, to find out how to tune and sail a J24 one design sailboat competitively, the boat’s name is Pina4 . And by the end of the summer, I realised that I have learned more and am possibly more informed than many of my seasoned competitors, one thing I will always stress out, don’t ever let anyone impress you, they may have the newest, the biggest, the nastiest looking equipment in the world or they may look like professionals,  don’t let the “looks” of your competitors impress you, it’s deceitful, “l’habit ne fait vraiment pas le moine”  holds true, but if you do your homework and put enough time to it, you can surprise your own self. When people who you compete against, starts to come to talk to you, asking about your name and start questioning  about your past experience, you know they are starting to raise eyebrows, you know you are on to something.

              Some common questions, by the end of summer:-

“Where or what did you sail before joining our club?”
“Nowhere..Youtube..” “ Nahhhh”  is the general reaction.
“Well we have been windsurfing for twenty five years and kitesurfing for the last ten”
“Ahha! I knew it!! You understand the wind!!”
“Yeah”, is my response, “it blows, I can feel it on my cheeks!
           So yes I feel the wind, but racing in a regatta can be intimidating, more so when you see a quarter million dollar boat barging you for a spot on the starting line and trying to cut you off at the starting gun.
          And we did the first race on a Tuesday afternoon, huge adrenaline rush, we ranked among the last but were never last and that was our sole motivation, never be last. Then after a few races, we became hungry, we decided to run Thursday’s race, TGIF race and all the races we could attend, it is more addiction than any drug, but competitive racing simply lights up the fire within. 
       I even dared to do the Maud cup, which in essence is a single handed race, in laymen’s terms it’ a race without a crew, skipper only, very challenging indeed. The skipper has to do the job of four crew members, I did not have a single clue how to do it alone, daunting task to say the least,  how am I going to handle the Genoa, trim the main sail, trim the boom, adjust the Cunningham, the vang, halyards, downhaul, traveller and rudder all by myself, solitary sailing...
         I ran quite a few mental practice on how to launch the boat, motor it out of the harbor, haul up the sails without losing control of the boat etc.. You basically have to run back and forth on the boat and avoid falling over board either, that would have been catastrophic, that would have been le St-Gérant in the making. But luckily the wind was light which rendered my tasks so much easier.
         And as the season advanced, we found ourselves in the middle of the fleet, gradually moving up every race until the fall series. The fall series was a series of six races, the worst result out of the six races is scratched out, it is the last series of race and then the season is over and believe it or not, we made the podium! We were ecstatic , do you believe now Trinity? Yes we now believe we can be competitive, with a well-trained crew and a perfectly tuned boat. Pina4 is not tuned for racing, it is needs work to get it to race level, but we tuned it to the best of our knowledge and were quite impressed with the results. And the crew! What is a boat without a crew, our crew consisted of mostly…Chinese.. All yellow skin or almost, starting by Yuwei (owner of the boat) the Taiwanese born Argentinian/Canadian, his wife Mimi Italian/Canadian born, Thomas, Juliana siblings of Yuwei and Mimi, Caroline , Pinpin and Myself. Skin tone is predominantly Banana, you know yellow on the outside and white on the inside, we almost changed the boat’s name to “The boat people”, get it? The “Boat people”? Immigrants arriving on a boat , fact is , we are the visible minority in the club and on the starting line, if there is a protest against Pina4, all you have to say to identify the boat at fault is the “Chinese boat”.
Click here for the fall series results, scroll down to "White sail fleet"
           I cannot but point out a few incidents, such as when we discovered what someone looks like when he or she does not have “Le pied marin”.. Have you ever seen a turtle tipped over on its back and shaking its legs to try to make something happen, but nothing actually happens!! That’s my brother in law on the deck on the boat during a change of tack, so we were tacking from Port to starboard and I called the tack…"Ready about!!", I followed with a swift pull on the rudder after having made eye contact with the crew just to make sure everyone has acknowledged ,I then noticed the brother in law (will not give out any name to avoid embarrassment), crawl belly down on the deck, under the boom, do a twist to bring his leg forward, somehow did a trick rotation with his trunk and ended up on his back, legs and arms up, kicking around to get back to his feet but nothing happens, kept kicking still nothing happens!! Picture this, meanwhile the boat was already on the other tack and leaning to leeward, so imagine this turtle on its back with its head facing the lower side of the boat, gripping to nothing but thin air and kicking to get back to belly side or on its feet!! We almost had a MOB or TOB, situation, MOB stands for Man over board; I will let you decipher TOB.

            In an MOB situation, the priority shifts to recue mode, one of the crew member’s task shifts to spotter, he or she keeps constant eye contact with the MOB and also keeps pointing to the person in the water, another member has prepare the rescue line, the person standing in the companion way readies the ladder to haul the person out of harm’s way and the skipper relies to the spotter to manoeuver the boat towards the MOB. Seems easy but in strong winds and waves, this scenario can turn quite stressful.

             And there was that other time where the wind was gale force, twenty knots and gusting we almost lost two kids in the water and had to call it quits because of technical difficulties, the reality is, the boat was out of control or to be honest, I could not control the boat, tried reefing the sail, never practiced reefing, it was total havoc on deck and a disaster waiting to happen, the skipper in a sense is responsible for its crew so we decided to play it safe and go back to harbour, let’s say that the skipper and the tactician did not necessarily  see eye to eye on the situation.
          Our interest and competitiveness grew tenfold; we are so into it that we are already contemplating to acquire our own vessel. Some days we were over crew, which kind of justifies the decision to purchase our own boat, but the addiction is more than troubling, it can be so intense on board during a race that losing a position because of miscommunication or under achievement of a crew member breaks the mood and the backbone of the whole team. It is pure team spirit and team work, timing and synchronicity must be polished from start to finish, it pushes anyone’s boundary and each crew member has to bring his or her “A” game when stepping on board, I for one never thought I could be such a team player and be able to regroup and motivate a team to perform.
           We already have a potential name for our future boat, which I will reveal in due time, I learned there is quite a tradition in renaming a boat, but for now it’s only a matter of finding the right compatibility.
           August was a festive month, our residence was again selected for a huge garden party to celebrate the father in law’s 90^th, he is getting older and slower,  he has a hard time to walk, to go up and down the stairs, very slow. But somehow, he loves living in our studio downstairs; he loves his machine and the new machine! Let me explain, like any Canadian household, we purchased a stationary bike and other machines to work out at home. Who does not have a machine at home? But like any Canadian household, we purchased the best and the most appealing machine to create a “home gym” and after a few months going at it while staring at the Arnold Schwarzenegger poster on the wall, we all give up and allow those machines to be the perfect residence for spiders and their webs…does this ring a bell anyone?
            Well my father in law had something else in mind,  last summer I purchased a weight lifting apparatus, something that is worth over $2000, this should give you a hint about the sheer size of that gizmo, but I for one will never spend $2000 on a machine that does not have a sail or a motor attached to it, simply ridiculous, I got this deal off a couple, who as I mentioned above have purchased the best and the most appealing at one point in time, one fine day, I got news that they were fed up with the machine and with their married  life, divorce followed and  this is where you get the best deals! $200 for a brand spanking new machine with no wear at all!! And the wife came with it.. well not. So I had this machine installed in the studio and when my father in law first saw it, he dropped his walking cane and jumped on it instantly, as if he saw Shania "en chair et en os" !
           Get this; I hear he has been working out before breakfast, after breakfast, during the day while watching his favorite “the price is right” TV show, before supper, after supper and right before he goes to bed!! Suddenly his pace started to be brisk, no more need for the walking cane to go up or down the stairs, his legs were no longer hurting and did I mention the stationary bike? He does a few sessions on the stationary bike in between the weight machine exercise!! Ah Chan, alias Arnold in the basement pumping iron day in day out, the machine is already paid back .
           So Ahnold was in top shape when we celebrated his birthday in the garden, we were again blessed with nice warm weather, had tons, I mean tons of food to feed the whole neighborhood, a roasted pig, aphrodisiac oysters supplied by my brother in law’s special source from china town, apparently the oysters have been fed with some blend of Viagra. The usual majong addicts were going at it, until one of them was too drunk and fell off her chair. I guess I can say that everyone had a good time, including stinky Charlie in his new found Chinese extended family, Charlie is a pug we adopted for 2 months, he is the most excited, stinky, stubborn ugly creature we baby sat for 2 months, sorry let me rephrase, Caroline was supposed to babysit Charlie, but she gave up two days into her contract because of Charlie’s stink and stubborn character. Somehow, I kind of miss his mischief after he left.


Stinky Charlie

           The day after the party, my two brother in law, one of them being the ninja turtle mentioned above, the Frenchman and nephew Dennis Rod(fisher)man, planned to go on a fishing trip, not any kind of fishing trip, it was a once in a lifetime kind of fishing trip where you would hire a bush pilot on a float plane , fly out for two hours towards the great Canadian north where no soul would dare to live except for the Atikamekew tribe from the  Obedjiwan reserve, aborigines as we call them, 2031 Atikamekew living in the reserve  according to the last census, ObedjiWan..sounds like family to me. When I called Mireille at air Mont-laurier to book our Trip, I told her that we had 2 ½ days fishing and had to be back on Tuesday afternoon since my brother in-law to catch his flight for Paris the following day, Mireille asked:-  “are you sure Mr. Wan?”, “well yes I am sure”, she then added, “well Mr Wan, we cannot guaranteed we can fly you back the day you want back”

Hunnn?? What do you mean you cannot guarantee flying us back? She then gently explained to the tourists that everything will depend on the weather, if there is bad weather, storms or if it’s too windy, the pilot may not be able to take off or land, his aircraft is not a modern jumbo jet. Cool! This is the excitement I always crave for! But we could not take no for an answer, risk is my middle name.

        Sunday morning, we reached Mont-Laurier after two and half hours’ drive from Vaudreuil, walked into the outfitters office and the first bad news came about, airplane cannot take off! Why? Well look on the lake, tourist! Completely fog covered, ah!

So we had to wait for another hour and finally the sun started to peek through the clouds and the fog slowly dissipated, the lake gradually presented its beauty, the valley and the mountains on both sides…now we understood. These plane fly by wire and fly by vision, in other words can’t fly if the pilot can’t see the lake or the mountains. You sure guessed that we did not wait for instructions and we were already loading our luggage and gear on the aircraft.

Inside the belly of the Otter

           1962 DHC2 De Havilland Beaver,  52 year old aircraft, when the pilot started the engine, it misfired quite a few times before some black smoke started spitting out of the exhaust pipes , pif, paf, pouf, pet,pet pet! My lawn mower engine runs smoother I must say. Okeuhhhh, this machine is supposed to take us for a two hours flight into the wilderness, once we crawled into the belly of the aircraft, more doubts started blooming within our minds, we searched for the exit doors and any parachute lying around. The instruments were quite old, antique to be more precise, most of them don’t work properly except for the altimeter and the fuel gauge, well I guess they were working, since it showed full. The most modern electronics on the aircraft was a GPS and the pilot’scellular phone, ouf!

The rest is “fly by wire”, which means every rudder, flaps and ailerons were controlled by wire cables connected to a manual crank or wheel located in the cockpit, the beaver, built the year I was born, the year of the tiger, must be strong, apparently if I can still outperform many of my younger counterparts, well this aircraft should still be reliable. And perform it did! The engine, a 450HP Pratt&Whitney,  is pulled out every 12,000 hours and sent shipped to Winnipeg to be completely rebuilt , the Pilots from the Ouellette family, father and sons  make their living out of these aircrafts, so I was betting that  they don’t take chances and that we should make the trip without incident.
          Our instructions to the pilot were that if ever the weatherman predicts bad weather, fly the plane in earlier on the departure date. If the weather is good then come and get us at dusk.
            The fishing trip went well, but not without any incidents, such as hitting a big rock in the middle of the lake and cracking the foot of a brand new outboard motor, losing an anchor and so on. We had nice weather except for the last day where the morning was sunny with some patches of clouds, dark patches of clouds far on the horizon, some breeze, we took the boats to a far out fruitful spot we discovered the previous evening, it took us a good thirty minutes boat ride across the big lake and around a multitude of islands, thanks to having marked waypoints on my GPS, we got there quick and without hitting any obstacles. If you don’t have a GPS, you will get lost, so it does take some outdoor wilderness experience to find your way around. As soon as we reached our destination and dropped our fishing line in the water, the fish started biting, an hour later the wind started picking up, white caps on the lake, rain clouds approaching, the fishing got even better, but then the waves got bigger and higher. The fishing was excellent and time was flying by and we were very successful catching more walleyes, somewhere after noon, we heard a buzzing sound of an engine and it got louder as it approached, then we noticed a spot in the sky, it looked like an aircraft, it flew over us and was losing altitude as it approached, strange, I then told my fellow fisherman that I think it’s our outbound flight. Then it hit me, the weather is changing, it must be our plane, I then told my partners that I think it’s about time to pack up and leave, the wind was getting stronger, the cold front has definitely moved in. We had to go, we still have the main lake to cross, so we pulled up the anchor and started to leave,  two minutes after we left,  we noticed that the other boat with Ninja Turtle and Nephew Rodman was not following us, where are they? So we turned around and then found them still anchored, what the heck? Their anchor were caught in a log of some sort, they fought back and forth but to no avail, we lost fifteen minutes and the winds were getting stronger and the waves higher, darn… I was getting ready to dive for it, not that I was tempted, the water was cold and murky.
           Finally after a last attempt, they got free.. We hurried to leave, meandering around the islands and finally found the passage to cross the main lake..which litterally looked like cape horn on a stormy day,  white caps and huge waves was on the menu, the wind was blowing sideways, brace for the roller coaster, the boats were sixteen feet aluminum boats, fast and light on flat water, but in windy conditions and on a wavy lake, it was not necessarily the perfect vessel. I almost lost the brother in law twice when we hit a few waves and I had no choice but to slow down, after some twenty minutes crossing the lake, I started seeing the float plane tied up at base camp and it was definitely waiting for us. When we reached the floating decks, the camp manager came to greet us with, “the Pilot said to hurry up” “there is bad weather coming our way, down below, they are already losing sight of the lake” How exciting, bush weather!!


1958 Otter

           We grabbed and packed as fast as lightning, did I mention that we had a cooler full of fish that we caught since that morning; the aircraft that came to fly us out was a 1958 Otter, older and larger than the Beaver. When it took off on the main lake, we were expecting lots of shake and bake, but to our surprise the airplane behaved very well, after twenty minutes flight, I then understood the meaning of flying as a bush pilot. We hit rain clouds and instantly, all we could see was a white smoke screen, except that it was no smoke but clouds. Complete white out with no contrast, Zero visibility and remember, the aircraft has almost no instruments; well it has no radar either.
             Because visibility was close to nil, the pilot had no choice but to drop to a lower altitude,  3500 feet down to 2500 feet , hoping to see something, I was sitting in the cockpit with the pilot btw and I was ready to take the commands if ever he had a heart attack or any ailment that would render him useless, not that I know how to fly, but remember Youtube, learned a lot on Youtube, at one point in time I was contemplating my Icarus dream, yes, yes to be a pilot, this should not surprise you coming from me,  well at least I know how to read the instruments but if push comes to shove, I would grab the stick in a heartbeat.
The visibility was still zero, so the pilot then decided to drop some more, 2000 feet, we then barely started seeing the mountain tops and the wind was gusty so the plane was being pushed around sideways. We stayed at this altitude, flying between the mountain tops and in the valleys all along, after two and half hours flight, we finally saw the lake and the Mont Laurier base camp, fog was already settling in and we made in just on time.

             September is usually hunting season opener, but somehow work took me to see the romans, I was Milan bound on a flight to spend a week in spaghetti land, Novara was my final destination and to my amazement, all I saw was rice fields instead of spaghetti fields and needless to say Risotto was the speciality of the area. The food in Italy is out of this world, from their fresh seafood to the excellent wine and their famous Gorgonzola, the best well-seasoned prosciutto and extra virgin olive oil, the tasty espresso, somehow everything is tastier in Italy. I presume it’s because they take time to grow their crops and allow them to mature naturally combined with their patience in food preparation and cooking.

         Italians takes time to live, dine and relax, no hurry, la vita bella,  it kind of explains the manufacturing delay of the machine I went to purchase , they are nowhere near the North American pace where everything is mass produced in record time at any cost or has to be ready for yesterday, very contrasting indeed. But I will keep repeating that their wine and food are made with love, truly amazing and inexpensive if you ask me, clothing is expensive.

        Last event of the year will be Xmas at my place, la “Grande familia” will again be present, seems like they were all at my place not long ago, anyhow we will again indulge in fine foods and wines, not to forget that some dishes will consist of venison I succeeded in harvesting this past November.
            To all, be safe, drop by or call us if you want to take a ride on our future sailboat no appointment necessary, bring sunscreen, sunglasses, a swimsuit, gravol for some , a lunch and drinks if you wish, life vest supplied and Canadian coast guard’s number is on my quick dial, not to worry, we are covered.

Happy holidays, be active and safe!
From the Wan’s in the boonies and Captain ObWan Kenobi.

CAN 3424/J24 – Boat name TBD.