YEAR END 2015

Hi everyone,

      There we are once again, 12 months later, feels like yesterday. Again another exciting year and I just wish I can keep making this same statement over and over again till my brain or something shuts down on me one day, let’s face it we will all go through it at some point or another.

        So we are all still sane and healthy, same goes for our four legged son, no broken bones, no disease but plenty of happy, anxious and sad moments, spicy events or my personal rendition on how life should unfold. Café Campagne is still flourishing, we won the Tripadvisor certificate of excellence, what a feat and what an honour, seems like the patrons are still enjoying the good food that is being served, thanks to Iron Chef Pinpin and her team, did I ever mention that we have reached 12 years of existence,  a dozen years of hard labor, ups and downs, challenge over challenge, but I believe the worst is behind us and that we have reached cruising speed, but other projects are cooking, that if all the puzzles falls into place, will keep you posted. Caro is doing well at University, still searching for "what else", seems to be the challenge of generation X and Y, but at least she's having good notes. As for I, still working for the same pollution contributor as some would define it, plastic is evil, apparently, but no one dare say that it's the hands that discard them in a non responsible way that are the actual culprit, falls in the same category as guns.. but this is a different debate I will not start here.
         I on the other hand  I am now working for a public company, since very recently, Jarden corporation is the parent company, but as any public company, it has been acquired by another bigger shark, Rubbermaid, and that was three months after we were acquired by Jarden, Sharks swallow sharks. But I must admit, things have been exciting, large investments are being made in Quebec and I cannot dare say more, being bound by company policy, new jobs will be created, some of which falls directly under my wings, really proud to contribute in some sort to this society.

        January 2015 took us to Barbados for ten days, nice little island, cheap if you know how to get around but lots of poor people if compared to our north American standards, a Mauritius look alike, sugar cane fields, nice beaches and rough seas on the east coast. Lots of Marijuana if you wish, Bajans or Barbadians are predominantly of African origins, there is also a mixed bag of Hindus, Chinese (very few) and lots of English settlers.  Very small island but calm and Irie, also another island where I can easily grow my roots if need be. Barbados is the also the home of Brian Talma Da action man, for those who happen to know him.

DeAction surf shop and beach culture

       We did meet with Da Man , cool guy and he is still as fresh as the pictures I have seen of him during my teenage years, amazing how some do not age, I presume the combination of seawater, iodine, Rhum and coconut water is beneficial to the health.

10 days later we took a flight to the Grenadines, a tiny island called Union island which is located about 200 kilometers south west of Barbados. We flew out on a twin otter and the flight lasted about 45 minutes. Union island is a tiny spec of island located among the multitude of islands that is scattered around St-Vincent and the Grenadines, Union holds a population of 3000 souls. It is so small that once you set foot on the island, everyone and their mother knows where you sleep, dine, when you sneeze or when you fart, more so when you are among the visible minority such as us. And as usual people are poor, my familiar phrase, they have nothing, worry about nothing but they have everything else, no stress, no rush, no traffic and no crime. Everything takes time, everything is at a very slooooooooowwww pace on Union.

        Union island is also very well known as an anchorage point for 

Captain Black Sparrow

sailboats and yachts cruising the waters of  the Caribbean, they all stop to replenish water, food and fuel. So the economy of the island relies mostly on tourism as you may have guessed. Tobago Cays and mostly Petit Tabac is the most famous island in and around Union, Petit Tabac is the island where Captain Jack Sparrow was marooned in the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean”.

Union is an “all right” island, nothing that really impressed us, but the Tobago Keys marine park which consist of many smaller islands such as, Petit Rameau, Jamesby, Petit Tabac, Baradal is a wonder to visit, we went on several occasions to dive with sea turtles, water is crystal clear and sand is pristine, and there is of course numerous sailboats that would anchor in the Cays for the night or more. Which revived that wish from our bucket list, charter a sailboat and sail from Florida down through the numerous Caribbean islands, anchor wherever the boat will take us to, captain ObWan at the helm, this dream it will definitely in the works.



Richmond bay Union Island

People travel from island to island on Taxi boats, simple life but they make a living and survive. We rented a small room by the sea and slept with the windows open to the sound of the waves, we had our dream room for 10 days, but Union will not be a place I would call or make home, a tad too slow to my taste, although if someone would like to be far and away from human life forms, well Union island is the ideal place to be.

        Spring and summer was as exciting as could be, you all know us, nothing flies by without us taking up a challenge, remember last year’s flirt on Pina 4? Well we now have our own vessel, OneEye is her name, it took a while to find her a good name, naming a boat is quite a tradition and not to be taken lightly, some say that it can bring bad luck if not performed properly and superstition often roam around this tradition.  But those who know me well, superstition is definitely not in my vocabulary. We had thoughts such as St-Geran, Veronique, WanEye , but finally ended up with OneEye which in essence is more appropriate, my daughter said that WanEye would have been too “cocky”.A boat’s name has to be symbolic, original and somewhat, related to the sea or to the owner. And no champagne bottle was broken against her hull, she`s too fragile for this kind of treatment.

The regular crew

I presume some explanation regarding the choice of name is now due, OneEye as we can all guess relates to a Pirate, and OneEye for those who know, is one of the most legendary-mischievous left in the world located in the home country at Le Morne –Mauritius , left wave that I had the chance to ride back in the days when brother Ber got married, One also phonetically sounds like Wan, hope this explains it all… deep and that’s how it’s supposed to be.

 

       Previously known as Gusto, OneEye is 33 years old, serial number 3424 and is a Tillotson Pearson one design  sailboat from the J24 fleet. OneEye is apparently a very fast boat and won many races, but as you all know you can own the fastest car in the world but the driver, and the crew, also needs to be up to speed.

So the first order of the day was to get OneEye optimised, fine tune the equipment, the crew and the skipper, we did many club races, searching ourselves and searching for additional crew members, the latter being the hardest of all, it’s like adopting a child that will live in the family, there has to be compatibility, the skill factor is one of the top criteria, willingness to be competitive and hungry to win regattas has to be embedded in the candidate`s DNA. Let’s say we did not qualify anyone so far, and yes we are tough on our selection criteria, we do not want any freeloaders on our team.

           During the summer, we found ourselves in all kinds of rankings, made numerous mistakes in both tuning and tactical decisions , discovered her weaknesses as well as our shortcomings and gradually applied corrections which eventually improved our rankings, let‘s say we did very well for being a first time owner of a boat, sailing a boat is similar to getting married, you have to feel and keep listening to the other half, don’t yell at her since it’s counterproductive, she can be very capricious on days,  the good thing is that she never answers back, but she can put you at the end of the class in a heartbeat if you don’t pay attention to her needs and demands.

By the end of summer, I believe I was very getting very close to understanding her needs, not 100% but we were in the high nineties. The proof is that we were surprised to receive an email from the club administration at the end of the season stating that we have been qualified for the club championship!! Oh what a surprise!!

OneEye on Lake St-Louis

So I had to do the club championship race, which consisted of 3 regattas back to back, the race involved 5 competitive boats, all helmed by Veterans from PCYC and we were the only rookie, second year at the club and first year on OneEye…who would bet on us you think? It reminded me of the bookmaking days of Dad, he could have taken bets and sell OneEye at 40:1 and make a fortune. Let's spice things up a bit, my regular crew, both had to work on race day, what's a captian without crew? Luckily I was able to circle back to my old crew Yuwei, Mimi and Thomas, they don’t know OneEye as much as my regular crew, but they are highly proficient on a J24. The first gun was at 10.30am, we did a very bad start, correction, I did a bad start, mistimed the speed and we ended up way behind everyone. There !! Mistake #1 by the rookie, but we worked hard and caught up with everyone except the first boat, “Barnacle”, haunts my nightmares!! So we were the runner up in the first race, which I will take anytime considering that my start was calamitous. And for the two other races, we ranked....hold on to your seats…. First and First, One and One or OneEye and OneEye, admit it, isn’t this a gorgeous game of words, won a trophy but did not have a chance to retrieve it. Props to the Yang family for helping me steer OneEye and gain some respect from the club members, suddenly we are becoming the One to beat.

TGIF for most competitive crew

Overall we won second place in the PCYC 2015 club championship, somehow because our handicap is unfavourable, go figure? Knowing me, I called back the club’s fleet captain to try understand the maths, and she has yet to get back to me on this. Many thanks to the crew who made this dream happen and needless to say we were all ecstatic and we can’t wait for the next sailing season.

            My newsletter always refers back to the people that left us during the year, but this time I believe that we are  entitled to say that we have celebrated a great life and a great man. Around end of July we got news that the Father in law was not doing very well, he basically was reaching his last legs, his body was not responding very well, I presume at 92 years of age, anybody would show signs of wear. There were multiple visits to Toronto from most if not all the immediate members of the family, I believe everyone got to see him before he actually decided it was time to leave behind almost a century of existence on this old world. There were multiple attempts from the physicians to help him with his troubles, but any solution was short lived and lasted only a few days, his body was simply not getting any better, wear and tear, Ah Chan decided it was enough, he held on for a while but he knew it was enough, enough suffering for him and for the family.
   There were hundreds of people at his funeral, testimony of a great man who was known and liked by many, I heard many stories about a man who loved life, who loved the outdoors and who loved fishing, I remember those afternoon fishing trips back in the days when I was courting Pinpin, we used to jam his Morris maxi bearing license plate number Y951 with close to a dozen people to go fishing and I kid you not. I drove that car many times, he took care of him car, always clean, always shiny, gas tank always full to the brim. Ah Chan had that belief that if the tank is full of gas, rust can’t settle inside the tank, he filled up my ears with this belief since we used to bring back the car on an empty tank every time we borrowed it, During one of our fishing trip returning to St-Paul from the south, I recall him falling asleep while driving, we almost hit the sugarcane fields, the car was swerving to the left but thanks to the quick hands of Willy who grabbed the steering wheel, the Maxi was saved and so was its dozen occupants , it was time to change the designated driver. 

Yowchan Sin Chan 1924-2015

I still have that clear picture of Ah Chan when I first met him, he was standing there behind the bar at St-Paul with his cigarette in his mouth, that cigarette burned for ever without him taking a single puff, the ash of the cigarette curling downwards and was still attached since he first lit it up, he would never flick the ashes off, he never liked to make eye contact with me whenever I would walk into the bar, always tending his regular customers,  once in a while he would lift his head and yell out to the cook “MADAME”!, that would be my mother in law he was addressing to, that simple word would mean that he is out of the most famous chicken wings for the customers!! I have wonderful memories of that bar at St-Paul, no one would ever leave unfed and the mother in law always made sure she had enough food for everyone who would be visiting, whether it be family members or friends. It was the good days.
      Today AhChan is resting in his new condo at the columbarium, he has all his comfort and amenities I hear,  I am pretty certain he still has that grin on his face, grin of a man who has lived a great and fulfilling life, we will miss you Yow Chan.
       All, it`s time for me to quit typing, I have been developing a tendinitis in my left wrist, not from typing this blog, but from the whole year`s of typing reports, emails, technical reports, budget reports, in one simple word.. overworked. I once again hope that I was entertaining and did not make you fall asleep, but if it did, then it actually served a good purpose.
         Be safe, keep healthy and don't quit, life is really too short to procrastinate.And try something new for the coming year, dare take a calculated chance since, yes I already  said and will say it again  ..there are or will be less years in front of us than behind us...well it applies for those who are over 40.  Oh and you can drop by anytime next summer for a ride on CAN3424 ... to try something new... @ Pointe Claire yacht club
Aloha from the boonies..
**** Peenot, Caro, Pinpin and.. Captain ObWan onboard OneEye.