Early AM i snuck out, avoiding the now submerged nearby rock. To Prince Rupert for gas. The place is major industry: a coal terminal, container ships.
The fuel dock was the cleanest, most organized i've seen. The attendant appeared, turned the pump on, and that's all they do. I always must pump the gas myself, they thereby avoid customers claiming the attendant scratched something, or destroyed their beautiful hull with a gas dribble, or, worst, put diesel in their gas boat or visa versa. Or, maybe worse, created a major fuel spill into the harbor.
The system is crude. There's never any automatic shutoff on the nozzle. It goes til you let go, and the only way you know to let go is: 1)you hear it, the pitch increases; or 2)fuel squirts out the filler or vent, splashing into the ocean. There's got to be a better way.
I listen very carefully.
Then you go into a nearby booth and pay the hundreds of $C. I asked where i could get charts. The young woman was clearly confused. "You mean like 'pie charts'?"
I smiled, explained: Nautical Charts. She was clearly embarrassed but very nice, referred me to the gas attendant, who turned out to be very helpful.
I'd been to this town before, arriving by bus rather than boat. There was the museum, Safeway, the state liquor store, the fire station & casino/pub. I ~knew my way around.
Bot groceries, 2 more charts, beer.
And turned in recyclables. This was my first experience trying to claim a deposit. Before i'd always just deposited the aluminum cans in a handy recyclables bin, for some citizen to fish out.
Then i noticed Safeway pays back deposits. Inquiring, i was told to turn them in at Customer Service.
So i arrived with my sleezy used dirty black plastic bag of cans. Canadians are always polite, and it inspires politeness.
Turns out Safeway doesnt take beer cans. Because they dont sell beer. The liquor store does that. I was politely directed there.
At the liquor store at ~9am, i found the door locked. The sign said it opened at 9:30.
A passing clearly-what-in-US-we'd-call-a-homeless-man advised me it opened at 9:30.
"Thank you," i nodded respectfully.
"9:30", he repeated.
Here's something: you dont see any evidence of homelessness in Canada, that i've seen, no temp ragged tent shelters, no classic homeless trash piles, no begging, no signs at roadside, no services-for-the-homeless infrastructure, tho indeed you do see folks who seem... of that class? Why?
Back 9:30 at the liquor store, i went to the Customer Service desk. The nice polite administrator directed me to the recycling counter. There at the Recycling Counter, the sign ordered, politely as all signs in Canada: clear plastic bags only, no black plastic., "Please. Thank you for your cooperation." Etc. I'm not making fun, i think this attitude is nice.
I figured, as a naive foreigner, i mite get away with it.
No one was there, so after awhile (i am very patient), i rang the bell there which was provided for this situation.
The nice Customer Service woman that i'd seen earlier arrived promptly. Which i thot funny.
The black bag didnt bother her, but she said the cans must be placed on a "flat", 24 to a flat.
Seeing the adjacent stack of low cardboard box cut-offs, i pointed, asked: "flat?"
"Flat," she answered.
I fished in the bag, stacked the cans to the flat. And feeling like the well-dressed competent administrator shouldnt have to touch my drippy semi-crushed beer cans, i counted them for her.
She paid me 10cents a can.
I've always marveled at how effortlessly stores charge a deposit, you as a customer hardly know, unless you look closely at a reciept; yet what an effort it is to reclaim it.
Safeway of Prince Rupert, tho surely happy to sell you, say, 4, 'flats' of 24-each, say, bottled water, permit you the consumer to return only 12 per day, this surely to discourage those 'citizens' i referred to, who scavenge dumpsters and recycle bins for a living.
(I heard a story that Edward Abbey, admired environmental author, advocated a long time ago that people toss their beverage cans out the window along the highway, rather than properly depositing them in a landfill, because someday the metal will be so valuable that folks will actually wander along the road picking them up. Prescient. And sad, that folks live picking up cans & bottles.)
I apologized to the Customer Service lady that i didnt know the rules. "It's my 1st time."
Polite, she replied: "For your 1st time, you did very well."
I left, glowing with pride.
Cathy had advised to stock up on supplies, in case i ended shipwrecked or otherwise stranded. Good idea.
So i loaded my daypack with empty water bottles, and went searching for a source, in vain.
I considered hitting up PRFD, me wearing a WFD at the time, but since i was attempting recycling at Safeway, i asked there 1st.
"You mean bottled water?" the customer service guy asked.
"No i just want to fill my water bottles." With my black plastic bag of rattling cans, and my typical ragged work clothes, i was a homeless caricature.
He directed me, politely, mercifully, to the "washroom", where there was a "pipe". (We'd say 'sink' or 'faucet'.)
The first time i'd asked directions to such a facility in Canada, i pre-wondered what they call them there. "Where's the ... 'restroom'?"
The local looked confused: "You mean 'Washroom'?"
Gassed, groceried, charted, beer'd, watered, & recycled. I am off.
I follow 2 pro fishing boats thru the narrow winding passage out to open water, 6mph. I value their local knowledge, cuz this is complicated. It was for a zone for which i'd been inadvertently chartless. I considered doing it anyway, off my iPhone or something, but for 20C$ this chart was worth it.
At 1 point they finally veered off to 1 channel, while i was destined to go the other option.
Approaching again, the 'Big Water', there were waves, and, always, confusion. Missing buoys. Where am i? For the 1st time i have problems with the windshield fogging up. And it's not like a car where u just reach forward with a rag and wipe it; i have to stand in the aisle, ahead of the steering wheel, reaching back with 1 hand to steer behind me, reaching ahead to wipe the glass, meanwhile bounced around by the waves, and banging head to cast-iron windshield wiper motors.
Thank goodness the Lowrance GPS worked flawlessly.
Very luckily, uncertain of the course, i was going slow. The depth sounder showed unexpected decreasing depths. It was getting really shallow. Luckily i realized i'd misidentified 1 distant buoy as another. I was headed into the shoals, another impending grounding avoided.
Out now in the open, it really was rougher than i cared to deal with, and typicly as day progresses, it gets worse thru the afternoon.
So i looked ahead for an anchorage, found a couple, went there. Threw 2 anchors just cuz i can, set them well with pull from the engine. It's surely the best anchoring job i've done this trip.
All alone. Sunny. Warm inside the cabin. Windy cold outside.
I called ahead to US Customs re the impending border crossing. The nice woman took all my info, expressed incredultiy that i'd come all the way alone in a 22' boat, told me be careful across the Dixon Entrance.
So i'm typing this to you. A 1st Nations man stops by in his small open fish boat. "It was Big out there," he advises. "A wave broke over my bow."
"But you are still alive."
He asked about my fishing luck, but i don't fish. "I dont work hard like you," i said.
He noted the waves are getting bigger, even here in this protected place, which indeed i'd noticed. He advised me to move to a very nearby place, which i'd indeed considered, better protected from the wind but it was so deep there for the anchor.
"We local people," he said, "we know."
But evening, the wind died completely as it often does. Quiet nite.
1 comment:
I am impressed with ten cents a can and that safeway doesn’t sell beer. Maybe that’s how we can clean the ocean, pay deposits for buckets of junk.
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