For our trip to Cabo, I had prearranged our airport transfer online before we left. Transcabo clearly warned their customers on the site to ignore the touts in the airport, explicitly stating their representatives would be outside the airport in distinctive orange shirts.

So, of course, as we left customs, I got sidetracked by a dude who looked very official and said my Transcabo guys were just out and would be back in a few minutes. He started telling me about the free breakfast, return transfer, and activities I could have. Michelle caught on immediately, said we weren't interested in a timeshare pitch, and left. I stood there like an idiot for a few more minutes until I clued into why Michelle left. Transcabo was just outside the airport holding a sign with my name on it, as promised.

Michelle, once again, proved that she's the brains of the operation.

BTW, Transcabo was great. I'd use them again any time. They were right there ready for us, the van was nice (unlike the taxi we took back to the airport), and the driver was friendly/helpful.

Michelle, the boys, and I just came back from a week of sunshine and in Cabo San Lucas. It was a good trip. Tons more later. Time to go to bed now.

Two weeks ago (before the storm and such), I took another trip to Whistler, this time with friends (and no kids). Eric (Group Program Manager for Microsoft's Digital Memories team) has a place up there and invited me and Chris (architect-type dude on Live Platform or some such thing) up for a boys weekend. It must have been an unofficial Microsoft weekend up there. We ran into zillions of Microsoft folks, including a girls trip of folks from my team (Kristen, Kellie, and Kellie's non-MS friend Juli) and Eric's sister, Stacey (who is a developer at Microsoft). We wound up hanging out with the girls and skied some with a bunch of other MS guys too. 

  

It was really different skiing with adults vs. chasing Andrew (9) down the hill. My legs were definitely not ready for real skiing, plus I think my skis are simply too advanced and long for me. I was dying, but we had really good days for skiing. One of the fun things I did this time was wear my Garmin Forerunner 301 GPS while I was skiing. I used SportTracks (still one of my favorite apps) to pull the data off and then converted the tracks to Google Earth for a 3D rendering of the days' work. (You can see three tracks in the image above. The rightmost is the first day I skied on Whistler. The left tracks are on Blackcomb. The first track is me, the second track is Eric (who skied out down the mountain). Whistler Village is in the lower left corner.) 

We also enjoyed the great apres-ski scene Whistler has to offer including many beers at the Longhorn Saloon (the inspiration for the codename of Windows Vista too, btw) and a great dinner at the Bearfoot Bistro, complete with Eric sabering a bottle of sparkling wine open (which is super fun incidentally, if a little less dramatic than one might expect.

Fortunately, the drive home was much easier than last time. I'm ready for another trip any time, hopefully with some new skis (maybe the Volkl AC2...)

Michelle and I took the boys up to Whistler, British Columbia, over the Thanksgiving weekend and just got back. Our timing and luck were great. The resort got an early dump of snow, so the skiing was good as was the snow play. Plus, since it's early in the season, the place wasn't very full yet. The weather was decent the whole time, with warmish (20 degrees F) temps and mostly light winds. It snowed almost the whole time, limiting visibility, but making for lots of fresh powder.

Andrew (9) went to ski camp for two days to polish up his very rusty skiing skills from a few years back and then skied with me the last day. He's a demon, bombing straight down the hill. It was really fun to ski with him, actually, even though we stayed on the easy runs (mostly Olympic at Whistler). Michael (6) wanted nothing to do with skiing and was more than content playing the snow and hanging out watching TV (since we don't have TV at home).

I haven't skied for three years and am definitely out of ski shape, despite my recent exercise. I was dying the first day -- thighs on fire, feet in pain, and heart racing. It took a while to settle back into any kind of rhythm, but I started to enjoy myself once I did. This was the first time I skied Whistler. I skied Blackcomb the one other time I've been at the resort before, a sunny May weekend many years ago where I skied the top of Blackcomb in a t-shirt and jeans in the morning and then swam under 75 degree sunshine in the Village that afternoon. It was pretty much the last weekend of the season that year; this was basically the first weekend of the season this year. Despite the extremes of the seasons, in both cases, only the tops of the resorts were open; the bottom runs back down the village were closed for lack of sufficient snow. Maybe some day, I'll actually ski the bottoms of the resorts.

Off the slopes, Michael and I played in a snow covered field (really a golf driving range across from the hotel) where we built an igloo, complete with a roof. Despite having grown up in Minnesota, this may have been the first time I've built a covered igloo (I have dug them out of snow banks before, but that's entirely different). The snow the first day was perfect - just wet enough to stick together, but not so wet as to be messy or heavy (after the first day, the snow was too powdery for building, but superb for sking). Each day Andrew, Michael, and I revisited the field and made something new out of the pieces of the igloo (since invariably someone would come smash it). We had a few epic snowball fights as well. Good fun.

We stayed at the Westin Resort & Spa in Whistler. This is a good hotel in Whistler, and I highly recommend it. The location is superb, right at the base of the Whistler gondola and a stone's throw to the Blackcomb gondola. It has great access to Whistler Village (lots of shops and restaurants) and couldn't be easier to drop the kids off at Whistler Kids for ski lessons. The hotel itself is newish with all the amenities that I like about Westin (especially the Heavenly Beds). We had a one bedroom suite which included a full kitchen and a dining table - convenient. Michelle and I had considered the Four Seasons, but after checking it out, we were glad we didn't go there. While it was certainly posh and I'm certain quite nice, it's location was terrible. Not only is it in the less-convenient Upper Village, but it's tucked away from the village areas behind another resort. We also tried a bunch of restaurants, which I'll write about later, but the short version is that almost everything we tried was a bit disappointing, even the vaunted Araxi.

The drive home was a bit of an adventure since everywhere from Whistler through about Everett had gotten a pile of snow. We were crawling along at 15-30mph for a huge part of the drive, with an hour+ wait at the border. The total time was about nine hours; by contrast, the drive up took just over five hours. We saw dozens of cars and trucks in ditches, spun out, or just plain stuck. Fortunately, we were in our four-wheel drive Honda Element, which handled the slick conditions like a champ.

Anyway, the whole time we were up there, I kept wondering why we don't go up to Whistler more often. It's beautiful, fun, and pretty convenient from Seattle, especially for a world-class resort. Hopefully, we'll go back soon.

I had night in Vancouver, British Columbia before Michelle and the kids showed up. After checking into the Westin Grand Hotel (nice hotel, btw) and, of course, checking my email, I struck out to find dinner.

The last time Michelle was in Vancouver, she found the Blue Water Cafe in Yaletown and loved it. Since my lovely wife is always right, I decided to try it too. It was a short walk to the restaurant.

The place was packed, even though it was relatively early on Thursday night. I bellied up to the bar and was immediately gratified to see a huge wall of Scotch bottles before me. I settled into my old favorite Ardbeg 10 Years Old and started to salivate through the dinner menu. Blue Water has an extensive seafood menu including a good oyster list and an amazing sushi bar. Since I love whisky with oysters and sushi, I was in heaven.

As I chatted with Brad, the bar manager, I learned that Blue Water has over a hundred different single malt whiskies; the owner is apparently a huge whisky fan. Brad knew his stuff too. I had an amazing Ardbeg Uigeadail, which I hadn't seen before (Brad told me the local liquor store had a few bottles left, so I went the next day and bought one). I like it even more than the Ardbeg 10 - smoky and delish. I also did their Highland Park Scotch flight - a tasting each of the Highland Park 12, 18, and 30 year old whiskies. I'm a big Highland Park fan, so it was super to be able to try all three side-by-side. After that, I put myself in Brad's hands, letting him pick. I admit I lost track a bit of what he served, but they were all great...

The oysters and sushi were fantastic as well (of course, a few glasses of whisky makes everything taste good.) I chatted up my neighbors at the bar and met some nice folks including a guy getting ready to start his own restaurant and a couple from California who had just gotten off their chartered power boat after a week in the Canadian Gulf Islands (what a coincidence).

I had a very enjoyable evening at a fantastic restaurant. I'll definitely go back again.

(Note: I wrote this post on the day the events occurred, but posted this after the trip, so the dates may be a bit messed up. This post is from the seventh day of the trip, Wednesday.)

Click here to see where we were and our approximate course.

We left Smuggler's Cove this morning and headed into the teeth of a big storm. We motored for a while in 2-4 foot seas with 15-20 knot winds and rain coming exactly from the direction we needed to go. It was actually a good day to learn how to handle a boat in heavy weather. It was getting pretty tough with the boat pounding, but I admit I enjoyed it. For a while, the portholes on the low side of the boat (sailboats heel or lean in heavy wind) were under the water (click here for video of pounding seas and green water going past the porthole, 687K .wmv). It can get a little dangerous below in seas like this. I was laying down for a while trying to get a little nap when Mike and Dan tacked the boat (changed directions). Suddenly, stuff started flying across the boat - binders, books, Mike's iPod, jackets, etc. All of this stuff had settled someplace on the last tack, but now that the boat was heeling the other way, it all came shooting out again. Good times.

We hove to for a while so we could cook and eat (heaving to is a cool sailing trick where you almost stop the boat by balancing the sails and steering). It was actually a bit amazing to see the stove swinging around and the pot of hot soup not sliding around. (Stoves on sailboats are gimballed, allowing them to swing to match the heel of the boat so the pots don't slide off). After lunch, we sailed into the storm. Cap't Dan coached us on heavy weather sailing and tacking single handed.

After a bit, we motored the rest of the way into Vancouver, coming under the Lion's Gate Bridge. We're tied up now at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, Coal Harbor outstation, on the edge of Stanley Park. We just had a good dinner in the cafe here on the docks. It's nice to have someone else cook for a change.

Michael took off back to Seattle, and we were joined by Brad, a new sailor who will be riding with Papa back to Seattle. I'm staying on board tonight and will hang out on the boat tomorrow for a while before they leave for the San Juan Islands. Michelle and the kids will be joining me here in Vancouver for the weekend.

It's been a great trip - relaxing and fun. It was kind of a gamble getting on a boat with two strangers, but it turned out fantastic. Mike and Dan were easy to get along with and good shipmates, and Papa was a great boat. I highly recommend Dan and SailPapa.com for any chartering.

I'm super glad I did it.

(Note: I wrote this post on the day the events occurred, but posted this after the trip, so the dates may be a bit messed up. This post is from the sixth day of the trip, Tuesday.)

Click here to see where we were and our approximate course.

We're holed up in Smuggler's Cove on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, about fifty miles north of Vancouver on our last night of the trip. We have the tiny inner bay all to ourselves; it's amazingly quiet and an appropriate finish before we arrive in busy Vancouver tomorrow.

This morning we left the Cortes Bay outstation under sunny skies. Once we cleared the harbour, we pretty much had a straight shot down the Malaspina Straight. Once again, at the north end of Texada Island, we ran into a herd of Dall's porpoises. (my guess is that it was the same group we saw earlier) They played with us for a while and then turned tail and ran for greener pastures.

The wind was ideal for a few hours this afternoon, so we set sail, first sailing downwind wing-on-wing and then flying our spinnaker again. (It was nice of Cap't Dan to arrange a downwind run on our way out and another on our way back - it's neat and unusual go downwind north and south...) We ran for a few hours before the wind finally gave out.

All day we've been finishing our foodstuffs, finding creative and yummy ways to exhaust what's left. It's a good exercise.

I'm a bit sad as I think of only one more day on the boat. We've settled into a good rhythm with everyone knowing what needs to be done and just making it happen. I've also enjoyed being disconnected from the world, like a week long plane ride. It'll be weird to be back in "civilization" tomorrow with connectivity, noise, and people.

More than anything, this trip has reminded me that I need to take time off of work.

We have another early tide to catch, so time to go bed. More thoughts later.

After a few days beyond all electronic communication, we're back to civilization (well, we have wifi). We're tied up at the Seattle Yacht Club outstation here in Cortes Bay on Cortes Island, just at the mouth of Desolation Sound.

I have tons to write about, but I need to go to sleep now since we have to get up early to catch the tide back to Vancouver. It'll take us two days to go the one hundred miles back to Vancouver, and it looks like we'll have a storm blowing in our face the whole way. Should be interesting.

It's been stunning up here. We've had great experiences from seeing whales and porpoises to feasting on oysters to resting in secluded anchorages by ourselves. The weather has been mostly rainy with a few breaks, but I've loved it.

Anyway, more later.

(Note: I wrote this post on the day the events occurred, but posted this after the trip, so the dates may be a bit messed up. This post is from the fifth day of the trip, Monday.)

Click here to see where we were and our approximate course.

We woke up in our little cove to a whole new world. The sun had come out, and tide had gone down exposing a beach covered with oysters. I mean absolutely covered. You couldn't take a step without stepping all over the oysters. We took the dinghy into the beach and proceeded to feast on oysters. It was kind of caveman and a bit obscene really, using hammers and screwdrivers to smash and pry the oysters open to eat. Delish. (We felt pretty good about eating the oysters since the area has several large oyster farms.)

 

I also checked out the little lake behind the cove we were in. At high tide (when we came in) it looked like you could sail from our cove into this other cove, but at low tide, the back cove was cut off as the beach was exposed. It's good to know how to read a chart and tide book. Anyway, it was lovely.

 

After our little feast and dinghy ride (always fun), we picked up our anchor and motored off. We headed over to West Redonda Island and up the Teakerne Arm, a long fjord into the island. (Side note, we had a minor miracle of seamanship, finding a black fender that we had lost the day before.) Again, we were the only ones there all the way up to the end of the fjord to Cassel Falls, a water fall that goes from Cassel  Lake into the salt water of Teakerne Arm. Apparently, the flow wasn't very high, but it was still lovely. Dan dropped a pole into the water, so we pulled on his wetsuit and dove for it. Meanwhile, Mike and I hiked up to the lake and went for a (brief) swim. Once we got back to the boat, I decided I should swim in the salt water too, so I dove off of Papa's stern into the icy, icy water. Damn, it was cold.

 

As we left the falls, the rain picked up again, getting pretty bad, so we headed to Cortes Island and the Seattle Yacht Club outstation in Cortes Bay. It was nice to have shore power again (so we could finish Master and Commander), wifi access, and a real bathroom/shower. We were the only ones at the entire outstation; I understand that during the busy part of the season, all 1500 feet of dock space are full.

(Note: I wrote this post on the day the events occurred, but posted this after the trip, so the dates may be a bit messed up. This post is from the fourth day of the trip, Sunday.)

Click here to see where we were and our approximate course.

Well, it rained on me as I slept on deck. Actually, I was up already because Cap't Dan's cellphone was beeping as the battery ran low. After I killed the phone, I turned over to go back to sleep, but it started to rain, so I had to retreat back into Papa.

By the time we woke up again the morning, it was totally dumping. We all slept in, keeping warm in the cold boat (we left the diesel heater off to conserve power and to keep the boat quiet). I stayed in the sleeping bag for a while, reading and sipping coffee; it was a very civilized and pleasant way to spend a Sunday morning.

After lunch, we decided to go exploring a bit and find a new anchorage. We motored around for a while going from cove to cove. Dan put up a bimini cover over the cockpit to keep us a little more dry as the rain and wind picked up. We also hooked up the radar to help us see in the mist and fog (it's bloody hard to read a radar display; fortunately this was the same model we used to have on our boat.) We finally settled motored up Pendrell Sound in East Redonda Island. We were all alone in the sound; we didn't see another boat at all. We found a little cove, just big enough for Papa to anchor and swing around it; it was protected by an hooked peninsula and island. We dropped our bow anchor and stern tied to a tree on shore.

It kept raining pretty hard, so we decided to have movie night, watching Master and Commander - The Far Side of the World on Dan's computer, pumping the audio through the boat stereo. Unfortunately, the laptop ran out of power because the inverter (the thing that converts the 12 volt DC boat power into 110 volt AC power the computer needs) was broken (which we just discovered that evening). As a result, we only saw the first half of the movie (disappointing to me because I hadn't seen it before.)

Mike and I had a good geekfest (we got to play with a multimeter) diagnosing the inverter (but to no avail). The lack of the laptop means that we won't have a chartplotter - a GPS that draws on a computerized chart. We'll have the navigate the old fashioned way - a GPS and paper charts. Oh the horror. Mike and I considered a mutiny and thought about demanding a refund, but cooler heads prevailed.

Fortunately, we had plenty of beer. You can see Mike (left) and Dan (right) modelling all the good ways to hold a beer on a boat.