urban canooing

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Urban canooing - or pirateering as Mike calls it. I was introduced to this fun activity in Vancouver on my very first night. We boarded the canoe around the science fair in the middle of the night, there were five of us so the canoe was very deep in the water. My job was to hold the candle so that incoming boats and ships could see us. We pirateered around, and I very new to the city, pretty much off the plane, asked the three locals in the boat about the scenery, or better the buildings. Apart from science fair, everything was "bullshit" followed by a rant about the politics. The nice houses were originally built for
disabled people but were then taken over by the police to house their own, the stadium was being rebuilt and I do not remember by the politics behind it but it was not good news for the common man. we stopped over at Granville island, to drink a beer but they wanted us to pay $10 dollars each, too much for pirates! Instead we went dumpster diving, found some bread, veggies and a pack of noodles. Not exactly a mighty booty but better than nothing. On we went to the floating houses, little cribs built on water, floating around, but us pirates were not welcome, people looking very unhappy when we paddled through their backyards.

I later went paddeling with Mike again, this time during the day but far away from the waterfront around the industrial area. We were just about to leave the shore when a big container vessel pulled up just in front of us. Tiny pirate canoe versus huge ship....we decided to hide behind a rock and wait. Eventually we pulled over and pretty much stopped paddeling, instead, drifting down stream. enjoying the scenery, mountains and forrests in fron t of us, industrial area and city scapes behind us.
Finally we started moving again, crossed over to the other side and ventured into a stream. Navigating between fallen logs we stalked a blue heron, turned around and made it back to the shore on
the other side.

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