Ship Ahoy

As our home is on the cliff-top overlooking the Georgia Strait it is not surprising that we have a constant stream of ships and boats passing our front windows. Among the nautical giants are car ferries, cruise liners, container ships and enormous log carriers. Here is a log carrier laden with thousands of trees headed for the sawmills of Washington State.

British Columbia is a rugged land of mountains, seas and trees. So many trees that, from our windows, we can probably view more trees on the slopes of the Coastal Mountains than many city dwellers see in a lifetime. The Pacific coast of Canada and Northwest United States is home to the world's most expansive temperate rainforest and here we have trees that are more than a thousand years old that stand more than a hundred metres tall.

But not all logs are treated equally. Thousands of them are simply tossed into the rivers and corralled into rafts several kilometres long. Tiny but immensely powerful tugs like this one then nudge these log booms across the sea to the mills.

Few vessels are as unusual as this house ... Wait! A house floating past our front windows!
Many of the houses on the Gulf Islands are brought here on barges from the mainland of Canada - but this monstrous Tudor-style home came from Washington State.

Passenger vessels of all kinds ply the Strait. Tiny yachts and speedboats bounce over the waves while giant ferries glide past en-route to and from Vancouver. Here is a car ferry and a truck ferry racing to Nanaimo.

Only the foulest of foul weather keeps all ships tied up in port and we rarely look out over an empty sea. Fishing boats, coastguard vessels and naval ships brave all but the stormiest oceans and this enormous cruise liner will make it to Alaska whatever the weather.