Vancouver Day 2

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We both slept soundly again last night. Today there are 3 cruise ships around us. We have a big Princess ship out our side. HAL's Nieuw Amsterdam is on the other side and from across False Creek we saw a 3rd smaller ship, maybe a Seabourn. Tomorrow when we board O's Regatta there will be 3 new ships here besides Regatta will be Celebrity Infinity and HAL's Noordam. It is a bustling place.

It poured rain today all morning and a cold front came through overnight so it was markedly cooler today. It is still low visibility from wildfire smoke and today you could smell it. We have surely not seen Vancouver at its best. We had a much calmer morning today at the breakfast buffet. We chose to ride the Vancouver Trolley today instead of the Westcoast Sightseeing. We regret our decision. The trolley people had less capacity as well they were not running in the advertised 20 minute cycle. We waited while 4 Westcoast big buses came by the Granville Island stop and it took over 45 minutes for a trolley to come. They only had 6 available seats while there was a line of more than a dozen people waiting. They had hard wooden bench seats as well that were uncomfortable. I leaned toward the trolley because they included a free False Creek Ferry ticket which we did use to get to Granville Market. Still Westcoast was probably a better choice and that would be our recommendation.

The St. Roch is here in Vancouver at the Maritime Museum. We'd have gone if we hadn't spent nearly an hour in a parking lot under a bridge waiting for a trolley. Oh well, we caught a glimpse of it through the windows. It was first ship circumnavigate North America in 1950. It was also one of the ships to make the North West Passage and did it twice, once in each direction. St. Roch is my hero ship and I'm sorry to have missed it. It is unclear if I'll every get all the pieces covered to circumnavigate North America. I still have hopes of an opportunity to do a North America circumnavigation in one go if some cruise line offers it.

We had lunch today at the Granville Island Public Market. It was huge. Bigger than we expected. We ate lunch there. We shared a bratwurst sandwich, a steaming bowl of cheddar & potato mini-pierogies and a maple crepe. It was all good. We also shared some beautiful artisinal chocolates.

Clay has chosen Mahoney & Sons for dinner. I'll finish this post after dinner and get it published. Mahoney's was close by on the waterfront and excellent. We were there before 6pm and it was busy but not too noisy and we were seated right away. I had bangers & mash and got 3 big sausages. It was way too much! Clay ate a lot of sausage with his more modest serving of salmon. The food was delicious. Clay had also planned to have a beer flight and he did to the envy of everyone in the room, who must have missed it on the menu. I had my first glass of wine this trip. They had a good selection of British Columbia wines and I had a smalll (6 oz.) Riesling. It was very good. I hope the box of NZ Riesling I bought to drink for the next month is close to that good. We'll see.

Our thoughts have been and continue to be with my family as Hurricane Irma continues to make a course directly to their homes in SW Florida. Fingers crossed that they get through with as minimal damage and inconvenience as possible.

We have plans for tomorrow taking advantage of our Pan Pacific cruise package to transfer our luggage and check out late. Given O's past record of boarding delays we aren't in any hurry to be there for our noon embarkation and if it's 2pm or after that would probably be better. So after breakfast, we'll surrender the checked bags then go over to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden for the 10:30am guided tour and finally to Chewie's Steam & Oyster Bar since Clay realized he had forgotten to have oysters. Hopefully we can fit that all in before checkout deadline of 2pm. Should be able to and hoping for a rain free day but we'll see. We heard the garden is better in the rain with some kind of singing water drainage system that you miss if you're there on a clear day. Either way.

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