Like this:

Its true, thats what they called us. I know I still can’t believe it considering that just around that time we had rejected the label of hippie, rather half heartedly, and accepted the more general term of sailor. Maybe it was Dylan’s dread mullet, or perhaps Ollie’s growing beard. It could even have been the familiar box of dumpstered meat and vegetables sitting next to the cans of anti-fouling paint. Personally I think it was Alex’s long flowing dresses, which, while donning vapour mask, goggles and gloves flowed to and fro as she painted Freya’s wooden hull. Well in any case it did happen, Zach and Hanna heard them say it.
“Hey man, did you see the hippie’s on the hard?”

It was the weekend of the 2010 cowichan bay sailing regatta what appeared to be a large amount of sweater-necks, yachties mixed with hardened sailors who came from all over the coast to sail their boats in races around Cowichan bay while drinking copious amounts of beer, wine and coolers. True I didn’t want to leave out ‘hardened sailor’ because we happened to witness an awesome display of seamanship which aroused Ollie and I to cheer from well out of hearing range. A boat came sailing from the bay and into the zigzag network of docks under a jib and just before reaching her berth struck sail coming to hault in exactly the right spot. Later we found out that their motor had died and sailing was their only option.

So it was the time of the regatta and there we were with Freya on the hard right there on the Cowichan bay storefront. Literally the ways, the cradle that is set on railroad tracks to haul boats out of the water, was nestled in between two big stores, one an art gallery the other a boat builder’s warehouse. I wondered if this was how things worked back in the old days, with building space on the water so limited that you had to haul boats out between buildings.

We had decided that Freya needed a new top and bottom coat of paint and that the Cowichan bay ways were the best option in terms of price that we had. It turns out we were right in more ways than that. For we also had the wonderfully helpful advice of Arthur. Arthur owned the art gallery that Freya sat next to and … (to be continued)

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