Paradise Rock at Half Moon Bay - July 2015

We originally purchased a retreat home here on the Sunshine Coast (British Columbia) in 2004, a block from where we are now. Although that house was beautiful and very solid (hand built by a Finnish carpenter) with a beautiful view, it wasn't exactly what we were looking for in a cabin retreat. So in early in 2006 we were very fortunate that our realtor personally knew the artist owner of our now waterfront retreat. You see we had been working with this realtor for some time to find us the perfect place, in fact we did find a beautiful home on the water, not 100% what we were looking for but given the market at the time we liked it enough where we were at the final stages of making our decision when we got a call while we were on the ferry. Jan told me it was our realtor and that she wanted to show us one more house, my knee jerk reaction was no, we had seen a lot and were about to make a final decision. Jan told this to the realtor who was insistent and finally said that she just wanted us to have a look to give her our opinion on the house, we agreed and she told us that to meet at our house. Well this where the story gets a bit crazy. We get into her car and she tells us to close our eyes, I'm thinking yeah right I don't think so and she gets insistent (btw, we love our realtor, she is a wonderful person), so we say okay, okay eyes are closed. She backs out of our driveway and starts to head down the hill and makes a turn all the while saying, lower bank, lower bank. She pulls into the driveway of this house and says, okay open your eyes. I look at the house before me and say, I know this house, this is a beautiful house, really this house. She says do you want to have a look, we respond with well yes. Now because this house is in our original neighbourhood we happen to know the owners, from dog walking etc., and they are there, so we have like a visit and go through the house. Everything we wanted and more, location, check, type of home, check, hot tub on the deck with water view, check, mooring buoy out front, check, check, check, check. Here's the rub, this house is actually not on the market, you see the owner called her friend the realtor (our realtor) and asked to meet for coffee that morning. They knew each other because as mentioned the owner is an artist and our realtor at some point purchased a piece from her and they became friends. Well at the meeting they discussed that they finally decided that they were going to sell and move back east, so they thought of their friend the realtor who after that coffee called us (back to while we were on the ferry). The owner wanted the realtor to come over and give them some ideas as to how to better present their home in preparation for sale. The realtor looked through the house and said don't change a thing I think I have the perfect couple and told the owner who, they were delighted to have us take "a look" and give us the chance to make a premarket offer. Well as they say, the rest is history... Long story short that was nine years ago, we have tweaked a few changes to date but in the most part the house is pretty much the same as when we moved in. We always wanted to name our little retreat but never could come up with the right name so we just called it the house on the Coast. We felt it was time to make it official and after some idea bouncing here we have it, Paradise Rock. Funny, the day we named it our internet installer came to the house ( yes, we are now connected), got out of his van and said to me as he walked up, this is paradise here and I said, yes it is, it definitely is Paradise. So with my new iPad and with a great optic fibre internet connection I thought I would highlight our place here in our travel blog as when we are in Vancouver and not travelling this is where we try to spend much of our time. So with these pictures, welcome to Paradise Rock, hope you enjoy! This is also an iPad test for uploading to our blog, so I am hoping for success here because I am hoping to lighten my load a bit and travel with just the iPad. Fingers crossed in this success...

At Home - Sea to Sky Gondola, June 2015

Hello to all from what looks like what will be a warm/hot dry summer here in Vancouver, sounds great to me. I usually only post our distant travels on our Travel Blog but yesterday felt like a full excursion day as friends picked us up at 8:30 and we headed towards Squamish and the latest attraction of the Sea to Sky Gondola. Two ways of going up, for a $35.00 ticket you can take the Gondola up and down or hike up and then Gondola it down for $10.00. Bonuses on both sides, if you take the Gondola up there is a huge network of trails up top for you to explore, if you hike up you can take your dog on this incredible hike with plenty of great vista points to enjoy along the way. Please note, to take your dog down the gondola you must hike up and your dog also pays the $10.00 going down fee, dogs cannot go both ways. Added bonus you get the gondola to yourself is you have a dog, so not a bad deal. The organizers here at the Sea to Sky Gondola have done as excellent job in setting this up as not only are there great trails on top but also wonderful view points, great lounge and restaurant and local guides that take groups around to give more detailed information. The hike itself is 7.5 kilometres going from about 100 feet above sea level to almost 3,000 feet, so depending on your condition this could take you 2 to 4 hours plus. We kept a good steady pace, stopping at the view points and a bit of a snack so all in for us this was a 3 and a half hour hike. Was this a tough hike, yes, did you have to use the attached ropes and chains, yes, would I do it again, you bet, the sightseeing and the rewards are worth it. The bonus is the full restaurant on top and to save your knees a great gondola ride down. All our other travel plans are currently in a hold pattern, it looks like we need to address some stuff here before heading out back to sea. That’s okay with us, we have to do what we have to do but stayed tuned as I will post here every couple of months or if we do something locally here that just makes me smile. If you have a Facebook profile or follow Facebook, look me up and send a friend request, I post here my day to weekly stuff here quiet regularly, no not every little thing that I do, just the good stuff. Thanks for following, here are a few pics of day at the Sea to Sky Gondola… Hope you enjoy!

At Sea, Mar 06/07, 2015

Bing Bong Bing the PA system springs to life early in the morning on March 5th, funny I didn't get jarred awake this morning by the bow thrusters. This is your captain speaking from the bridge, in the early morning we had two engines go out on us …, the long and the short of it is that we had two sea days as we missed our port of call at Casa Maya, hmmm. We toddled along at about six knots for most of the day when the engines were fixed at about four pm to resume our cruising speed to get us back to Tampa on time. Yes, many disappointed guests who are only on for the week and to miss one port for them was a bit of an issue. For us we did not mind another sea day, in fact we were originally invited to participate in the hands on cooking class held on this day but we had to decline as we had a tour, right after the Captain gave us the news we called down to the front desk and we were able to sign back up, great.

Lots of fun in our small class. We were definitely hands on so it helped us to pick up a few tricks. Kirsten, the show chef on board did a great job in making sure we did not cut or burn ourselves, nice job to Christina our Culinary Art Centre Host.

This led us into our last formal night last night which flowed nicely to our Mariner Awards and Lunch today. We then spent the afternoon in the Green House Spa using our freebee day pass, a very nice may to wrap up this relaxing cruise. 

A few pictures of our last few days as I use up the last seven minutes of our internet package… If this does not load tonight I should have some time at the airport tomorrow as we have a four hour layover in Dallas.