Monday 22 September 2008

The Quay


On Sunday I went to North Van (couver) to see a matinee performance of a group of short plays that aren't produced very often. It was well worthwhile.

The location I'm shooting from is in front of Lonsdale Quay, a pretty popular hangout and public market. I decided to use this pic because I thought it had some points of interest. 

1. Note the cormorants that seem to reside permanently on the Seabus building. 

2. The Seabus takes passengers between North Van to Vancouver as part of the Greater Vancouver transit system (known as Trasnlink). Usually there are 2 boats running but on Sundays I think they do maintenance on one of them. The vessels are 30 years old and as far as I know the transit authority has decided not to push their luck any further and are building a third vessel. This may seem like a pretty cool transit option, and it is as far as it goes. But anyone who has seen Circular Quay in Sydney would probably agree with me that this is bush league. Vancouver is a port with a natural harbour not unlike Sydney or Hong Kong and we could have commuter vessels going to several points along Burrard Inlet. Sigh. 

The boats are named Burrard Otter and Burrard Beaver. There was a contest to name them back in the day and a friend of mine suggested Flotsam and Jetsam. He didn't even win an honorable mention but that would have been my choice.  

3. The cruise ship is the Norwegian Star. As I was trying to get a respectable shot for today's posting it backed out of it's slip heading to Los Angeles. The Alaska cruise season is over and the ships are headed south. It looks like this one is going to do 7 day cruises from LA to Mexico until the end of the year at least. 

4. If the clouds look ominous, they were. A while after I got home we had torrential rainfall. 

5. One final observation. Since the Shrangri-La tower has come on the scene the rest of the Vancouver skyline looks kind of short. Everything is relative. 

There you have it. My big Sunday adventure. I don't go to North Vancouver very often now but at one time I worked there and took the first Seabus, around 6:00 a.m.

6 comments :

Janet Kincaid said...

If this wasn't Vancouver Daily Photo, I'd swear that was a picture of the NYC skyline!

Laurie Allee said...

I love the buildings in the vancouver skyline -- and in this pic, it reminds me of NYC too!

Barbara Rahal said...

Hi Wayne, I lobve your photo of the day!...I like very much the cormorans contemplaiting on that corner!

The Jetsam and the Floatsam are awesome names...too bad they didnt give him a mention of honor or something, totally cool names!...I though I better take a look before posting, yesterday was way too funny...enjoy the sun!!!

Ken Mac said...

the shangri la tower. What happens in there I wonder?

Virginia said...

W,
You wanna see short? Come on down.
V

Sally said...

There's nothing quite like a waterside setting to set off a city adventure.
Glad you enjoyed the tempe House series and thanks for visiting!
Sydney Daily Photo