There was a cool (well, hot) show put on by the French troupe La Salamandre to close this year’s Just For Laughs festival.

There were trancey tribal rhythms, primal chants, dozens of drummers and musicians, dozens more artists “doing stuff” with fire (e.g. juggling, spinning, skipping burning rope, firebreathing, dancing) and — the best part — huge fireballs! I can’t believe the Montreal Fire Department let them put on this show. Part was in the street, which is one thing, but they ended up on the Loto-Quebec main stage. Not a bad sponsor because I guess it was a gamble…Montreal has a bad reputation because lots of stuff seems to burn down every year. But not on this night; as far as I know no one was hurt either… The crowd (myself included) loved it — check out the fun:

Well, at least sailing over the Fleuve St-Laurent, which is, well, kind of blue-ish, in parts. That’s what I was doing last week — I did a very intense four-day course to get my “PCOC” (Pleasure Craft Operator’s Card — this part was relatively easy) and my Basic Cruising Standard from the Canadian Yachting Association (a bit tougher, especially to master it all in a few days). The excellent, challenging course was put on by Ynot Sailing and run out of the Baie d’Urfé Yacht Club.

I survived the course, though one of the four students bailed (so to speak) at the half-way point — it was all just too much for him.

Instructor: “Do it again. You’ve got to be able to gybe correctly.”
Student: “Okay, I’ll try.”
Instructor: “Don’t try. Do it again.” (à la Yoda)
Student: “No, actually, I think I’ve had enough for today.”
Instructor: “I won’t let you quit. Do it again.”
Student: “No, really, I’m done for today.”
Instructor: “If you quit now I don’t want to see you here tomorrow.”
Student: “Fine.”

Ooooops! And so, that was it. The teacher unwittingly gave the insecure student the “out” he was looking for. He later tried to fix it, and even got the student to say he’d come back the next day after all…but he didn’t. That was it. The weirdest part was that he had come with his wife and she continued to come the rest of the week. Must have been frustrating for her, especially since they were evaluating sailing as a “retirement option”!

Anyhow, I passed PCOC, the on-water skills evaluation as well as the 2-hour written exam. I tied many knots (with my eyes closed!), threw a heaving line with precision and recovered a “Crew Overboard” under sail power. Now I just need to find some way I can practice! Turns out this ain’t exactly a cheap or easy hobby for someone with no boat…or car.

Nor are all old things tall…but some are. For example, this Douglas fir, which is 76m high and around 800 years old, in Cathedral Grove in Vancouver Island’s MacMillan Provincial Park. Though these trees can grow for thousands of years, unfortunately this is one of the oldest (and tallest) trees there, because a fire burned most of the grove down around 300 years ago. (Incidentally, the fabulous program Calico stitched this great shot together automatically and seamlessly!)

Just got back from a fantastic west-coast tour which included Vancouver, Whistler and Vancouver Island (Tofino and Victoria). Saw — in random order — whales, bears (well, one bear plus tons of tracks), cougar tracks and scat (and not the jazzy kind), mountains and more mountains, waves, lush trees and deformed trees, totem poles, ski poles and snowboarders, bikini ski models, nudists, hippies, relatives and other good things. Walked, drove, flew, bussed, ferried, zodiac-ed, gondola-ed and chairlifted. Perhaps ought to have surfed, biked, swam, rollerbladed, trained, bungeed and scuba-ed…but did not.

One of the highlights was blasting through the waters off Tofino in a Zodiac, with 3m swells in the open ocean. It was a whale-watching tour; a respectful one that did not get too close or stress out the whales. But we still had some great views of Grey and Humpback whales — blow-holing, breaching and farting (or so it smelled — and those were the whales, not us). The waves and the small boat were not a great combination for everyone, but we loved the thrill of riding up and down these house-size waves (in the bumpy front seat). It did make photography a bit difficult, because we were constantly moving and also because we would disappear into a wave trough from time to time.