Vancouver - our winter home

After arriving in Vancouver, we hit the ground running to find an apartment for our winter stay. It's the first time in over five years that we'll be living on land instead of water (or ice! as we did during last winter's Arctic sojourn) and we wanted to get settled quickly. A quick overview tour of Vancouver and its neighborhoods, along with a focused list of 'must-haves' enabled us to quickly narrow down the list of candidates and we found a suitable place in two days flat.

Vancouver, taken from Lonsdale Quay on the North Shore.

As befits two sailors, our must-have list included being as close to the water as possible and an unobstructed, south-facing view of ship movements in Vancouver Harbour. Our search landed us in West Vancouver, to a seaside village known as Dundarave. Dundarave looks south over Howe Sound to Stanley Park and east to the Lion's Gate bridge. The shoreline is fronted by the West Vancouver sea wall, a great place for strolling along to the adjacent village of Ambleside. It's a ridiculously expensive place to live with the average house price over $2 million. I don't think we could afford to live here permanently, but, with a slight increase in our rent budget, it will be affordable for the short term and it will be fun to live like the '1%', for a little while at least.

We are on the ninth floor of a building which is about 200 ft. from the water's edge. We can hear the waves crashing over the seawall, all while being snug, warm and not having to worry about the anchor dragging, or, the ice shifting.

View of the seawall, Lion's Gate Bridge and Stanley Park from our ninth floor solarium.

Our south-facing view across Howe Sound, there are always ships here waiting to get unloaded in the Port.

The north view behind us to the Mountains and three ski areas within an hour!

Dundarave is so convenient, One bus and $1.75 takes us across the Lion's Gate bridge to a very walkable downtown Vancouver, or, to Stanley Park, in just a few minutes. The seawall and Dundarave beach are steps from our front door. The village high street with coffee shops and a great supermarket are a block away. Two blocks away is a community centre with a very large pool, fitness classes and an ice rink. At the end of the seawall is the Park Royal shopping centre with a Whole Foods market, a giant Asian supermarket (Osaka) and many other fine shops and restaurants. We couldn't have found a better place and are very much looking forward to our time here. We'll be here until April.