2009-01-24 49 -123

The Vancouver graticule geohash has fallen today on Bowen Island, an island three nautical miles off the mainland at Horseshoe Bay, served by ferries and populated mainly by artists and hippies. The geohash itself appears to lie exactly on someone's front doorstep on the island's main road.

Participants

Expeditions

Robyn

Despite the fact that there was an accessible geohash in a virgin graticule to the east, I was feeling cold and lazy, so chose the closer geohash. Options were to bike the 40 km to and from the geohash, or to take the bus to the ferry and then walk 4.5 km to and from the hash once on the island. For some reason, I decided the latter approach to be preferable. Biking just seemed like it would be cold and tiring.

While waiting at the bus transfer point I was approached by a deaf panhandler, so I chatted with her for a while. Okay, mainly she signed to me faster than I could follow and I nodded sympathetically and occasionally confessed to not understanding. I think she was just glad to have someone to talk to who didn't think she was drunk or insane. According to what I understood of her recitation, that is а common problems for the deaf.

The conversation attracted the attention of one of my fellow bus passengers, so I had someone interesting to talk to on the ride out to the ferry. He was going to Qualicum Beach to celebrate Christmas. They missed celebrating the real Christmas because everyone was snowed in and couldn't get together. He was going to Nanaimo, so we hung out in the ferry departure lounge, with someone else whom we spontaneously hooked up with, until my ferry came. Island people are more likely to talk to strangers than others. It's a good thing.

The ferry crossing only took a few minutes, then I started to walk the 4.5 km to the geohash. I figures that should take about 36 minutes, so I walked briskly up the road for 36 minutes and then turned on the GPS. Only 600 m to go. That took me up a hill, and around a corner until the GPS needle pointed 90 degrees to the road, in front of a long driveway, with 30 metres to go. I walked up the driveway beside a fenced-in field where two dogs barked enthusiastically at me. As I reached the top of the driveway and the house, the GPS counted down to 3 metres, right at the fence to the backyard.

An occupant of the house came out on the balcony above me and yelled at the dogs to stop barking. "It's me they're barking at," I called out. "Sorry about that." The dogs quieted down and I explained my mission. "May I go into your backyard to take some pictures?"

"Whatever," said the woman magnanimously, contented to have silenced the dogs.

I passed through the fence to point zero on the GPS range and took pictures of it, me, the dogs and oh look, there are llamas. I took pictures of the llamas, too. Then I called out a thank you and returned to the base of the driveway.

It was now about quarter to four. I knew that thepiguy, the other person most likely to turn up at a geohash on a llama farm on an island, was busy this weekend, so it was vanishingly improbable that anyone would join me, but I am a conscientious geohasher and I stay until the appointed four o' clock no matter what. The road was kind of too wet and busy with traffic to chalkmark, so I chalked a brief message on a piece of matting that was sticking out of a snowbank, and passed the time photographing and talking to the llamas and the llama-guarding dog.

Another man approached on foot, but turned into an earlier driveway on the other side of the road. And then I saw two cyclists approaching, up the hill. I watched them approach, and then one stopped in front of the driveway and pointed. "This must be the place," he said. I just stood there, probably with the geohashing trademark grin on my face. When they put two and two together and asked if I was a geohasher, I may have cackled with glee.

And then bafflement. I introduced myself but they showed no recognition. You'd think they might recognize the name of one of the most active geohashers in their graticule, and a very active wiki contributor. And they introduced themselves. Equally blank look from me. It turns out that they were on their very first geohash, do not follow the wiki, and didn't even know that four o' clock on a Saturday is the official meet time. They arrived at 3:55 p.m. by pure coincidence. The world is a great and beautiful place.

Twilightcity and Adrian are geography students. We reconvene at the ferry and then they give me a ride home, during which we discuss subjects such as urban development theory and Communism in France. It was a glorious day. This is the very essence of geohashing. Thepiguy is going to pound his forehead on something when he sees what he missed.

Twilightcity & Adrian

Stay tuned to learn how they found the llama farm, with no batteries.

Photographs

Foot passengers board the ferry through a top-deck gangway.
The ferry crossed to Snug Cove on Bowen Island.
On the way to the geohash I passed some interesting ice formations ...
... but the temperature at the geohash did not qualify me for a frozen geohash achievement, even though the thermomter is lying there in the snow.
I was still smiling, however.
And there were llamas. Are we the first to find llamas at a geohash?
With a llama-protecting dog.
Here are Adrian, Twilightcity and me waiting for the return ferry.


Sat 24 Jan 2009 in Vancouver: 49.3650009, -123.3806584 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox