Coal Harbour

Dear Ngurus br Tarigan,
Last Easter (April 2007) Debra and I went for a walk to "Coal Harbour" in Vancouver. We had not seen each other for quite sometime. She lives in Port Coquitlam and commutes to Vancouver to work everyday by "West Coast Express" train. But that day she came in by car, and we went straight to Second Beach in Stanley Park. It was a lovely day.

We went for a long walk to "Canada Place" by way of "Lost Lagoon" and "Coal Harbour". Lost Lagoon is a man made lake, and was used to be part of Burrard Inlet. It was severed when the Causeway was built to connect to Lions Gate Bridge. So the name of "lost" lagoon. Lost Lagoon is now a bird sanctuary for ducks, loons, swans, the endangered blue herons and many other waterfowl creatures. We can also see some Canadian Geese here that are not flying south for the winter. They usually go south for the winter to the States and as far away as to Mexico. I took this photo of the blue heron with telelens, and use the bush as cover. There were used to be raccoons in the bush around the lagoon, but we could not see them anymore. Apparently they have been moved to a safer place. Because there were visitors got bitten by the raccoons. The raccoons look friendly and cute, but can be very dangerous with their sharp claws and teeth. I have seen people fed the raccoons with food whilst others took pictures of them.
Coal Harbour had been busy with high rise condominium constructions for a number of years. But it was the seawall that was constructed first, the promenade for pedestrians and cyclists. Actually it was done so for marketing purposes. People can stroll and enjoy the beautiful scenery along the seawall, and at the same time people could see the attractiveness of the location and would become buyers of the residential condominiums being built. Coal Harbour is a very popular place for strollers now. There are spacious lanes for pedestrians and for cyclists separated by garden beds. There are a lot of benches for people to sit down and enjoy the views. People as well as cyclists were all out in numbers that day to enjoy the good weather. Vancouver has a very good bike routes, starting from Coal Harbour, to Stanley Park, English Bay, Science Centre, Granville Public Market, Kitsilano and right up to UBC, about 40 km long. I do ride my bike a few times in summer to Coal Harbour and Stanley Park. And I plan to do it again this summer, starting from June 22 to September 21.
Many boats tied at the piers at Coal Harbour, privately owned and as well as for rent to visitors to Vancouver. There are also piers reserved specifically for harbour cruises and for ferry to Squamish and Victoria, foot passengers only and no cars.
The seaplane "West Coast Air" is also stationed at Coal Harbour for destinations to Nanaimo, Victoria and other British Columbia coastal regions. You can hear the roar of the seaplanes departures and arrivals every so often. The fleet is using a 6 and 18 passengers DeHavilland twin otter air crafts. Debra and I had a leisure walk and took some pictures along the way.

There are a lot of high rise residential condominiums now completed at Coal Harbour, and the construction activities seemed to be slowing down. Except at the far east end near Canada Place still busy with construction. There is this new Vancouver Convention Centre expansion project not far from the existing one. It is being built over land and water, so foundation need to be built on piles, reportedly up to 1000 of them driven deep into the ground. Those are a lot of piles. Evidently it will cost $700M to built including a cruise terminal, and will triple the convention centre's existing capacity. It will be completed in the spring 2009. And will serve as international broadcast centre for the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver.
Next to this project is the construction of hotels and residential "Fairmont Pacific Rim", 48 floors high, consisting of 415 room hotels, and 175 residences. Apparently the cost of the residences are very expensive from $2.2M-5.9M per unit.
We stopped at Waterfront Centre Mall and had Greek food for lunch. The mall is underground next to Fairmont Waterfront Hotel and Pan Pacific Hotel at Canada Place.
On the way back to the Second Beach, we went for a detour and passed by the West End area where we used to live for the first 6 months upon our arrivals in Canada. It was a penthouse, fancy that, at Haro Street near Cardero. The building was still there, after all these years. It seemed well maintained, because it looked not a day older. We continued to walk to English Bay and checked all the activities on the beach. We probably walked about 15 km altogether that day.
(Top photo): The endangered blue heron.
(Middle): "West Coast Air" sea planes.
(Bottom): The new convention centre, one block away behind us.