Preface
A dream to sail around the world.
On my own, yet unbuilt, sailboat, of course.
See my next projects at http://sailboat.creatica.org and http://beruta.creatica.org/.
I had been living in Vancouver for three years, sailing Georgia Straight on weekends but couldn't afford to take a boat for longer voyages; for example, around Vancouver Island. Repetitive sailing from False Creek on Granville Island to Snug Cove on Bowen Island had soon become boring.
I wanted my own boat. I had almost convinced Tania to buy one instead of a house. Living on a boat didn't appeal to her very much, especially with young kids.
Many people do spend their lives on a boat in BC. I wish I could too.
Besides Tania's concerns there was another one. A boat is not a real estate. No bank would give you a mortgage with 10% down payment. Taking this more serious barrier into considerations, the idea of building a boat myself didn't seem too distant after all.
After driving all over Greater Vancouver, looking for a piece of land for a sailboat and possibly a house construction, I had become quite desperate. I would have been working to pay out the land, and only the land...
Despite all the benefits of building on Pacific shore in British Columbia with its numerous marinas, ship yards and suppliers, the prohibitive cost of a building site had prevailed.
Luckily, a job opportunity in Edmonton, AB had arisen and I moved from the Beautiful British Columbia to the Wild Rose Country, Alberta.
The first stage in building a house, before I even had started looking for a place to build, was studying the Building Code of Alberta.