Soggy Socks Easter Sunday

 

Choose a miserable enough day -- like Easter Sunday -- and you have the West Vancouver seawall almost all to yourself. Photos by John Denniston.

But here's the prize for walking the seawall: the Ferry Building art gallery is finally open after a  years-long renovation. Built in 1913, the one-time ferry terminal has been upgraded and raised to protect it from rising sea levels.

Outside the ferry building, flags wave and cherry trees bloom against a rain-filled sky.

Easter, once a joyous romp of egg-hunting and chocolate-overdosing, can look a little gray at this stage of life. Especially at 7 on a Sunday morning, in the midst of a "long duration rainfall event" expected to dump 20 to 50 mm of rain during the day.

So what did we do? Headed to ultra-rainy West Vancouver for a seawall walk.

Genius, it turned out.

The Stanley Park causeway and Lions Gate Bridge, where fast commutes go to die, were virtually empty. Ditto the seawall. What would have been shoulder-to-shoulder crowds on a sunny Easter Sunday was instead a few indefatigable joggers, and crows and seagulls posing on the rocks.

 Even our treats were available. The holiday hordes hadn’t yet cleared out the chocolate/coffee place where we fuel up for our seawall walks. And we were first in the door for our first look at the renovated Ferry Gallery, a favourite stopping-off point that’s been behind construction fences for three years.

Yes, we did get wet. The wind turned my umbrella inside-out. John’s pants and shoes were so saturated that he was reminded of a miserable motorcycle event he used to attend that was so wet and muddy it was called the Soggy Sock race. We decided this would be our Soggy Socks Easter Sunday.  

But we had our walk, our coffee, our treats, and a glimpse of art in a bright new space. And socks dry out.

Artwork in the newly renovated gallery -- a log with embedded seashells -- was spectacular against the cherry blossoms outside.

The art is by West Vancouver's four siblings, who all work in different mediums.

Hooked rugs depicting rocks and sea urchins are among the art pieces on display.

John's pants below the knees and shoes were saturated with water... 

...but he wasn't as miserable as the guy he photographed in the Soggy Sock motorcycle race in the Fraser Valley in 1986.