Maplewood Flats Conservation Area

The Maplewood Flats conservation area is a wetlands area set aside for wild birds. The site is managed by the Wild Bird Trust Society. The area includes a portion of the foreshore of Burrard Inlet and a forested area filled with native plants. Access to the water is restricted to keep it from being damaged but there are trails through the forest leading to several lovely viewpoints. This is one area where dogs are unwelcome, so come for a pleasant walk but leave the canine at home.

Ralph and I left my place a bit before 11 again this morning and we made our way to our regular confectionary selling caffeinated drugs. Loaded up with the stimulant we started out for Maplewood. Today’s drive was going to be a bit different. I had just updated my car’s software and Telsa gave me a free month of full-self driving (supervised). Being the techie that I am I had to try the feature. So before leaving the parking lot I instructed the navcom to drive to the park and then engaged the self-drive.

The car took over driving and soon was waiting at the end of the parking lot for a spot to pull out onto the highway. It did so flawlessly and was soon heading north on 176th towards highway one. It stopped for the lights, decided that the right lane was going to slow and changed tot the left. As we neared the loop to highway one it moved over to the right lane and followed the loop to the highway. It merged in and then proceeded to migrate left to the HOV lane where it remained until the Cassiar connector. Here it switched lanes to stay in the faster one. Once on the bridge it moved right so it could exit onto Dollarton. Finally, it pulled into the parking lot of the park. At this point I reverted to manual and found a parking spot. It could have done that but a number of stalls were reserved and it can’t read those yet. A bit unnerving but it worked quite well with just a few manual overrides.

Now parked, we went for a walk along the main trail that lead to the shore of Burrard Inlet. Enroute, we stopped to chat with a worker. He didn’t have a clue about ham radio! It was quite surprising to see how little he knew about the whole concept. After explaining a bit of the activity, he seemed quite intrigued. We soon reached the beach and enjoyed a few minutes taking in the beauty. There were a couple of benches here and it was a good spot for setting up an antenna, one of us would operate here. We then crossed a small foot bridge and continued along the trail to the next view point and then a second. This area was a good distance from the first location and Ralph decided he would set up here. We turned back and followed the trail to the car where we loaded our gear into the cart.

Pulling the cart back to the first location I selected a bench that was partially shaded, Ralph continued along to his chosen location. I placed the tripod and though the orientation of the antenna was not ideal it would be good enough. I then erected the antenna and set about organizing my portable table with the radio. Once set up I called Ralph on the hand-held. He was almost set up and so I grabbed my lunch and started eating as I waited for him. Once ready we proceeded to make our ten contacts across ten bands. That took us 12 minutes. Then it was off to calling into the wild, hoping for someone to hear.

There had been a solar flare and disruption to the magnetosphere earlier this morning so that bands were a bit unsettled. I looked and saw no activity on the higher bands and so I settled into 20m. There I heard a few faint stations calling out from parks but only one in California was load enough for me to contact. I then picked a frequency and started my own calling. It took around 5 minutes for my first contact – another park activator from Colorado found me. Signals were weak but we completed the call. A couple minutes later a chap activating a park in Nebraska came by and then a hunter from North Carolina. It was slow but over a half hour period I managed 9 contacts. Meanwhile Ralph managed to find only 3 contacts. He felt it wasn’t worth putting more time into it and we decided to pack up. My final contact was with a chap activating the park across the inlet near Stanley Park! I had worked him there previously from Cates Park. The day enabled us to put in a decent effort and we both quite enjoyed the area and operating in the fresh sea breeze.

Done with radio we loaded our gear into the car and set out for Starbucks which was less than a mile away. Now for the fun part, I told the navcom to drive home and once at the edge of the parking lot I engaged the self driving system. It waited for an opening and started out on the journey. It did quite well. I did tell it to switch lanes on the bridge as the one we were in was held up by a cement truck. The car managed well until it was time to exit onto 176th street. We were in the HOV lane and it seemed to be taking too long to move over to the far-right lane so I disabled the system and zipped across myself and then turned it back on. The system does quite well but it definitely needs to be supervised and overridden at some points.