At least twice a week, sometimes more, my wife Joy and I and a group of dedicated friends paddle outrigger canoes from Gibsons Harbour. We usually get out early in the morning for at least an hour of paddling, and we have the luxury of being able to get this perfect exercise twelve months a year in this idyllic coastal community. Granted, winter can pose its own unique problems with wind, ice in the harbour, and cold fingers and hands. But all that considered, we usually get out at least a few times a month even in winter months of December, January and February.
Of course what happens is, when springtime comes, we who have paddled all winter appreciate the warm weather and bright sunshine perhaps more than most. It was mid April in 2007, at about 7:30 in the morning that such an emotion hit me both as a paddler and an artist. Six of us had left Gibsons Harbour at seven and we’d stopped for a rest break in a little bay at Soames Point. The warm, intense spring sun had risen and for those of us who had paddled through the severity of the winter, this was a time to be savoured. As we visited there in the little bay, allowing the sun to perform its therapeutic duties, the red float beside us caught my eye.
The stark simplicity of the round form, and its brilliant reflection declared that an equally simple painting had to be done. Luckily, I had my camera with me and the detail of the composition was preserved for my later use.
This painting is as intended, a simple study really, but it speaks of our warm and comfortable time there on that little bay at Soames Point on that spring morning of 2007. The rising sun reflected in such splendor is surely a promise of the summer to come. After a long, uncomfortable winter of paddling, the Mooring Ball truly became a sort of crystal ball, a red crystal ball with promises of better paddling conditions to come. Next winter is an irrelevant and distant reality.
