While fierce westerly winds can turn Georgia Street and other down¬town corridors into freezing funnels or tunnels, these moody currents also provide for great sailing in Burrard Inlet and English Bay, and kite-flying in spacious Vanier Park on Kitsilano Point. A fine place to hang about in its own right, on a nice windy day this waterfront park attracts a bevy of flyers, from experts who handle multiple kites that perform like high-flying flocks of birds to beginners with lum¬bering quasi-windsocks.
Kites — from functional to decorative — can be had at Kites on Clouds (‘3’ Water Street, Gastown, 604-669-5677) and Kites and Puppets in the Kids Market (1496 Cartwright Street, Granville Island, 604-685-9877). Here — among a wonderful jumble, much of it somehow suspended — longtime proprietor Sally Fontana includes workable kites shaped like a sailing ship or a hummingbird in flight.
|
