Here the challenge is interesting. In French we say ‘Dans les petits pots, les meilleurs onguents’… ‘In the small pots, the best ointments’. I’m now facing this challenge. I already did the major part of the van renovation on the Sienna but I believe it can still be enhanced significantly. As I will use it, the next step will be to think about ideas on how to build more camping comfort. Of course, I will try to put a bit of soul around it and make it deserve the ‘swim van’ appellation.

But apart from carrying my swimming gear and bringing me to many swimming spots, there are at least two things that link ‘swim van’ to the swimming and open water world. The first and most simple one is the ‘hook’. Believe it or not, the van came with a factory goggles hook put over the right sliding door. I guess you could probably hook any other stuff there but to me it’s a goggles hook. I bet there is a full chapter about the goggles hook in the owner’s manual. Also, the van came in white with ‘blackish’ tinted windows. By adding just a few accessories like a black protection bra on the hood and a black cargo box on the roof you get the perfect killer whale on the road. I didn’t picture this one right away. It came on a funny way only about a month after I bought the van. One day, I’ll tell the story.

The first move I made was taking off the rear seats. It was then easier to plan and layout the space. Some simple but important details had to be thought ahead. The layout according to the spare wheel location is one of them.

Right at the back, there is a spot where bins can be stacked. From Monday to Friday, my carpentry tools will be set there. During the weekends, tools will be swapped with camping and swimming gear. Behind the driver’s seat, I made a cabinet where I hide my mountain bike. The space left is the living and sleeping area. At the back, there is a folding table where I can have a bite or where I can sit and plan my next trip. The camping chair I use can easily be dismantled and stored. Having a small fridge would be awesome and I will also look at a set up that could take place outside, behind the van, where I could cook. Once opened, the hatchback could provide a bit of protection against the rain or the sun while cooking. I will eventually have a roof rack where I can put one or two cargo box so the inside of the van stays clean and is not filled with all the gear. The van is easy to park and cheap on gas for a six cylinders. Et voilà! Let’s try to prove it soon… ‘Dans les petits pots, les meilleurs onguents’.

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Buying a vehicle is interesting. It seems like the interaction with the person from who you buy is also part of the deal. The first van I tried looked like a super deal. A Sienna 2001 with only 105 000 km. The motor was so clean. It looked brand new. Almost too good to be true. The counterpart came quickly when I was told that the road test could only happen within the boundaries of the Mall parking lot where we met. On top of that, it is with great hesitation that the owner answered ‘oh heuuuu, around two or three years’ when I asked for how long he’s been owning the vehicle. But my experience dealing with the owners was progressively getting better. At the end of the day, I was almost ready to buy the third van, the one I haven’t tried. It was a Sienna 2000 XLE, the top model. The motor has been changed. The new one had apparently 139 000 km on it. Belts were all new. The asking price seemed fair. The van was clean and rust free and the remarkably friendly owner made the shopping quite interesting. A road test would be the next step then the inspection by a mechanic and there we go… I have a van. So, I slept on this idea.

There is an expression in French that I like and it happened to be true several times: ‘La nuit porte conseil’. Literally you would say ‘The night (or a good sleep at night) brings you advices’. Waking up the next morning, I had this little doubt growing in my mind. Despite the fact that the motor had low mileage and the van was rust free, the body itself had quite a bit of mileage (over 350 000 km). I kept thinking about a transmission failure that could occur anytime. Also, the idea of having everything electric (sliding door and sunroof included), as it was the XLE model, was not so appealing to me. I like simple things. The second van I tried suddenly became my first choice but I had the feeling that I should try at least one more so I could have something to compare with and see if the asking price was fair.

On Sunday, I looked at the fourth van. Nice people… but the van wasn’t as nice as them and as you could read in the ad. So, on Monday I decided to go back and have a second look at what became my first choice, a white Sienna CE 2002, the basic model. I would’ve liked to have the roof rack but figured that I could deal with that later. I made an offer, we discussed a bit and finally sealed a deal. I got it checked by a mechanic that same day. The next evening, I was leaving the Mainland with the van that, hopefully, would help me travel trouble free into the next chapter: visiting, swimming and camping on the Canadian West Coast in search of great swimming spots in the Salish Sea.

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I ended up at the hospital with a double fracture on the pelvis and a compression fracture on vertebra L1. The heavy beam could have followed me and crush many more bones. Thinking of it now, six months after the accident, I consider myself lucky; I’m still alive and my recovery seems to follow the happy path. But the number of reasons to feel lucky grows every day. This little incident makes me appreciate more ‘who’ I have. What I have is not so important. I first want to thank my close family: my partner Lucie, my kids Élyse and Samuel and my parents. Like a good spine, they’ve always been very supportive. I also want to thank my coworker Paul and his family. They kindly shared their house with me for over a month so I could have a safe nest for the first stage of my recovery. Thanks to Kristy who generously opened the doors of her sweet little home in Nanaimo, where I could recover peacefully. Thanks to Brenda, a great swimming sister, who helped me discover the beauties of Nanaimo and its surroundings. Coming from the Mainland, I was lucky to have both Brenda and Kristy helping make my recovery a much more interesting experience. Many thanks to all my friends around (some of them named The Cliffers) whose presence and supportive messages have been so important. Special thanks to Daniela and Don who lent me their sweet suite when I needed it most. Merci à Grant who generously gave me a La-Z-Boy so I could recline, relax and recuperate. Thanks to our health care system and to the medical support, from the ambulance driver to every specialist involved in my case. Thanks also to my therapists Angelina, Janice and John.

I improved a lot since I first started physiotherapy and January 30 will be my last day in the Back to Work Program, a four hour a day program from Monday to Friday where I work on body strength and flexibility. Part of it also includes simulation of movements and tasks required by my job.

As a carpenter, I want to make sure that my coming back won’t be another sad story. So I decided to take a few more weeks by myself to try to gain every little bit of extra strength and endurance I could. Doing what my body and mind like to do will be the plan. Let’s go swimming! Swimming opportunities on the Island are great. There is not more pools than anywhere else but ocean swimming spots are countless. So I decided that, in order to make the training more enjoyable, I was going to stick with salt water. To make it even more fun and useful, I’m planning to visit a new spot every day. Therefore, this scouting along the 49th parallel will help find new interesting playgrounds for our Swim book.

This is where the Swim Van Project begins. I now own a Toyota Matrix which is a nice little car but having a van would allow me to camp around more comfortably. We’ll see how it goes but here is the plan. I’m now in a shopping mode. After doing a bit of research, the Toyota Previa was my first choice but they’re older vehicles and there are not so many around. Availability with the Toyota Sienna is greater so I might go with this one. A van between years 2000 and 2003 should be affordable enough to suit my budget. There is many more choices on the Lower Mainland so the challenge is to keep my Matrix to get around easily, find the right Sienna then sell the Matrix as soon as possible to get a bit of travelling money.

The inside renovation of the van will be the second step. Taking out all the rear seats then looking at the most efficient way to get some storage and living space out of it. I might as well kill two birds with one rock by thinking ahead and building a compartment for my tools. The van will also be useful for my job when I go back. Furthermore, this small building project seems to be a good way to slowly get myself into a real ‘go back to work’ mode. However, there won’t be any fussiness around this refit as the main plan is to gain the most out of the swimming training.

I will keep you posted on what’s coming…

À bientôt!

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