Travelling to Victoria (on Vancouver Island) and return to Vancouver then on to Winnipeg.

The 90 minute ferry crossing from Tsawwassen on the mainland to Swartz Bay/ Sidney on Vancouver Island went very quickly, in fact too quickly. Polie was very patient and posed for lots of photographs balanced on the ferry winches and other places he was not allowed to be. Then I got involved in chatting to Ray, a British guy who had been an active mountaineer in his younger days and had climbed with many of the early Everest Expedition members. He was also a retired aircraft engineer with British Airlines and shared some wonderful stories. Everyone knows I love interesting stories. Well he was almost finished a yarn about his days as the "flying spanner " on the flight deck of the earlier Boeing aircraft and recounted a practical joke the captain and second officer had played on him in his earlier days. The captain had gone for a walk and the second officer was on watch when he complained to Ray that the joystick seemed a bit stiff and needed some attention. Ray continued reading his paper and ignored the request until finally he gave in and seated himself in the captain's chair and knowing the autopilot was still engaged started to adjust the chair to his requirements. In doing this he unknowingly bumped the autopilot switch to the off position just before he gave the stick an enormous pull back to see how sticky it really was. With this, the aircraft started a steep climb and the "not interested in this whole matter" look on Rays face suddenly changed to one of absolute shock. The second officer could no longer hide the joke and the captain appeared from the first class lounge and all had a big laugh. Not sure what the 300 passengers were told.
At this stage I looked around and discovered that the previously crowded ferry was empty and we were about to make landfall. My large backpack was securely locked in a bus down on deck 2 and I was up on deck 6 and all busses were revving their engines to race each other off the ferry deck. I bounced down all the steep stairs and sprinted the full length of deck 2 past 15 busses and dozens of trucks with about 600mm clearance between the bus side and the ferry wall. It was a sort of crab like sprint with my daypack on my back. My bus was in position two with the first bus just pulling out as I arrived. I banged on the bus door to stop my bus pulling out and the driver opened the door and asked to see my ticket. After a few seconds of fumbling I was relieved to find it and took my position in the last seat remaining on the bus. A close call!!
Keiko and Hiroshi (13 months old) were waiting to meet me, which was a great feeling. I last saw Keiko and Bill when they stayed the night in out 5th wheel in a Vancouver campground in early 2002 on the start of our Alaska road trip.
It was now 9am and the start of Tuesday 30th September the day I left Sydney. Home for a wake up coffee and refreshing shower then off for a walk. The neighbours in their apartment block were ever so generous as many of them provided me with free WiFi for my laptop It was a hard job to choose which one to use so I shared it around.
Bill arrived home and we walked to downtown Victoria for a wood fired pizza. I was keen to go to bed at 11pm after surviving 36 hours on the go that seemed to fix the jet lag, as I was wide-awake Wednesday. Bill took the day off work to show me around. This was the second day of work he has missed in 3 years. The other being one day off for the birth of Hiroshi. I was being very well looked after.
Thursday it was back on the bus/ferry/bus for the four hour commute to Vancouver and a connection to Winnipeg. It was raining so Polie couldn't go outside. We both sat and updated our blog and chatted to a tour group from NZ. They spoke very good English and were easier to understand than the Canadians. I set my alarm as I was determined to be first back on the bus this time. On the way down from level 6 I started counting the vehicles on levels 4, 3, and 2. I ran out of fingers and toes but did notice two sets of three lanes on each level with on average 16 to 18 cars per lane. That seems like a big number. First maths assignment question. There also seemed to be hundreds of walk on passengers.
I had allowed myself 3 hours to make the air connection which was a good move considering the ferry was quite late docking and I had to tackle the auto check in. It was ALL auto with no option to go the easy way. There was no one around to assist so I stood and watched others sail through the process. The machine didn't recognise my Passport on several attempts. I didn't seem to have any of the correct numbers it required on my eTicket so I thought I would try typing in my surname. I thought there couldn't be too many other Oughtred's travelling today. I was right! Bingo, out popped my luggage tag followed by my boarding pass. Who needs humans? Bet that's one of the ideas the DET thought about when they introduced the concept of the connected classroom. I did wonder where I would end up and hoped that where ever it was that my backpack went the same way.
Thought I would hunt around for another free WiFi hot spot, as I wasn't all that keen to pay the airport asking price of CAD5 for 10 minutes. How much can I type with one finger in 10 minutes I asked myself? I found one and checked email then Skype. Steve Rawlinson was up at 5am Sydney time (it was now noon local time) writing his reports or so he was saying. We had a long look at each other pulling faces but no sound. We texted back and forth pulling more faces until my daughter Sarah Skyped me so I dumped Stephen. They were all pretty sleepy at Avalon and wanted to go back to bed. I then tried Marcos Netto in Canoas RDS Brazil. We had a great chat and it was like he was next to me. 5pm there his time. Then it was Fred B Jones an American friend who is getting married in Krakow Poland in a few weeks. It was 10pm in Krakow. Polie waved at everyone in the webcam and I was wondering what all the other poor diners thought about me talking into a computer and pulling faces. Oh what the heck, I probably wont see them again.
I was going to strike up a conversation with the guy sitting next to me on the plane with "are you going to Winnipeg too" but thought my time would better spent updating my blog. So here it is. 30 minutes until we land but there has been yet another time shift, time moves forward two hours. My poor body. The ice crystals are getting bigger in the window I am looking out of. This flight has been 1865 Km.