It was a perfect day for a helicopter ride. Cloudless sky. Friendly staff in the easy-to-handle Ogden Point heliport. A bit expensive, but we had decided to treat ourselves on the first leg of a holiday journey scheduled to waft us from Victoria to Vancouver's cruise-ship terminal without the hassle of large - or even medium - airports.
We could have caught a bus from Victoria to right alongside the cruise ship, but that would have required early planning and advanced decision-making, and trembling on the edge of dotage we're not quite up to speed in those departments. By the time we got around to phoning Pacific Coach Lines, all seats on their two cruise-ship bus service were sold.
So there we were on a bright October morning, waiting for liftoff and the immediate spectacular views of Victoria's waterfront, Beacon Hill Park, sweeping over the Victoria Golf Club's verdant sea of green, Willows, Cadboro Bay and on up the coast and across the Gulf Islands. And we wondered out loud why we were leaving all this beauty behind.
It was a question soon answered as we swung across the Strait and the blue skies vanished behind thick, low slung cloud that looked Island-bound with a promise of rain. We stayed in the murk for 10 or 15 minutes before eventually popping out over English Bay with its neatly marshalled lines of deep-sea freighters waiting to load - or maybe unload - then a final sweep past Lions Gate Bridge and Stanley Park to touchdown.
The HeliJet free shuttle whipped us dockside in double-quick time. Smugly, we noted that although we had left home some 90 minutes after the Victoria "cruisers" travelling by bus, we would be checked in and in our cabin before they got off the ferry. The fact that it cost four or five times as much to "chopper" was eliminated as unworthy of holiday thinking.
Checking in for a cruise isn't difficult, although there's a lot of hanging about, papers and passports to be shown, photographs taken, cabin card keys to be issued. The card opens your cabin door - and your wallet, as you use it on board instead of cash.
By lunch we are aboard the MS Vaandam, unpacked, have found the Lido deck where food is abundantly available and have ordered emergency shipwreck supplies for delivery to our stateroom. One never knows when Scotland's greatest contribution to the comfort of humankind may be needed at sea.
This is our fourth cruise, but a little different from the others in that it offers a 14-day round trip from Vancouver with day or longer stops in Los Angeles, Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta, San Diego and San Francisco.
We leave on time, cross the always-busy harbour, sail under the great bridge we had passed over a couple of hours earlier, then with a slow swing port head south in search of the sun we had left in Victoria. A few hours later, a mass of lights in the starboard dark side mark Victoria.
We sleep soundly. When morning dawns we are standing well out to sea. It is grey and cold. No sun. A day to wander the ship, to sit and read, to read and nap. In the evening we dine formally, my favourite blue blazer modest among black or white dinner jackets. Sleep soundly again, and rise to the smell of coffee and muffins delivered to the cabin - a most civilized way to start a day.
On deck, the sharp edge has left the breeze as we sail a day and night to Los Angeles, docking without even a bump at 7 a.m. - an hour before another day starts with a polite knock on the cabin door and the morning coffee and more fresh-baked muffins arrive.
We ignore the offer to take a bus tour and look at movie star footprints in a sidewalk somewhere, choosing instead a long onshore walkabout and a viewing of fountains in a nearby park which dance in spectacular form to classical music. Then it's back to the ship to continue our meander south to Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo. I'll update you next week, as my mother used to say - "God willing."
