We were pretty smug on Thursday.  The weather was bad and so we stayed home.  Warm and cosy.

But, as Friday was pretty good and we needed a town day, we decided to go out on Saturday.  Weather was OK at depart-from-home time but the overall regional forecast was bad.  Still, off we went.  After we had been loaded onto the ferry and the departure time came and went, I asked the workers as to why we were not leaving.  “Weather.  It’s pretty rough just around the point.  Hard to get into the berth at Campbell River.  But we’ll leave in a minute.  Soon as the captain works up his courage!”

I laughed at the obvious joke and went back to the car.  Sure enough, we left within minutes.  Rounding the point, we experienced all hell breaking loose.  Our ferry pitched and rocked and then it tipped and rolled.  All the way across.  Water sprayed regularly over the hood of our car (we were first in line).  Sal went outside to get a picture but it was too crazy out there.

But the captain berthed that boat like a person placing a robin’s egg back in the nest.  Not a bump.  Bloody brilliant he was!  Confidence inspiring, actually.

We then went about our business.  At the last shop the clerk mentioned that the ferries had stopped running.  We quickly finished up and raced back to the ferry terminal to check it out.  “Well, he may try to get in another run.  He missed the last one but this captain is pretty good.  If he can do it, he will.  Go about your chores and phone me in 20 minutes.  I’ll know by then if he is going to try another run.”

We went to Canadian Tire to buy Sally yet another pair of rubber boots.  I called the ferry terminal.  “Yes!  He is making another run.  Better get back here!”

And so we did.  And the ferry ran.

When we got to the other side, there was a shift change.  We saw the crew leave and the next one take over before we unloaded.  And then we headed home.  We had another ‘crossing to make’ in our own boat but we were confident.  It was wet.  It was crazy.  And making the landing was treacherous.  But we made it.

I was soaked.

Smugness had diminshed somewhat by then.  Not so much because of our own last-leg trip but because we could very easily have been stranded in Campbell River.  In fact, we later learned that the afternoon crew opted to stay put.  Not another run was made that day.  One of our neighbours spent the night in a hotel.  We caught on with two of the few runs made that day and only because the captain on shift was so incredibly capable.

It is easy to be smug when you are warm and cosy at home and making ‘good’ and ‘safe’ and smug-inducing decisions.  It is quite another thing to be sitting in a parking lot waiting for the captain to muster up the confidence to ‘make another run’.

I am going to tone down the smugness a bit.  It can get difficult out here sometimes.  Easy to lose one’s perspective when writing from the warm and cosy.