Stuck
In Seattle
Monday,
August 2, 2004
It
is now day two of my trip. I left Philadelphia yesterday to head to Seattle
where I would catch a small plane and fly to Puget Sound where I will join
others for a week on a sailboat, heading to the Great Bear Ref, above
Vancouver. Yesterday was a day of delayed flights and missed connections.
Today,
I am up and at the airport by 6:45 AM
for my 7:15 AM flight only
to be told that my flight is not until 7:50 . For a non-morning person, these wasted 35
minutes are critical to my wellbeing. But
I suck up the inconvenience for the sake of the journey.
I
no sooner sit down and am informed that our late flight will be delayed until at least 9:00 - DUE TO THE FOG. We are encouraged to go to the Starbucks café
as a pleasant way to pass the time.
Looking around and seeing nothing but ten plastic chairs and a few old
newspapers, I heed the advice and off I go to get ripped off on a cup of
coffee. But at least the atmosphere is
pleasant.
At
9:00 , we are told that we
won’t be leaving until 10. And then at
10, we are told that we will not be leaving until 11. In checking with the ticket agent, I am
assured that we would get there by at least midafternoon as the afternoon sun
tended to burn off the fog.
We
left around noon and it did
not seem to be any less foggy then it was at 7:15 . But
apparently the pilots all went up on the planes and drove around and now
everything seemed to be alright. I am
sure the pressure of half a dozen backed up flights had no bearing on this
decision to throw caution to the wind.
Anyway,
two young members of the crew who looked to be no more than 15 years of age
came down on the dock and pulled on some ropes and glided a small seaplane to
the dock.
Then
a man in sneakers, khakis, and a tee shirt meet me at the dock and introduced
himself as the captain. He looked as if
he was on his way to a picnic. He did
not look as he was professional enough to be my pilot. I want a uniform and a cap and some bars on
the shoulder lapels. This guy was too
casual for my taste. I had no confidence
in him at all. Now, I was a little
nervous.
To
make matters worse, it appeared as if the airport crew did not have any
connection or interest in communicating with the federal aviation agency. There were no walkie-talkies, no conversation
to a control station for permission to take off, and no set protocol for any
flight departure procedures. The fact
that two plane were leaving simultaneously did not seem to be an issue for
anyone but me.
Tom,
my pilot, loaded his three passengers on to our little sea plane and then told
us that we would have to wait as we were too close to the other planes. As soon as one other plane took off, we could
go. The three pilots talked amongst
themselves and then they decided the flight pattern right there. We drew third
place in the lineup.
We
slowly took off in the water and glided over Puget Sound . We were only 300 to 400 feet above sea
level. The fog still had not lifted but
I was still able to see some beautiful sights.
We
were supposed to go to Deer Harbor Inn
first, my destination. But at the very
last minute, the pilot just changed his
flight schedule. That unnerved me a
little bit. We stopped at West Shores
first and then we went to Deer Harbor.
While the unexplained last minute change made me nervous, it was fun to
see the plane take off right in the water.
We
landed in Deer Harbor 1:00 PM , almost a full day later than I had
expected. It is hard to believe I
haven’t left the country and it took so much time to get to this point. I was now over 35 hours in to my journey and
I had just reached my first destination point. Tomorrow, I sail.
