OMG! DO NOT miss this experience! (Floatplane to Sechelt)

All good things are three, the saying goes, and after the flight was postponed twice, it finally happened today.  I had had a gut feeling that spending an extra $60 for a plane instead of taking the ferry would somehow be a wise investment by producing beneficial results. Little did I know!  Regarding the monetary aspect, Denise reminded me after arriving in Roberts Creek that due to the "only pay one way" ticket system, the ferry back to Vancouver would be free ;-)

The bus over Lions Gate Bridge and the Skytrain to Vancouver Airport were still pretty routine. Even though I got the driver's seat in the driver-less Skytrain and instantly understood why Londoners refer to their Underground as the tube'.




                                             


Things started changing when I

boarded the Shuttle bus to the South Terminal.  The driver was young, but was 'old-school' Vancouver: calm, down to earth, and pleasant to talk to.  The Flying Beaver Pub at the Richmond Seaplane Terminal (i.e. the river) was a very pleasant surprise as well. The fabulous view and surroundings on can expect when sitting on a stilted structure at the banks of a river.  But a fabulous dish of mussels in chorizo/coconut sauce at a very very decent price were another surprise.
 




The security check was non-existing, a relief after I had told one of the security people at the main terminal once, after he used the words "It's OK, Sir" to try to guide me through those pylon&tape people-directing corridors with the words "No, it's not OK. I am not cattle!"

A certain amount of limberness is required

One of the hopes I had had when booking a flight to Sechelt was that it would be in a small plane, smaller than the 18 seater with two window and one middle seat per row that I had taken to Victoria around 10 years ago.

Grandpa would have loved this!

The young bearded  person guiding us along the pier to the floatplanes was another 'old-school' example. No hype, no iPhone juggling, no nonsense ;-)  Only split seconds before I put my finger in the air and screamed 'Me, Me!' in answer to the question of who would want to sit in the front next to him, did it dawn on me that this was the pilot. The first time I saw a cockpit was when I was travelling with my grandfather to Canada in a Jumbo Jet as they were called then at age 15. My grandfather went to the cockpit to ask whether I would be permitted to have a look inside. The request was granted. Hard to imagine these days!

Take-off

While the other two passengers in the back were left to protect their hearing with supplied earplugs, I donned the offered pair of headphones hanging on the wall. Being the old-school type, they very effectively kept out the plane's noise and as an added bonus I got to listen in to the air-traffic control channel communicating with our and other pilots. After puttering along the river for a few minutes, we took off heading West.

I instantly was reminded of the joys and odd side effects of 'real' flying.  In the cattle transports of commercial airlines all the passenger experiences is up, down, left turn, right turn, and some turbulence of hard to guess direction if one is unlucky.  In these little things, your butt or your gut tells you that you're going straight ahead but the plane is rotating about an axis extending vertically through your upper body. I'm sure there is a professional term for this (yaw?) but I don't experience it often enough to remember. Now imagine the above translation and rotation movements in all 3(6?) possible axes and directions.  Within small limits it actually is fun. Add to that views you can't get from the ground and you can't get from a commercial passenger plane. A selection:

Yes, that is how some digital cameras render propellers

The Red Baron cometh

The pilot pointed out two white islands just before Sechelt, one of which apparently is a popular hang-out for sea lions. It did not look like any were in attendance today, but when we came closer we saw that about 20 of them were present; just a bit hard to see because they were dry and thus a light colour. And I finally overcame another ESL hurdle: Every sea lion is a seal (pinniped), but not every seal is a sea lion ;-)




The landing in Purpoise Bay in Sechelt was one of those soft landings that you'd never think seaplanes are capable of. Hans, half of the owners of Stevens Creek Guest House (opening SOON) in Roberts Creek, was already waiting at the pier to pick me up.