Happily settled in now in Burnaby, playing with grandchildren, forgetting all about the Very Long Day we had. I wrote this on the ferry:

Here we are at last, on the 12:30 sailing from Departure Bay to Horseshoe Bay. We arrived at the terminal at 9:30 this morning, in plenty of time for the 10:30 sailing, but when that boat arrived it had a leaky water pipe. BC Ferries engineers tried to fix it, but they became concerned that there might be contamination by black water, so they cancelled the sailing and we sat here in the line-up, waiting for the 12:30.

We had both been looking forward to brunch on the ferry, and we were quite hungry, so we went inside the new mini-mall. I think it's called Nanaimo Quay. Anyway, when we got inside we discovered that BC Ferries obviously hadn't expected many people to be hanging around in there. It was very crowded. Food opportunities consisted of Starbucks, a pizza-by-the-slice place, and Frankie's BBQ. We opted for hot dogs from Frankie's. After “brunch”, we returned to the Turtle and played rummy until it was time to board.

We got just a little snarly when the man directing traffic onto the boat stopped us and made us wait while all the cars loaded, including the ones that had arrived for the 12:30 sailing. However, we did get on, and I believe we're under way – though it's hard to tell from inside the motor home, on the lowest deck, up against an interior wall. There's lots of engine noise, for sure. I woke up at 4:15 this morning, so I'm really not feeling up to climbing all the stairs to the passenger deck. Maybe a nap first, then upstairs for a cup of tea.

Some time before noon, I called Jane to tell her my tale of woe, and she said “This, too, shall pass.” She was right.