flying home

Okay, here is our journey from Sidney, BC on the west coast of Canada to Nassau, and eventually into Marsh Harbour, Abacos, Bahamas and home.

Two of the longest days on record!!

We departed Sidney (technically YYJ, or Victoria International Airport) and the sky was crying at our departure.

By the way, that’s the entire terminal in the background. One of the most sane on this earth.

We took off straight down Beacon Avenue, the main drag in Sidney!

And I got to wave goodbye to all my favourite stores. And bakeries, restaurants and cafes.

Over Canada and the US – hugging the border. This was shot as we headed over Lake Superior.

We flew into the sunset as we approached Toronto.

It was dark when we landed. This was the longest flight (not quite 4.5 hours) but the most reasonable in terms of sitting in airports – we really didn’t have to do it more than an hour at the gate.

I’d booked a room in the Sheraton at the WestJet gate to make our lives a little easier, and I’d hoped it would mean more sleep time.

But I don’t sleep the first night in a hotel! I had three baths and finally slept around 3:30am, but we had to be up by 5am. Oh well.
Cool – we did get to take the monorail to Terminal 1 and the Air Canada gate for the trip to Nassau.

And there’s about where the exhaustion set in! It is just under three hours from Toronto to Nassau, but I tried to sleep as much as I could. I also didn’t have the window seat so – no photos of that trip. I have many others from previous trips in case I need one!

We landed at noon in Nassau and had a four-hour sit. This is where I passed out sitting up but slumped over. OW. And had the bad Wendy’s burger. And paid for it. I suffered and prayed we’d get home to Hope Town as soon as possible. And Sky Bahamas had a 45-minute delay, making it about a five-hour sit.

Ugh!

We did get home in time to make the last ferry into Hope Town. If you miss it – you have to charter a ferry or call a charter service to come and get you. We made it with a few minutes to spare, thanks to our lovely taxi driver, Sherilee.

And that’s about where the snafu with our one suitcase happened – Rudi actually had left it at Sky Bahamas in Marsh Harbour – just a 20-minute ferry ride away. We spent Sunday morning trying to locate it on Hope Town, and then got an email from Sky telling us they’d put it on the ferry for us. Thank goodness – and thanks Sky Bahamas!

No shots of home on Saturday night. We crashed. We tried to find Sunday television shows on Saturday night. We snacked and passed out. We needed that!

But here’s one weary traveller.

And another.

They both were SO well-behaved I was totally impressed.

My gratefuls – That I don’t have to fly anywhere for quite a while. That I have down time to try to recover from this trip – am I getting old or something? That I keep sleeping and waking, sleeping and waking. I think the sleeping part is healthy. And that we’re home!

~ by photokunstler on 24 October 2011.