The West Coast Trail - Victoria Secrets

Ryan is off hiking, and not available for "live" updates. Therefore, in the spirit of helpfulness and camaraderie, I (wassamatta_u) have volunteered to keep the AtlasQuest community apprised of his progress. Mr. Tortuga has been updating me with his progress via text messages, and I have taken it upon myself to expand his necessarily brief statuses (stati?) into a somewhat more reader-friendly format. And so, without further ado, I present to you the completely accurate and truthful (as far as you know) Adventures of the Green Tortuga!

Well, I made it. Not exactly sure where I am at the moment, but you know what they say: wherever you go, there you are! Hopefully, once daybreak comes and the swelling goes down, I will be able to reorient myself and find where I need to be. But I am getting ahead of myself! Let me go back, and start from the beginning...

As noted in my previous blog, my plan was to start my trip with a bit of a nautical adventure aboard the Victoria Clipper, sailing from Seattle to Victoria BC. That was the plan. Emphasis on was. In a misguided attempt to make sure everything went according to plan, I had called ahead to the Victoria Clipper to make reservations. I should have suspected something was amiss when the woman who answered sounded downright insulted when I asked her such basic seafaring questions as "How large are you, stem to stern?", "What is your load capacity?", and "Has your hull ever been breached?" After a brief series of screams and legal threats, she handed the phone off to her manager, whereupon I hastily made my reservations and jotted down the address.

I should also have realized that things were not as they seemed when I headed out to the given address and noticed it was nowhere near the waterfront. Turns out, I had inadvertently googled Victoria's Clippers, a high-end hair salon. Not one to waste a good coiffing opportunity, I eagerly agreed to honor my appointment - I figured I still had plenty of time to get to Victoria by this evening! In retrospect, perhaps this was not the best idea.

My stylist's name was Spike. Or at least, that's what it sounded like over the droning whir of a dozen hair dryers. The ambient noise made communication a rather difficult thing. It went something like this...

Spike (yelling over din): How would you like your hair?
Me (similarly shouting): I hadn't given it any thought. Let me mull it over, Spike.
Spike: WHAT? Speak up!
Me: Not sure, let me mull it over, Spike.
Spike: HUH?
Me : MULL IT OVER, SPIKE!!
Spike: OK, GOTCHA!

It wasn't until I looked in the mirror, that I realized, in horror, just how devastating poor communications can be. Yes, it's true. I got a Mullet with a Spike.

Me (still yelling): Aaaargh!
Spike (loudly): Yes you are right, it IS "Talk Like a Pirate Day"...
Me: Not "Arrrr"... "Aaaaarrrgh". Note the difference in the "g" sound at the end.
Spike: Ahhhh
Me: No. Aaaaargh. You see, I am supposed to be hiking the West Coast Trail and Juan de Fuca.
Spike: Oh, yes, I see your backpack. But who are you warning of what?
Me: Huh? I'm going on the West Coast Trail to Juan de Fuca.
Spike: Right. But what are you warning him about? And why so hostile to him?
Me: Who? What?...ohhh.... no, JUAN de FUCA, not WARN the ... well, never mind...

Realizing that the comedy potential for the "haircut scene" was drawing quickly to a close, I paid for my mullet (though I realized I would be paying for it for weeks), and left Spike with what I considered a fairly hefty tip (seven AQ pencils). It was off to the waterfront for me!

The real Victoria Clipper was just pulling away from the dock when I arrived. I quickly sized up the situation (it basically came down to: "uh-oh!"), and decided on a brilliant course of action ("run!"). The brilliant course of action ("run!") was immediately followed by a masterful bit of athleticism ("jump!"), which abruptly became an anticipated result ("splat!"). I landed on the freshly scrubbed deck, face first, and slid a good 10 yards before coming to a rather sudden stop against a bulkhead. Truth be told, my inevitable concussion COULD have been a lot worse, were it not for the protective barrier of my Spiked Mullet. As it was, I was merely unconscious for the remainder of the boat trip, with very little permanent damage. The one real downside of my catatonic state, was that a thread of my new hand-sewn backpack (remember that? I was sewing my own backpack?) had somehow snagged on the pier as I was leaping, and in my comatose state, this simple fact eluded me.

So here I am, somewhere in or about Victoria, British Columbia. The crew of the Victoria Clipper kindly escorted me (in a somewhat airborn manner) off the side of the ship somewhere along the coast, and the envigorating waters of the Inner Harbour roused me into an immediately alert state. I waded to shore, my ever-shrinking backpack in hand, and set up camp. I figure I MUST be near Victoria, since by my calculations, there were about 108 miles of thread that had methodically unwound from my backpack (when you hand-sew a project like this, you get to know these things), and that should put me within a mile or two of my destination. Ah well, if worse came to worst, I knew I could find my way back to Seattle by following the thread, in an Ariadne-like way. So until tomorrow, when hopefully I will make it to the trailhead in time for my "orientation class"... Happy Trails!

--Ryan



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