Vancouver

We arrived in Vancouver Tuesday morning at 5am. Very hazy and smelling of smoke. I spent the day on the ship, watching the port operations and reading my book. At dinner I met the new passenger, a French woman who is going to Pusan, Korea. She told me we are not leaving until Thursday, so I decided to go ashore today. First I had to get the captain's permission. When this was accomplished I went to the ships office to get a Xerox of my passport (all passports must remain on the ship) and sign out. They said, "climb down the gangway and find a stevedore to call you a shuttle." I climbed down but no one was around. I walked around until I saw a suv to flag down. He said to wait by the gangway so I went back to the ship. Eventually another SUV came but they were mostly concerned about a net hanging over the side of the ship that had gotten snagged. I got in and waited for them to solve the problem. Then I was driven to the port gate where I showed my ID and signed out. Whew.

After that I started having fun. I walked through Chinatown and downtown to Stanley  Park. I spent several hours walking around this huge beautiful park. It felt really good after 3 days on the ship.

The original plan was to sail from Vancouver to Yokohama, but now it seems we are going to Los Angeles before crossing the Pacific. More fun. It turns out that when at sea I can take walks on the cargo deck where I can go in a straight line for a long time. That will be nice.

I probably won't be posting pictures for a while because on the ship I need to buy internet by the megabyte.

Ahoy ahoy.