A trying day to Saltspring

After a tough first day to Port Alberni, we assumed that the trip to Saltspring Island would be significantly easier, despite the 140km distance.

Boy were we wrong.

The road might have been easier, but problems throughout the day delayed us significantly. We were expecting to catch the 4:30pm ferry out of Crofton and have a nice relaxing evening at Brian's grandparents. Instead, we scrambled to catch the latest ferry out at 8:10pm, making it in the nick of time, and avoiding having to knock on doors to beg for lawnspace.

We got on the road at 7:30am, after a good stay in Port Alberni. Our first problems started when we took a few minutes to check our tire pressure. Some of them were a bit low, but it shouldn't take long, right? Wrong. I ended up snapping a pin and had to replace the tube entirely. It was a sign of things to come.

Following a 411m climb out of Port Alberni, we proceeded to use up about 8-9 tubes over the course of the day. Mike burned through all but two of them, obviously something wrong with his bike, but we had no choice with no bike shops around (we're getting it checked out tomorrow). This forced us to continually push back our expected ferry arrival...and we thought the last ferry out of Crofton was at 7:10.

It came to a point where we had to push really hard for about 60 km trying to catch the 7:10 ferry. When we were finally on the road there, still with about 15km to go, we realized that we would need to have our strongest legs gun it all the way there, trying to plead to stall the ferry so that the others could get on when they caught up. Having not carried a trailer thus far in the two days and feeling up to it, I took off and sped away, all but sprinting full out to get there.

I told myself that I would keep the hard pace up until 7:15pm, hoping to catch some good fortune. Despite my best efforts, the ferry was not marked, so I completely blew past the turn, going about 5km past Crofton. Exhausted, and realizing I was in the completely wrong spot, I called the others to discover they were at the ferry...and that the last one was actually at 8:10!

Now exhausted, out of water and snacks, and stiffening up after the stop, I had 35 minutes to backtrack, take the correct turnoff, and continue to the ferry. It was excruciating, but I managed to make it with 10 minutes to spare and we got on. Thank goodness the boys had some snacks and chocolate milk waiting...lifesaver.

We're heading into Vancouver tomorrow, a short ride, with a stay at Pat's house for the night. Hopefully it's less eventful than today was!
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