I left Vida, Sam, Gemma, Erin, Natalie, Billie, Josh and Greg among others on Salt Spring Island and took a ferry over to Vancouver Island. I then had to suffer another interrogation at the border, along with the usual “you don’t look much like your photo” (“yes I agree I do have a beard and longer hair these days, it’s funny what that can do to one’s appearance” I didn’t reply) before being finally, and grudgingly, let back into the (U) states (of A). My next ferry arrived in the Aleutian Islands and so I then had an evening ride up to Bellingham, where I stayed with Mike, Courtney, Tim and Rocky. Tom arrived a couple of days later, on the 20th. We had a big reunion hug, then made our way to the bargain store, then the liquor store and then the ferry terminal.
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There is no direct ferry to Anchorage and so we got a ticket to Ketchican. We were sleeping out on deck and with our case of beers and two litres of rum made quick friends. Among the group we made were Andy, Steve, Nick, Kellie, Kate, Rochelle, Rishana, Bill and Amanda. That’s not to say that everyone liked us. For example there was the guy that would have preferred if we could have been a little quieter or further away, and he felt that strongly because one time he said “I’ll fuck you up” (sorry mum but it is true). There was also the guy who objected to my objection to his assertion that there is no such thing as an atheist. He was further peturbed at my refusal to read the book of John and walked out in a huff at the mention of evolution. Then we heard through the grapevine that we were officially on our third strike, although by then we had already passed Ketchican anyway and so were traveling for free. Our second strike had come when we were caught drinking alcohol, although forutnately we had in fact just finished the rum and the last of the beers so the guards probably felt foolish taking away our empties.
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Tom and I got off the ferry in Juneau, and followed some of our new friends to a campsite. It was still early in the morning and so we hiked up to Mendenhall Glacier, which was awesome. I think we had hotdogs for tea that night and were back on the ferry the next afternoon. Both ferry journeys were spectacular and we saw lots of whales and dolphins, including killer whales (which are actually false killer whales here, which are actually dolphins anyway). Of course I lost my battery charger on the last ferry and so wasn’t taking any photos of them; Tom was struggling with the delay on his camera and has a number of cracking shots of the waves.
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We arrived in Whittier this morning, which is as close as you can get to Anchorage on the ferries. We had been told repeatedly that bikes weren’t allowed in the tunnel between Whittier and Anchorage but it got annoying and so we didn’t listen anymore. The only train leaves once a day, we would have had to have waited 12 hours for it and paid $80 each and anyway we didn’t want to. Just as we were leaving an Australian made one last attempt to refrain us, he told us it was absolubtly forbidden, impossible. We asked him if there were guards and he was silenced. We rode, following the motorcyclists, steering to the right of the CCTV camera.
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Of course the answer is yes there are guards, and about 80 CCTV cameras. On arriving on the other side of the tunnel we were greeted with a flashing light, then taken in silence to the “no cyclists” sign. We responded with silence, unsure really. The guard then said “it doesn’t matter, you made it through OK”. I don’t think we gave that Aussie our website address but if we did – told you so.
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So today we rode in to Anchorage, it was a great ride and we had a huge tail wind the entire way. We plan to stay here for another day and then will begin our ride. Mike and Courtney (see paragraph 1) are getting married in August and invited Tom and me to the wedding. It is on August 9th and is near Seattle. We really hope to make it, which will be about 2,200 miles in 6 weeks. The ironman is in 9 weeks.