A guest post from Captain Jack - Leaving Vancouver

Ahoy me hearties,

Regular readers of this electronic log will perhaps remember a previous voyage (2015) when me and the crew set sail from New York to Las Vegas. One of the ports of call on that voyage was a place called ‘Monument Valley’. This required a minor detour, (after a lunch of course!) where the crew took the vessel on a little track. Now then, me hearties, I would defy any sane and sensible seafarer to regard a track on a Native American reservation to be off-road, but clearly the fair folk at Hertz do, and to cut a long log entry sort they said that we were a mucky bunch and charged us $100 to clean the vessel at a dry dock. Damn Pirates!!!!!!!

On this voyage I and the first mate (the ratty looking one) were determined that this international incident would not be repeated. Despite our best efforts (see images of the animal graveyard on crossing Alberta/Manitoba) it become clear that restrictive actions were required.

From my position in the crows nest I kept seeing adverts for a chap called Mr Lube (no! Don’t!) and his friend Mr Wash. Mr Wash was offering a car wash for only 9.99 Canadian dollars. I will leave you to do this math (I am a firm believer in self-sufficiency) and so I instructed the crew to take advantage of Mr Wash’s offer.

I duly instructed my cabin boy (the stumpy looking one) to drive to Mr Wash prior to crossing the border to the USA. Well, what an exciting journey we did have I can tell you. Cabin boy drove up to the little screen, which confused his poor, addled little mind somewhat, I and first mate tried to shout instructions, but no positive action was forthcoming. Luckily one of Mr Wash’s crew came along and helped him. We then moved down to a rail, left the engine running, anchors up <<Co-pilot’s/first mate’s note: he means neutral and no handbrake>>. Mr Wash’s helper than removed the surface corpses. Then all manner of sea-witchery took place!!!. We were magically sucked into a machine where flashing lights like the aurora borealis were going off left, right and centre, shortly followed by huge jets of water off all the decks of the vessel. We were then dragged further along where huge brushes removed any remaining corpse. Then huge gusts of wind dried the vessel before we were dragged further and off the rails.

  

Cabin boy, being a touch excitable at the best of times found all of this a touch too much. Luckily we soon calmed him down (the threat of a keel-hauling normally does!) and we were able to continue the journey. Exiting times, me hearties, exciting times!