It smells here

Distance traveled: 404 km
Cumulative distance: 1590 km
Maximum speed: 135 kph
Average speed: 65 kph
Temperature range: 13.6 - 24.8

After lattes and fresh baking at the Blackbird

Bakery in Pemberton, and bidding farewell to Dan, we rode to the ferry for our first leg, about an hour and a half. Fortunately for us, motorcycles are given priority because it is possible to squeeze on many without taking any space away from larger vehicles, as they are all wedged along the edge of the car deck. This is fortunate today because we would have been waiting for two or three sailings if we had to wait in line.

Disembarking at Nanaimo, we met up with our friends Windy and Len, immortalized on the Mexican Motorcycle Manoeuvres blog from last year. They live in the Vancouver area and so we had a great

opportunity to link with friends we don't get to see too often, the last time being when we all met on our motorcycles in Nelson for the August 2016 long weekend. They were staying at Windy's parent's place in Nanaimo and when we rode up, they were sitting on the front porch in anticipation of our arrival. I wasn't surprised because I had just assumed that they were following the blog and were tracking our movements. Turns out that that was not the case and they were just simply anxiously awaiting us. Great to arrive SOMEplace and have a great greeting.

So we rode up the highway all the way to Parksville, about 20 km. There awaiting us was my HIGH SCHOOL buddy Tim. We're talking 44 years of friendship. Tim and I went to the same reform school on Vancouver Island, near Mill Bay and as it happens, we had just had the good fortune to get together two weeks ago for our 40th anniversary high school reunion. In our graduating class of '77, there were nine of us guys that would hang around together and despite the enormous distances separating us all now - literally continents apart -  it was the first time in 40 years that all nine of us were reunited together. These are all class guys: kind, hard working, thoughtful, respectful, you could not hope to meet a better group of individuals.

Tim has a photography business and he occasionally uses a drone to chase things, like motorcycles. We role up and Tim is in his yard. He has been tracking our movements.  We have a walk around the yard, the house and the workshop and then Tim pulls out the drone. We get on our bikes and, despite the temptation to rip around the neighbourhood doing wheelies, donuts and break stands, which we have being practicing in earnest,Tim is mindful of his neighbours so we ride at a leisurely pace around the block and the drone follows us.  You can see the video on this YouTube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08qsxVHM4XU&feature=youtu.be  I see it's up to 14 views, so pretty much going viral.

Motorcycling offers some great treasures. There

are obvious things, such as riding through twisty-turns; even a non-rider can imagine what it must be like to handle the bike through sharp turns, swinging the momentum back and forth. A little less obvious is discovering the hidden gems on the dusty trail, like the Blackbird Bakery this morning, with fresh-made croissants and lattes, both of which I was missing. However, one of our great pleasures is smelling the surroundings as we are riding.  On a bike, it is all about the

exposure and one of the five senses most exposed is the sense of smell. We are being filled with the smell of salt water, kelp, tidal pools, cedar forests and it goes on, many things we don't identify but think are wildflowers. I'm riding with my face shield open so that I can take it all in, riding as hard as we can around tight turns, the late afternoon sun streaming through the trees causing intermittent shadows and light on the road. The temperature is dropping rapidly the closer to Tofino we get, even though the sky is clear, as the all the weather of the Pacific is flowing over us and it is akin to a fall day.