In my last post, I wrote how I became lost in a campground. Today’s story is about Lyle, with a postscript that includes a lesson for me.
The Sunshine Coast is connected to the mainland by
the BC Ferry system. By Thursday, Lyle and I had already taken several ferry
trips and I was feeling comfortable enough to leave my white cane in the car
for the forty minute trip between Langdale and Horseshoe Bay.
We climbed the fifteen stairs from the car deck to the main deck and then
another fifteen stairs to the sun deck. It was a beautiful day but Lyle decided
that he should return to the car, get our iPad and check email. He left me
enjoying the sun and the cool breeze which drifted across the water.
Lyle
returned down the two flights of stairs, retrieved the iPad and meandered
around the ship looking for a good Internet connection. He became engrossed in
his task and it was a surprise when he heard the loudspeaker announcement that
the ship would soon be docking and passengers were to return to their
vehicles. Lyle shut down the computer
and hurried back to the sun deck. Other
passengers were making their way downstairs, but there was no sign of me. He wondered if I had decided to go to the
ladies washroom, so he made his way there and waited outside the door. I didn’t
come out. Perhaps, he thought, I might
have asked someone to assist me back to the car deck, so he rushed back to our
vehicle. I wasn’t there either. By now he was getting worried. He was sure that I was lost and he decided
that he should contact one of the crew.
Now, you
might be wondering what I was doing while all this was going on. Naturally, I had no idea of Lyle’s frantic
search. Where was I? Well, I was
precisely where Lyle had left me. Our
arrangement should we ever become separated, is that I should stay put, and
Lyle should find me. Even when the other
passengers left the sun deck and I was there alone, I remained exactly where I
was. It was not until I heard another
loudspeaker announcement that I decided to move.
The
loudspeaker called my name and asked that I make myself known to any crew
member. By this time, not only were
there no passengers on the sun deck, there were no crew members either. There was nobody. I knew that I had to make a move. I found the door to the stairs, glad that I
had counted them on the way up, and made my way to the main deck. There was still nobody in my range of vision
so I began calling out.
“It’s me,”
I shouted. “Can anyone hear me? Are there any crew about who can hear me?”
The story
does have a happy ending. One of the
crew heard me, and took me to where Lyle was waiting with one of the
stewards. Just in time, as it turned
out. Lyle had just been informed that he
would need to move the car without me and that there would then be a search for
me and I would be brought off as a foot passenger. Lyle and I made it back to the car deck just
as the line of vehicles began to move.
So, here is
the explanation. The large BC Ferry was of a mirror image design back and
front. Lyle left me on a series of benches in front of a large
ship’s funnel. He didn’t realize that at the other end of the ship there was
also a series of benches in front of a large funnel. In his meanderings to find the Internet
connection, he had become disoriented, confusing the back of the ship with the
front.
Now for the
postscript. When Lyle went to report my
mysterious disappearance to the crew, he had to say that I was blind but that I
wasn’t using my white cane. For me, the
lesson was the same. When we were
separated, I didn’t have my cane with me.
If I had, I am sure that my trip down the stairs might have been a lot
less panicky. Possibly too, I might have been easier to spot when people were
looking for me. Needless to say, there are no pictures with
this post.
No comments:
Post a Comment