I Did It And Lived To Tell!

We woke up this morning under a sky full of clouds and we were seriously wondering if our plane was going to be able to take off. My OH called the airport to see if we were still on schedule. They said we were, but that we may be delayed 15 minutes or so. Once everyone arrived at our house, we jumped in our car and headed back to the city.

The sky became brighter the further south we drove, but it did not look like it was going to be a clear, beautiful day for sight seeing in a float plane. We arrived half an hour early for check in. We sat and watched a couple other groups of "sightseer's" take off in their float planes. Our names were called for our flight. A nice, young man took us to the dock that would lead to our plane. The closer we got to it, the smaller it looked. But my nerves were not a wreck. I was actually calm.



The pilot introduced himself to us and he offered to take a group picture of us. On the left we have my OH's dad, my OH, myself, my OH's sister and brother in-law. The pilot asked which one of us wanted to be the co-pilot. We all volunteered my OH's dad. Since this was a birthday gift to him, we felt he needed to sit up front and enjoy the ride. He climbed up the very skinny ladder. My fear started to kick in a little. I do not like ladder's, and skinny ones above water, not my cup of tea. The pilot said that the tallest person should sit in the back row of seats, there was more leg room. So since my OH was definitely the tallest, he climbed in. I handed him my purse and camera, and told the pilot and deckhands that I fear water and heights. He said "And you are doing this?" I said "I didn't really have a choice. I somehow got talked into it." I very bravely climbed up the narrow ladder and into the plane. Then my OH's sister and brother in-law climbed in. The pilot gave us a 30 second speech on what to do in case of an emergency. Great. We get a whole whopping 30 seconds of how to get out of the plane and where the life jackets were. I still couldn't even tell you where he said those life jackets were.



Before we could even put on our head phones, we were pulling away from the dock. Here we go!



Oh yea, this plane was not an 8 seater, like I mentioned before. That is what I thought it was. But no, it only holds 5 passengers plus the pilot. So it was actually smaller then what I was expecting. Once we get away from the dock, the engine speeds up and we start to just cruise through the water. All of a sudden we are up in the air.



If only the clouds would have burned off, we would have had some absolutely beautiful scenery!



There is a lighthouse down there on the point. The water here is shallow for a really short distance, then drops off to over a few hundred feet.



There were a lot of marinas. This had to be the biggest one we saw.



A cruise ship is sitting in port. I would love to take a cruise someday.



You sure do get a different perspective of the city flying above it. I would definitely prefer to see it from the air then from the ground! Who would have thought I'd say that a few days ago?



The freeway system. Wow. A tangled mess of concrete!



A floating bridge.



A neighborhood that is made of a lot of money!



The only thing I did not like about the plane, was you could feel every movement. It felt like a roller coaster. It would go up and down, then back and forth. My stomach would literally fall when we would drop down, then roll to the left and roll to the right. That also made it difficult to take picture's. Just when you thought you had a good picture, the plane would roll left, or drop a foot.



This is when we were circling back in to land back on the water. If you look closely, you will see another float plane at the dock.



We are getting ready to land back on the water. I was a little nervous about landing, I thought it was going to be rough.



Back on water, safely! And the landing was not rough at all. Actually you could barely feel that we hit the water! This plane was taking off as we were landing.



I survived a couple of my biggest fears, heights and small spaces! I can't believe that I actually went up in a float plane! And it was actually fun! We are already talking about doing another float plane trip, this time on a much longer adventure, maybe to some island, for a day of shopping and fun, or heck, maybe even an over night trip!

Thank you all, for your words of encouragement! I do believe it helped me overcome one of my fears, and maybe that 2 week delay helped too!