Don't Forget Those Passports!

As an experienced international traveler, I am embarrassed to admit that on a trip this weekend, I forgot my passport on an international trip.

This past weekend was my wife’s 50^th birthday and we decided to celebrate it on Vancouver Island, at the Wickinannish Inn. We thought enough about the border crossing that we planned to drive up Friday evening and stay just south of the US – Canadian border at the Peace Arch Crossing at Blaine, WA. We stayed at the Semiahmoo Friday night, and had a wonderful evening. On Saturday morning, my wife, Lisa, suddenly looked at me and asked, “Do you have our passports?” We both quickly realized that despite numerous international trips, and despite having thought enough about the border crossing to want to be close to the border on Saturday AM to avoid any delays, neither of us had remembered the all-important documents.

A quick check on the web showed that Canada doesn’t require a passport for entry, although they do like to have proof of citizenship. We were able to talk our way past the very friendly Canadian border control agent by admitting we had forgotten our passports and showing our Washington State drivers licenses. However, we realized we probably would not have such an easy time returning to the U.S. Thus began a flurry of calls to try to get our passports sent to us in Canada. Since we weren’t returning to the U.S. until Monday (and it was Saturday morning) we thought this would be no problem.

We were able to call our next-door neighbors and get them to retrieve the passports from our house. Now all we needed was for them to FedEx them up to our hotel in Canada to arrive by Monday AM and we were good to return. Thus began the fun.

On Bainbridge Island, where we live, there is a UPS store – I called that store and found that because we were talking about an international shipment to Canada, they couldn’t guarantee delivery until Tuesday morning – and the cost would be $86, which seemed high just for an envelope containing two passports, but we needed the passports and would gladly pay it. But Tuesday delivery was a non-starter for us – we have children, and while we had arranged childcare for them through Monday, we were reluctant to extend that another day. Maybe FedEx could do better – I called the 800 number and found that, yes, they could get them to Canada by noon Monday if we dropped them off at a staffed FedEx facility by 5 PM Saturday. However, while UPS has such a facility on Bainbridge, FedEx does not – it meant finding someone to get them to Seattle. Meanwhile, other ideas flew around – could we get someone to just drive them up to the border on Monday and meet us at the duty-free? Who could do that? What about a FAX of the passports – would that do? The first morning of my wife’s birthday weekend was spent with our friends, Steve and Jody, brainstorming all this.

We found a neighbor’s daughter who was willing to take them across on the ferry to Seattle to have them sent via FedEx to us – but to where? Tofino, on Vancouver Island, is pretty isolated (one reason we picked it for this weekend) – could we be sure of the FedEx delivery getting there? Maybe better to have them delivered to the airport counter for Orca Airways at Vancouver Airport – we were flying Orca from Vancouver to Tofino on Saturday, and flying back on Monday afternoon. It seemed safer to send them there than the hotel. However, the counter is usually not staffed until just before their daily flight to Tofino, so what would FedEx do if there was no one there to accept the delivery? Another call to FedEx – and another wrinkle. While FedEx could guarantee delivery by noon to Canadian customs, it could not guarantee deli very beyond that. “They could stay a day or two at customs; it just depends,” the FedEx rep told me. This didn’t seem like a good idea – we could be stuck in Canada waiting for passports to clear customs. (An aside – I once waited a long time for a shipment to clear customs in France and learned that there actually is a French verb, dédouaner, which means “to get something out of customs” – when a language has an entire verb dedicated to this, you know you’re in trouble…)

We finally decided to just try to rely on a color copy of the passport, which our neighbors emailed to us. Perhaps the customs agents would be able to use the numerous identifying numbers on the color copy – as well as photos of us – to allow us to cross.

That settled, we drove out to Vancouver airport for our 40 minute flight to Tofino, on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Thus began the next challenge for this weekend.

Tofino is often socked in, something that neither the Wick nor the airline told us when we booked this several months ago. “So what happens if we can’t land,” we asked. “We’ll get you to Nainamo, on the east coast of Vancouver Island, and drive you across – about 2.5 to 3 hours.” My wife, who is easily motion sick, turned pale at this – first a bumpy flight in a small turboprop plane, then a nearly three-hour drive across the island? Let’s hope we can land. We took off from Vancouver Airport about 12:30 PM, and though the flight was a bit bumpy, we were close to Tofino about 1 PM. One of the charming things about these small aircraft is there are no secrets – you can see all the instruments and out the pilot’s windowpane. I watched as the altimeter descended from nearly 8,000 feet through 4,000 to about 2,500 – and then started rising again. I also watched the “Distance to Destination” readout change from less than a mile to 70.5 miles – clearly we weren’t landing in Tofino. “The weather’s really deteriorated in Tofino,” the co-pilot turned around to tell us. “We’re going to try Nainamo, but it doesn’t look good there either – if we can’t do that, we’ll go to Victoria – it’s beautiful in Victoria.” Victoria – by my reckoning, a good five hour drive from our hotel in Tofino. Things got bumpier as we flew towards Nainamo, and my wife took full advantage of the airsickness bags provided. Happy Birthday! We finally landed in Victoria about 2:45 – over two hours after leaving Vancouver. There was no way we were going to get in a car for another five hour ride up to Tofino – in addition to wondering what might happen in two days, when we would return.

So with the help of our friends, Steve and Jody, we called around to hotels in Victoria and found a beautiful inn – Brentwood Bay Lodge. They offered us a “day of” discount on two rooms with water view. So we settled in for a relaxing evening and Sunday there; highly recommended place, we'll definitely be back.

But how to get back from Victoria? We could ferry from Victoria to Vancouver, but our car was parked at the Vancouver Airport – not at the ferry terminal, 20 miles away. We’d need another taxi back to the airport. We got on the phone to Orca Airways, the carrier, and convinced them to change our return flight to come from Victoria – where they dropped us – rather than Tofino, where we were supposed to be. It was quite nice this morning when we arrived at the small private aviation terminal at Victoria Airport – parked our rental car right out front, walked in and there was the plane sitting right outside. No check-in; no security; no hassles. Looking longingly at the Citation II parked next to our turboprop, I thought, “this is the way to fly.” Fifteen bumpy minutes later, we were in Vancouver, loading our car – one hour after having departed our Victoria hotel. Wow!

Oh – and the passports? When we arrived at the border, we handed over the color copies our neighbors had emailed, along with a driver’s license. The very friendly US border agent gave us no problem – we got the traditional “Welcome Home!”