Birds on Bikes: Cycling South Connecting the Current of Change: Bird Crossing

According to my passport I’ve crossed the U.S.-Canadian border some twenty times. I’ve gone by car, plane, bus, ferry and train. Never have I crossed by bicycle, never have I gone with five minutes to make my connecting transport and never have I gone with a dozen donuts bungeed to a bike rack.

We rode from Foxglove Farms approximately 1200 feet on the top of Saltspring Island down to catch a quick ferry to Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island where we biked a half hour to the other ferry landing at Sidney. Considering we had an hour between ferries we figured we’d use the spare time to catch a quick coffee and maybe a muffin. We pulled into a coffee shop, one that was decidedly not Starbuck’s and took the five minutes it takes to lean our four fully loaded bikes up. I wrote some postcards with the last of my Canadian stamps, Lauren called her mom back in Vancouver and we all had a coffee and a pee. When we started watching the clock again we had twenty minutes to make the ferry to Friday Harbor on the San Juan Islands (notice how Habor has no “u”– we were to enter the States). We chugged the coffees, wrapped up any half-eaten pastries and tried hitting the road. Two blocks later we stopped at a bakery as Lauren got off her bike and pointed out the glazed donuts we wanted to the woman working behind the counter of Lauren’s old favorite bakery. Fifteen minutes to go.

We circle a round-about twice looking for a sign to the ferry terminal, ride a few more blocks then we approach the ferry landing. There are no cars in the line-up, just a woman in the ticket kiosk telling us we have to hurry. The ferry is nearly loaded and we still need to go through the border patrol check point. We pay, we go down the wrong road, then we roll up to the immigration building where a woman most likely named Shirley (it was a frazzled moment and we just can’t remember) tells us before anything we should have arrived earlier for an international transfer. Shirley has a graying hair, a young grandmother face and a gun.

“Get you passports out and take off your dark sunglasses.” Shirley is talking quickly. Perhaps it’s the maternal in her that wants us to catch this ferry.

In our defense, as weak as it stands, we thought we’d go through immigration when we got off the boat. Instead we have five minutes till the ferry leaves and one of the most protective borders in the western hemisphere to cross.

“What will you be doing in the U.S.?” Shirley asks.

“Riding our bikes to Mexico.”

Shirley takes my U.S. passport, glances at it, scans it then passes it back.

“How long will you be in the U.S.?”

We all look at each other and nod our heads with two months. Gooch and Haley pass Shirley their Canadian passports and it’s the same glance and scan ritual. Lauren has to get off her bike and unpack her back pannier in order to find her passport all while trying not to squish the donuts fixed to her back rack.

“Two months?” Shirley is not impressed. “That’s a long time to spend. You probably should’ve given yourselves more time to cross the border.”

Lauren is still looking while we all apologize to Shirley.

“Do you have proof of funds? Something like a bank statement to show you can support yourself while in the country?”

We tilt our heads. We volunteer credit cards. I pull out my Bank of America VISA card with Hello Kitty stamped all over it and Shirley shakes her head. “Oh, we don’t need your financial stuff,” she smiles. “You could starve in the streets and we wouldn’t care.” I put my Hello Kitty card away. It’s nice to be back home.

Lauren finds her passport and we appease Shirley with the promise of train tickets back to Canada come fall and that Lauren has to be at school in Vancouver early September and that we have families who love us and will get us home if need be.

Given the circumstances Shirley must think we are stupid. Not only are we unorganized giving ourselves five minutes to cross an international border without all the proper documentation but we are planning to bike down all the way to Baja California. We are stupid, but more importantly we are harmless.

Shirley tells us to hurry. “Lane 2, girls.”

We ride across the empty lines marked in the road up to a ramp where we pass our tickets to a ferry attendant. The green Washington State ferry is waiting, still suctioned to the dock and we figure we’ve made it with donuts. But then Shirley comes running along the chain link fence the gun in her holster banging against her hip. She is yelling. “She forgot her sunglasses!” Lauren goes back for the glasses she left laying in the pavement out front of the immigration kiosk. We finally get on the boat.

On board as we watch the gap of water between the ferry and Canada widen we wave goodbye and then go eat a dozen donuts.