Waiting and saying goodbye

So after I got back to Victoria I immediately took 9 days of unauthorized leave. In some units (most notably the Army) I would have almost assuredly went to jail. But after I went back to work no one seemed to notice or care. The Navy is good for some things I guess. And the waiting began. I expected to see a message (if I got one at all) around the end of April. The 3^rd of April (it was a Thursday) I remember walking to see my supervisor and someone said “Hey! Congrats on your message!” I was like “what the fuck are you talking about?” They said “your offer is in”. I almost shit a chicken. I went to see the message myself and then almost did a backflip. I couldn’t believe it, it almost seemed surreal. To have worked so hard for so long and then have it come to fruition is a fantastic feeling.

At the same time Ewa (my girlfriend) was about to deploy to the gulf on the HMCS Protecteur for a 7 month tour. Not cool. Most couples never experience saying goodbye to a loved one while they go off to.... war, essentially for that length of time. I took some leave and she had some post deployment leave so I surprised her with a 3 night stay at a resort on Salt Spring Island. It was a nice relaxing way to spend some time with each other before being separated. Beautiful log chalet, as much hiking as we could handle, fishing, etc…. It was perfect. The highlight was after 3 days of rowing around the lake, Ewa managed to catch a 7 pound Rainbow trout. And like the idiot I sometimes am I forgot to bring a net so I had to wrestle the slippery bugger into the boat and beat him continuously off the seat until he died. Also of course I had never cleaned a fish. I knew the basics but hadn’t actually done it. The look on Ewa’s face as I violently tore the guts out of the fish was priceless.

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Salt Spring Island

So as it stands, I’m waiting for a posting message so I can get an idea of the time frame I’m working with here. I probably won’t update this again until I’m actually in Comox.