I met Sue while she was travelling on Canberra as a passenger: we kept in touch following the cruise and got married in Barbados less than a couple of years later. In May of this year we will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.  At the time we met, Sue was working as a legal secretary in London while I was living in Prestwick, Scotland. It meant a bit of a long distance relationship for a while but this was also at the time of the first Gulf War, which meant fewer people flying and thus reduced ticket prices. I remember being able to fly round trip Glasgow to London for something like 25 UK pounds. (Less than $50 Canadian)

After agreeing to marry me (or maybe before) Sue said she didn't want to live in Scotland, and I knew I didn't want to live in London, so we got the globe out and narrowed our choices down to either Sydney or Vancouver. I had been to Sydney several times and loved the city and the Aussies, but I knew Vancouver also from when we used to spend the summer season cruising from there to Alaska.

In the end it came down to a seminar we attended in London for an up and coming flying school which was based in Boundary Bay (ZBB), just South of Vancouver. I had been taking flying lessons in Prestwick but being at sea and then having to wait out the weather for the odd suitable flying day, the whole pilot's license thing was taking forever. I did have fun though, especially the day of my first solo, when I was flying the downwind leg, doing my landing checks and the only other aircraft in the circuit requested clearance to take off.  He was told to hold short of the active and wait as there was a student on his first solo. Nothing adds a bit of pressure to a first solo like knowing that as you putt putt round in your Cessna 150, there is Concorde sitting waiting for you to land and get out of the way.

So after getting married in Barbados and having a honeymoon in Antigua, it was off to Vancouver and the start of a new life together.