Our region is blessed with excellent public transit systems on both sides of Puget Sound and we Rayners use them a lot. Each county has its own agency providing local bus services throughout its area. And there's Sound Transit, which provides express bus, light rail, and commuter rail service between major transit hubs in the Tacoma/Seattle/Everett corridor.

Finally there's Washington State Ferries, actually part of the Washington State highway system, providing connections across Puget Sound. Example: Highway 104, which begins at Lake Forest Park, the northerrn tip of Lake Washington, and ends at US101 on the Olympic Peninsular, crosses Puget Sound as the Kingston-Edmonds Ferry.

Each transit agency is a separate entity but one thing ties them all together: ORCA. The "One Regional Card for All" is an electronic smart card fare collection system that works in basically the same way as London's Oyster Card. We used Oyster extensively during our Spring Break trip to England in 2009, loving its convenience and simplicity, so adopting ORCA was an easy decision for us.

An important feature of ORCA is its ability to automatically recognize transfers within a single journey. With only minor limitations, when journeys involve transfers within an agency, between agencies, or different modes of transport, ORCA charges only one fare, based on the zones you travel in.

So Paul, who needs no excuse to expand his transit riding horizons, recently decided to put this feature to the test by taking a trip "Around the Sound". Using five different agencies: Sound Transit; Community Transit; Washington State Ferries; Kitsap Transit; and King County Metro. And traveling through three different counties: King; Snohomish; Kitsap; Paul's circular route covered more than 70 miles.

The photos tell the rest of the story.