Left home in Nanaimo at 09:53 and went to the local gas station to gas up but they insisted there wasn’t any self service so went to the next one up on BC 19, gassed up and finally set off at 10:13. The Subie has two tripmeters so I zeroed both. A will record the entire trip and B will log each leg.
Arrived at the ferry terminal 1:53, way ahead of boarding time of 16:30. It’s not a large terminal compared to other BCF terminals, but there was much more security and ID checks.
Next to me was a Swiss registered Land Rover looking like it was kitted out for an Artic expedition. I asked the driver if he was Swiss and he very grumpily informed me that they were and that they had driven up from Montevideo. It turned out that “they” were the Land Rover and two other vehicles. It was really nice to be able to confirm that there were indeed other long distance drivers on the planet who were surely more nuts than I!
I had arrived 1 1/2 hours ahead of the ferry departure time so went for a stroll, took some stills and generally relaxed in the Subie. The staff seemed very concerned about what everyone’s final port of disembarkation was and I had to display a “Prince Rupert” label on my dashboard. It turned out that where you were offloading determined the order of loading and exactly where you ended up on the vehicle deck.
I had booked a four-berth cabin because at the time of booking that’s all that was offered, only to find others booking single or double cabins on the fly when I checked in. The cabin was cramped but clean, on deck 5 front outer. Crossing the Strait of Georgia during the night there was a fair bit of rock and roll.
The Subie was at the bow, Purser & cabin at the stern and I made the mistake of trying to walk through the car deck – it was full of trucks just inches apart!
The cabin was just above the engines. How could I tell? We left 90 minutes late so were on full power until 5 am and the noise and vibration were horrendous. Didn’t get much sleep.
This ferry stops a few times before it gets to Prince Rupert with the first stop around 1:30 am just as I was trying to sleep!
Photos & video from today can be seen here
