Alright, as promised, here's the "Deets" from yesterdays outing.
It all began when I parked my car in the short term parking lot at Tsawwassen. I purchased my ticket, and was disappointed that I was told that I would have to embark via the Lower Car deck. Oh well, I went up to the waiting lounges anyways, to see if I could find anything interesting happening. There was crew training on board the Vancouver, which was parked in berth 4, and lifeboat drills was the topic today. So I got to watch the lifeboat go up and down for a while, until the Alberni left on her first sailing of Sunday morning.
Then I walked over to the Berth 2 lounge to watch the Tsawwassen arrive.
I didn't want to miss out on any action on the Lifeboat drill, so I went back to Berth 3, which was when Mill Bay found me standing on the deck.
After this, we walked downstairs to board the Tsawwassen, where we found Alex onboard.
It was a full load on this sailing! The Platform decks were ready to go for loading.
The sailing was nothing out of the unusual for a Sunday trip on the Tsawwassen. We had to wait for the breakfast menus to change to lunch menus, which didn't happen until 11:45am, seeming we were already craving burgers. Before we we knew it, we were going through Active Pass. We were standing at the bow for this part, which was when a Crew member approached us, asking if we were from this forum. Turns out he was part of the forum, and is known as "sofcontact". This was neat meeting him and discussing "Save our Ferries" in person.
For the trip from Mayne Island to Pender Island, we sat in the mid lounge, nearly making ourselves sick while looking out through the windows.
Once we got to Pender Island...or Pender Bay, Otter Island, as Mill Bay said, the sun came poking through the clouds. I've always been intrigued by this terminal, as it always feels like we're just pushing up against the rocks.
Now, for the second most interesting part of the voyage: The trip to Long Harbour. We took a group photo of ourselves standing at the stern, and I just used the timer on my camera, and stood it on one of the vents.
At this point, the horn suddenly went off, and was sounding 4 short blasts, meaning "get out of the way" so to speak. We went up to the bow to see what was going on, but couldn't find any potential hazards. We cruised into the harbour, and docked without incident.
Once we were ashore, we thought of things we could do. Not a whole lot, seeming we were quite far from any village. So we walked to Scott Point, which is the point, on the left hand side of Long Harbour, as you approach the gap. We took our time, we had well over an hour to burn. There were lots of expensive looking waterfront homes on either side of us, seeming we were on a narrow penninsula. I was hoping to see some humerous signs posted along the way, and only found one.
You wouldn't think we'd see wildlife on this road, but we did anyway. We could almost walk up and touch this little Deer, which was munching on the roadside shrubs.
Once you get to the end of this road, you reach a Cul-De-Sac. There's no parks here, but there was a small hard trail to find on either side of the road, leading down to the beach.
Here's the West side of the penninsula looking towards Ganges.
Here's the east side of the penninsula, along the shoreline of Long Harbour.
Before we knew it, it was nearly 3:00pm, and our sailing was leaving at 3:30pm. I knew it had taken us about half an hour to reach the point at a leisurely pace, so we had to speed walk back to the terminal. We were short of breath once we arrived back at about 3:15pm, but we got back on the Ferry and sat down on the benches at the stern on the sundeck. The wind was too cool for me to handle, so I went back down to the Cafeteria to warm up, and secretly had a cinnamon bun. Though I was kicking myself for that, because as were just about out of the harbour, the Captain came over the PA warning us about a horn sounding. I guess this was a warning to any boaters outside of the harbour. I then met up with the other two, and we went for a car deck stroll. Mill Bay was taking a photo of the Car deck, and there just happened to be a deckhand sitting up near the stern ventilation windows, who was waving at Mill Bay to not take a photos of him. Mill Bay never saw the deckhand waving at him, but I ended up talking to the Deckhand myself, and apologized as we were approaching Mayne Island. He accepted the apology, and asked me if we were part of the forum. Why yes of course, I said. He then told me that he got to post alot of our photos posted on this forum, to the Save our Ferries website. I was aware of this, seeming I offered my photos to Save our Ferries, so I laughed and told him that he was likely posting alot of my photos. Anyways, back to the photos! Here's some car deck pics.
Enough of the car deck, you're saying. I want ship photos! Alright, here you go: Here's the Mayne Queen sitting at Village Bay, as I was standing near the open bow doors on the Tsawwassen.
We got off at Mayne Island, and hopped aboard the Mayne Queen to Swartz Bay. This was awesome for getting up close photos of the Queen of Tsawwassen.
We were on a direct sailing to Swartz Bay, so no stops along the way to mention. We passed a barge, carrying a home, followed by the Queen of Saanich though.
Eventually we pulled into Swartz Bay, to find the SoBC doing a 180 degree turn out of the berth, and going the way it came to the terminal. The Captain must have had her starboard propellar running at full speed ahead!
We hung around the terminal to watch the Queen of Vancouver arrive and depart. We were planning on returning home on the Spirit, with hopes we would pass the Queen of Tsawwassen in Active Pass.
As we were waiting for the Vancouver to leave again, we heard a loud noise coming from the sky. Turned out to be a fighter jet ripping through the air.
Now here's the Vancouver leaving, and the Screaming Queen...... err, Skeena Queen arriving, and SoVI approaching the terminal.
The "Spook" arrived on time I believe, but we left 20 mins late because the platform decks had to be brought down to be used. Nick came and joined us for this part of the trip. When we got onboard, we went straight to the cafeteria for dinner, and was able to purchase our meal, eat it, and go outside in time for departure. That's how long we sat in dock.
At this point, a deckhand approached us, who just happened to be a friend of Nicks. She ended up offering to take us up to the bridge, once Nick had told her we were from the forum. But we had to wait until we went through Active Pass, before we were allowed to go up.
But the Sun was beginning to set, which allowed for some interesting lighting.
Alright, here's what you've been waiting for: The bridge tour of the SoVI. The second we passed Bellhouse park, we headed for the Coastal Cafe Express to meet up with the Deckhand. Unfortunately, Mill Bay had gone off and did his own thing while we did this. Talk about bad timing!
We were then directed up the roped off stairs near the forward lounge, where we proceeded down a hallway, which had doors to Staterooms and the Conference room. The deckhand then approached a door, and entered a PIN to unlock it. We had to walk up another set of stairs where to find another hallway. It sure gave me a good idea of how big this ship really is! Finally, we approached THE door to the bridge. This was neat, because when you open this door, all of the lights in the hallway turn off. But will turn on again once the door is closed, so it doesn't affect the bridge crews night vision. Here we were, in this giant room, with panoramic floor to ceiling windows, called the wheelhouse. As you all would know, the bridge is huge on the Spirits, and I don't think anyone could ever take a photo which captures the true feeling of how big it really is. But for now, here's what it's like.
This wasn't your average bridge tour, as we were escorted by the deckhand. We never really actually spoke directly to the 2nd officer or Captain, who was obviously handling the ship. We also had to keep our voices down, to prevent distraction as well. It was a bit of a quick tour, probably under no more than 10 mins, but I enjoyed every second of it.
I've never really been a huge fan of the Spirits, nor have I disliked them. But they have their perks like any ship. I really enjoy the sundeck at the stern, especially on a sunset evening.
It was all nice and happy back there until the propellars pitch changed to reverse suddenly. Then the vibrations arose quite loudly, until it was hard to speak over all of the noise. We just laughed for during this part.
Once we hit the dock, we were allowed to disembark, but it took forever, seeming there was probably 1500 people trying to walk off all at once, and we were at the back of the line near the cafeteria. We parted ways with Nick, and us three decided to walk around the terminal for a bit, to allow the Ferry traffic get ahead of us on Highway 17. So we went down to the beach to get a few photos of the Vancouver sitting in Berth 1.
Another chapter in the Ferry trips now over. Thanks for reading.