Water All the Way

 I’m an early morning riser, but Friday took it to an extreme.  Up at 4:10am and on the road within twenty minutes – still dark, so that I wasn’t taking any chances with driving at the speed limit. Yesterday all the wildlife I saw was roadkill – two deer, a hawk and an owl; I was not pushing my luck with things that might wander onto the road!  By the time I got to Port Hardy I could actually see what was behind me, and was about fourth or fifth in the line-up.

Loading the ferry

Looking across at Port Hardy from Bear Cove

I’d been warned that the ferry was front-loading only and that they backed cars into place.  In fact, they loaded as normal, with lots of camper-vans and RVs around the edges, and one coach!   Everything was chocked into place, though in the end, it was one of the smoothest trips ever – only one place where there was a little swell. The ferry was the Northern Expedition and I think one of BC Ferries newer vessels – very nicely equipped. I would say it might be half full, which surprised me, because the Wednesday sailing had been posted as being sold out – hence doing this two days later than planned. Deck 3 had cabins, 4 had the catering/entertainment/shop stuff, 5 was lounge seating and access to outer deck, and 7 had more deck space. You pay extra for a cabin (which I wasn’t going to do) and for access to the Aurora lounge (plushy reclining chairs and a forward panoramic view;  I established myself just outside the lounge in the side-facing seats, with a port-side view, and easy access to dash across to the other side.  This was to be the longest day: 7:30am ferry, arriving 11:30pm!

Low cloud, low islands, lots of water

The morning was what I think of as Irish weather – low cloud that wasn’t quite rain or mist – and the first part of the voyage was mostly views of cloud down to about 20 feet about the tide-line.  As we went, though, the cloud-level lifted and though we never got much actual sunlight (yesterday’s lovely weather was totally gone), there was enough light to be able to enjoy all the lovely shades of green and blue in the islands and the surrounding mountains. 

At Bella Bella

Nestled in the trees

By the time we got to Bella Bella it was clear and mild, and I spent quite a bit of time up on the deck. BC Ferries does the educational thing well – good announcements about the communities (and former communities) we passed, and about the indigenous people who have lived here for so long. It felt good to be thinking about that on National Indigenous Peoples Day.  I talked to one of the staff in the Purser’s office, who said that the announcements are new this year, created with the assistance of local First Nations people. but not available in printed form – I asked her to get them to think about putting them into a brochure.

Dryad Point lighthouse

We also passed a variety of lighthouses; some obviously automated, but many of them inhabited. It looked quite pleasant as we passed – but I can imagine what a hard life it must be in the winter, cut off from friends and family, supplies and news.

Turning into Klemtu Inlet

Our only en-route stop was in Klemtu, where they had to make an announcement twice to get debarking passengers to come down to the car deck, and where there was apparently a problem getting a truck off!  I think we were about 40 minutes late in leaving, but the purser’s office seemed to think we could make up the time. It certainly didn’t feel like we were going very fast – I suspect that’s partly because of environmental concerns – so they may have been able to edge the speed up a little for the last six hours.  Environmentally – I’ve seen a couple of whales, but not in time to get my camera into place! There were several heading south as we were headed north, but not surfacing for long.

Boat Bluff lighthouse

There’ve been lots of eagles – yesterday there were groups of them wheeling over Hwy 19 (I think it’s called a JUBILATION of eagles!); today they’ve been closer but always going somewhere very purposefully.  We’ve been told that there are Spirit Bears near Klemtu and on Princess Royal Island, but the coastline is so rocky and the trees so dense that there could have been any number of bears, and we wouldn’t have seen them.

Butedale is a ghost town

The only frustrating thing has been being wi-fi-less – I’ve got my music and my kindle and my crosswords – but it’s so automatic to reach for the phone when I want to look something up!  Every now and then an email gets through, but I don’t know how long it takes an answer to get back...   I finally went to retrieve my laptop from the car so that I could get the blog drafted, since it looked as if we’d be late into Prince Rupert.

Prince Rupert at night

In the early evening we were reminded that this really was the Wet Coast, and visits out to the deck were punctuated by dashes for shelter, but the cloud stayed high enough that we had fairly good light through almost to an hour out of PR – so close to The Longest Day I hoped that there might be a Latest Sunset, but it was not to be! By the time we’d passed though a few bands of rain and were headed for port it was dark and all we could see were the small lights marking the way up the channel – and then it cleared for the blaze of lights signaling our arrival into what I understand is the deepest ice-free natural harbour in North America.  We docked about half an hour late, and the woman on the night-desk at the hotel said that late arrivals were quite common!