Boat Day

Day 8 Prince Rupert

Distance traveled: 545 km Amazing! And we still have half a tank of gas!

Cumulative total: 3237 km

Maximum speed: 38 km/h

Average speed: 38 kmk/h

Temperature range: cold, then warm, then cold again.

We threw caution to the wind last night. We had each had two glasses of wine with dinner then when we went back to the room to pack up for today, I took two beers back for us as well. We stayed up later than we should have, knowing we would have a long day today to sleep off our excesses.

Early morning ride to the ferry terminal.

As a result, I slept fitfully, waking up worrying that I would sleep through the alarm. When my alarm did ring at 4:45 a.m., I was out of bed like a shot. Nan, she just kept sleeping blissfully away, not even registering that there was any activity in the room. When her alarm rang a few minutes later, she was promptly up and getting organized. We made a couple of trips down to the bike and we had all the gear loaded and we were ready to leave the hotel by 5:20 a.m., something of a record, I’m sure. Despite a grim forecast, the sky was crystal clear and Orion was rising in the east, a sure sign that the end of summer is nigh.

We were at the ferry terminal by 5:30 a.m.; I hadn’t been overly worried because even though the literature says “be there two hours before sailing” it also said that an hour and a half was the cut-off. Not surprisingly, there were a lot of cars, motor homes, campers and trucks there. Being on a motorcycle, we are shunted to the front of the line. We have to go into the terminal to collect our actual boarding tickets and vouchers and there are two large urns of coffee. It’s not great coffee but we are thankful for it.

We are sent onto the ship first. Nan walks on because the deck is a little slippery and I didn’t want to go down on the deck somewhere. There is a guy riding a BMW GS 700 and it is fully loaded. He is from Germany and has been on the road for three years and has traveled 60,000 km in the last year. He points to a sticker on his bike with his website and Instagram link so we can check it out when we have service. https://zenmotero.com/

We have a state room, which I had somehow overlooked telling Nan I had booked (the Northern Sea Wolf on the future Bella Coola run doesn’t have state rooms) so Nan had a pleasant surprise. We get to our room, which has a window on the port side of the boat and we are relaxing waiting for theNorthern Expedition to get under way. The warp core is fired up at 7:10 in advance of our 7:30 a.m. scheduled departure and we are moving out at 7:35. I guess it makes sense not to be late because they are not going to wait.

We are fortunate to have a clear morning, though there are low lying clouds in the distance but not bothersome to us. The dining room opens for breakfast as soon as the ship is underway and we don’t wait long, mainly because we are anxious for more coffee. For people who are used to BC Ferries from making the crossing to Vancouver Island or one of the other Gulf Islands, you should not assume that the Port Hardy to Prince Rupert run is on the same kind of vessel because the Norther Expedition is definitely not that. The dining room serves a buffet and the tables are covered with table cloths and there are cloth napkins and place setting on the tables. The food is not typical BC Ferries food but is actual food with a big selection of items. My only complaint this morning is that the food could have been warmer. Not the end of the world.

Other amenities on the ship are a café, a theatre, a gift shop, lots of comfortable seating around designed to make it easy to take in the view and lots of seating outside for those who want to get the most out of their day. Oh, and a deck with a barbecue where fresh wild salmon is cooked for lunch and served with the finest boxed wine and canned beer. At lunch time, the deck is busy and the sun is shining enough to make it feel quite warm.

The deck with the barbecue.

On this day there is a generous amount of activity on the water: lots of fishing boats, skiffs, and yachts as well as a couple of small cargo vessels. This is in addition to numerous manned lighthouses, and unmanned ones as well, occasional villages, some currently occupied some veritable ghost towns. I found a chart on the wall that outlined some of the key features of the trip identified by time from port, and it is helpful in attaching names to some of what we see.

It stays sunny till well after lunch time when we dock at Klemtu, which is a First Nations port about halfway up to Prince Rupert. Everybody on board who is travelling with their dog takes the opportunity to go for a walk on land, which I am sure pleased those dogs to no end. Eight people disembark and four vehicles: a pickup truck, a pickup towing a trailer, and two commercial vehicles. Some freight is off loaded three of the people disembarking are traveling by kayak. They are organizing their gear on shore and looks like the are simply going to put in at the wharf. About a dozen people get on the ship and no vehicles. Not a particularly busy stop. But the dogs are happy.

The Klemtu BC Ferries office.

Dog walkers and passengers disembarking at Klemtu.

After Klemtu, the clouds start getting more prevalent and eventually fill in all the gaps. Then the rain comes – first off and on then only on. Fortunately we will have only a couple of km to go when we get to Prince Rupert that it probably won’t be necessary to put on our onesies. Earlier in the summer would probably increase one’s probability of having a sunny day. Also, more daylight hours. As I write this, it is 9:20 p.m. and pitch black outside. We are yet two hours out of Prince Rupert but my phone just pinged to announce email, which indicates we have just passed through a cell zone. For all of less than five minutes. Not sure who’s though because the Spot tracking device is not seeing the satellites from inside the cabin here. In anticipation of that, I had carried it around with me on the deck so that at least a few pings would show on the map.

Highlights of the Inside Passage.

Two German guys. Only the guy on the left is riding a Harley.

Rain in Prince Rupert!