Going sailing

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So we decided to “wing it!” Ok, it was decided for us… To minimize the level of risk we decided to get up early - our target the 8:00am sailing… Oh, I forgot - in our investigations last night we found we had missed one crucial fact - this weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving… Hence, the crowds on the roads and on the seas… So how would this affect us? Read on…

Statistics

Starting Destination: Delta, British Columbia, Canada
Ending Destination: Ucluelet, British Columbia, Canada
Ending Destination GPS: N: 48° 56.081’ W: 125° 32.355’ Elev: 61’
Miles Driven: 210.3
Miles Sailed: Best Guestimate = 42 Km (26.25 miles)
Number of International Border Crossings: 2

Sailing Away…

We arrived at the dock about 6:59am - the sign on the highway indicated that the 7am sailing was full and the 8am was 54%!f(MISSING)ull, would we or would we not make it?! We paid our money and took our position in line 39 along with lots of other cars… Soon the cars in the lines to the right started moving… all except for one - we speculated that the ferry company had told the driver they would be on the 8am sailing so they were sleeping… Now our concern is whether we would be on the 7am (and it would be too dark to take photo’s) - thankfully no! So we were waiting - Maria was working on the blog and Carl was “sleeping!” About 8am we get the call… our line starts moving and we are loaded onto the top deck of the ferry, squeeze out of the car and find a prime viewing position on one of the decks—right behind a wall crossing the deck, out of the wind but by the railing so we can take good photos! In seemingly no time at all the ferry is ready to go—it backs out of the dock and turns totally around (180°) to steam across the Strait and through the Islands, prompting the question of the day - will we need to back out of the ferry?
In the meantime we encounter a few other vessels on the seas - a container ship (because we had to turn around it won the contest), a ferry going in the opposite direction and a rather precariously loaded barge… Next we needed to thread our way through the islands - we had selected this ferry route because it was more scenic (remember this for later) and we were not disappointed, there were several cases when we thought we were heading straight for an island…But, we were definitely not disappointed with the scenery!

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Getting There!

After docking, tail first answering Carl’s concern about backing the truck - and all the other people backing their vehicles - off the ferry… Swartz Bay is about 30 km from Victoria and there is one main road, so we took it! Our objective was Canada Route 1 so we could go north - about half way we encountered another traffic jam - was this just holiday traffic or something else? We figured it was something else when we saw ½ a car being loaded onto a tow truck!! We successfully maneuvered through town onto Route 1, only to be very surprised when we saw the distance to where we needed to go was nearly 300 km - it didn’t look nearly that far on the map!! Of course, we hadn’t really considered the scale of the map and were now paying the price - it took us nearly 2 hours to get to Nanaimo, the point where the other ferry from Tsawwassen would have docked… Remember, we wanted to take the scenic route!!
However, we did make a couple of stops along the way - at a view point where we could look back over the islands to the mainland, in Duncan where we went to the bank and Starbucks to get some caffeine. It was in Duncan where we saw two things of interest - a house getting ready to be moved from its current location and an interesting method of dog transportation… We are sure that Dawson would be jealous! It wasn’t that much further along the highway - in Parksville - before we figured we should probably get a better map - so we stopped at one of the visitors’ centers and got maps of both the island and the Pacific Rim Highway plus the news that it would be 2 - 3 additional hours to get to the park. Hmm… Just how badly did we want to visit?! We decided we still wanted to go, so we fortified ourselves with lunch and took off for Qualicum Beach and the beginning of Route 4… By this stage the day was definitely taking on a grayish tinge and it got darker as we followed the road to Port Alberni and then to the Visitors’ Center for the National Park - via the roller coaster road…
As we went further and further west the road started getting more up and down with tight curves and blind corners - plus the pavement was not very even… We definitely wouldn’t have wanted to be driving a RV or the 5th Wheel we saw on this road!! Maria tried valiantly to get a photo, but there always seemed to be someone coming behind us and there were very few pullouts! However, we did stop at two of them - one to get a picture of a railway bridge on the other side of Cameron Lake and two to get photos of Kennedy Lake. By the time we reached the visitors’ center it was nearly 4:30 - just enough time to get a map, some suggestions on where to stay and an update on the weather - an 80%!c(MISSING)hance of rain tomorrow… Perhaps this would be a good day to sleep in!!
We drove in to Ucluelet, found a very nice cabin with a real kitchen and unloaded the truck in the rain (see the picture from our cabin, left)… The thought of sleeping in was really starting to sound good…

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Carl’s Travel Trivia

Yesterday’s Answer: 8,000
Today’s Question: How do you pronounce the name of the town of Ucluelet?

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Comments

[Eddie Wilson]

Ucluelet
Oh, thats easy. Ucleulet. Just like its spelled.