It was a dark and scary sea voyage yesterday morning! You can tell obviously that it was safely completed as I am here to tell the tale!
We were on one of those first thing in the morning sailings from Tsawwassem port on the mainland to Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island. It was at 7am and the crescent moon was playing with Orion’s Belt in the sky, chasing each other to dawn.
At exactly half way across the Georgia Straight, one has to navigate a very tight passage between two islands that is barely wide enough for one of these gigantic ferries let alone two, one heading to Vancouver, the other, to Vancouver Island!
Just as both ships entered their opposite ends of the gauntlet run, a heavy and all encompassing fog rolled in! Seaman immediately arrived on the front deck of the ships to man the large bronze bells each ship has.
The fog horns blasted out their mournful whales, alerting all but even then, it was still hard to visualize where the other ship was. Both ships travel at approximately 20+ knots so here we were, less than a 1,000 meters away when the fog closed in and heading towards each other at combined speed of 72 kph. At that speed, we would be on top of each other in less than 90 seconds!
Both ships are in excess of 300 feet long, 70 feet wide and their radars were spinning, locating everything that man’s eyes could not penetrate.
Closer and closer we bore down with-in the narrow confines of the pass between Galiano and Mayne islands.
I tied to focus my video camera but the soupy fog prevented any focusing to work. I had to video the impending crash of the ships, to show that we did everything right but it was our time!
Yes, our time to go. I may never get the video uploaded to You-tube but at least my wife and kids would know that I faced death and video taped the horrific crash of two Titans!
Closer and closer the ships came, their horns getting more frantic, closer, and closer.
Before I knew it, the other ship was beside us, flowing by gracefully, majestic in her size, ghostly in the veil of fog between us two.
I quickly looked at the seamen on the deck near the bell and they smiled, put the hammer back down for the bell, and made their way to where-ever seaman go after such an event.
We reached the end of the passage and started to enter an open area before passing North Pender Island on the south and Saltspring Island on the north. The sea was open and as our spirits rose, so did the curtain of fog that had hid our last 10-15 minutes of passage.
I took a deep breath and a series of pictures to remind myself, how close we came to seeing Davies Locker!
By the time we had cleared the fog bank, the sun had started coming up and the day started to take on a fresh and warm reception with a promise of nicest of fall days on Vancouver Island!
