SAILING, SAILING OVER THE OCEAN BLUE

A funny thing happens when you are re-introduced to a “regular” lifestyle. It doesn’t matter if you were part of something spectacular and unforgettable, when you get back to a routine it can seem like you never lived differently at all. We have not made a blog entry for a month and a half; we have been so crazy busy. But as for our travels…


From Campbell River to the most northern town on Vancouver Island – Port Hardy

On May 22 we rode the uncomfortable Greyhound and watched as the buildings and people became more and more sparse as we drove north. We knew we were headed somewhere wild when we saw black bears walking through the ditches beside the road looking at us in bewilderment. We finally arrived in Port Hardy and Hardy it is. It was like one of those old tools you find in your grandparent’s shed that is all old and rusty but for some paranormal reason still works.

We headed for the local hostel, along with Julian (our co-traveller from Iguana Ranch), his friend Adrian, and about half of the bus riders. We were met by a fellow named Simon, who was very nice, but was a child of the ‘60s and casually discussed all the LSD he had tried. He showed us to our room and said, wide eyed and leaning heavily backward, “If you need anything…let me know.”

We also met the hostel owner, who told us how difficult the last summer had been. They had just finished renovating the town’s movie theatre into a hostel and opened their doors when the Queen of The North sank. This cut the ferry service down from three sailings a week to one every two weeks. The owner said she and her husband they had not owned hostels in other areas they would have been sunk.


Eric’s call from the wilderness

I had to make a phone call home to tell my parents that we had made it safely and on my way back came a series of events that once again were unexpected. As I walked down the sidewalk toward the hostel after making the call I heard a series of noises: first, someone yelling for help, then the sound of a struggle and finally, some cursing: “I’ll f-n kill you if you call for help again.”

I immediately waved down the next car, which happened to be a taxi, and had the driver call the police. By this time a woman and her daughter had come onto the scene because they had also heard the cry for help. I told the whole group of people to follow me into the forest because power is in numbers, right? I walked down the path until I could see some people hiding behind a stump. I called to them to come out and finally, after I pointed out that I could see their black sweaters, they did, revealing themselves to be between the ages of 12 and 14.

When they came into view of the woman and her daughter they both exclaimed, “James…Brandon!? What are you guys doing?” The two embarrassed teenagers finally told their story. Apparently having nothing better to do in Port Hardy, the two young lads had decided to see how long it would take to get someone to come help if they staged a beating. Brandon looked at me astonished and said, “You guys were the first ones to come and help!” I asked, “How long have you been yelling for help?” Brandon said, “I only said it once.”

The woman’s children went to school with Brandon and James and could not believe they were trying to pull such a bogus stunt. They wanted to escape the scene of the crime before the police showed up but we all convinced them it was only responsible to be there when they showed up to explain the whole ordeal. Luckily for them the police were no more responsible than they were and simply never showed up. So we finally let the young troublemakers go home and it’s a good thing because Brandon said he was going to get in trouble for being late for supper.


The Inside Passage – a vast expanse of remote beauty

But first, we need to get on the ferry

The next day we got our stuff packed up and piled it in the hostel’s wide foyer. Twelve of us staying in the hostel needed to catch the Wednesday ferry to Prince Rupert. Simon told us that for a mere $6 per person, a local shuttle service would pick us up and drive us to the ferry terminal, about eight kilometres out of town. This was perfect. Simon assured us, wide-eyed, that the shuttle would be on time, that is, an hour and a half before the ferry was scheduled to leave. All 12 of us had been warned by ferry staff that our reservations could be invalidated if we didn’t check in at the terminal at least 60 minutes before the departure time. So you can understand why, with our ferry was scheduled to sail at 4:20 p.m. and the clock at the hostel saying 3:30 p.m. and our shuttle still nonexistent, we all started to panic.

Finally, as we were about to phone a cab, a 15-passenger van shows up and a woman casually gets out to open the back and collect our money. As we walked by her she said, “Your ferry leaves at 6:00 right?” Eric responded, trying to contain his frustration, “NO, this is the 4:20 departure!” The driver suddenly seemed to shift into high gear and, after stopping to help load some freight for another shuttle driver, she drove her van in a manner that we felt violated numerous traffic laws. Despite the fear for our lives we were relieved to be on our way when we heard her walkie-talkie inform her that the other group she still had to pick up was getting anxious. We finally got to the terminal and begged the staff for mercy, explaining that our tardiness was not our fault. They then assured us that this was a regular occurrence with the shuttle company.


Settling in for a long, long boat ride

The ship we were to be on for the next 21 hours was the tired Queen of Prince Rupert. She was slated for decommissioning this year but as a result of the Queen of the North sinking this was postponed until 2008 when a replacement called the Northern Expedition will take its place. The Rupert, or QPR, as it was affectionately known was … well … used. It sported out-of-date paneling, drab curtains and threadbare carpeting. Nor did it have some of the basic amenities we assumed would be available on a vessel that a few hundred people were confined to for almost 24 hours. (Although it did have two coin-operated showers with the cheapest rate we saw on our whole trip - $2 for 10 minutes. The rate on the Queen Charlottes was $3 for 1.5 minutes.)

We had been encouraged to bring our own food for the long trip, as the cafeteria food was expensive, and stocked up in Port Hardy on food that need only hot water or heating up. Well, the cafeteria did have hot water for our instant noodles, but it did not have a microwave. Eric was forced to eat his Campbell’s “heat and serve” soup cold. Lucky for Rachel, she had anticipated this possibility and brought a few cans of flavoured tuna and some bread.

The phone was another matter. Thinking 21 hours would provide lots of time for some long phone calls with family and friends, we looked for a bank of pay phones, like those we’d seen and used on other ferries. We finally found the one lonely phone, which had a pronounced sign explaining that the phone was not a regular phone, it was a special radiophone and worked best if the ship was close to a port. Unfortunately, an even larger sign declaring “Out of order” was taped to the phone. We asked the chief steward if there was another phone we could use, but he told us no and that the radiophone would be out of order indefinitely because the necessary parts were no longer available.

The sailing had been very calm until we started to pass through open ocean north of Vancouver Island. The bow was rising and dropping as much as eight feet in some places and made for an interesting sensation in the stomach. We both managed to “keep our cookies” and tried to concentrate on the absolutely spectacular views we were witnessing. Watching Batman Begins, which was being shown on a flat screen TV midship, also helped distract us from the motion. Once the sun started to dip beyond the horizon the sky lit up like nothing we had ever seen (check out the pics). We were rushed on deck twice during the trip by the crew’s announcements that killer whales had been sighted and got to see them as they rose and dove below the waves. It’s so captivating to see them in the wild!

When it finally became too dark to look at the scenery, we joined the rest of the passengers who hadn’t paid for staterooms, in trying to find a place to sleep in the passenger lounge. Rachel unrolled her sleeping bag on the floor, while Eric decided, against his wife’s advice, that sleeping in the chair was a better idea (or maybe he was just lazy). There have been odd instances where Rachel has been right and yes, this time was one of them. Eric kinda half-slept for hours until finally in the middle of the night in the pitch dark he forced himself to dig through his pack for his sleeping bag and air mattress - in bed by 4 a.m. and sleeping like a baby until 7 a.m.

As soon as it was light, though, our eager anticipation of the beautiful sights we might see pulled us out of bed and we wandered around the ship for the next few hours, amazed. We figure we passed over the Queen of the North around 9 a.m. at a place that looked no more or less spectacular than the other scenery. We were struck by the raw beauty of this place, where coastal mountains were carpeted in forest as far as the eye could see. Finally we could see Prince Rupert in the distance and packed our stuff for the few hours we had to wait between disembarking and re-boarding the Rupert for our journey to the Charlottes. We said goodbye to Adrian and Julian who were headed to Jasper on the train the next day.


Landing on the legendary islands of Haida Gwaii

Despite the fact that our tickets said the ship sailed at 4 p.m. we were still sitting at a concrete picnic table watching crew drive truck trailers onto the boat at 4:15 p.m. Rachel was getting very nervous, as she was determined to get a good seat that would reduce the possibility of becoming seasick while crossing the notorious Hecate Strait. She had scoped out the boat and chosen her ideal seat, but knew she had to be one of the first people on board the boat to snag it.

Juan (a young man from Argentina) was the one traveller from our Port Hardy hostel group that was continuing with us to the Queen Charlottes. We talked with him and killed time until finally boarding the Rupert at 5 p.m. and then eventually sailing away, only a little over two hours late.

The Hecate Straight is around 150 feet deep and has a reputation for being extremely rough. But this day, the ocean had mercy on us and was like glass. We enjoyed the pristine ocean landscape as darkness fell and awaited our arrival in the land of the unknown. We even spotted a grey whale in the sunset and all seemed perfect and serene. This would turn out to be a lesson. We soon discovered that the term “calm before the storm” does not only apply to the weather.

It was as though with the disappearance of the sun, we crossed into another plane of existence. Perhaps you, the reader, can identify with the feeling of getting somewhere in the darkness and wandering around trying desperately to orient yourself.

When we got off the ferry at 1 a.m., only two hours past schedule, we were met with hordes of people clustered around the small BC Ferries waiting room. Cars dimly lit by their own dome lights and truck trailers casting looming shadows were lined up on our left and disappeared into the darkness. In total there were about 10 people like us – travellers and backpackers – who needed to get to Queen Charlotte City, where the islands closest accommodations were. Eric went to a pay phone and tried to contact the two local taxi companies, neither of which answered. We were stuck in Skidegate Landing, in the dark, with no place to go.

Skidegate Landing is not a town nor even a settlement it is simply the ferry terminal. Charlotte City was about five kilometres away, an easy two-hour walk in the day when we had the energy to carry our packs. Not quite so safe or easy in the dark, when we were in desperate need of sleep. Soon our gaggle of 10 lost foreigners dwindled as a few started to walk the road to town. Eric, on the other hand, decided a more abrupt approach was in order. He walked from strange car to strange car banging on windows asking people for a ride. Everyone said no, but just as we were losing hope, Volkswagen Westfalia van approached us. In desperation, Eric threw out his thumb to try for a ride and we couldn’t believe our luck when the van pulled over.

The driver said he only had room for three of us and there were six of us left. However, the three people we had met while getting off the ferry insisted that we (Eric and Rachel) and Juan take the ride, as we had been travelling together for a longer period of time. The driver dropped us off near the one hostel in Charlotte City, where the agitated and dithering owner couldn’t decide whether she had room for us or not. We finally convinced her to take Juan for the night since he did not speak great English and we were worried about him. As we walked to the nearest motel in the deep dark of the early morning, we said hello again to the cold. We got a room at the Sea Raven Motel and crawled into bed, not even having seen this new land we were visiting. But we found that the welcome sure wasn’t as warm as we had hoped.