B.C. Ferries cancelled dozens of sailings Thursday because of winds that gusted up to 100 km/h, delaying journeys for thousands of people.
The winds calmed down in the evening, and the first sailings of the day departed from Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen soon after 6 p.m., and about 7 p.m. from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay. There were three sailings each way after 6 p.m. and all were at capacity.
Service also resumed in the evening on the other major routes — Departure Bay-Horseshoe Bay and Duke Point-Tsawwassen.
As Peter Matthews sat in the Swartz Bay terminal playing cards about 11 a.m., a ferry to Tsawwassen was the only thing standing between him and tickets to a Vancouver Canucks game. He bought the tickets as a birthday present for his brother, who lives in Coquitlam, but if he didn’t get to Vancouver by 6 p.m., his brother’s date would be their dad.
“I’m doing something nice for my brother and now I might miss out,” said the 23-year-old University of Victoria student. He was carpooling with three friends who were all trying to get back to the mainland to spend Christmas with family.
Australians Rebecca and Andrew Strauss and their kids, 13-year-old Amelia and 16-year-old Lachlan, are in the middle of a 25-day holiday across B.C. and Alberta. They said they didn’t mind waiting for ferries to resume sailing, as long as they can catch their noon train to Jasper today. They plan to spend Christmas in Lake Louise.
“I love Victoria but we do need to catch that train,” said Rebecca Strauss.
Jena and Sean Trowbridge of Colwood were waiting in the terminal with their two daughters, eight-year-old Marleigh and nine-year-old Rylea. They wanted to make an early start on Christmas travel to Harrison Hot Springs, where Jena’s parents live. On Thursday, they had planned to shop at Tsawwassen Mills and visit the Build-a-Bear workshop with the kids’ grandparents.
Jena and Sean took the delays in stride. “Let’s think positively, think calm seas,” she said.
Thursday’s cancellations and resulting backups undoubtedly will mean more demand on sailings today, heading into the holiday weekend, which were already expected to be busy.
“It has been probably seven or eight years since we’ve seen a storm affect us this greatly,” said B.C. Ferries spokeswoman Deborah Marshall. “It would be thousands of customers affected today,” said Marshall, and it will probably take up to an additional half day or day to catch up with the backlog of travellers
She recommended travellers planning to take B.C. Ferries through the weekend make reservations if their schedules allow.
“Reservations are always a good idea, although a lot of the reservations have been subscribed because people are planning well in advance for the holiday season,” she said.
“Reservations for the cancelled sailing are automatically refunded, so the customers don’t have to worry about contacting us for that,” she said. But after a cancellation, customers will need to either queue up or see if reservations are still available for subsequent sailings.
— With files from the Vancouver Sun
