Today was our longest ferry ride, the three hour connection between Sidney, BC and Anacortes, WA. This international route only runs once a day at noon. We weren’t going to risk missing it, so last night’s hotel was a half mile walk away from the terminal.
Max has been napping so well in the trailer that he’s fighting bedtime. Last night I took him for a walk to check out the terminal. It’s a delightful chain link and concrete compound, well lit at night.
In the morning, we had a bit of time to kill. Things were livelier than last night. We went to the post office to send some postcards, then a bakery to get some donuts in celebration of my birthday.
We checked out and walked our bikes to the terminal. There was a staging area for for passengers while they do a precheck for immigration and customs. It had an array of bollards just barely wide enough for us to squeeze through.
Once through, we had more time to kill. I got a soda from the machine and got a twofer. Anne took the kids to the gift shop to burn through some Canadian currency, and got Max’s new favorite toy, a plastic cement mixer with gratuitous maple leaves.
A few people came to ask us questions about the trailers and our trip. Another touring couple came by. They’re going to spend a couple of days in the San Juan islands before continuing down the coast to San Fransisco. I suspect they’ll catch up to us.
The ferry was less spiffy then the Vancouver-Nanaimo one, but about the same size. We parked as directed near the bottom of a ramp, and used some of our bags as chocks.
The three hours on board was somehow a lot more tiring than three hours of biking. The kids needed a lot more containing. We got lunch from the cafeteria and finished some grapes that wouldn’t be allowed through the border. After some wandering, talking about space with Ruth, and playing with a pretend helm, it was time to disembark.
I had expected to be led to a holding area to be processed by a border agent. I was pretty surprised when the agent meet us on the ramp and wanted to see paperwork.
It was much colder and overcast in Washington. We rearranged ourselves into biking mode and climbed out of the dock. If we have another day where we first climb into the saddle at 3:30, something went terribly wrong.
The ride to the hotel was short, with a gentle climb of a few hundred feet followed by a gentle descent to our stop for the night.
One country down. One to go.