>North to Alaska – 25
>
>July 14, 2007
>
>It’s only a boat ride. We heard a TV story last night about the ongoing 
>investigation involving the last ferry on this route….IT SANK! We woke 
>at 4:30 a.m. to hop on the bikes at 5:00 to be in line as a standby for 
>a ferry ride from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy, Vancouver Island. A 15 
>hr ride. So we are 10 minutes early and the guy at the gate said they 
>never have turned a motorcycle away…they can always find space. So we 
>wait till
>5:45 to get a standby number and pay the fare. They tell us that this 
>still doesn’t mean we get on the boat. They put us first on line. We 
>get our money back if we don’t make it. We wait till 8:00AM and we are 
>first onboard.
>
>We secure the bikes and make our way to the forward lounge to get a 
>seat by a window. The quality of life is always dependent on your 
>neighbors. The seats look great and some are empty just below the sign 
>that says “Kid Zone”. There is also a play area for the little ones. 
>The whole forward section of the boat is a romper room! We set out to 
>find another spot. We pick a seat several rows back in the lounge 
>behind the “Kids Zone”. We have a window seat and we get comfortable. 
>The family from hell shows up with 6 teenagers from some Scandinavian 
>country. They act like 3 year olds and make much more noise.
>Jim sets out to find another seat with a view…no luck. We wait and 
>things get a little better; then they go to breakfast, quiet. A guy 
>shows up and sits right in front of us. He leans back and goes to 
>sleep. His snoring would wake the dead! The kids come back and laugh, 
>giggle, watch him sleep but they don’t move. We did.
>
>We found nice quiet seats right in the middle of the boat. We could see 
>the shore and part way up most of the trees through the windows but 
>that’s all right, we don’t have to ride far today! We read, sleep, walk 
>around the ship, watch a couple of movies and enjoy the day. There was 
>probably plenty of wildlife to see but we didn’t try very hard. We did 
>standup to see a couple of whales though. The 15 hour boat ride saved 
>us about 2 days of riding.
>
>When we got to Port Hardy we exited the ferry close to midnight to our 
>first dark night in a few weeks. Fortunately Jim reserved us a room but 
>we had no idea where it was. The night was not only dark, it was 
>raining! We could hardly see anything as we rode around in circles 
>looking for our room. A fitting end to a nice day.