08 May 2008, sailing the Inside Passage.

This is the last day of the cruise and once again, as with going Northbound, everything was focused on the slack tide, the passage time, of Seymour Narrows. For today the early tide was around 21.00 and that was what I aimed for. It also meant that I could do a little bit of sightseeing was well as I did not have to sail too fast.

At the far north end of Vancouver Island there is the option to divert to Comorant Island via Pulteney point. It is the more scenic route with several villages on either side of the water. After passing Pulteney Point lighthouse you can see on the North side the village of Sointula. This is a predominantly Finnish settlement from the late 19th century. I found out about this in the 1980’s when we had to do a Medivac and it was arranged to land there and have the patient transported by ambulance via the local ferry to Vancouver Island. A cruise ship tender coming into Sointula was of course not a daily occurrence and thus most of the town was present to observe the proceedings. Great was my amazement when I docked the tender that there were a lot of blond haired, blue eyed girls standing at the tender dock. So while the medical department fussed over the patient and the ambulance I had the chance to find out how these girls ended up here. My Finnish was never that good, but then, they did not speak Dutch either. But as the only Dutchman ashore I was a major focus point of all those blue eyes and I was not in a hurry at all to return to the ship. Unfortunately the captain was in a hurry so it was a very short visit.

Next scenic point is Hadington Island on the starboard side. This is a small round island that acts as a sort of round-about for shipping traffic, separating North and South bound traffic. The island was for sale a number of years ago and the latest I heard is that a mining company wants to re-open the quarry on the island. It supplied the stones for the BC parliament building in Victoria but was later closed.

Next is Alert bay and the reason that I diverted the Veendam. Alert Bay features the highest totem pole in the world and it is clearly visible from the ship. Secondly it has a Common with a whole collection of smaller totem poles. Some of these poles were collected from other area’s to protect them against souvenir hunters but some are new, and at least two have been erected in the last 5 years. We sail by here on slow speed so the guests can have a good look and to stop the ships wake from hitting the shore line at the town. While we sail this passage our Cruise Tour Specialist (formerly the Naturalist) gives a running commentary about what is out there.

The sun was shining and that meant that it was beautiful scenic cruising all the way through Johnstone Strait to Seymour Narrows. By 9 pm. we where in the middle of it while the sun was setting, so all the guests could see the narrowest passage of our whole trip. A nice treat as normally we sail through here in the dark in order to keep the schedule by taking the earliest slack tide after leaving Vancouver. Just past Seymour Narrows is the village of Campbell River with a big pulp mill on the edge of the town.

By 21.30 we were in the Strait of Georgia going slow speed to aim for a timely arrival in Vancouver. The pilot and officers on the bridge will be looking all night long at the Celebrity Infinity just ahead. Because of the arrival sequence in Vancouver she will go in first, so we stayed behind her for the whole night. Always nice to have somebody show us where to go. The weather for Vancouver looks good and thus it will be a good ending of a very nice cruise.