Queen of Prince Rupert - Inside Passage and Queen Charlotte Islands

Trip: Route 10 Port Hardy to Prince Rupert, Route 11 Prince Rupert to Skidegate, Route 26 Skidegate to Alliford Bay and back to Skidegate, Route 11 Skidegate to Prince Rupert, Route 10 Prince Rupert to Port Hardy stopping at Klemtu Shearwater and Bella Bella.

Date: October 29th to November1st 2008

Objective of Trip: To ride the Queen of Prince Rupert on the inside passage in her native setting.

This article was written and photographed by Nick Berben.

Recap:

Day 1:

Well, since everybody is so impatient to hear the "low-down" on this AWESOME trip, here goes. This is probably the longest, most photo intensive post I have ever done. PLEASE BE PATIENT, THERE ARE A LOT OF PHOTOS.

I met Donella in Saanichton, and we made our way to the Brentwood ferry terminal. Caught the 1:15 ferry, and headed up island to Duke Point, where we met up with the rest of the gang. I brought my 2 way radios again, as they proved so useful on the Galiano trip, so I gave one to the people in Scott's vehicle so that we could arrange stops and stuff en route.

We stopped in Buckley Bay because Scott needed some fuel to get him to Courtenay, and I filled up there as well. We then made our way along the old highway to Courtenay so Scott could fill up. After everybody was running on full tanks, we made our way up to Port McNeill. We arrived really early, around 8:30. We watched the QQ2 arrive, load 2 cars, and leave, and the QPR drifted past the bay while the QQ2 was in dock. The QPR then pulled in, and a Deas truck had to attach a couple of "extender arms" to let the ramp apron extend to the deck.



We boarded around midnight, and plunked our stuff down to claim sleeping spots in the forward lounge. Then, of course, we had to explore the rest of the ship. We discovered that the ship had a tug helping keep it against the dolphin, because the dolphin wall wasn't long enough to let them tie up the bow.





We slipped around 1:15, 45 minutes late. Most of the rest of the crowd went to bed, but Brett and I stayed up and talked about his 'Chilliwack model.