This was the first short day of the tour, but certainly not the last. We spent most of our day riding the ferries.
The ride started out with the typical activities around breaking camp. We then headed to Nanaimo and after a couple unpleasant cycling-things like crossing some ramps on heavily-traveled highway we headed to our first ferry, heading over to Tsawwassen. There were some tough areas with a bit of unexpected climbing. The GPS shows just over 1700 feet of climbing but the corrected elevation shows more than 6000 feet. Not sure how to reconcile that, but I do remember lots of climbing. For the most part it was straight with good shoulders, though; not a lot of switchbacks and small roads.
We got to the ferry whereupon Dan headed in for some food while I waited and cycled in loops out front. Once on the ferry, though, I was Mr. Hungry. I ate and ate and ate. The ferry ride was a couple hours long and I don’t think there was more than 10 minutes at a time that I wasn’t eating something! Dan, on the other hand, found a place to stretch out and got some much needed rest.
I’ve been spending the ride happily ignorant of the news but there was so much buzz about one item that it was impossible to miss. That’s ok since I figured anything *really* important would spread like that and I’d probably want to know. Anyway, the news was that there was an earthquake on Vancouver Island, where we had just left, and it occurred just 5 minutes after the ferry left the terminal. Yikes!
But the news was early and reports that came in later indicated that nobody had been hurt and there was no real damage so it was more of a non-event than anything. The captain (or someone) did make announcements on the public address system but I think that was to keep people calm more than anything.
We got to Tsawwassen and headed right over to the next ferry terminal. Well, it wasn’t *right* over, we had to wait a bit before we were able to get our tickets.
It turns out that there’s a lot of ferry traffic here and in what I can only presume is an intelligent location, a mall right next to the long lines of vehicles. We went through the mall, got some food and then headed outside to wait. Dan enjoyed the nice, cool, green grass while I rode loops around the cars. What can I say, I was itchy to be riding!
It was a nice ferry ride and very different from the others. On this ferry there were a LOT more people hanging around out on the deck, hauling backpacks and what looked like most of their earthly possessions.
After departing the ferry it took us a few minutes to figure out where we needed to go. We headed out pretty quickly and finally got to the ferry terminal for Anacortes, only to find out that we’d missed it by 20 minutes. We determined that even if we had known exactly where we were headed and hadn’t made any wrong turns at all, we’d have missed the ferry anyway. Seems the timing was set up for cars rather than for bikes.
It was getting dark and we were unsure of campground options so we finally gave in and opted for a hotel. This way we’d be able to have a nice dinner, a long hot shower (without hitting the camp shower buttons every 3 minutes) and be refreshed for the next day.
Before heading to a hotel we found a place to eat right on the water, a small fish-and-chips type of place with some local brews. It wasn’t very spendy and it was nice being right on the water. I was still in the “take whatever recommendation is provided” mood and the waitress recommended a really dark local beer. She said that most people don’t like it but that she did. I was in the mood to try anything so I went for it. Turns out I liked it quite a bit.
Dan spotted a couple in kayaks paddling by and recognized them as two people we had seen toting their kayaks on one of the ferries. I don’t remember now if it was on the same day or what.
We got a hotel room, one of the very few times I’ll share a room with someone, and ended up flipping on the tv and watching Storage Wars. It was mildly entertaining and reminds me why I generally don’t watch tv. We were up pretty late looking at maps and such. I ended up being pretty hungry again and so set out to find more calories. I think Dan was out by that point. I found a McDonald’s close by and chowed down. I’ll bet I easily consumed more than 15,000 calories today; seems I didn’t do anything but eat!
Tomorrow the ferry to anacortes leaves at noon and arrives around 2pm so there’s no reason to hurry. Dan will ride to the Mukilteo ferry. I’ll ride the Kingston ferry to Port Townsend.
Here I am chilling out, letting the whole “vacation” thing sink in.
The recommended brew (I recommend it as well – I might have even finished the whole thing) and the Spring and Kirkendall book which we use as one of our guides – the American Cycling Association maps and GPS and local maps being the others.
Dan chilling.
The obligatory Lego photo. These guys where almost as hungry as me!
Our “campsite” for the night.
Filed under: Bicycling
