Heading Home to Ocean Falls

May 26-28, 2023 

Friday, May 26th, was a big day for us, as we finally, after having been in Canada for two months, began our journey back to our house in Ocean Falls.  

While making the long drive up Vancouver Island to Port Hardy, we were happy to have been able to stop to visit friends along the way. 

We then spent the night in a hotel in Port Hardy, and Falcon and I spent the following morning visiting with a good friend of mine from high school,

while Jason did our last minute shopping for produce and refrigerator items.  In our truckload of items, we had two large boxes of frozen meat, which my mom and I had repackaged from the fresh family-packs of meat that I had purchased during our major shopping runs.  Thankfully we were able to put these boxes into my friend's deep freezer overnight in order to try to keep them frozen until we got home.   

At 14:20, on May 27th,  we arrived at the ferry terminal to begin the long wait to see if we would be able to board the ferry with our truck.  As a wait-listed traveller we had to be at the terminal extra early so as to keep our place on the list.  They began loading the ferry at about 16:00, but because it was a ferry with only one open end, everyone needed to back their vehicle on board, which made the process quite time consuming.  Although the ferry was scheduled to leave at 18:00, it was not until around 18:30 that Jason and I were finally told that we could go and purchase our tickets, as we would now be able to get on board with our truck.  Yay!!  We were very happy. 

As we backed on to the ferry we were quite surprised to see just how much room was actually still available inside the ferry.  I imagine that all of the wait-listed vehicles were able to get on the ferry.   

At around 01:30 on May 28th we arrived in Bella Bella where we disembarked.  Normally we would have then caught a different ferry to Ocean Falls, but that ferry was in the midst of a refit, so instead, we got on board a fast water taxi as foot passengers, while our truck got loaded onto a slow tug-and-barge setup.  We arrived in to Ocean Falls at 05:30, and our truck arrived nearly five hours later.   

Thankfully, our good friends in Ocean Falls had an extra vehicle that they had left at the government dock for us, so we were able to drive home, climb into bed, and sleep until our truck was scheduled to arrive.  That sleep was the beginning of yet another very busy chapter in our time back in Canada.