the M/V Columbia

After a long wait and being the fifth to last car onto the ferry, we pulled away from Bellingham and it was sunny and nice out on the upper deck. I had my little tent set up and even convinced the crew to let me take my bike up on deck and use my trainer (they were a little skeptical but I'm good at convincing). I set up my bike and spun away from Bellingham for an hour enjoying the views.

Cycling (photo courtesy of David-from-Olympia-previously-from-Australia)

I think that the first day people were quite enticed by the novelty of riding a bike on a ferry boat. But on the second day when it was drizzling I think they thought I was maybe a little crazy. Sadly, it was mostly rainy on the trip to Juneau. In fact, Alaska has a ton of rainforest. So at least the vegetation seems happy with all of the rain. I would not recommend trying to ride rollers on this ferry trip. In addition to the rain which would have made it treacherous, there were also high winds to blow you sideways and whenever the boat would turn it would tip sideways which is very unnerving on a bike. On Sunday we made two U-turns while I was riding and I had to stop and put a foot down both times. I know it's mind over matter and the trainer would almost certainly not actually tip over, but I still got too freaked out by the feeling of having my bike at an angle to horizontal when I wasn't turning a corner and didn't have any of the normal forces associated with having my bike tipped over.

Wrangler Narrows

Sunday was also the day that we went through the Wrangler Narrows-- a narrow channel that the boat has to manuever very very carefully through. At low tide the water gets as low as 19' deep. Our boat was huge too, there were places where I could have thrown something from the deck and hit the shore. And I can't throw very far. I was certainly impressed with the steering abilities of our captain.

At 4:45am we docked in Juneau (we also stopped in Ketchikan, Wrangler, Petersburg on the way up) and I packed up and drove my subaru off and then went back onto the boat to make my breakfast.

Riding the ferry was a pretty sweet experience. I would recommend it. I would also try to get a stateroom, but they are in high demand and you have to reserve one way early. The ferry had a small theater with nice reclining chairs where they showed movies almost continuously all day. Most of the movies were kids movies. There were also short presentations on the surrounding area by a forest service person. We were on the inside passage so there was always coastline to look at. There was a cafeteria where I did not buy any food but where I did use the microwave to cook my food and did also use their condiments and spices. And lots of people hanging out and being friendly. The next leg of the journey might be a little rougher because we will be out in the open sea going from Juneau to Whittier.