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Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Here's the ferry station's digital information sign.

"Welcome to Washington State Ferries Anacortes Terminal. Tuesday, 7-13-2004, Time 4:09, Temperature 73. Summer schedule is in effect thru Sept 18. Credit cards are NOT accepted at Island or Sidney Terminals. Drivers, for safety, please do not use cell phones when loading. Turn off headlights at night, if possible. Parking lights are okay. Propane tanks need to be shut off at the source and tagged. Vehicle engines must also be turned off while the vessel is underway. Cheesecake Café is open in the terminal 6am-7pm. There is no food on the vessels. Vending is available on the vessels and terminal. Children will be allowed to pilot the ferry, especially in poor weather conditions."

All aboard! I'm amazed by the number of vehicles the ferry can handle. There's two levels of parking.

And away we go. The ferry moves along at a good clip and leaves in its passing a pretty large wake.

I'm standing over the engines now, or at least I think I am. They're pretty loud and I'll getting a pretty good foot massage I'm happy to say.

The trip to San Juam Island takes about 60 minutes. All along the way I'm tracking the boats progress with my GPS software and notice the captain tracks the charted waterway without deviation. Hmmmm, I bet he was using GPS as well. In the third picture you can see my GPS receiver draped over the railing in an effort to get better reception.