Night work to affect late night and early morning sailings for those on Gabriola Island
For the sailing times being affected by the night work, a complimentary water taxi will be in place. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm
Gabriola Islanders will want to double-check how they will be commuting to Vancouver Island and back starting next week, as BC Ferries starts night work on both terminals.
Deborah Marshall, Executive Director of Public Affairs for BC Ferries said commuters can expect water taxi-only service on certain late night and early morning sailings starting January 15th to January 19th. This will allow for overnight geotechnical work on the marine structure at the Descanso Bay terminal on Gabriola Island and the Nanaimo Harbour terminal.
“We're looking at the marine structures around the terminal. So yes, we do need to do some, some overnight work,” Marshall said. “So that way we don't interrupt the majority of our service while our the majority of customers are going back and forth.”
Marshall said BC Ferries worked on finding times that will have the lowest impact on customers.
“We have carefully chosen the time for the work based on historical traffic and the fewest number of customers travelling just to mitigate the impact on our customers,” Marshall said.
The list of expected sailings to be affected by the overnight work can be found on the BC Ferries website on the service notice page.
The list of sailings being affected by the work Photo: Screen shot from BC Ferries
During the affected sailings, service for vehicles will not be available as a complimentary water taxi will be in place.
Marshall said if someone chooses to leave their vehicle in Nanaimo overnight, reimbursement can be claimed on the BC Ferries website through their customer care page.
She said this work is in support of future terminal development.
“We certainly apologize for not being able to provide our full vehicle service. But again, this work is necessary and the hours that we have chosen are when the fewest people would normally be travelling,” Marshall said.
Riley Hamer and Safiah Boretsky have both lived on Gabriola for most of their lives.
Boretsky said the changes to the sailing service should be fine with her as she should be able to manage to get the sailing before the night work starts. But Hamer mentions that as he has to drive to school most days, it adds some worry if he has to stay late on campus.
“Like, theirs kind of add a bit of anxiety over like, ‘Okay, is a ferry that we want to get going? Is it cancelled or not? Is the water taxi going to have the capacity for us if we have to say late at school or something like that?’” Hamer said.
They both agree that from living on the Island they are used to having sailing be cancelled or affected by weather conditions or mechanical problems, but Boretsky said she has not seen work like this before at their terminal.
“In my memory, we've had anything as significant as this, but I'm pretty used to it, I’m not really surprised, honestly,” Boretsky said.
Hamer does admit although BC Ferries would reimburse him if he were to leave his vehicle overnight in Nanaimo, he still does not want to have to do so and will make sure he gets earlier sailing.”
“Hopefully don't have to cross that path,” Hamer said.
Up-to-date sailing information for the Nanaimo-Gabriola ferry can be found at bcferries.com/current-conditions or by following @BCFerries on X (formally known as Twitter)
Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.