The Coho
“Don’t pay the ferryman
Until he gets you to the other side”
Chris De Burgh, Don’t Pay the Ferryman from the album The Getaway, 1982
When my ex-husband David and I were in the High School band in California, the band raised money and went on a trip to Canada. My father was one of the chaperones, as was David’s mother, Betty. We loaded all our instruments, luggage and about 50 teenagers into two tour busses, and drove for 14 or 15 hours from Benicia, California up to Port Angeles, Washington where the busses drove onto the ferry to Victoria, Canada. David and I enjoyed the trip so much, we decided to go back on our honeymoon several years later.
Drawing on the wall in the Canadian ticket office
The M/V Coho is owned and operated by Black Ball Ferry Line. It was was built in 1959; its maiden voyage was 29 December 1959. It has ferried people and vehicles back and forth across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Port Angeles, Washington to Victoria, British Columbia (BC) ever since, with the exception of a 19 month shutdown while the U.S./Canadian border was closed between 20 March 2020 and 8 November 2021. Somehow the Black Ball Ferry Line managed to stay afloat, so-to-speak, when a lot of other privately owned businesses went under. Between 1959 and 1973 it also ferried freight trucks between Seattle, Port Angeles, Port Townsend, and Victoria. The current schedule is two round trips per day between Port Angeles and Victoria, which expands to four during the summer.
Ready to leave Port Angeles
From Port Angeles, the ferry is loaded from the stern
Leaving the dock in Port Angeles
It is much more classically ship shaped than its double-ended, beamy Washington State counterparts. The hellobc.com site calls it “delightfully retro.” I don’t think it is “retro” if it is actually made back then. It’s like when one of my friends looked at my photos of the Queen’s House in the Tower of London and said, “Oooh! Tudor-style!” Um… well technically, yes. Tudor.
Click and scroll to enlarge and see captions.
When we took the Coho in 1982, it was twenty-three years old. The last time I took M/V Coho was with Bob and his daughter in 2019. We walked on and his parents picked us up on the other side (they had taken a different ferry to Vancouver Island). The Coho was sixty at that point.
One of the adorable water taxis in Victoria Harbour zooming past two float planes
The Empress Hotel
Just some pansies along the waterfront.
The lobby of the office on the Canadian side.
The WELCOME TO VICTORIA in flowers isn’t quite flowering yet
We recently took the M/V Coho again, now aged sixty-four. This time Bob and I drove up to Port Angeles and onto the ferry in our van, and David, his husband Pete, and Betty were driven up by our son/grandson, William. Bob, David, Pete, Betty, and I then left on in the ferry leaving William to drive back home. He had to work.
Click to enlarge
BTW, we actually paid the ferryman several weeks in advance…
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