Ferry Ride

Monday morning we left Anacortes headed for the ferry terminal about 35 miles south on Whidbey Island.  We had made our reservations the night before via the internet to ferry the motorhome, car and 2 passengers from Coupeville, WA on Whidbey Island to Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula.  The ferry trip took about 35 minutes.  These ferries load and unload at an amazingly fast pace.

The Washington State Ferries is a passenger and car/truck ferry service owned and operated by the Washington State DOT that serves communities on Puget Sound and in the San Juan Islands.  It is the largest passenger and automobile fleet in the US and the third largest in the world by fleet.  It carries 11 million vehicles per year.  The larger jumbo ferries can hold 2500 people and 202 cars.  The ferry we took across was not one of the jumbo ferries, but it held a lot of cars, trucks, semi's and people.

Once you have parked your vehicle, you can lock it and go upstairs for the ride.  There are drink and snack machines, and even a small snack/restaurant on board.  The larger ferries have larger snack/restaurants and many more seats and tables.  A lot of the residents use the ferries to get to work.  There were even jigsaw puzzles laid out on some of the tables that you could just sit down and work while you were ferried across the water.  

Washington State Ferry

Our ferry......

  almost at the ferry landing and it was time to board.

Our view as we headed into the belly of the ferry.  The ferries are open ended, so they do not have to turn around.  You drive on and when you get to the other side you just drive off

Yes..... that's the nose of our motorhome.  We are wedged in tight behind a couple of semi's.  The red sticker lets the ferry crew know that we have turned off the propane gas.

You can't see our car, but it is still hooked up to the motorhome.  We didn't have to unhook the car which made it super easy to drive on......and drive off.

This is the view looking out the back of the ferry as we headed up the stairs to sit in the passenger area for the ride over.

You can walk around outside if the weather is nice.

This ferry had one of the smaller restaurant areas. 

Tables and chairs from the front of the ferry to the end on the passenger deck.

Sun deck on top.

We are arriving at the ferry dock in Port Townsend.