Leaving Like a Local
Every ferry departure out of Langdale you’ll notice them: locals charging the gates right at cut-off time to make it into the next boat loading, pushing it, pushing it, pushing it. Visitors must think we’re idiots. Well, it’s because we ARE.
After 25 years of living on the Sunshine Coast, and leaving it – medical appointments, visits with family, jet plane departures out of YVR, Pride Festivals, whathaveyou – there is still nothing quite so satisfying as getting the last spot on the upper vehicle deck.
I call it “getting a spanking from an old Queen”; the deckhand hustles you in, the vessel gates swing shut behind and the ferry takes off, toute de suite, for Vancouver.
Usually anyone else in the car is in a frothing rage and calming down as their vision of a two-hour tirade in the parking lot is alleviated, or the entire vehicle’s worth of passengers breaks out into a riotous onslaught of cheering, drunk with the relief of ‘making the boat’.
Of course the other thing us locals know is pack plenty of books, snacks, and water, and make sure all your iDistractions are charged to the max before leaving home… our family once missed TWO BOATS IN A ROW by ‘popping back into town’ between sailings. You never saw a madder group of people, that’s all I’m saying.
