We left Cavenish early this morning. It was slightly overcast. The route the map app on my phone took us on wound through picturesque valleys, that was until we hit the outskirts of Charlottetown. We were on the perimeter road and so we passed by all kinds of commercial and industrial sites. We turned off onto side roads and ended up back on Highway 1, but on our route we saw a lot more of our beautiful smallest province. We got to the ferry terminal at Woods Island about 11:00, the very first car in the lot. Dale got out and walked around, snapping the photo you see at the top of this post. I sat in the car and read. When Dale was finished his walkabout we went into the cafeteria building to pass some more time and have some breakfast. At about 12:30 we headed back to the car. Shortly thereafter the ferry arrived and a spry older woman on a golf cart raced up and motioned for us to follow her. We pulled ahead a little from where we had been parked and watched as the ferry docked.

It was a little disconcerting because as the ferry was moving forward to the dock, the entire front was opening. Moving upwards. Have you ever seen a whale bath toy? You know, the one that looks like a caricature of Moby Dick, with the big head and huge mouth? It was like a whale had arrived at the dock and was opening its mouth. Then motorcycles and cars and vehicles pulling trailers emerged. At first we thought the ferry couldn’t carry many vehicles because not many disembarked. But then… Imagine the opening is the whale’s mouth. The vehicles were inside its mouth, the deck was its tongue. But then part of the tongue lifted up. Yup! There was a deck under the main car deck! It was like the whale had burped and all the little fish in its stomach were disgorged and able to swim out. Most of the vehicles had been below the main vehicle deck. The part of the deck that lifted up stayed up, and we were directed to drive down into it!

The opening was quite narrow and quite steep. The ferry worker inside directed us to drive right to the other end. We were positioned at the bottom of the ramp on the other end but the opening to the main deck was closed. Because there were vehicles parked on it and when everyone was in, the opening on the other end would be closed too and vehicles would be parked on it! Needless to say, we couldn’t stay down there. Everyone left to go up to the main passenger decks and the entrance to the stairway was roped off once we got underway. No one was allowed to be on the car decks while we were in transit.

We stayed up on the top deck, playing Scrabble on our iPads, passing them back and forth for most of the trip. When the ferry was close to the Nova Scotia terminal there was an announcement that we should head down to our vehicles. We sat there, looking up the ramp, listening to the hum of the engines and then the thunder of the vehicles above driving over us. Eventually a loud buzzer started beeping and the hydraulics started lifting up the deck above the ramp. A ferry worker appeared beside us. We looked up, it was like we were coming out of a dark tunnel into the light. As we drove up all we could see was sky until the front wheels pulled us up onto the main deck. We were out of the whale’s belly and back on solid land. Welcome back to Nova Scotia!