14 days left: GETTING HERE (by air and sea)

Hello.

Hello. I'm Tod. This is my other brother, Darryl.

Every time.

You're sleeping with your brother? So this is 14 days left, and we are now— today's video, we're doing a video every night leading up to it, and today's video is about transportation. It's all about getting here to Nanaimo in 2 weeks, which you're going to do. First, a couple of quick housekeeping. Don't forget, if you're coming to pick up a lanyard, a red lanyard, or a Canada flag lanyard. You don't have to put anything at the bottom of it. It's just to have to wear while you're in travel and when you're in town so that we can all sort of find out about each other. My—

And if you're from the island and you're coming into Naimo for this thing, you can wear one too.

Yeah, locals join us. Locals and mainlanders absolutely welcome. Please come out. Especially please come Saturday at 10:00 AM. That is the— in the park, in Mafeya Sutton Park, that is our big family photograph. There's going to be— there's going to be a market, there's going to be food trucks, there's going to be local dignitaries. It's going to be a thing.

Come support all the local vendors. And it's Tod's birthday.

And it's also going to be my 55th birthday. And then the only other thing before we talk about getting here is my new website about Canada, which is farandwide.news. And if you are packing or you're getting ready, please use the hashtag #NanaimoInfusion. All right. So getting here. So we are— and I did a video about this as well, so you can find it, or maybe I'll figure out how to make a little thingy. Um, so we are on Vancouver Island. One very important thing to know: Nanaimo is on Vancouver Island. The city of Vancouver is not on Vancouver Island. That's a big thing to know, because if you fly to Vancouver and you expect to just be able to, to like, you know, 5-minute drive to Nanaimo, it doesn't work. There's no bridge that connects Vancouver Island to Vancouver. The only two ways to get here are by ferry and by air, and we're going to describe both of them.

Yes.

Um, so first of all, ferry. So people driving up, assuming you're driving up from the US, uh, you'll be crossing most likely the Blaine border crossing, I would expect.

Yeah, or Pacific Highway, which is not that far away.

Yeah, so you'll be coming north, obviously, across the border. The, the most convenient route for you, especially with a car, is going to be the BC Ferries terminal at Tsawwassen. Tawasun is a bedroom community of Vancouver, south of Vancouver, about an hour south of Vancouver.

So, um, and you should reserve your tickets, reserve your sailing. It's highly, highly, highly suggested. Even if this wasn't happening, it sucks to wait another 2.5-3 hours for a sailing if you missed the other one.

From Tawasun to Vancouver Island, the closest port to Nanaimo, which is only like about a 10-minute drive from Nanaimo, It's from Tsawwassen. That's a 2-hour trip. The ferries leave every 2 hours. The cost to, to get a ticket for like a family of 4 and, and your vehicle, because you have to pay for your vehicle as well, is going to run you like $150 Canadian or so.

Yeah. It depends on the sailing and the time of day.

Yeah, exactly. The reservation is like $20 and you can just, just pay for the reservation by itself. And when you're booking online and pay for the full thing when you arrive. It's beautiful. The ferry trip is magnificent.

It's gorgeous. It's, you know, if you're like, oh my gosh, that's a lot of money, it's like you're sightseeing and your transportation all in one.

And these ships are like mini cruise ships. They're really— they have snack bars and full-service restaurant and gift stores.

No gambling.

Yeah, no gambling. And places for kids to play, places for your dog to pee, all those sorts of things. All right, so that's BC Ferries. There is another ferry terminal in Vancouver that will also take you to Vancouver Island. That is a slightly shorter trip. It's about 90 minutes from the mainland to Vancouver Island. It will actually take you into Nanaimo proper, more or less, like kind of a 5-minute drive away from Nanaimo to Departure Bay, right?

Nanaimo.

But it leaves from Horseshoe Bay, which is a, a much further drive than Tsawwassen if you're coming up from the border. It also means you will probably have to go through downtown Vancouver, which is a nightmare.

Now, I know if you go on bcfairies.com and you look up under Nanaimo on the terminals, you're going to see one that says Nanaimo City or Nanaimo Harbour. That is the Gabriola Island ferry, which you will not be able to get to unless you are already in Nanaimo. So don't mix that up, but it would be pretty hard to mix up.

So BC Ferries are Tsawwassen, which is 2 hours but much closer to the US border, or Horseshoe Bay, which is a shorter voyage by half an hour but much further from the US border. Now if you don't have a car, you can take the Hello Ferry. The Hello Ferry is a passenger ferry. They're super nice. You just got off one.

I just got off a Hello Ferry like not a few moments ago.

There's that—

it's like a fast And passenger only. It's a catamaran style ferry, and so the rules are a little bit different. Obviously there's no vehicles. It's $20 for seniors and disabled folks, and then I think the highest rate class is $40 per person.

But there is a discount for you people if you use the code INFUSION15, like infusion 15, you will get 15% off as long as you are booking for the whole weekend and it's a round trip. Um, it's very short. It's like 70 minutes, so it's pretty quick. Um, but you— yeah, again, you can't drive a vehicle or even bikes on, I don't think.

No bikes yet. Um, there you can bring luggage, you can bring a few large things, but you do have to like pay a little extra for it. Um, if you— once you're on the ferry, you realize why you have to pay a little extra for large objects because it's not— it's not a big boat.

It's a good option to go if you're flying into Vancouver because it leaves from right downtown Vancouver, right in downtown Harbour, right to Nanaimo Harbour.

And there's rapid, um, there's— what do they call it— rapid transit train right from the airport to Waterfront where Holoferries is. And there's lots of people, you'll see them walking their luggage toward the Holoferries from the train station. So It's a totally viable way to do it, and there's lots to do in Nanaimo, and we have great buses. So like, you, you don't have to drive. Um, and what was I gonna say about— hello. Um, ah, darn. Anyway, it's, it's kind of between $20 and $40 each way. Uh, very fast. It's not— it's really not bumpy, I promise you.

If you get a little seasick, you Why do you look so much taller than me in this?

Because you're slouching, honey.

Oh, okay. That's true, I am. Okay, so that takes care of water transport. What?

Hello has a free shuttle. That's what I was trying to say. It docks like a 10-minute walk from downtown Nanaimo, but because they're great, they have a free shuttle. And there's also a helijet terminal in the same place in Nanaimo. So you could like fly.

Okay, so we— yeah, but don't— we got to do this in an order. Okay, so that covers the water transportation from, from Canada into the— there's also water transportation from the US to Vancouver Island. There's two of those. There is the Clipper and there's the Coho.

I think the Coho is the boat name of the Victoria Clipper.

No, anyway, I don't know.

Okay, well, there's two lines.

There are two lines. And one takes cars and one doesn't.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. The one that goes to Seattle— no, the one that goes to Seattle is the passenger one. And the one that takes cars is— oh gosh, I should have looked this up.

So this is all this to say that there are two boats that will take you from Washington State to Vancouver Island. One takes cars, one doesn't take cars. I believe Clipper is the one that does not take cars. However, please understand that they will not bring you to Nanaimo. They will dock in Victoria, which in itself is a beautiful city. It is 90 minutes, or it's about 2 hours south of Nanaimo. So once you get here, either you are on the boat that will take your car and then you're golden, or if you're on the passenger ferry and you're coming up that way, you will also dock in Victoria and you will have to get some kind of vehicle. Now, I don't know whether you steal a car, that's up to you, rent one.

There's the Tofino bus or Island bus, which is a a private bus shuttle service that does come to Nanaimo, but that needs to be booked in advance. Yeah. Um, the dog and cat are like fighting. Are you, are you wanting to go?

Come here. Um, all right, so that takes care of the water transportation. Uh, you can also—

what we should mention, the Washington State Ferry that goes to Sydney is not running. It hasn't run since COVID It it won't be back till 2030. Don't show up there and expect— I think it was, it came from Anacortes. It, there is no ferry link at the moment.

It does exist, it just does Washington State. It doesn't come to Canada anymore. So that's water. Uh, now there's air transportation as well. So you can fly to Vancouver Island. Our two main airlines, um, that will do that from like regular planes, like jet planes, are Air Canada and WestJet. You can do that from Vancouver. I don't know how much they cost. They're not expensive. It's a 20-minute flight. You go up, you go down. It's like, it's nothing. Can we help you?

Our dog looks like Santa's Little Helper from The Simpsons. Sorry.

Anyway, you can also take Helijet, which is a helicopter. More expensive than the floatplane. The floatplane options are Harbour Air and Sea Air. And a couple of other ones. They will also leave from Vancouver Airport, but from the South Terminal, which is like an auxiliary terminal, which you'll probably need to take a cab or a shuttle bus to get to that terminal.

If you use a wheelchair, a manual wheelchair, Seair has an accessible boarding device for their floatplane out of the YVR, like the south, the seaplane terminal near the airport on the Vancouver side. The other ones do not have them and may not take your wheelchair unless you can board yourself. And you— yeah, you should call first.

Yeah, the helijet will take people in wheelchairs, I believe.

Yes, but you have to be able to help assist in your own boarding of the helijet. It is pretty high, so just be aware to call first and just make sure because you You don't want anyone to be disappointed. You don't want to arrive and realize you can't get on.

But fuck out, come here.

Um, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, come here.

Will you relax, dude?

We have an 18-month-old Doxter Terrier. She's excited. Listen, like, I've never seen— she's, she's probably been sleeping all day and I just got home.

OK. Are there any other transportation-related things that we need to talk about?

Um, transportation. So we talked about flying, ferries.

Yeah, I think we covered it. Cars.

Oh, parking. Um, so—

Oh no, we're doing parking as a separate video entirely. Scratch parking. So we have for the next— Just let her go, maybe. So 14 days away as of right now, every night on this YouTube channel we will be giving you another video. We're going to be talking— there's going to be videos about yarn stores, about parking, about the malls, about how money works here, all about some more events and so on. Excuse me. So we've got lots of stuff for you. I think that's what I wanted to say.

Yeah.

So make sure you come Saturday morning at 10 AM on that day. That's April 26th at Maféo Sutton Park. #NanaimoInfusion if you're doing any talking about it on social media, that will help us sort of see it as well. Um, my new website for Canadian identity and things is farandwide.news. And join the Discord. And yes, locals can come as well, locals and mainlanders.

Great to see you. I think mostly we just want to make sure that the city gets shown off and, um, that you can help us help local businesses. And help keep everyone afloat in this really tough time.

And get yourself a lanyard, red or Canada flag.

Except apparently your wife.

You are so uptight about that. I forgot once.

The only time you've ever bought a lanyard in your whole life.

I bought you a diamond ring.

He put a ring on it.

All right, goodbye. See you tomorrow night. Bye!