(And it sounds like it might become even more glorious the fleet has been updated with a newer, bigger boat, the Clipper V, which Meis says should be able to handle those waves a bit better.) The way back was so smooth you'd easily forget you were on a boat there was a beautiful sunset we toasted the trip with tiny bottles of Champagne found on the menu. I hadn't been lying a ride on the Clipper can be glorious.
(Sometime over the weekend, we each independently looked up flights to get back to Seattle, and when we all realized our pocket change wouldn't stretch that far, we were forced to get back on a boat.) I redeemed myself on the return to Seattle. There was just the wee issue of getting back home. None of us had any desire to go on a boat ever again. Nothing like a rendezvous with an angry Mother Nature to bring you closer together. We ate, we drank, we talked, we played games and we made way too many Clipper survivor jokes. Instead, all we wanted to do was hunker down in our Airbnb with wine and a home-cooked meal. We had made plans for all sorts of activities when we got to town bars, restaurants, the Royal BC Museum, maybe even a chilly trip to the Butchart Gardens.
The rest of us were so proud we had made it through we continued to brag about it for days. Of the five of us, the two who were least prone to seasickness were the ones who tossed their cookies. We disembarked, exhausted and unable to stop laughing anxiously. Eventually, we pulled up to the dock in Victoria. I just have to keep myself from getting ill and let them get us there safely. Only then did a staff member come onto the loud speaker, apologetically announcing that we had more bad weather to get through, that they had expected us to get there before the storm, and that we were in no danger. It wasn't until a wave hit so hard that a window popped open a bit and some water splashed into the cabin that I started to feel unsafe. I, on the other hand, held on tight to my seat, stared straight ahead and transported myself to my house with my cats. Another began to determine which of us were strong swimmers and who she would need to rescue first. One of my friends put on his noise-canceling headphones and put his head between his knees. There's something really special about the smell of hundreds of sweaty, anxious, vomiting people on a boat. The heroic Clipper staff crawled through the aisles on their knees, handing out and retrieving vomit bag after vomit bag. Even the biggest, strongest passengers hopped up on the Clipper's complimentary ginger candies and motion-sickness medication were no match for these waves.
It didn't take long for the seasickness to spread throughout the boat. The captain of the boat had to make the decision: would it be safer to turn back or proceed? Proceed we did. "Mother Nature can change quickly as can weather in the Strait of Juan de Fuca," Meis said. But that storm that was coming? It hit early, and it hit fast. Unfortunately, we had landed ourselves on what Clipper spokesperson Scott Meis called "the worst crossing we have had in 31 years of operation between Seattle." Crossings are canceled due to weather on average 20-25 times per year, Meis said, after careful calculations of weather patterns early in the morning. When one would hit, the boat would go up and over, slamming down back onto the water, hurling people around in their seats. The trip began just fine every once in a while there would be a big wave, and the whole boat would sound like it was going over the edge of a roller coaster. What's that they say about the best-laid plans? They went awry all right. We'd bundle up in our hats and scarves, sip some tea and wine and be on our merry way. We knew a storm was rolling in, but our boat would leave Seattle's Pier 69 first thing in the morning, and the weather would arrive later in the afternoon, adding some snowy ambience to our strolls through the adorable town that is Victoria. I would not shut up about how great it was going to be. Such a glorious three-hour boat ride so smooth, so fast. It would be their first time taking the Victoria Clipper, a high-speed catamaran it was my second, and I had sold it to them hard. I had repeated it over and over again as the weekend approached: "We're going on an adventure!" "We're going on an adventure!" My boyfriend, some friends and I were going to Victoria, British Columbia, for a few days in February.
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