uaaah, getting up at 04:30 today was horrible. but our host at the back packers was so nice and really got up with us to wake us in case we would ignore our alarm clock. he said so the day before, but i wasn't sure if he really meant it. so, four zombies were walking the halls of the hostel, the host, a girl (who has already booked a shuttle to the ferry, as she's traveling on foot), and us - all of them tired and not in the mood for much talking. a cyclist has already left 30 minutes earlier to get to the terminal in time. all of them made it. as written on our confirmation we were at the terminal two hours before departure, but then had to wait, and wait, and wait. all those lost precious minutes we could have slept longer - what a pity, what a waste. but finally we were boarded, and on schedule the ferry left port hardy to take us to prince rupert. soon we saw two humpback whales[16-17] in the distance, and some dolphins[18] too, also far off in the distance. pretty cool. it is said that the "inside passage", the route our ferry goes, is a beautiful trip, or, as some even put it, an experience of a lifetime, full of magnificent fjords, islands, inlets, breathtaking landscapes, and blah blah blah ... admittedly, the trip definitely is beautiful, stunning, and all, but... only in the beginning. soon you discover, that it is always the same sight, more or less. considering the trip takes about 16 hours, this is hardly surprising. also in summer time, the ferry trip goes during the day and has stops at some terminals. which one, depends on the day of the trip. ours was the lovely little bay of bella bella[30-39], where we had a one hour stop. so we were watching the fishermen (and fisherwomen), loads of salmon jumping out of the water[31] (in slide [31] all the white spots on the surface are fish), and some more eagles[33-39]. in winter time the trip is during the night hours. also, the ferry just goes every second day. we also booked a little outside two berth cabin and had some sleep during the hours where no sight was announced. there was a map in the hallways with the distance in hours from port hardy when to see the next sight, so we could time that quite good. except of course for wildlife sightings, which was announced by the crew, like "our captain would like to inform you, that we have spotted some on the side of the ship a few hundred metres ahead". so the rest of the passengers hunting wildlife with their camera gears were watching the back of the ship. that's also were we spotted the whales and dolphins. once every two hours passengers were also allowed to return to their cars for 15 minutes to get stuff from or to the car. since it was colder and more windy on deck than i had expected, i once used that time frame to get my thicker jacket from the car. that is when i spotted an old man with his little cat sitting in the animal's cargo hold. the cat in his arm, he was talking to the tiny kitten, and petting it, so it wont get too nervous. aaaaaw, so cute. to keep the cat from more stress i did not enter the hold, but watched, unnoticed by the man, through the porthole. so cute, so tiny, ooooh, i so wanted to touch it. unfortunately i did not bring my camera with me to the parking level, so there is no picture of the two of them.

as i erroneously wrote in yesterday's bLog entry, it was not yesterday our last day at the coast, but of course today. you cannot get much closer to the sea than on a ferry. still, this does not change the fact that we will miss all the sea stuff.

also there still hasn't been a bear sighting so far, which also makes us rather sad. furthermore no cougars, no beavers, no moose, no mountain goats (ok, we have not been in the mountains yet, so that's actually okay), no lynx, no bobcats, no sea otters. when we got to our bed & breakfast, the "java lodge bed & breakfast" in prince rupert the owner was already waiting for us. she brought us upstairs to our room, where we heard a cat crying. turns out there's a cat right next door to where we are sleeping - yippieh. as every evening, i did all the follow up tasks of the day in the hostel. this includes stuff like transferring the pictures and notes from during the day to the computer, making backups of the pictures to an external usb hard disk, and copying the GPS track to my computer and feed it to my photo rendering software. that is when i found out that today's track was totally broken and useless - i have no idea why. the signal was excellent while being on board, a little weak while being in the cabin, but that should not have been a problem. so i did a dump of all the data that was on the tracker so far, which goes back to our taiwan holidays back in 2012. although the space was still about 59 per cent free, i deleted all the data. hopefully tomorrow it will work fine again. the track used for the pictures is a reconstructed one, so it probably is pretty inaccurate, but should do as to get a hint where the pictures where taken. track for day 12 (reconstructed).