Floatplane trip

My office is in Victoria, but trips to Vancouver are a regular part of my work. We tend to go by floatplane, and I took some pictures on my second trip, last week on May 3. It was late in the day and there were dried droplets on the windows so pics from the plane weren’t great. This is the plane I took on my last trip to Vancouver:

Both of my flights have been with West Coast Air, in DeHavilland Twin Otters. I get on the plane from a dock in the Inner Harbour and we taxi out into the open water. I took a shot of the Johnson street bridge out the window. This is not a great shot, but how many times do you see this? We bobbed a little in the wake of that barge:
I took some shots of Stanley Park and the Vancouver skyline, but the spatter and the sun defeated my efforts.
I took a picture of the Vancouver Court House from the southwest corner on Hornby the next day:
At the end of the day, it’s down to the Vancouver Harbour a little west of Canada Place. If I am early, I just have to sit there and watch the planes fly off over Stanley Park:
Sometimes there is nothing to do except look at the harbour, and the far shore of Burrard Inlet:
On my return, I saw a cruise ship and something military in the harbour at Ogden Point in Victoria:

2 thoughts on “Floatplane trip”

  1. Garth Danielson

    What does it cost to go on the float plane?
    How far is it to Vancouver?

  2. The retail is $109 plus tax, one way. I think the Government may get a discount – I don’t see the invoices for government travel.
    It takes about 35 or 40 minutes, which involves some taxiing at about 10 K in the harbour – mainly at the Victoria end to get out of or into the Innner Harbour. You are basically downtown at either end. In Vancouver, there is a downtown shuttle to the hotels. If the plane went in a direct line northeast from Victoria to Vancouver, it would be 60 or 70 k. It tends to follow the coast of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, to stay in Canadian airspace, and then cut across to the Fraser Delta, and then north to Burrard Inlet. That pushes the distance closer to 100k. We fly over Vancouver airport sometimes – I guess (hope) the flight path for planes landing or taking off their is safely below us. I will have to ask the crew next time.
    The main option is to drive your car from Victoria up the Saanich Peninsula to the ferry terminal (30-45 minutes) and pay $35- $75 (one way) to take a car or van on the ferry for a ride that takes an hour and a half, then drive from Tswassen (basically on the US border) to Vancouver. The next option after that is a special bus onto the ferry and getting cabs or public transit as required at either end.

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