"Despite the thick layers of grime and weathered paint, those markings are not entirely gone. If you zoom in closely on the port bow just below the wheelhouse overhang, the faint ghost lettering of her original name is still visible: that is the former BC Ferries vessel MV Queen of Tsawwassen.She is a genuine piece of West Coast maritime history. Completed in 1960 at Burrard Dry Dock in North Vancouver, she and her sister ship, Queen of Sidney, were the original two Sidney-class ferries that inaugurated the entire BC Ferries fleet on the Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen run.
After being retired from passenger service in 2007, her post-ferry life took a somewhat battered turn. She was renamed Inlet Explorer and spent years repurposed as a floating logging camp and accommodation barge in remote coastal inlets. More recently, she turned up moored semi-mysteriously off Gambier Island in Howe Sound, drawing scrutiny as an anchored derelict.
Seeing her under tow heading up the Fraser River past your window points toward the inevitable endgame. She is almost certainly headed upriver for scrap disposal or salvage, mirroring the path of her ill-fated sister ship further east near Silverdale."
I probed further by saying it was hard for me to make out the letters on the ship and asked him to conform. Ajith seemed convinced:
"Looking closely at that faded cursive script on the port bow, the visible word is actually "Tsawwassen".
The Lettering: In the original BC Ferries cursive script, the text reads Queen of Tsawwassen. The first two words are almost entirely scrubbed away by weather and rust streaks, but the long, low outline of the 10-letter place name remains faintly etched where the paint weathered unevenly over the original weld and lettering.
Sister Ship Comparison: The only other vessel ever built to this specific profile was her identical twin, the Queen of Sidney. However, the Queen of Sidney has been languishing up near Mission/Silverdale since 2002 and suffered a massive structural fire in 2025, leaving her superstructure heavily burned and charred.
Structural Match: The intact white upper passenger decks, the singular blue funnel, and the open-ended vehicle deck layout confirm this is the unburnt twin—the Tsawwassen.
Having spent years moored as an idle accommodation barge and later floating derelict around Gambier Island, she is finally making her final run up the river."
3) 
Lastly, when scrolling through Facebook today, a photo posted by Mitch, a childhood friend, caught my eye. He and his wife appear to be on their first Mediterranean cruise, and he had shared an image of a rugged coastline rising out of the water. What struck me was his genuine sense of wonder in the caption. He mentioned that while he had never set foot in Africa, he could clearly see its outline sitting right there on the distant horizon.
It was heartening to see someone I have known for decades experience that electric jolt of discovery. There is an unmistakable magic when the flat abstraction of an atlas suddenly turns into salt air, hazy ridges, and real geography right before your eyes. Maps give you the logistics, but they never quite prepare you for how the world actually looks and feels.
That persistent curiosity is the exact engine that has propelled Jay and me across the globe, driving us to celebrating our 100th country this year. There is an unmatched freedom in standing in front of landscapes you once only encountered in textbooks, television specials, or old films. Africa itself became part of our personal ledger back in the 1980s on a safari to Kenya, and several winters in both Egypt and South Africa. In fact, we spent a wonderful month revisiting Morocco just this past June.
Still, taking a hard look at our personal travel map offers a humbling perspective. Despite those memories, Africa remains our least explored continent. A vast landmass waiting in the margins, reminding us that no matter how many borders we cross, the horizon never really runs out.
