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[igotthisguitar]

Passengers stranded on lifeboats in stormy seas
after B.C. ferry sinks
STEVE MERTL AND TERRI THEODORE

PRINCE RUPERT, B.C. (CP) - Passengers on an overnight B.C. ferry were torn from their sleep Wednesday morning and thrown into a living nightmare, evacuating onto lifeboats that tossed and swayed on stormy seas for more than an hour as the Queen of the Northdisappeared "like the Titanic."



B.C. Ferries had accounted for 99 passengers, but was working to figure out what happened to two others. Officials have been assured by other passengers that the two were safe, but can't account for them.

"We heard a crashing noise and the ship went to one side," passenger Lawrence Papineau.

"Then it was a louder crash . . . and then everybody realized what was happening and the sirens went off.

"Within an hour, the ship actually tilted to the side, levelled out and it sunk down to the sixth deck, came back up like the Titanic, dipped and then it went under."

Bobby Smith got a call about 3:30 a.m. from his wife who was a passenger on the ferry.

The ferry split in half, she said.

"She said it was kind of like when the Titanic split in half," he said.

Passenger Jill Lawrence said she thought at first she was in the middle of a drill.

"And then when they said to go to the other side of the boat, we knew it was real.

"But it was very calm. Everyone seemed very calm and the crew did an awesome job to get us off."

Some of the passengers were snatched from their lifeboats by fishermen on the Lone Star and taken into Hartley Bay, an aboriginal community along B.C.'s rugged northern Inside Passage. Others were ferried there by speedboats dispatched by the community.

In shock and shivering, the passengers were bundled into blankets by community members and served coffee in a local hall.

"Everybody in Hartley Bay was involved in this one, literally everybody from small children to the elders, including some elders that couldn't even walk," said Ernie Westgarth, housing co-ordinator for the village.

"It's incredible."

Westgarth said he got a call at 12:30 a.m. His wife's mother said "get out there and help."

"People ran down (to the shore) with just the shirts on their backs, some of them.

"To see all these people coming off the rescue boats onto the docks was a sight in itself - the young and old, the scared, shocked look on their faces, young children with no shoes."

Westgarth said people charged into their boats and headed out into the inky darkness, some without running lights. Over and over they returned with passengers.

James Bolton saw the boat go down.

He said he and his buddies were getting ready to play poker when they got a call from a friend at 1 a.m. They jumped into five boats.

Bolton was on a gillnetter and helped pull 13 people off the lifeboats.

"We beat the coast guard out there," he said.

He said he saw the boat bend.

"The lights were still on until about halfway down. It sort of popped back up and then went straight down."

Another rescuer said he heard the vehicles inside the ferry crash together like roughly handled toys.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20060322/ca_pr_on_na/ferry_sinks

[laogaiguk]

Hey, remember that octopus attack off Victoria (or Vancouver???). This is just going to show that my hypothesis that America is training sea animals as a start to an all out Canada invasion is more likely. Let's just hope they haven't attached lasers to their heads yet!

[igotthisguitar]

[Bulsajo]

[coolsage]

I travelled on the 'Queen of the North' many times when I lived in those parts. It was the only BC Ferry with a bar onboard (Owing to the duration of the voyage--fifteen hours). I wonder if that might have been a factor.