State foot ferry back in service Saturday, to leave from state ferry terminal, not Hudson Point
Published 5:26 am Friday, January 11, 2008
PORT TOWNSEND — The Snohomish passenger ferry will begin operating
Saturday morning on a regular schedule out of the Port Townsend ferry
terminal.
Susan Harris, Washington State Ferries customer information manager
confirmed Friday that the Snohomish would take over the route on Saturday.
“The bathroom problem is fixed and it left Eagle Harbor at about 2:30
p.m. and arrived at Port Townsend probably about 3:30 p.m.” Friday,
Harris said.
On Thursday, Harris had said that the Snohomish wouldn’t serve the route
until at least Monday because a maintenance check had found that the
restrooms, or heads, needed work.
Yet, Sherri Hanke, co-owner of the Puget Sound Express, a private
whale-watching operation that has been providing passenger ferry service
on the route since Dec. 13, said Friday, “We’ve been asked to run
through this evening, and we haven’t heard anything to the contrary.”
The Puget Sound Express service has been departing from the Hudson Point
Marina, but the Snohomish will leave from the Port Townsend ferry terminal.
“It’s the same schedule but it will go into the slip at Keystone,”
Harris said.
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EARLIER REPORT
PORT TOWNSEND — The MV Snohomish passenger ferry won’t take over the Port Townsend-Keystone route until at least Monday.
“It won’t be on Friday. That plan fell through,” said Susan Harris-Huether, customer information manager for Washington State Ferries.
“The engineering group found a few more issues to rectify. It’s something with the bathrooms,” she said.
“Hopefully by Monday, we’ll have the Snohomish back.
“In the meantime, it will be either the Olympus or the Glacier Spirit from Puget Sound Express,” Harris-Huether said.
The Snohomish was expected to begin serving the route Thursday, but maintenance work on the foot ferry was extended first to Friday, and now to Monday at the earliest.
The ferry is at the state ferries system’s maintenance facility at Eagle Harbor.
The Puget Sound Express is a private whale-watching tour service that has provided passenger-only service on the Port Townsend-Whidbey route since Dec. 13, when the 149-passenger Snohomish was put on a special holiday run from Port Townsend to Seattle.
The Seattle run ended on Jan. 6.
The purpose of the
special route was to mitigate the loss of the four Steel Electric-class car ferries that were pulled from service because of safety concerns on Nov. 20.
