Duke Point (Nanaimo) to Tsawwassen Ferry

A 2-hour crossing time is standard for the 32 nautical mile journey across the Strait of Georgia. This domestic Canadian route between Duke Point (Nanaimo) and Tsawwassen is operated solely by BC Ferries. The operator lists the Coastal Inspiration, Coastal Renaissance, and Queen of Alberni as vessels for the service.

There are 26 sailings scheduled daily, with the first departure at 05:15 and the last at 22:45. The Tsawwassen terminal, south of Vancouver, also handles ferries for Swartz Bay.

Nanaimo has two ferry terminals and they are not interchangeable

Duke Point is the southern of Nanaimo’s two, and it sails to Tsawwassen near the US border. The other, Departure Bay, sails to Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver — a different terminal at a completely different end of the mainland. Choosing the wrong one is a common and expensive mistake, and the two crossings serve different journeys entirely.

Two hours, twenty-five sailings, daily

The crossing is timetabled at 120 minutes with 25 departures running 05:15 to 22:45, every day with no weekday or weekend variation in our data. A five-fifteen first sailing and a quarter-to-eleven last one make it usable at both ends of a working day.

Duke Point is the freight route

The southern crossing is the one commercial traffic favours, which is why it runs at this frequency and this span. For a driver heading south towards the border or east into the Fraser Valley, Tsawwassen is the better landing than Horseshoe Bay regardless of which is nominally closer to Vancouver.