Vessel of the inlet

On the cool morning of Saturday March 26th 1966, False Creek Shipyard said goodbye to a project that was about a year in the making. The Malibu Princess, a vessel designed to charter high-school kids along to spending a week getting to know the King of kings at a summer camp located in the fjords of western British Columbia.

I got the fortunate privilege of getting to take pictures of the Captain and the First-mate when I was last on board the Princess. Hearing their conversations and brief anecdotes about the ship stirred some thinking in my noggin.

Just how many memories has the Princess been host to? The laughs among lifelong friends, tears of joyful reunions, eager smiles pressed to the glass as the vessel made her long arduous journey to the Malibu rapids each week. Lord knows there’s decades upon decades of lives changed as a direct result of climbing aboard her.

With over 800 trips completed and 200,000 passengers welcomed, the Princess is still making her rounds each week even in 2024! Each of the few times I’ve stepped on board, it’s felt like stepping through time and reminiscing to an era when folks played board games and told stories rather than scroll endlessly and miss out on what’s in front of us!

I loved doing a little trip into the rabbit hole about this little ship. Hopefully, one day I’ll be fortunate enough to count myself among the passengers on yet another trip up the inlet!

•

𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐢𝐞!