New ferry sailing schedule designed to cut delays, frustration in San Juan Islands

Island life may be idyllic, but getting to and from the San Juan Islands from Anacortes takes planning for both locals and tourists.

“It was beautiful, and the people were wonderful,” Lisa Davis told KOMO News after arriving back in Anacortes from Friday Harbor.

She said her husband, John, chose the San Juan Islands as just the right place to celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary. They flew up from California and used an airport shuttle to get them to and from the ferry terminal in Anacortes.

“Everything worked great. The ferry guy helped bring out my bags,” said Davis. But it doesn’t work like that every day. It’s been very frustrating for locals and tourists to get to and from the San Juan Islands by ferry for the past several years.

Several people who live in San Juan County told KOMO News they have been very frustrated with the number of canceled sailings.

“Nearly 3,500 inter-island sailings. Yeah, because of lack of crew,” Dave Smith told KOMO News while getting a coffee in the passenger terminal at Anacortes. He and his wife were headed back home to Friday Harbor, where they’ve lived for 34 years, after he spent a night in the hospital.

“It's a great place to live, but the ferries need to get their act together,” said Smith.

Now, for the first time in more than a decade, Washington State Ferries (WSF) is rolling out new sailing schedules for the Anacortes-San Juan Island route.

“The current schedules have not been revised in 10 to 15 years and are so out of date that it causes delays and frustration for all involved,” Steve Nevey, the head at WSF, wrote in announcing this new change.

WSF Director of Planning, Customer, and Government Relations John Vezina told KOMO News that the agency is fully aware of the frustrations and hardships that come when a boat is late or can’t sail because of a staffing shortage or maintenance issue.

“We want our customers to be able to travel where they want to travel at the time they expect to travel,” Jason Rogers, the Planning Manager for WSF told KOMO News.

Rogers said those expectations and getting their workers off on time to get home, are the two big things they took into account in designing new schedules for the San Juan Islands.

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WSF spent almost two years working on this process, engaging the public, including a 26-member community task force.

“We're required by law to do a lot of community engagement and there's a lot that goes into it," Nevey added. "Like there's school bell times, there's things you wouldn't have even thought of."

"So, we're not just going to go out and say, here's your new schedule without telling anybody about it. That's not going to work very well. And people will get angry with us, understandably,” said Rogers.

The first of three new schedules for the San Juan Islands will be implemented with the winter schedule, starting Dec. 29. The new schedules allow more time for loading and unloading with today's traffic volumes and also take into account the times, passengers have said are the most convenient for them.

“But, you know, the problem is they can change the schedule all they want. One person don't show up, the boats don't run,” said Smith.

This is true, but Rogers told KOMO that a better schedule will also help cut overtime that forces cancellations, because the Coast Guard requires ferry workers to have a full 12 hours between shifts.

Vezina said those work hours are set by the U.S. Coast Guard and if a boat is running late and keeping employees longer, then they must cancel sailings at night so they can get off work and have enough turnaround for the next morning.

“It's really complex to reset a schedule,” Nevey said when asked why WSF doesn'tadjust sailing schedules more often to eliminate the often-daily alerts telling riders that a ferry is running behind schedule.

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Nevey said WSF must consider many variables, including crossing times, fueling time, relief time for engine room and other WSF employees on board the boats, and dwell time—which is how long the boat is at the dock unloading and loading vehicles.

WSF also cannot schedule overtime, Vezina said.

Another factor outside WSF'scontrol is traffic surrounding its ferry terminals and the timing of traffic lights.

On top of that list of variables, a new hit to the system was when Vezina said their service planner left.

Vezina said it took time to hire someone new because maritime scheduling is very different from other transportation scheduling systems.

The public engagement piece of the puzzle also played heavily in this schedule reset.

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The community task force that reviewed all of the variables, even pointed out a few things the experts missed, Vezina said.

Today’s dwell times and passenger loads are much greater than a decade ago.

This new schedule also removes Wasp Passage, a narrow spot at the northwest end of Shaw Island. Vezina said ferries will now go around that passage to avoid unscheduled slowdowns, but he said a captain who feels comfortable through that passage can choose to take it.

Canceled sailings have been such a serious safety and even life or death issue that Gov. Jay Inslee dedicated $1.5 million in emergency funding to help San Juan County get water taxis running this winter between the San Juan Islands, when the interisland ferry is out of service.

Reservations are now open for the spring sailing schedule, which begins March 23, 2025. The new summer sailing schedule begins June 15, 2025.

Reservations will open for that, as with each season, two months before the start of the sailing schedule.