Ahoy, all aboard! This was our first ferry crossing with an RV. We have traveled back and forth by ferry between Cape May, NJ and Lewes, DE, but only as walk-on passengers. We were headed to Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor Maine and the ferry ride saved us about 650 miles, or two days of driving if we had driven from Yarmouth, NS to Maine.

This was also our first border crossing by water. Did you know you can bring bananas and tomatoes from the US into Canada but not from Canada into the US? There is a long list of items that includes peppers, papaya, citrus fruit and lots of other foods you cannot transport from Canada. Perhaps we should rethink someone’s 51st State fever dream?

So, we did our research and thought we were ready for the ferry crossing. While we had reservations for the 9:30AM ferry, we were told that we needed to arrive between 7:00AM and 8:30AM for a security inspection. If we arrived any later, we may not be permitted to board.

One word of advice when crossing timezones by ferry—make sure to confirm the local time of departure prior to your arrival at the dock. This is further complicated in Canada because of different start and stop dates for daylight savings time in the various provinces.

The Canadian Ferry Security Inspection included verification that our propane system was turned off, a walk-through of the interior of our RV and an examination of the contents of our refrigerator.

We got busted for bag a grapes! Sigh. Grapes weren’t listed on the US website as being prohibited. Fortunately, we had purchased the grapes while we were in Canada so we didn’t have to pay the US tariff freedom fee. We were told that the grapes, which by-the-way were quite good, would be donated to a food pantry in Yarmouth. We were sorry to lose them but at least they didn’t go to waste.

RVs are the last to board the ferry as cars get first crack at parking. Driving onto the ferry was fairly easy, as you will see below.

The ferry wasn’t crowded and offered comfortable seating, wifi, two snack bars and a gift shop. (Yes, Sue went shopping.)

It was cold and windy outside so we stayed indoors and enjoyed the view.

You saw how easy it was to drive onto the ferry. What we didn’t know is that RVs have to back off about 150 yards to exit the ship and then do a three-point turn (backwards) at the bottom of the ramp . Glad the ferry operators waited until the end of the ride to tell us about that! Joe managed to back off the ferry without incident, but it was more of a meandering side-to-side backup. Fortunately, we don’t have any video of us backing off😉.

The US Customs and Border Protection Agent asked only two questions as we entered the US: Where we lived, and if we had been vacationing in Canada. Then, he welcomed us back to the US. No questions about vegetables, fruits or any mention of grapes. 🤷🏼‍♀️

You may be wondering but it’s always been called the Gulf of Maine 😉, named for the French Province of Maine.