Breaking the ice
Operator says Straits ferry service still focused on St. Barbe
Despite recent delays in service due to heavy ice conditions, Dave Leyden says there is no talk yet of sending the MV Apollo to Corner Brook instead of to St. Barbe.
Leyden is operations manager with Labrador Marine Inc., the service provider for the ferry run across the Strait of Belle Isle.
The Apollo has been in Blanc Sablon on the southern Labrador side of the crossing for several days. In the past few days, high winds and freezing temperatures have made things worse, with increasing pressure causing the ice to ridge up as it is blown onshore.
The ice situation is not much better near the port of St. Barbe on the Northern Peninsula, but Leyden said a little help is all that’s needed to get the service back up and running.
“All we’re waiting for is an icebreaker escort and then back in operation we go,” he said. “That’s the plan and St. Barbe is the des- tination.”
The Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Henry Larsen left the area last Thursday. Another icebreaker, the Ann Harvey, is en route to help and is expected to arrive in Blanc Sablon today.
For the past several years, the ferry service has switched its Newfoundland destination from St. Barbe to Corner Brook when the ice gets too difficult to navigate. Leyden has heard rumours that abandoning St. Barbe is imminent.
“I don’t know where that came from because government didn’t put it out there and I didn’t,” he said.
The service has continued to St. Barbe as late as early March in prior years, he noted.
Unless conditions worsen, the MV Apollo will keep trying to get there.
“A couple hours (crossing) to St. Barbe is better than 12 hours to Corner Brook,” said Leyden.
Rebecca Acton-Bond, acting supervisor of ice operations with the Canadian Coast Guard, said the heavily ridged ice in the Strait of Belle Isle is difficult to manoeuvre through, but it is not the worst affected area in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
That distinction at the moment belongs to the Northumberland Strait near Prince Edward Island.
Diminishing winds in the Strait of Belle Isle should help reduce the pressure of the ice being pushed ashore and help the MV Apollo get back into service, Acton-Bond said.
Sea ice is currently not an issue for the Marine Atlantic service in the Cabot Strait, she added.