So BC Ferries should be propped up by extra public money in an effort to keep fare increases down to the rate of inflation.

This nugget comes in a report released by the province's independent ferry commissioner Gordon Macatee Tuesday morning.

Apparently the ferry reservation system is inefficient and people are not using the system because the fares are too high. And somehow this qualified as news.

Macatee's report caught my eye coming as it did less than two days after I experienced first-hand how the other half lives. They say Vancouver Island is a great place to live once you get used to being held hostage by BC Ferries if you ever want to go anywhere.

I found out how true this is when we tried to return from a hockey tournament in Victoria on a day that featured dangerously high winds. It turns out the only thing worse than the weather is the accuracy of the information available from BC Ferries.

Owing to our schedule, we were not able to join the festivities at Swartz Bay until roughly 4 p.m. By that point we could get no closer than two kilometres to the gates of the terminal as cancelled sailings created a massive backlog.

After sitting for more than an hour, we were finally approached by a BC Ferries dude in a stylish reflective yellow suit who told us that when the boats started moving again, we had a three sailing wait ahead of us, two if we were lucky.

Unfortunately, other guys resplendent in their reflective duds were telling a different story in the next lane - there might not be any sailings at all. And the BC Ferry website helpfully added that the 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. sailing had been cancelled.

Then word came at 7 p.m. that nothing would be moving until at least 8 p.m., if at all. Our options were to wait and hope for a possible late sailing or come back again Monday morning and hope to get on an early boat. Of course we could not reserve a spot on an early sailing because no reservations would be accepted until 1 p.m. Monday.

The other option was to drive north to Nanaimo where reservations were being taken for Monday morning sailings. By the time we connected with the reservation system (after being dropped three times in mid-order) the 6: 30 a.m. sailing was booked and the earliest we could reserve was for 8: 30 a.m.

So with spots reserved for five vehicles at $17.50 each, we headed up the rainswept Malahat mere hours after the route had been closed due to a fallen tree.

By the time we gathered in Duncan 45 minutes later, the ferry website informed us there was now two boats heading to the mainland at 10: 45 p.m. - one to Horseshoe Bay and the other to Tsawwassen.

After a quick bite, we rushed to Nanaimo and arrived at the ferry terminal to find that not only was the information accurate, there was no lineup to speak of.

When the ferries sailed on schedule an hour later, both boats were more than half empty.

Our experience was not unique. The Surrey Eagles had their Sunday game in Duncan cancelled when the home team was unable to return from a Saturday game in Powell River.

The Eagles spent all of Sunday in limbo, making three trips to the Nanaimo ferry dock before finally catching one of the 10: 45 sailings and arriving home after 1 a.m. Monday.

I get the fact that weather was the big challenge for the ferry fleet Sunday and when that happens, the safe and prudent thing to do is wait it out. I have no problem with that.

I also understand why officials at Swartz Bay would not want to push the Nanaimo option for fear of turning the Malahat into a race track for desperate drivers trying to catch the late boat in the Hub City.

Fair enough. But why shut down the reservation system at one port and leave it open at the other? Why make departure times a lottery when you know there is a large group of people who are desperate to get home in time for work Monday morning?

And now the government is being encouraged to pump more taxpayer dollars into the coffers of the same quasi-private company that brought us this fiasco. More subsidies for a company that has proven time and again it would struggle to run a three-house paper route?

If the sunshine breakfast doesn't make you ill enough, there's also bloated salaries for executives, inconvenient schedules and crews that take random high-speed runs at docks.

When BC Ferries gets its house in order, then it can come cap in hand to the government begging for extra cash.

In the meantime, it can try and get by on the subsidies provided by drivers Sunday night who, following recommendations from BC Ferries, paid for Monday reservations they never used.

Michael Booth can be reached at mbooth@ thenownewspaper.com