LIVE CAMERA NETWORK
BC Ferries — Live Ferry Tracker
17 terminal & harbour cameras across 2 dock walls, and the fleet live on AIS — matched by the boats' own broadcast names. Positions, not timetables. Free, no signup.
BC Ferries is one of the largest ferry operators on Earth, running the Inside Passage and the straits between Vancouver Island and the mainland — and its boats are as identifiable on AIS as any fleet afloat: the Queens, the Spirits, the Coastal class, the Salish class, each broadcasting its own name. The live panel above lists the ones reporting now, matched by those names inside BC waters.
The camera story is more partial, and this page prints it straight: DriveBC’s network covers Departure Bay properly — its terminal feed is in the wall below — and looks over Horseshoe Bay, but the catalogue holds no camera at all for Tsawwassen, Swartz Bay or Duke Point, the system’s three busiest mainland-island terminals. Those docks are named here as gaps. A directory that padded them with distant highway shots and called it a terminal wall would be lying about what you’re looking at.
The BC Ferries fleet, live
Every vessel of this system that is transmitting on AIS right now — its broadcast name, speed and destination as reported. Reports up to about ten minutes old are admitted; older reports are dropped, never carried forward as if live.
BC Ferries — on the water now
Live AIS · refreshes every 30 sListening for BC Ferries vessels…
Positions are the vessels’ own AIS broadcasts, matched by fleet name inside the service area. Reports can be up to about 10 minutes old — the feed drops anything older — so treat this as where the boats were moments ago, and never as a sailing schedule: for departure times, use the operator’s own status.
Best time to watch
The crossings worth watching are the scenic ones: the Tsawwassen–Swartz Bay run threads Active Pass between Galiano and Mayne islands, and the Inside Passage ships sail some of the finest coastal water on the planet — the live panel’s northern boats are the ones to follow on the globe. At Departure Bay, the wall’s rhythm is the Horseshoe Bay sailing cycle: lanes filling, the ship’s stern swinging out, the bay emptying again.
Terminals & routes
Terminals served: Tsawwassen · Swartz Bay (Victoria) · Horseshoe Bay · Departure Bay (Nanaimo) · Duke Point (Nanaimo) · Langdale (Sunshine Coast) · Comox (Little River) · Powell River (Westview) · Port Hardy (Bear Cove) · Prince Rupert.
Routes, named as the terminal pairs they connect: Tsawwassen – Swartz Bay (Victoria) · Tsawwassen – Duke Point (Nanaimo) · Horseshoe Bay – Departure Bay (Nanaimo) · Horseshoe Bay – Langdale (Sunshine Coast) · Comox – Powell River · Port Hardy – Prince Rupert (Inside Passage) · Prince Rupert – Skidegate (Haida Gwaii). No sailing times are listed — no dataset behind this site carries them, so the live panel and the operator’s own status are the guide.
Departure Bay (Nanaimo) — 15 cameras
Nanaimo's Departure Bay terminal through DriveBC's cameras — including the feed named for the ferry terminal itself, and the highway approaches the sailing traffic uses.
Loading live cameras…Fetching the live index for Departure Bay, Nanaimo.
Every card is the camera's real live feed: snapshot cards refresh about every 15 seconds, stream cards play live in the grid (a few at a time, the same budget the map tiles use) and in full when you open a camera. Feeds are provided by their operators and public sources; a camera whose stream has gone off air shows as unavailable rather than playing a recording.
Horseshoe Bay (West Vancouver) — 2 cameras
DriveBC's two views above Horseshoe Bay village — the terminal sits in the cove below them, where Howe Sound meets the highway.
Loading live cameras…Fetching the live index for Horseshoe Bay.
Every card is the camera's real live feed: snapshot cards refresh about every 15 seconds, stream cards play live in the grid (a few at a time, the same budget the map tiles use) and in full when you open a camera. Feeds are provided by their operators and public sources; a camera whose stream has gone off air shows as unavailable rather than playing a recording.
Terminals with no camera — stated, not padded
The catalogue holds no camera at Tsawwassen, Swartz Bay (Victoria), Duke Point (Nanaimo) — checked directly at each dock. Rather than borrow a distant highway shot and call it a terminal wall, this page names the gap. The live panel above still tracks the fleet serving those terminals; if a public feed is published at one of these docks, it will join the walls automatically.
The cameras that carry the ferry in their name
How to use the BC Ferries tracker
- 1Start with the live panel: it tells you which boats are actually on the water right now, under their own names.
- 2Read the dock before the boat: open the terminal wall for the dock you care about and look at the holding lanes — a filling dock is a sailing being prepared.
- 3Cross-check with the weather panel: fog, wind and tide change what a crossing looks like long before they change whether it runs.
- 4For departure times, use the operator's own sailing status — this page tracks positions and pictures, and prints no timetable it cannot source.
- 5Open any vessel on the globe to follow it across the water; the full maritime layer (VIP) carries every other ship sharing the route.
BC Ferries ferry tracker — FAQ
Why is there no Tsawwassen or Swartz Bay camera wall?+
Can I see BC Ferries sailing times or deck space here?+
Which BC Ferries routes does the live panel cover?+
How many cameras are in the BC Ferries walls, and how is the count worked out?+
Is it free to watch?+
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