Tempers boiled over at the Galiano Island ferry ramp Saturday night when a group of passengers were told they couldn't board the day's final sailing -- but they refused to leave.
In the end B.C. Ferries called the police on dozens of passengers waiting on the ramp to the Queen of Nanaimo at the Sturdies Bay Terminal, even though the ferry wasn't full.
"We were just absolutely frustrated, and when you see a ferry that's not full leaving and you're standing there, it didn't make sense to us," said Hilliary Simpson, one of the people stranded.
B.C. Ferries acknowledged that the ferry wasn't full, and could have physically accommodated more people.
But because it was running the vessel with the fewest crew members possible, Transport Canada regulations wouldn't allow more people on.
If the Queen of Nanaimo had one more crew member, everyone could have been allowed on board.
"We are licenced by Transport Canada to carry a maximum amount of people and we cannot exceed that number," said B.C. Ferries spokesperson Deborah Marshall.
She said the ferry company didn't expect the volume of people that night.
The Simpson's day trip to Galiano turned into an overnight stay when they were denied entry on Saturday.
They demanded to speak to the captain, and that delayed the sailing by half an hour, said Simpson.
"And the people that were on the ferry were then shouting at us, 'We want to go home, move, move!' I mean it was most degrading to me?" said Simpson.
"When the RCMP came, a bunch of senior citizens, we're going to storm the ferry at this point?"
Simpson said B.C. Ferries should start planning for the unusual numbers of people on Saturday night.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Reshmi Nair
