Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 14:26:49 -0700 From: Charlie Ford To: type2@bigkitty.azaccess.com Subject: A Ferry Fullfilling Dreams On Saturday morning I woke up at around 8:30. The day was dark, cold, and coudy with rain threatening. Pulling myself out of the sleeping bag was the toughest part of that morning. The temperature overnight had dropped into the 20's and the propane heater had gone out once again. The little bottles I use for it will only last about four hours then they start to fizzle rather rapidly, letting the cold just pour in from the outside to the inside. I hurriedly slipped on my pants over my long johns, slipped on my cold frozen socks, or at least they felt that way, and found my warmest heavy shirt and coat. I had purchased a rabbit fur Cossack hat at the Walmart in Bangor and I pulled it over my head. Warmth was finally achieved. I took Gus for a short walk and fed him just before we pulled The Mothership out to get in line for the Ferry which was to depart at 9:30 AM. I got all sorts of looks, especially at my Georgia liscence plate. Once aboard, we settled in and prepared for the 90 minute ride across the sea of my dreams, The Bay of Fundy. This blue green body of water is some of the richest in the Atlantic. The Lobster fishing is marvelous, and the views are spectacular. When traveling from Blacks Harbor to Grand Manan you are at the southern mouth of the Bay of Fundy, and standing at the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean. You are at this point only 8 miles off the coast of Maine, yet you are in another country. The water is usually cold with a normal stiff wind hovering above it. This is the North Atlantic, as one fellow told me. This is where the dreaded Nor'Easter winds live for the sailors who brave them. being a fisherman here requires much skill, and a good amount of grit, too say the least. Hell driving a VW here also requires as much. The ferry boat is one of the larger I have seen. The ones in Seattle were open on each end, but because of the high sea in the Bay, this one has to be enclosed with humongous doors that cover the entire opening on the boat. This protects you cars from the surf that pours over the bow of the large ship. That door, in fact, is the bow itself. Rather than calling this a Ferry "Boat", I think I would call it a ferry "ship". It is certainly big enough and carries several dozen cars and all the people each of those cars can haul. There is no cost on the way over, but in order to get off the island the charge is somewhere around $30.00 Canadian currency. Finally the ship was underway. We trudged out to sea with the captain applying some pressure to the throttle. The engines roared and you could hear them through the walls of the ship. I reached down and pulled my emergency brake as tight as I could get it. The Mothership locked into place like she belonged there. Gus didn't know what to think of this large vessel we were traveling upon. he was sure if the world was rocking, or if it was The Mothership. Suddenly the we got out of the cove where the ferry landing was and the rocking grew a bit more severe. The winds coming out of the northeast were blowing us around pretty good. I decided I would take a walk up onto the deck and see what things looked like from the upper part of the ship. Now when your in the bottom you get a fair amount of rocking back and forth, but the higher you go the more severe the rocking becomes. I purchased a cup of coffee from the galley, and sat down at one of the tables to enjoy a smoke while drinking it. I met a fellow that was about as salty as any sea dog you would ever imagine from the land lubber way of thinking. His name was Colby and he lived on one of the islands just off Grand Manan Island. He spoke with that northern Maine type accent, where there are no R's in the words you say. I asked him what he did for a living and he explained that he had been working in the fishing industry since he was a young child. He told me that as of late he had been doing some work gathering sea urchins for sale to the Japanese. Apparently this has become quite a lucrative business for this region of North America. Sea Urchins can be dragged for or even dived for. In fact there was a diver that died a few weeks ago trying to pull in a haul to make some money from. I guess any business has its dangers, but it seems that this is a bit severe. The rocking of the ship was steadily growing worse than even a minute before. I looked out the window and saw a most beautiful body of water. we were about 5 miles off the coast of the mainland and were heading south by southwest toward a large island you could see on the horizon. I decided I would take a walk out onto the deck and get a more real feel of the sea. Gus came with me, although he had been in the Mothership while I was getting coffee in the galley. As soon as I opened the door to step outside onto the deck the wind hit me hard. It was cold and very wet. I could feel it cut through the pieces of clothing that covered my body. But I had to do this, so I bravely strode forward. There were several other folks out on deck so at least if the wind blew me over the side someone would be able to tell my family that I had died a reasonably happy man. The Bay from this vantage point looks extremely ominous. It makes you feels somewhat small even me being the size I am. I sat down on a bench and struck up a conversation with a lady sitting just down from me. I learned that she was from Toronto and she and her husband had come to Grand Manan for a conference. her husband was one of the big whigs for the Canadian Baseball League. I never knew baseball was so big in Canada, but it really didn't surprise me that much, I mean who wouldn't want to play the greatest game ever created?. While we sat and conversed for a few, Gus decided he had to do some constitutional business. he took a leak in a place that the spray would wash it off in a matter of minutes, but then the dreaded #2 became an issue. I held him off hoping that he could hold it until we arrived in Grand Manan, this was just not to be the case at all. I had walked over to the aft, or rear section of the boat, and had struck up a conversation with a gentleman standing there. He was a part of a bird watching group coming over to the Island to do some, yep you guessed it, bird watching. While we stood there and talked about how good a bird watching place Grand Manan is, Gus decided it was here rather than there. he hunched up his back and dropped a load right there in front of God, the fellow I was standing with, and the rest of the population on the deck of the boat. The fellow looked at me and laughed and said, "well, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go". the other folks on deck also smiled and laughed, Gus was the hoot of the deck party on board that day. Even after he had done his business for all to see, they all were coming over to pet him and enjoy his brazen presence. In fact, one of them held him by his lead, while I did my job and cleaned up the mess he had made. Now mind you, trying to clean up dog dookie on a rocking ferry ship is not an easy task. I scoped out a trash can on the other side of the deck, and set my sites for it. While the birdwatcher held Gus's lead, I walked like a drunk man across the deck and retrieved a piece of newspaper some earlier passenger had left there, no doubt knowing that Gus and I would be on board. The wind was blowing at about 35 mile an hour gust, the boat was rocking violently, and on my way to the can, approximately 25 feet away, I must have walked about 50 yards there and back. Walking a straight line in such conditions is almost impossible. I picked up the wad in the paper, and then stumbled another 50 yards back to the can, then turned and repeated the process. The deck was clean, and Gus was happy, and I was feeling a little queasy. Sea sickness is a terrible thing. I later learned that Ginger snaps are good for it, and if I would have known that before leaving shore I would have picked up a couple of hundred bags and ate the hell out of 'em. While standing there on deck I broke into a cold white sweat, one that could be compared with riding 16 roller coasters back to back after eating 5 bowls of grits with butter and milk. I wasn't feeling good at all. All the while I was feeling this sickly queasiness, I, like a trooper stood and tried to hide my sickness, continuing my conversation with the bird watcher. It is a very difficult thing to try and sound intelligent while at the same time feeling your stomach rise up in your throat. I felt worse than the first time I got commode hugging drunk. I kept talking and smiling and feeling sick. Eventually the conversation reached a lull, and I bid my new found bird watching friend adieu. Immediately after parting his company I hit the door to the stairway and down to the auto deck. I raptured myself to the birth of the Mothership, at least here, if I slung my cookies, no one would see me and my pride would not be damaged anymore than it had already been. Ah, a comfy place to be. I lay in my rack and daubed my forehead with a towel. I retrieved a coke out of my cooler and sipped it. I focused on one little dot on my headliner and concentrated so deeply on it, it was as if my eyes were super eyes and I would burn a hole through it. I was damn sure trying to feel better and it seemingly was working fairly well so far. the all of a sudden I decided I would try and look elsewhere. As soon as I did I felt my stomach shout out to me, "NO, TIS NOT TIME YET!". I lay back down repeating the process of minutes before. That spot on the headliner became my friend. I had considered wiping it off a few days ago, and now I was extremely glad I had not done that. I lay there an analyzed it with great interest. I saw deep inside it and saw the nucleus of its being. I saw the atoms that floated around inside it and offered it structure. Two of them broke into a fight and split off from one another creating an atomic divorce. I was sad to see the family break up but if it made the spot grow wider, all the better for me. Finally the ship, the vessel of my pain, blew it's horn and let me know that dry land lay in my future. I struggled to raise myself from my rack, but we were not there yet. I lay back down, took another sip of coke, and waited patiently while once again staring at my spot. The Captain announced our arrival. Some of the greatest most relaxing words I have heard on my journey so far have been, "Drivers, start your engines". I followed the instructions to a "T", and as the gate lowered I was tempted to do a Dukes of Hazard jump onto the land that lay before me. A land as steady as the land I had left an hour and one half prior. I saw the greenery and longed for it as the hydraulics lowered the door. Now I know how Columbus must have felt when he saw America. I drove the Mothership off the ferry and onto Grand Manan Island. It was here I would spend the next week. Jon Christensens Mother lives here and so do her good neighbors, the Captain and the Hobbit. I had arrived safely and had not lost my cookies. Speaking of cookies, I wonder if they sell Ginger Snaps out here? More to come on Grand Manan. Thanks for tolerating the ramblings. Charlie Ford "79" Transporter, dressed for the road The Mothership The"Turning 40 Nostalgic VW Service Tour, and Search for the Beginning of Wind". http://www.slurpee.net/~keen/charlie/charlie.html "Wider still and wider.....shall thy bounds be set"