The ferry arriving on a quiet grey day. The schedule was different each day – on some days there was only one ferry, and that does something to how one thinks about time, and plans. Your thoughts circle the ferry. In the summer, when tourists flock to Block Island, there are ferries almost every hour, which is INSANE. When I had visitors come out, I found myself standing on the pier, staring out to sea for the first vision of it on the horizon. A bolt of excitement would come. Like I said: being ruled by a ferry does something to your internal clock-mechanism. It certainly slows it down somewhat. You are on “island time”. But at ferry arrivals, the dock and parking lot would become a hive of activity. I would see more cars driving around than I saw on a daily basis. People standing around me, staring out to sea with me, waiting for their loved ones (and their groceries).
That has been one of my favorite sights since I was a little girl.
I used to drive down to the docks at Galilee at 6AM with a van-ful of produce…the restaurants and grocery store on Block Island would place their orders the day earlier or that morning on answering machine and we would put them together and load them onto a pallet. We would make sure that the boxes were labeled with the name of the intended customer.
I loved going down there in the morning. There would be a few people waiting to get on the early ferry but mostly it was supplies, especially in the winter.
Great quote.
Because of the jetty it looks like the ferry reached shore ten minutes ago and just kept going. Door-to-door ferry service!
Bren – that is such a cool picture. And then on the other side, you could watch the ferry guys roll these pallets off – I always wondered how it worked. I know there’s a “freight terminal” (basically a wooden shack) that is separate from the passenger terminal – so I imagine that’s where the stuff is brought, and then people can come and pick it up.
Nightfly – hahaha Yes, it does look like that! The ferry jumped the jetty! Watching that huge thing maneuver its way into the harbor, and do a 3 point turn basically in a tiny pond in between jetties – makes me ashamed of every time I have had a hard time parallel parking.
It is also AMAZING to see these giant TANKERS come driving off. I have some pictures of them driving off the ramp and onto the lot – and you just wonder how the hell they drove onto the boat. (You have to back onto the boat and stay in a perfectly straight line or you’ll fall off the dock, or crash into a porthole or whatever. Nervewracking.) I suppose tanker guys are used to it, but still, it is an amazing thing to witness.