Hazards of Island Living

There several ways to get on an island. For example: a bridge, a boat, a ferry, or swimming. If there is no bridge, I prefer a ferry because you can take your car. On Lummi Island the ferry goes into drydock for two weeks each September. This is a favorite time for islanders as traffic is greatly reduced. It also creates logistics problems for commuters who must keep a car on the mainland side. Parking is leased from the Lummi Indian Nation and security provided by the county. Hundreds of cars are parked on the other side during drydock. A passenger ferry is put into service. The regular ferry, The Whatcom Chief sails to Seattle to have the engines overhauled and paint chipped and redone. Each year there is a new color scheme. Two years ago we liked it in blue and white with paintings of an orca, the local whale. Last year the Chief came back painted like a navy scow all dingy gray. When the two weeks is over the Chief sails back. Everyone prepares to go get the car they left on the other side and go to town for supplies. But the rumor swept the island that the Chief had broken on the way home and turned back to Seattle. Drydock might be continued for days some thought. Stranded. Marooned. Double drydocked. But Sunday the Chief showed up and we made plans to cross on Monday morning carrying empty water bottles and an insulated chest. Returning from town the line was excessively long and the word richocheted down the ferry lane that the Chief was busted again. “She’ll be down all day,” shouted a garbage truck driver as he passed. A Lummi wandered up from the beach in high rubber boots and asked what was going on. He was a handsome kid, friendly and intelligent. “Something wrong with the rudder,” I told him. “Well, yeah,” he said. “She’s out in the passage going around in circles. The Chief isn’t doing so good this summer.” I walked to the beach and there she was in her new John Deere color scheme with the loons, our favorite winter bird, painted on the side. Three big trucks occupied the deck and the Chief sputtered her engines and tried to turn. The Indians had a gill net set out in a circle just off shore. It looked like a brand new one. The kid I had talked to was standing on the shore and an older man was racing his dory from one splash to another and extracating salmon. Outside the net seals formed a perimeter waiting for an opportunity to steal a fish. The Chief was drifting north towards our house. Suddenly, she fired up and made a big arcing turn and headed for the slip.
I hiked down to the dock and talked to our UPS guy, a long-time island resident who was relaying a tale of the ferry being down three days one time with a rudder problem. “That rudder is always a problem,” he said. Two Public Works employees in safety vests were standing around trying to figure out why they had been dispatched while a fuel truck backed up to the end of the dock. The Chief was out of gas, too. A county supervisor with an oversized cell phone and a clipboard walked down the pier. I asked him if we should stay or leave and he assured me the Chief would be back on schedule in thirty minutes. Walking back to our car I repeated thirty times to thirty cars, “Back on schedule in thirty minutes.” We didn’t make the first run but ended up fourth car in line for the next one. This put us on the pier so we got out and threw a stick for the three-legged dog that hangs out on the dock. He’s a black lab who loves to swim and asks for no sympathy. For some reason the Lummis who work the line, the salmon and oyster peddlers and  artists weren’t out. Guess they knew that everyone would be coming back with car fulls of food. But this day, unless you were keen enough to take an ice chest, your ice cream was melting. Hazards of living on an island.