Time and Tide

This morning started well, with a call from a friend to go and watch the ferry cross the river. Now, that might not sound promising, but let me explain.

There have been exceptional high and low tides just recently and the town ferry - a tiny little craft that carries people between east and west Lynn - carries on regardless. On the Town side, there is a jetty that goes down into the water, and at most stages of the tide, the ferry goes up to this jetty for the people to get on and off. As the water level goes down, more of the jetty is seen, until at the lowest tide - like today - you actually get to the end of the jetty, and start seeing the riverbed. At times like this the ferry has to take a different approach.

First the ferry approaches the land as near as it can get, and then one of the crew jumps out of the boat into the water, and pulls it ashore. Now, since the boat is not up to the jetty, having pulled the boat as close as possible, he gets out a set of steps and puts these against the end of the boat for the passengers to use. At certain times, he also puts out duck boards for the passengers to get across the riverbed to the jetty, but he did not do that this time - maybe the sand there was dry enough.

The passengers got off and a few others got aboard for the return trip, and the crew man in the water proceeded to push the ferry back out into the stream. I have nothing but respect for this crew, out in all weathers and in all tidal conditions - the current here is so strong that just to go safely from one side to the other takes enormous skill, and yet these men make it look so simple and so routine.