I don’t have as much free time as I thought I would have upon retirement. And I have only retired from the Chappy Ferry. Now I can pay a lot more attention to my next career at the tree farm up in West Tisbury. I like the pace of life there much better than that of the ferry. The cycle of life of the Chappy Ferry is about seven minutes. Under favorable conditions and circumstances that’s about the interval of a round trip. At the tree farm the interval between planting a sapling and digging it up as a full-grown tree is about seven years. I like that pace a whole lot better.
The ownership of the Chappy Ferry changed hands just over four months ago. Brian and I met at the ferry at midnight. We asked Gazette photographer Ray Ewing to come down to memorialize the event. He got pictures of us shaking hands and hugging. I’m so grateful that someone was willing and able to relieve me of my responsibility for Chappy’s lifeline.
It took a whole year to get all of the details addressed. When I took over the ferry two decades ago, it was a much simpler process. There are similarities between now and then. There was a breach just as there is now. A breach has a great effect on the wear and tear of the ferryboats and slips. There was stress in the economy as there is today. The price of diesel fuel affects not only the ferry, but also travelers using the ferry. Those two factors improved over time and I expect that they will do the same this time around.
I didn’t walk away from the ferry that night. As in the past, ferry captains were in short supply. Driving the ferry suddenly became a pleasant job. Brian still had many aspects of the job to become familiar with and lots of concerns that we hadn’t thought of previously had to be dealt with. It looks like a simple operation, ferry boats shuttling back and forth. It’s a complicated business. Brian is detail oriented so he took all of the surprises in stride. With the haul out of the On Time 2, there are now enough captains to fill all of the shifts and my initials no longer appear on the captain’s calendar.
This article appears in November 6 2026.