Reminiscing about sights that we had gotten used to seeing at the Chappy Ferry and won’t be seeing again:

Horses going over on the ferry on foot or, more accurately, on hoof. There used to be a snow shovel onboard the ferry, available year round for scooping the horse poop off of the deck when the critters became alarmed. The Chappaquiddick family horses that spent the winter at Sweetened Water Farm would come over in the spring and go back in the fall. Then there was a herd of them headed for the Pimpneymouse Farm annual horse show.

Minnows and sand eels being chased into the slip by the ferry. They would pile up so thick under the ramp that you could scoop them up with your hand. During full moon high tides they would wash up onto the pavement. The ephemeral broken-winged gull would wait over in the beach grass for the humans to go away so that it could dart out to hastily gobble dinner.

Sand sharks schooling in the ferry slip at night. Often a dozen at a time. Some would lift their snouts out of the water in a way that looked particularly menacing. We knew from experience that their teeth were harmless to humans. Their sandpaper hides made them the one fish that you could easily hold onto when removing a hook.

Scup, porgy and flounder the size of dinner plates being pulled out of the water on drop lines at the end of the Chappy slip pier by exuberant kids with bare feet. Back then, those narrow fishes were thick enough to provide a filet worth taking home.

Blue claw crabs on the walls of the Chappy slip at night at low tide. I could gather half a dozen just by sliding a long-handled net up beneath them. Once there was even a lobster in the shallows next to the slip. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that they swim backwards. As I carefully lowered the net in front, it vanished in a cloud of sand in the opposite direction.

Water gushing up through the slot at the base of the ramp. The original versions of the steel ramps pivoted on a hinge that left a one-inch gap. When the ferry backed down hard, the backwash would squirt up the pant legs of the impatient next load of ferry patrons, sending them hopping backwards.

Bare feet on the ferry. Kids went barefoot the entire summer. Their soles seemingly permanently blackened from trodding on creosoted pier timbers. Punctures from broken shells and splinters from sun baked board walks were the trade-off for the freedom and advantages of having amphibious feet.

Chris Phinney’s smile. Way back in the ‘70s, Chris stayed on Chappy for a couple of winters. He took to the new experience with his signature muted vigor. One very frigid winter day he spent more than an hour with a long 2 by 4, laboring mightily to shove the ice floes out of the slip so that the ferry could make the first trip of the day. When the ferry boat finally made landfall, I could see that he was overheated and flushed from the effort. But on his face was that slightly-suppressed grin that defined Chris Phinney.