In a fight won inch by inch and hour by hour, an excavator aboard the On Time III dug a channel through a field of ice in Edgartown harbor Saturday morning, freeing the Chappy ferry to run for the first time since 8 p.m. Friday night.

Edgartown selectmen received complaints last week about the line of vehicles that forms at the ferry to Chappaquiddick, which they say hampers access to their homes and poses a safety hazard in peak season.

For the first time since at least 2007, ice in the Edgartown harbor prevented the Chappaquiddick ferry from completing a trip across the harbor Monday morning. Capt. Jeff LaMarche was hampered by thick ice.

Jeff LaMarche and Becca Hamilton, both captains on the Chappaquiddick ferry, were married on the deck of the On Time II under a sky of pale blue at 1400 hours on Saturday afternoon. The ferry was dressed for the occasion in festive signal flags.

A Chappaquiddick man and his truck were safely rescued from the Edgartown harbor late Monday morning after the man drove off the ferry ramp on the Chappy side and landed in the water. The incident prompted an immediate call to emergency responders including police, fire and rescue, and attracted a small crowd around the harbor on Memorial Day.

For at least 10 days this month, Chappaquiddick will be a one-ferry Island.

With the On Time III — the larger of the two ferries that run the 527 feet between Edgartown and Chappaquiddick — being hauled out of the water Oct. 20 for routine maintenance, Chappy Ferry owner Peter Wells is cautioning passengers about delays.

A little more than a day after being pulled out of the water for some routine maintenance, the On Time III has been called back to duty making the Edgartown to Chappaquiddick loop.

Chappy ferry owner Peter Wells announced this summer that the On Time III, the bigger of the ferry’s two boats, would be out of the water starting Sept. 3 for a Coast Guard inspection and to have the bottom of the boat painted. Mr. Wells said the week after Labor Day was quiet last year and would be the best time to be down to one ferry for between 10 and 20 days.

A winter full of storms has brought erosion to almost every corner of the Island — including the small Chappy ferry ramp, which will undergo repairs in April.

The ferry will be closed to car traffic for part of the day April 6 for ramp repairs on the Edgartown side, ferry captain Peter Wells told the conservation commission Monday. The commission unanimously voted to approve the emergency work.

Excerpted from The Chappy Ferry Book: Back and Forth Between Two Worlds, 527 Feet Apart, by Tom Dunlop, with photographs by Alison Shaw and a short film on DVD by John Wilson (Vineyard Stories, 2012).

This excerpt is taken from chapter five which tells the story of James H. Yates of Edgartown, who owned the ferry from 1920 to 1929. He was the last man to run the Chappy ferry as a rowboat.

Folks on both sides of the harbor love Jimmy Yates. But folks on the Chappaquiddick side loathe the ferry Jimmy Yates runs.

In researching The Chappy Ferry Book, author Tom Dunlop asked his fellow Islanders what they thought was the most spectacular thing to hit the boat in its 200 years of operation

“I’ve gotten some good answers: a whale, a meteorite,” Mr. Dunlop said in an interview this week. “To a man and to a woman they stop and stare at me when I say, ‘No, an airplane hit it.’”