Outside the Lines: Ferry Tales XXII

Time and Tide

More than three weeks time has been added to the current Guemes Ferry outage. If this announcement, of additional repairs needed, catches you unawares you are one of the very few. Most who use the ferry to get on or off Guemes Island either for work or recreation, are not surprised at all. In the last year the ferry will have been out of service more than 1/4 of the time. Skagit County couldn’t possibly consider this acceptable. It is the equivalent to being denied access to county roads and bridges, one out of every four days.

To add insult to injury, if you boarded the passenger only ferry during the morning hours this past week you took a scenic tour to Cap Sante and a cramped and crowded van back to where you parked. More than once the van was filled to capacity and had to return to pick up passengers left waiting at the dock. Not a problem unless you had a doctor’s appointment, a job, or a class to attend. If you had special needs, needed to transport anything in a wheelbarrow or needed a scooter or bike, there was problem as well. All this was due to low tides {below + 3 ft.} Tides are a fact of life on this planet not an unforeseen phenomenon.

John Richards, skipper of the Warrior, attended the quarterly GIFC meeting and assured, all those present, that the Warrior could negotiate a beach landing during these low tides with the help of a ramp. Wrong!

Service disrupted 28% of the time during the past year, passenger only ferry service compromised during ferry outage, and a fare increase that doubles the cost of frequent user tickets. Guemes Islanders have exhibited tremendous tolerance. We’ve gotten some bad press lately from the Skagit Valley Herald, how about telling the other side of the story?

Skagit County sent out two updates this week with the schedule modification information. The update states that “Sunday {10/02/05} schedule and beyond returns to the normal schedule using the Warrior passenger vessel.” With the ferry outage extended for another three weeks, and tides being inevitable, one thing for certain there will be another low tide.

Time and tide wait for no man {or ferry}

- MJ Andrak

[10.3.5]

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