One by one, the women appear at the top of the boat ramp at Buoy Park in Portland, then carefully descend to the float. Capt. Gene Willard greets them with a smile, extending a hand as they step up and onto his boat. One of the women teases Willard about his new crew cut. Willard rubs his head, shrugs and smiles. “See, they even tell me how to cut my hair,” he says. The women – six of them – are regular customers of Portland Express Water Taxi, Casco Bay’s newest water taxi service. Willard picks them up every weekday at 6:30 a.m. on Long Island, ferries them into Portland, then retrieves them at 5 p.m. for the ride back to the island. A legal secretary, a teacher, a real estate broker, among others – these are women who have known Willard for years. Not only do they affectionately dispense advice on his grooming habits, they also claim credit for the birth of his new business.
“The ladies had been telling me for months that I should get my permit, so finally I said, ‘Shirley, I’ll have the boat up and running for you by January,’ ” says Willard. He did – and now he wonders why he didn’t do it sooner. “My phone just started ringing,” he says. “I made 157 trips in March. This time of year, who’d have thought I’d be this busy?” The 39-year-old Willard, who works full-time for Casco Bay Lines, says he had toyed with the idea of starting a water taxi service during his off hours, but was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough business to support another water taxi in town. His fears were unfounded. “I had no idea there would be this kind of support from the islands,” he says. Island dwellers who need to catch early morning flights out of the Portland International Jetport have provided a steady source of business.
Willard’s reputation as a Bay Lines captain, and his family name, are cause for a lot of the support he’s received in just a few short months. Descended from the Willards who lent their name to South Portland’s Willard Beach, he is the eighth generation in his family to make a living on Casco Bay. His great-great uncle, William Willard, operated the bay’s first working tugboat, dubbed “The Tiger.” William’s brother, Benjamin Willard, founded the company that is today the Casco Bay Lines. And his grandfather, Enoch, ran the first water transportation service from Peaks Island to South Portland. Despite his family history, Willard wasn’t really planning on a career on the water when he took his first job, at age 14, as a deckhand on the Casco Bay Lines. “It was the last thing I wanted to do,” he says. But he was good at it – so good that the captain was willing to overlook the age requirement. “He asked me how old I was, and I said, ‘How old do I need to be’? When he said 17, I said, o.k. then, I’m 17.” Willard chuckles. “I was 17 for three years.”
Before long, Willard realized that he was making more money than most of his friends, so he stuck with the deckhand job. At 18, he was promoted to captain. But it wasn’t until years later that it dawned on him how much he actually loved the working on a boat. “I love the water, the people, the feeling of being connected to my roots, being proud of where I’ve come from.” Willard is equally fond of his 1978 P-Quad sport fishing boat, despite the fact that his father ridiculed it when he bought it in 1999. “He told me I couldn’t make money with that,” says Willard. “I told him I didn’t want to make money, I just wanted to kick back and relax.” His father’s response? “You can’t relax on a boat!”
Yet relax is exactly what Willard does. Unlike his job at Casco Bay Lines, where the destination is assured, the water taxi business has “no walls,” says Willard. “After I drop off my passengers, I can go wherever I want. Sometimes I take my skiff and pull onto an island and hike around for a couple hours, or I stop in to say ‘Hi’ to someone I haven’t seen in awhile.” Despite the long hours – he reports to Casco Bay Lines at 4.45 a.m. and is sometimes still running his taxi service at 10 p.m. – Willard never tires of the water. “Some people like to go home after work and read a book, or watch the news. I like to do this.” And contrary to his father’s prediction, he is now making money with his pleasure boat, though he does plan to replace it in the near future with something more fuel-efficient.
Portland Express Water Taxi operates seven days a week with runs to all of the islands in Casco Bay. Willard can carry up to six passengers per trip. The cost varies, depending on distance and the time of day or night. According to his six Long Island passengers, the extra cost of taking a water taxi is well worth it. “We get home at least an hour earlier,” says Christine Waters, a legal secretary with the Portland law firm of Verrill & Dana. “I figure my time is worth it.” And besides, they get to dictate the captain’s hairstyle.