The stuff that flows through the freight office of Casco Bay Lines is as diverse as the needs of the islanders the company serves. Cartons of milk from Oakhurst Dairy head for the grocery store on Long Island, propane tanks earmarked for home heating ship out to Chebeague – and then there’s the random, 14-inch, par-baked, white pizza (with garlic, tomato, basil and feta) from Portland Pie, aiming for some hungry customer on Great Diamond. FedEx and UPS packages or Home Depot appliances – whatever gets delivered in Portland can show up at random in the cargo shed of Casco Bay Lines.
Shipments stream in seven days a week, from 5:00 am to 10:30 p.m., year round. When a brand new wood splitter arrives, it’s swiftly dispatched to Lane Three. Pear trees from Skillin’s Greenhouse or a 1,000-pound grand piano from Starbird Music – slap it with the right colorful, two-letter, island-identification code. And every Tuesday, when the groceries from Hannaford’s or Shaw’s Westgate get offloaded from the truck, these Chiquita-banana boxes are shrink-wrapped together according to final destination and fork lifted right onto the 2:45 mail boat.
“We ship everything here – church organ last week, Chinese food next week – we’re in the business of packaging things up,” says Meghan Conley, operations agent. “Anyone who is building a house might have an account with us.”
Basically, the definition of the freight Casco Bay Lines transports from Portland to the islands of Casco Bay seems quite simple. “Whatever you can easily carry safely on one trip across the plank is allowed onboard with the passenger,” says Captain Larry Legere. “Everything else needs to be loaded as freight – but people always try to carry outboard engines by themselves, or hide a couple bags of cement under their groceries – we’ve seen it all.”
The five-page rate sheet maintained by the CBL freight department makes for daunting reading. Every conceivable package, from potato chips to five-gallon can of joint compound, has a tariff number and two sets of tariff rates, on season and off. CBL charges $37.50 to haul a patio door to an island in the high season, but only $3.50 for a hollow-type, interior door in a box, come off season. After Oct. 11, when off-season rates kick in, prices drop about 33 percent, across the board. Last March, the Public Utilities Commission in Augusta approved the increase in freight charges; as of July, 2004, Casco Bay Lines saw revenues increase to $297,970.30, from Oct. 1, 2003 through July 2004, from $268,507.85, in the same time period in 2002-2003.
Rates have everything to do with weight, size and replacement value. “If a 40-pound computer was dropped overboard it would cost $1,000 to replace, whereas a 40-pound bag of peat moss would cost about $4.00,” explains Legere.
Carted on steep inclines or lifted by forklift, merchandise also faces potentially rough seas and inclement weather; proper packaging is heartily encouraged and the rules on commercial shipping via Casco Bay Lines are extensive.
Post-9/11 security means the operations agents are even stricter about unattended packages and somewhat insistent on the 30-minute check-in rule. A Coast Guard regulation forbids containers holding gasoline (such as weed-wackers) from traveling on scheduled runs. “I’ve caught people sneaking chain saws in their baby carriages, and this is a potential fire hazard,” explains Legere.
Furthermore, Casco Bay Lines strongly suggests customers time their shipments whenever possible; the company website clearly states that woodstoves or new furniture would better make the trip midweek or on a quiet weekend. “A woman from San Francisco who lives on Peaks in the summer called here to inform me that the mattress and box spring she bought in Connecticut was arriving,” recalls Amy Myers, operations agent. “She wanted someone to hold delivery on this for a few days because no one could accept delivery – and it was pouring rain that day.”
Groceries, of course, are essential, year round. Every Tuesday, Hannaford’s on Forest Avenue and Shaw’s Westgate offer boxing-and-delivery service to islanders who shop in town on these days. “A woman on Diamond Cove has dog food delivered from Fetch, on Commercial Street, once a month in the summer,” muses Renee Watson. “But the majority of dog food goes out with regular groceries from Shaw’s or Hannaford’s.”
Union Wharf sells meat, produce, deli, wine and beer “but mainly to summer people who sometimes call in twice or three times a week,” explains Roy Giles, manager and co owner. Seven days a week, year-round, Union Wharf takes telephone orders (preferably between 8 and 10 a.m.), charging $3.75 for the first three boxes going to Peaks, Little or Great Diamond, and $4.40 for the first three boxes to the outer islands of Long, Cliff and Chebeague. “We don’t have 15 varieties of mustard here, like Shaw’s and Shop ‘n Save (Hannaford), but we always have Dijon and French’s,” says Giles.
The busy summer season demands last-minute service on cold champagne and fresh cigarettes, for a party, perhaps, from Downeast Beer and Beverage and ferrying a car out for a one-week vacation requires heavy advance booking.
Some things travel one way, others make round trips. The high season also sees a fair number of porta-potties being shipped for special events. “Brides are pretty organized and they know a year in advance that they’re going to need a porta-potty for their wedding on Long Island or Little Diamond,” explains Watson, who now tells anyone who calls that the current high-season, freight charge for a portable toilet on Casco Bay Lines runs $50, round trip.
Come fall, however, fewer kayaks make the $15 one way trip – a rate that drops to $8 after Oct. 11. The seafood shipments to restaurants slow down, as does the flow of rental chairs and new bathtubs. Seasons change, needs change – and so does the cargo likely to show up without advance warning in the freight department of Casco Bay Lines.