It is 6 a.m., pitch black outside, and I am walking my dog up the frozen road in anticipation of his day in the house alone. Every weekday morning, I trudge off on the first boat, which leaves the slip at 6:45. (I was told by a groggy deckhand that we have the earliest departure time in the Maine state ferry system.) As one of several daily commuters from Swan’s Island to the mainland, I am often asked how I can stand the trip, but the ferry is really only the beginning of a regular workday for those of us who commute.
We arm ourselves with a book, a journal, maybe some music, maybe some tea and a bagged lunch. We settle into our favorite spots. We enjoy our thirty minutes of quiet solitude, or visit with friends who are going off to run errands that day.
People are intensely curious about this uncommon arrangement. “Does the ferry ever not run?” they ask. Well, of course, there are rare occasions when the wind howls in the wrong direction or when the ramp is broken and won’t go down, or when there’s been an emergency medical run the night before. “Do you ever get stuck on the mainland?” they ask. It hasn’t happened to me, but I am prepared for the possibility. The resourcefulness of islanders doesn’t end when they step off the ferry; we all have friends who would take us in and friends or family on the island who would pick up the slack on the other side, letting the dog out or turning on the faucet to drip during a cold night. “Doesn’t the commute wear on you?” they ask. I always respond that I am not stuck in traffic on the freeway and I am not sitting on a cramped train. I am on a boat ride and who doesn’t love a boat ride!
The challenges of commuting are more subtle than just the rigors of the ferry schedule. With six miles of ocean between work and home, there is no running home on your lunch break to throw in a load of laundry; there is no hitting the snooze button and just arriving at work ten minutes late; there is no leaving work ten minutes early and meeting friends for a drink, no working ten minutes late to put finishing touches on a project. The challenges of commuting include finding a parking space in the mainland lot at the end of each day (which can be next to impossible in the summer months), scraping the snow and ice from two cars instead of just one (the car that gets you to the ferry on the island and the car that carries you to work on the mainland), and making small talk with someone who sits down next to you on the boat when you happen to be enjoying the quietude.
For the optimist, there are many positive aspects to the daily commute as well. I see many more sunrises and sunsets than most people I know. I have a chance to visit with people who, in our busy lives, get lost in the shuffle otherwise. I have time to read, to write, and to just watch the gulls float on the wing if I want to. I also have full-time, year-round employment with health insurance and a retirement plan. Jobs of that description are few and far between on Swan’s Island, and I feel blessed to have both the job and the island in my life, in spite of the regular ferry rides.
Commuting from Swans Island is feasible because we have daily ferry runs year-round and the six-mile crossing only takes a little longer than 30 minutes. Other islands may have year-round regular ferries, like Vinalhaven, but their runs to the mainland take over an hour. Matinicus wins the prize, of course, with only one ferry run per month in the deep winter. Commuting from an island home to a mainland job also requires a flexible and understanding employer. Perhaps in the future, there will be more and more telecommuting from Maine’s outer islands, but for now, a few of us will continue to brave the daily commute willingly and, usually, cheerfully.
Molly Bryan lives on Swan’s Island.