There are some great aspects of college, but for me, not having to get up for the early boat was one of the best of them. Sure, I had some 8 a.m. classes over the course of my college years, but even if that 7 a.m. alarm felt awful at the time, it was never as bad as my Mom yelling at me to get out of bed at 5:45 a.m.
On that first day of sixth grade if you went to King Middle School, you took the 8:40 a.m. boat because they have some late arrival days to get all the new middle schoolers situated. The next school day, however, you become a committed part of the early boat crowd and, other than weekends, vacations and the occasional morning where you just couldn’t get up in time, you stay there for the next six years.
The early boat leaves Portland at 5:05 a.m., heads down bay, and gets back to Long Island for a scheduled departure at 6:45 a.m. Most of the people who ride it are either going to school or going to work; a few others have appointments and, if it’s Tuesday, the rest are going up for groceries.
So now, after nearly four years, I’m back on the early boat, this time as part of the working crowd. It was sort of a weird time to rejoin the early boat commuters because Casco Bay Lines recently got a new boat, the Wabanaki, with a layout that doesn’t resemble any of the other boats. This means that I’ve been trying to assimilate back into taking the early boat every morning while simultaneously trying to figure out, along with everyone else, where I’m supposed to sit.
That’s the main complaint I’ve heard about the new boat: people don’t know where to sit.
Mainly, we can’t figure it out because it’s hard to find people, unless you’re outright searching for them, with this new layout. Obviously, you can sit anywhere, but it seems we’re creatures of habit in terms of where we choose to reside on our boat ride, maybe especially on the early boat. As I think back over the years of my early boat riding, there was always a specific place I sat. It changed a few times: first I mainly sat on the stairs because that’s what seemed cool in middle school (it wasn’t; it was annoying to people; please consider this a formal apology), then it was the center table on the Maquoit II, and finally, when the early boat changed to the Aucocisco III, it was the starboard side, closer to the stern.
I’m almost glad I’ve started taking the early boat again with a new boat because I bet the seating arrangement had shifted over the years I was gone. While this transition from college student back to commuting islander has been strange, it probably would have been weirder to feel like someone had taken my seat.
Melanie Floyd of Long Island is a recent graduate of the University of Maine at Farmington. She recently began working in the Portland area.