A BC Ferry geek roaming the MASS. Ferries

[Ferryman]

Thats's great that you were able to capture that image, Ferrynut! At that point, I would have been driving down to Woods Hole on the windy narrow Cape Cod roads. That long pier in the center of the image, is the pier I walked down to capture images of the MV Island Home coming into the slip. A really nice area it is down there.

Get a good look at the MV Nantucket before she goes in for her mid life refurbishment! She's going to be sent down Norfolk, Viginia on November, 22, which is where her interior will be stripped out and redone, and will have its wheelhouse removed and replaced.

Heh, yes that's the time my flight is scheduled to leave. We plan to be there 2 hours early, to allow plenty of time for getting our boarding passes, putting our baggage on the cart, and going through security.

PS: If you want to hear the Nobska Whistle of the MV Eagle, check out this link to a recording of it, which is provided by the Steamship Authority.

web1.steamshipauthority.com/ssa/nobskawhistlemov2.html

[Northern Exploration]

There is a Legal Seafoods at Logan. It is by the arm that Air Canada uses. I am not sure where you will be in the airport so it may not be convenient.

[olgasparky]

Olgasparky is Chris's Aunt on Cape Cod. I managed to get several shots on the MV Island Home of Chris on the bridge. I would like to add them to this board tonight...

[Ferryman]

olgasparky said:

Olgasparky is Chris's Aunt on Cape Cod. I managed to get several shots on the MV Island Home of Chris on the bridge. I would like to add them to this board tonight...

Hahaha...you found this forum!

Let me know if you need help posting the pics, Aunty "olgasparky".

[Retrovision]

Here's a little something that I happened to find while browsing the web that I thought might make for some nice historcal perspective to the great online tour that Chris has given us...

[Ferryman]

Neat postcard, Graham. From the looks of it, that same pier is still there today, with a few modifications of course.

I'm going to start adding galleries of the Steamship Authority Ferries to my fotopic site. So here's the link to the MV Island Home for now.

photosbychris2006.fotopic.net/c1394399.html

[olgasparky]

Think it might be wise for me to send the pic's to you Chris, and have you post them!
Will do that now.

[Ferryman]

OK. Here they are....Thanks olgasparky.

[FNS]

Hey, Chris!

Here is something we rarely see. The MV NANTUCKET lands bow first at Vineyard Haven. Normally, we've been seeing these land stern first there. Just seen this today via the MV Times webcam.


In the dock.


Going astern.


Away from the slip.


On to Woods Hole.


Same hour of this day. MV MARTHA'S VINEYARD lands normally. I guess that the MV ISLAND HOME must be out of service at this time.

[Ferryman]

Thanks for the screenshots, Ferrynut!

Now that's quite interesting that the MV Nantucket was docked 'bow-to' at Vineyard Haven. I wonder what's up with that!

Get a good look at the MV Nantucket while you can, she's going for a Major refit to interior accomadations on November 17th for part of the winter. Part of the work also includes a completely new wheelhouse!

I forget which of the two is replacing the MV Island Home, but she's now out for a month I believe. The reason being is that the interior finnishers used the wrong type of glue on the linoleum on the floors. So the linoleum has been bubbleing and peeling up, causing multiple hazards all over the ship. So the floors are being ripped out and replaced already!

A side note to the bottom picture of the MV Marthas Vineyard. That poor sap seems to be having just as hard of a time trekking through that sand as I did! Your feet just sink right into it, so it's quite the workout walking along that beach!

I wonder how badly service has been affected out there with Hurrican Noel. My Aunt has said that the damage has been almost as bad as Hurricane Bob, witch came through about 17 years or so ago. The eye of the storm went right over Cape Cod in both cases! I was having my suspicions of an incomming storm as we were leaving. It was 75 degrees, or 25 degrees celcius the day we left, and it was only about 60 degrees or 15 degrees most of the time we were there.

[Mill Bay]

Hey, that's pretty interesting, guys... but the Nantucket might dock bow in normally, because it docked that way in the photos Chris has as well...

"Fire on the freight deck!"

I was also going to say, if Chris had stayed on the east coast a little longer, he would have had an interesting photo op, because I was reading the MV times, and they did a fire drill response on the MV Martha's Vineyard, which would have been interesting to see for sure. I think it took place October 20th, or so.

I've also gotten in to the habit of watching that webcam lately... it shows some interesting things occasionally. I was also very intrigued by the doors they use on these ferries and how they appear to operate... very unusual.

www.mvtimes.com/news/2007/10/25/ssa_fire_drill.php

[D'Elete BC in NJ]

I was in Boston over the weekend, and was caught in the deluge of rain and high winds courtesy of Noel. There was a lot of street flooding in the low lying areas along the water, and the wind was howling with gusts to 45 mph (75km/hr). I was glad we had planned a mostly inside day for Saturday.

About 60,000 people lost power, mostly on Cape Cod, but also on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard where wind speeds reached 75mph (120km/hr). From what I understand, ferries and air flights were canceled on a case by case basis, but the flights were coming fast and furious into Boston (our hotel, in south Boston, was right on the approach during the storm). Some photos from the web documenting Noel's impact on the cape can be found here:
www.thebostonchannel.com/slideshow/weather/14499412/detail.html

Sunday included a side trip to Buzzards Bay, which is the entrance to Cape Cod, and I saw trees down, but these were a rarity. The trip continued south along the coast through Rhode Island, but again, damage in these areas seemed to be minimal.

Much harder hit by the storm were Nova Scotia and Newfoundland with an estimated 200,000 homes left without power, and recorded wind speeds of 180 km/hr. Again, photos of the impact of Noel:

tinyurl.com/2rpm7m