![]() ![]() There were several other teachers on board, some single, some with families, heading out to new jobs and new lives in Sand Point, King Cove, Akutan and Dutch Harbor. "But they're excited to live on the ocean." She had never even seen the village where she'd be living and teaching for the next nine months. "I think they're a little nervous," their mother commented, gesturing at her sons. A dog strained against its leash while two young boys played on the ferry elevator. People who'd spent years dreaming and planning this journey to the Aleutians.įor others, the ferry ride was only the beginning of their adventure. There were people from New Jersey and Washington. For them, the ferry ride itself was the adventure. Some of them were getting right back on the same ferry heading east. ![]() We arrived in Dutch Harbor, 3 1/2 days later, with 108 people on board. Our days and nights were punctuated by foghorn blasts, loudspeaker announcements and a scramble of feet and gear as passengers shuffled in and out at 11 p.m. Unlike most slumber parties, this one spanned the range from retirees to college students to infants. Part of the adventureĪt midnight, a crab fisherman lambasted National Geographic's "Deadliest Catch" in a voice to wake the whole boat. A Disney movie played on an endless loop in the theater - repeating three times before we finally shut it off. Unlike the larger ferries that service Southeast Alaska, the "Trusty Tusty" has only a few places to house folks too cheap or too sociable to spring for a stateroom. Duct tape secured a pair of tents to the floor of the solarium, beside the roaring engine exhaust. A man snored loudly in one of the blue vinyl reclining chairs. Backpacks and sleeping bags were strewn across benches and aisles. Inside, the Tustumena was a gently rocking slumber party. The captain assured us that this was anything but normal. The gray-blue sea was so smooth it was almost greasy. A ring of sightseers circled the bow, their hair and bright, new raincoats whipped by the wind, thick straps of binoculars and cameras around every neck. ![]() Outside the boat, fog drooped over meadowy-soft hills, their green sides slashed with layers of folded rock. Every two weeks between May and September, the 51-year-old Tustumena leaves Seldovia for the 900-or-so-mile run to Dutch Harbor, stopping at Homer, Kodiak, Chignik, Sand Point, King Cove, Cold Bay, False Pass and Akutan along the way. This is the most remote run the Alaska ferry system makes. Chignik residents passed us going the other direction, clutching cardboard boxes of hamburgers and fries from the Tustumena's onboard restaurant.Ī few minutes later, we untied and motored off. We squeezed past the line of people still waiting to get in, munching still-warm doughnuts as we retraced our steps on the long, wooden dock. "I couldn't keep the business going without the ferry days," she said. The sign inside the door assured us "unattended children will be given espresso and a free puppy." The proprietor looked harried but happy, filling a cardboard box with freshly made doughnuts for $1 or $2 each. Dozens of passengers streamed off the boat, our feet clomping on wooden boardwalks that carried us across a creek, over green-pink tangles of fireweed and angelica, to a small unmarked building that filled the air with the sticky-sweet scent of doughnuts. I stumbled as the car elevator lurched upward, making its slow, clanking journey from the bowels of our Alaska Marine Highway ferry to the Chignik dock. CHIGNIK - "Brace yourselves," the ferry official cautioned. ![]()
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