Going Through The Narrows

It turns out all the chatting-up of the Captain paid off, and The Waa (as he is affectionately known by those of us who are close to him) invited me onto the Bridge to witness passing through The Narrows - a treacherous few miles of water where ‘you can almost reach out from the ferry and touch the trees on either side’. All of my new-found ferry buddies were jealous. We sat in the bar over a few whiskeys and discussed my luck. Kierson made lewd remarks about the Waa, cocktails, and Jacuzzis up on the exclusive Bridge. Eli said he wanted to come. Robin told me that being bored out of my brains for hours on end of The Waa's genealogy stories and strange ways around women were actually going to be worth it, and Damion politely told me to have fun. Then all of a sudden, we became aware that the The Waa was amongst us, lurking behind our circle, like a silent ship that had approached unnoticed and makes you a bit nervous wondering how long they'd been standing there, waiting to be announced, listening. It was time.

On the bridge it was all gold plated, comfortable seating, fancy navigation devices, and good coffee - at last. The pilot, who is second to the captain and in charge when the captain is off-duty, showed me around. The Waa took control. He was the puppeteer - without touching anything, he steered the ship and directed the men. The Waa made a command, the man on the wheel steered the boat, and other men looked out for important things. I have no vocabulary for what their skills were or what they did, but according to the pilot, The Waa was doing it well, especially docking into Petersburg that required an apparently tricky turning in a strong cross-current. I made myself suitably impressed and thanked The Waa profusely for the opportunity to view his skills at close range.

I descended from The Bridge happy for my special treatment, but exhausted from the male ego-stroking I had done over the few days on the ferry. Although it was getting me places, I was ready to retire from my Aussie Red-Head status. It had been over two days with no personal space, and it appeared there was a lot of men aboard that needed my audience. The ferry was shrinking in apparent size each day, and a small part of me was the bird in the cage that was ready to be set free on arrival in Juneau at dawn the following day.

For the time being I loved my new ferry friends and we stayed up late breaking only a few of America’s minor laws, and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.