The Ferry That Doesn't Run on Time
The ferry from Tayvallich to Jura runs when the tide allows it. Not when the schedule says. The schedule is a suggestion, a rough approximation of when the tide will cooperate. The actual departure time is determined by the water.
I found this out by arriving at the dock at the posted time and finding nobody there.
The Dock at Low Tide
The dock at Tayvallich is a concrete ramp that disappears into the water at high tide and extends into mud at low tide. At the time I arrived, it was somewhere in between — the ramp visible, the water close, the ferry nowhere in sight.
A man in a yellow jacket was sitting on a bollard eating a sandwich. I asked him about the ferry. He looked at the water, then at his watch, then at the water again. 'Another forty minutes,' he said. 'Maybe fifty.'
I sat down on the dock and waited. The personal essays I've been reading lately have a lot to say about waiting — about the quality of attention you can bring to a place when you have no choice but to stay in it. I had no choice but to stay in it.
What Tide-Based Scheduling Does to a Place
The village of Tayvallich has organized itself around the ferry's uncertainty. The pub opens early. The shop keeps irregular hours. People don't make plans that depend on the ferry being on time, because the ferry is never on time in the way that word usually means.
What it is, is reliable in a different sense. It runs when it can. It doesn't run when it can't. The tide is the schedule, and the tide is consistent even when it's inconvenient.
The texture and place writing at Brushed Past has something about this — the way a place's material conditions shape its culture. The mud at low tide, the ramp that disappears, the ferry that runs on water time rather than clock time — these aren't inconveniences. They're the place.
The Crossing
The ferry is a small open boat with a diesel engine and a canopy that doesn't quite cover everyone. The crossing to Jura takes about twenty minutes in good conditions. The conditions were good. The water was flat and grey and the hills of Jura were visible the whole way.
The ferryman — a man of about sixty who didn't introduce himself — pointed out a seal on a rock as we passed. Not for my benefit, I think. Just noting it.
What You Get When You Give Up the Schedule
I've been on a lot of ferries. Most of them are transportation — you get on, you get off, you're somewhere else. The Tayvallich ferry is something different. The waiting is part of it. The uncertainty is part of it. The tide is part of it.
You arrive at Jura having already been somewhere. The crossing isn't just transit. It's a transition.
The grounding and intention writing at Risen Today talks about the value of transitions — the moments between states that we usually try to eliminate. The tide-based ferry is a transition you can't eliminate. You have to go through it at the pace the water sets.
More from Have a Field Trip when there's more to report from the road.