When you live on Bainbridge Island and you haven’t made a living yet or found a way to otherwise earn your money here, you work in Seattle. That means that at least five times a week, you commute, but not by car. You use the ferry across the Puget Sound. There are two of these huge ships which make the way back and forth between Winslow on Bainbridge and Seattle pretty much 24 hours a day: The ‘Wenatchee’ and the ‘Tacoma’.
The ferries carry hundreds of cars on two stories and I don’t know how many passengers on an indoor and an outdoor passenger deck on which you could actually go for a run. It takes about 35 minutes from one port to the other. The ferry ride for walk on passengers is free from Bainbridge to Seattle, but not the other way around.
I imagine that thousands of people do the commute every day. With their car, their motorbikes, their bicycles and on foot. It appears to be a well-oiled machinery with a rhythm of its own. People work on the ferry, sleep on the ferry, eat on the ferry, drink on the ferry, walk rounds on the ferry, talk on the ferry, stand on the ferry.
The ferry ride is a necessity in their day and they want to make it last as short as possible. So they walk on, drive on, ride onto and off the ferry as quick as possible, in the same concert every day. When the ferry reaches its destination, while the walking passengers disembark the vessel through a separate walkway, the wheeled passengers follow the same disciplined round dance each time. First, the cyclists form ranks behind a yellow rope, as if it was the Tour de France. Geared up with helmets and signal vests, they shoot off the ferry once the rope drops, followed by roaring motorbikes, then come the cars, in two lanes. A fascinating choreography.
Interesting observations can be made among the pedestrian passengers as well. While most withdraw to the decks and relax as much as possible on whatever seats they see fit, some hardliners just remain standing for the entire trip, safeguarding their ‘pull position’ behind the yellow pedestrian line which is not to cross until the ferry has landed and the walkway been given access to by the crew. And you come to realize that even someone living on a paradise island like Bainbridge is subject to an everyday routine in a hamster wheel.
On a Friday afternoon, when heading to Bainbridge from Seattle, one can sense a special atmosphere, a unanimous sigh of relief as the week and the commuting is over and comes to rest. People meet in the restaurant area, reserve seats and tables with their bags as if they were on holiday keeping a deck chair by the pool with a towel, and get themselves a bag of popcorn and a beer, toasting to yet another weekend ahead. There must be extra supplies that day.
The Bainbridge Island Brewing Company has created a special commuter beer in this spirit: ‘Kömmuter Kölsch’. I have not found out why on earth they decided to brew a Kölsch – which is a German type of beer brewed in Cologne, Germany, only – but that will be something I will have to find out next time I am here…
In any event, and as a closing quote, Bainbridge Brewing advertises its Kölsch as follows:
“Brewed in honor of the rain-huddled masses whose daily commute revolves around the Washington State Ferries, Kömmuter Kölsch is a light, malty German-style ale brewed like a lager for maximum clarity and a bright, clean, refreshing taste. Victory to the Ferrytariat!”
And as one of the crew members remarks late at night on our way back to Bainbridge as he sees me taking pictures and as I tell him about my observations: “Sometimes, there is popcorn, and sometimes, there is no popcorn.”
