Under the Boardwalk

I don't believe I have ever taken ferry without being hungover. I'm still trying to decide whether this is a coincidence or just more evidence that I have a drinking problem but I know for certain that it never makes for a pleasant crossing.

There was an excruciating trip to the island of Ometepe after a night of bar hopping with a couple of Swedes. We'd stayed up to watch one of the most beautiful sunrises I've ever seen before I tossed my belongings into my backpack and made the border crossing from Costa Rica to Nicaragua. It was early afternoon by the time we finally cleared customs and my headache was peaking by the time we boarded the dilapidated ferry to cross the only shark infested lake in the world. The lake was roiling as wildly as my stomach but, unfortunately, the two were syncopated rather than sympathetic so, in a concerted effort at not hurling, I fixed my gaze on the ancient man who was bailing water from the the leaky bottom, and tried to think of anything but sharks.

Later that same trip a mudslide had made the road out of the penninsula bound Montezuma impassable so we paid ridiculous sums to be ferried across the ocean to the mainland in a motorboat. We were escorted by a pod of black dolphins. Have I ever told you how much I love dolphins? But, that morning, I couldn't even smile at the sight of them for fear of losing my hangover all over the boat.

So, when a party broke out round our campfire on Friday and I drank half a bottle of wine too much, it seemed inevitable that Saturday morning found me on a pontoon boat being ferried to Coney Island for the second annual music festival while wrestling with my hangover. If ferries are the worst place to find yourself with a hangover, music festivals are the best. Particularly music festivals with beaches only four feet away and an art exhibit along the boardwalk.

That's right, a real bonafide wooden boardwalk from the island's heyday in the 1920's. I was strolling this shady edifice when I met the musky chasing Fisherman. We became fast friends, that rare kind, who can sit without saying a word and it isn't awkward in the least though we actually laughed and talked a lot in between the musical acts. He gave me iced tea and we sang along to "Don't give me no hand me down world" and other greatest hits by Bill Wallace and his band the Best of Guess Who.

"See those two couples on the picnic table over there?" he said between sets. I nodded.
"I'm going to sit between the husband and wife on the right, you sit between the two on the left. Just to see what happens." Kindred souls we were but there was an ominous storm brewing in the East by the time the last act hit the stage and too quickly it was time to say goodbye. When he offered I could stay and weather out the storm with him and he'd ferry me back personally when it passed I wanted to say yes but there were bison burgers and sweet potato fries waiting for me at camp-familial duties and obligations really- so I worriedly left him at the mercy of the increasingly howling winds and blackening sky to catch the next ferry back town.

Why it is that, unlike cars, boats always take you someplace good?