The Chi-Chimaun from South Baymouth to Tobermory by Night
The five-storey craft eased into the berth, unusually delicately for a vessel its size, and filled the view with its bulk. The crew solemnly – ritualistically – worked the leviathan’s stern hatch, and the ship seemingly doubled in size as the mammoth steel door rose imposingly into the bluing night. Bright eyes shone out the beast’s belly, headlights of the vehicles of disembarking vacationers.
The had sun set half an hour earlier, taking with it much of South Baymouth’s familiarity. The tiny port, little more than the ferry terminal building, seemed now unearthly, the sodium vapor lights of the parking lot eerie in the dusk. It was seasonably warm for late June, one of the first warm evenings of the summer, and the waters of the bay shone still and dark, becoming progressively blacker as the dozen or so southbound passengers and their vehicles loaded themselves. By departure, the night seemed thin and felt light, and everything – water, shore and sky – were darkest cobalt, lit only by the gibbous moon. Everything was reduced to comforting washes of tonalities. The only real color and sense of place emanated from the ship itself, softly lit, and the happy string of winking buoys marking the entrance and exit to and from the narrow harbor.
The ship carried more crew than passengers that evening. Tired travelers making the two-hour voyage at the end of their day milled about the ship looking for corners and quiet pockets to crawl into, even before the steel mooring lines were pulled aboard and the ship started edging itself away from the pier.
Quietly and slowly, as though pulled by unseen cables, the unorthodox craft turned itself about in the moonlit bay, rotating delicately through one hundred and eighty degrees, aiming southward. The world seemed to rotate around the center of the ship. The muted rumble of the turbines brought the night a purpose, definition, and comfort. As the steel bulk approached its heading and started moving beyond the blinking beacons, it assumed a collision course with the moon and its wake of gentle, shimmering waves in the black night.
Then an unusual thing happened. The crew seemed to stop the engines. One moment the ferry was gently plowing southward under power. The next it seemed to be underway seemingly without mechanical aid. Over time it became clear whatever engine noise heard previously must not, in fact, have been engines at normal settings. A hard to discern but telltale rumbling within the vessel and quick look overboard revealed the craft continued stealthily progressing along course.
The effect was stunning. The immense craft plowed quietly into the sweetly scented night, a cool breeze catching the hair of passengers braving the elements of the night. The only sound was that of water sloshed by the prow as it cut through the darkness.
Once distinct, water and sky were now one, airbrushed together by a deft, thorough hand, yet graceful enough to cover the entire horizon with signature subtleties. Gently rolling water surrounded, but was only visible in the ship’s lights, or that which was illuminated in the path of the moon. Into this surreal scape wandered the occasional intruder: a single gull whisked across the ship’s path, only feet above the surface, uncharacteristically silent and alone; a half-submerged tree passed equally silently off starboard, unseen by dozing travelers belowdecks.
Wind ceased as the craft plowed onwards. The water became an infinitely deep blackness the extent and mystery of space. To fall overboard into the darkness would seem to be to soar up or plunge down into infinity. The moon looked lonelier than ever before, its ripples gone. To be above decks was to be traversing a different world, a suspended world, where all was static and quiet. In this world only the observer existed, the observer and his vessel. The moment was pure and uninterrupted.
The dislocated journey was interrupted by a banner of fog on the horizon. Fog brought with it the promise of land. The inevitability of our penetration of this layer brought a resignation, and after a time, we eventually made our way into this haze. Occasional lights glimpsed through the mist to our sides marked the boundaries of alien and familiar territory. After a time, homes and cottages flickered in and out of view. A lighthouse, lonely and thankless, emerged.
The damp brought on by the fog was insidious as we pulled into port, an arrival both welcome and an intrusion. We made our way belowdecks to our vehicles, fellow passengers bleary with interrupted sleep. We found our cars where we’d parked them deep within the ship, and after a short time and much clanking of mysterious, unseen machinery, drove off gently into another world.
Dallas Kachan is a Canadian and former Ontario resident who now lives in San Francisco. Visit him on the web at http://www.11010011.com/dzk