Captain Graham, Richard Stead

Fridays were a good day to go to town, especially in the winter. Since the ferry ran late, you could get in all the shopping needed at the Goodwill, Sally Ann, liquor store, and Safeway, then, maybe catch a meal or even take in a movie before heading back to catch the ten o’clock ferry.

At the ferry landing you would run into the other happy shoppers coming back from an exciting day in town. Usually there would be lots of sampling of purchases; those acquired at the liquor store the most popular, especially on a windy blustery winter evening.

On one such wintery Friday evening the Albert Savoie entered into service on the Hornby Denman run. The previous ferry had been unable to handle the nasty southeasters that occurred every two or three weeks during the equinoctial periods. Consequently, you never knew if the ferry was going to accommodate your travel plans, especially on Friday nights, when you could have gone to town on a calm day only to find that the evening could blow up a real nasty storm. often you were forced to find accommodation on Denman or, worst yet, go back to Courtenay and find a cheap hotel room. The arrival of the Savoie signaled the introduction of guaranteed foul weather service.

This guarantee, however, depended upon the expertise(or lack) of the frail human beings inside the wheel-house. Captain Crunch got his name from his blase attitude to physics and the laws of moving bodies. Visitors to the wheel-house had to remember to terminate their conversations when the boat was nearing the landing , otherwise the captain would quite happily sail onto dry land expressing his opinions as he went.

Captain Crunch got lost in the fog one winter night. Perhaps his radar failed or he couldn’t hear Maureen, the ramp attendant on Hornby, blowing her portable foghorn. He ended up at the spit, about two hundred yards from the landing, where he went aground. The locals at the bar knew where they were and had been listening to the plaintive sound of the boats foghorn as it searched through the fog. When they heard the ferry trying to climb the spit some went over to lend a hand. This was when the good captain emerged from the wheel-house, spotted the figures on the beach and uttered the immortal words, “Does anybody know where we are?” Joe Lowery replied “you’re on the goddamn Spit, the landings over there.” and pointed off into the fog. The captain calmly backed off and trundled over to the correct berth. This particular trip took three hours and, needless to say, it is an indelible memory for the unfortunate travellers that night.

The captain was of even temperament and never flustered whatever he did to the docks, pilings, and landings. One time, however, his patience was brought to a boil; Alan Jones, first mate at the time, as a demonstration of his strange wit, got down on his knees on the deck in front of the wheel-house and prayed to his personal god to grant them a fair docking. The Captain was enraged. Purple faced, he strode out of the wheel-house and screamed at his first mate that he was fired and should never show his cheeky face on his boat again. An uneasy truce prevailed, however, as the ferry crew was employed by the government and one could not arbitrarily dismiss a member no matter how irreverent.