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Who Was Everett Libby Anyway?

The Ferry to Matinicus

by Eva Murray

More often than not as I am dismissed from the dentist’s chair, or in line at the hardware store, some sympathetic acquaintance who knows only that I live on an island asks, “Are you in a hurry now to catch the boat?” It’s a fair enough question; surely, everybody knows that the usual means to cross over water is a boat, and the usual road to an unbridged island community involves riding a ferry.

The exception to this norm—if you don’t count a few places in Alaska, I suppose—is Matinicus. Most of the year-round working folks who call this most remote island town home have lobster boats, but the rest of us—the electricians and plumbers and mechanics and tech geeks, teachers and postmasters, farmers and ditch diggers, bakers and bookkeepers—rely on the bush pilots and a couple of seasonal passenger boats, mainly the Robin R. based at Matinicus and the Jackie Renee which maintains a close connection to nearby Criehaven. Sometimes visitors refer to those boats as “ferries,” as technically any for-hire passenger vessel could be called a “ferry,” but when Matinicus residents say “ferry” we mean something you can drive a truck aboard. I might add that Monhegan, Isle au Haut, and the Cranberries have neither state vehicle ferry service nor airstrips. Those islands depend upon a regularly scheduled “mail-boat” freight and passenger service. Up and down this coast, one island’s transportation is not very much like another’s.

I enjoy the little airplanes and find myself aboard them often, but when we need a truckload of propane or a lift of plywood, we need the vehicle ferry. Matinicus, along with Islesboro, Frenchboro, Swan’s Island, Vinalhaven, and North Haven, is served by the Maine State Ferry Service, a taxpayer-subsidized extension of the state’s highway system (unlike Casco Bay Lines, for example, which is private). “Our” ferryboat is the F/V Everett Libby, the shortest vessel in the MSFS fleet and, no joke, the only one which will physically fit into our harbor. As you may have read before, I haul the trash and recycling off Matinicus, and that is no job for a Cessna or a lobster boat—and no, we don’t get a “garbage barge.”

There are a great many misconceptions concerning island logistics and about the ferries in general. Perhaps the most aggravating among these myths the assumption that what works for one island would satisfy the others. Each of the six islands mentioned has its own needs and its own worries. From some islands (but not Matinicus,) workers and students commute daily. From some islands (but not Matinicus,) the sick and injured are transported by ambulance using the state ferry, potentially at all hours weather permitting. By the way, these unscheduled night trips, an important part of island emergency medical response, sometimes confound the next morning’s commute because there are rules regarding time-on-duty for all types of transportation professionals. Mariners (like truck drivers and pilots) are not allowed to simply say, “I feel fine; I can work a longer shift than usual, it’s alright…”

Unlike with some islands, on Matinicus the ferry is nobody’s “lifeline.” That somewhat overused sobriquet is reserved for Penobscot Island Air. For us, the state ferry is a less-expensive (but rarely convenient) transportation option for our relatively few summer visitors, particularly when they are bringing gaggles of children. But, for most of the year, the ferry trips are about hauling stuff. Roughly once a month—and at least twice a month during the summer—I am on the Libby with the biggest U-Haul there is room for. Back to Rockland go the beer cans, metal junk, recyclable materials of all kinds, pot warp, old asphalt shingles, and massive quantities of corrugated cardboard. I often make the reservations for these trucks three months ahead of time, as truck spaces for warm-weather crossings on this smallest ferry vessel get snapped up fast. A heating oil truck a couple of times a year, propane three or four times a year (exchange cylinders only, not bulk,) and hardwood firewood in the fall are all necessities of year-round life requiring transportation. Most Matinicus-bound vehicles on the ferries are regulars—islanders with pickup trucks piled high with building materials, appliances, animal feed, whatever. We’re all about moving freight. Unlike the crowds of perplexed tourists swarming the summer ferries to busier islands, most of us in our overloaded pickup trucks and rented box vans and bobcat skid-steers know the routine. We can manage our trucks just fine, we’ve done this many times before, and we don’t need a lot of micro-managing. Sometimes I have been tempted to blurt out to an over-anxious deck guy, “Look, pal, you’re the one who’s new here, not me.” But it’s best if I just keep still. I’m working on that.

The Matinicus ferry schedule is, at first glance, bizarre and makes very little sense to those expecting something more regular, but it is not as random as it seems. We had 34 trips scheduled in 2018, the number of annual trips gradually increasing from the literally one-a-month of a few years back. The wharf at Matinicus is inaccessible at low tide—a logistics challenge not easily remedied, by the way—so arrival at Matinicus must be timed to avoid low water, and the whole five-hour round trip needs to be accomplished within the regular business day. This means that no day of the week or time on the clock can determine the sailing schedule; instead, it’s all about the tides. Strong preference is given to arriving on a coming tide, too, so that should any human or equipment failure delay departure from the island, there is still plenty of water under the boat to provide a margin for repairing whatever the problem. Grounding out at Matinicus is not an option!

Another way in which our trips differ from most of the others is in how Port Captain Dan McNichol has to spend considerable time ringing up potential crewmembers, asking ABs and engineers if they’d be willing to take on a Matinicus trip. Our ferry has no regular standing crew, and if weather or a mechanical problem postpones a trip, the date of the make-up trip has to work around not only the tides but the possibility that a full crew of four may not be available on demand. That is no small bit of work.

According to McNichol, who is also frequently the captain for the Matinicus trips, ours is “the only island allowed to transfer unlicensed, unregistered, or barely-running vehicles onto the ferry. This is something that is forbidden on the other islands.” Pulling, pushing, lifting or hotwiring a junk car onto the ferry, to get rid of it with the help of a reliable wrecker service on the Rockland side, has made a real difference—not only to our scenery but to our folklore. Islanders and visitors from a few years back will understand, and should smile; Matinicus is no longer a junkyard.

McNichol adds, “I would like to consider myself a friend to the island. I personally try to accommodate the inhabitants, and really try to place myself in their shoes.” For that, we are grateful.

A few years back, us local rubberneckers used to linger around the Matinicus wharf with their cameras ready on ferry day, just to see if some poor slob busted any pieces off their good mainland car, or rolled a wheel off the edge of the ramp only to be manhandled back onto the traveled way by the beefier bystanders. It was all a bit twisted (our sense of humor, I mean, not the ramp. Well, maybe the ramp.) I recall with a bit of a shudder the two “finger ramps” we used to drive across, which heaved independently on rough days. Nobody looked forward to their first trip over that sketchy ramp apparatus, and some wouldn’t do it at all, asking somebody else to drive their car off the boat. Once having done it, though, we’d each feel deeply satisfied with our prowess and guts. These days our ramp, properly called a “transfer bridge” and thus under the auspices of the Bridge Maintenance Division, is much improved, although try telling that to the welders who have to come work on it or the islanders who see it submerged beneath several feet of salt water during the worst storms.

I ride ferries when I can in other places, like Washington State and Nova Scotia and New York City, because I enjoy it. Many are a bit more luxurious than ours, some offering soft seats, snack bars, even beer. Oh well; something to ask for at the next ferry advisory board meeting, I suppose.

I have heard that Everett Libby, for whom the boat was named, was from Vinalhaven and was instrumental in an early version of the ferry service. I’d welcome information from any who have details of his history. The next vessel to be built for the MSFS was recently started at the Washburn & Doughty yard in East Boothbay and should be completed next year. A Maine-built vessel is a source of pride for the current ferry service management. The new boat will, we expect, be named after Captain Richard Spear who died last spring at age 96. Dick was an early Maine Maritime Academy graduate, master mariner, the ferry service’s first employee (and manager for 30 years,) ferry advisory board member, and friend.

Captain Spear made friends on Matinicus. He smiled broadly, knew a great deal, and said very little.

Eva Murray is the Recycling and Solid Waste Coordinator for Matinicus Island. Eva’s last lobster license was dated 1990, the year her son was born, and cost $53.00, which at the time she thought was an awful lot of money.