River Ferry

Another afternoon of commuting down river to visit the aunts and uncles and other extended family. As the boat begins its journey, you realize that you forgot to bring the bread, and now what was once an inconvenient reunion will be several hours of angry dinner guests berating you for being too busy to care about their specific dinging needs. How you could have ever come to be the bad little boy once again is beyond you, but obviously no matter if you are 30 or 300, you will always be a child in their eyes. A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi. Ferries form a part of the public transport systems of many waterside cities and islands, allowing direct transit between points at a capital cost much lower than bridges or tunnels. The busiest seaway in the world, the English Channel, connects Great Britain and mainland Europe sailing mainly to French ports. The profession of the ferryman is embodied in Greek mythology in Charon, the boatman who transported souls across the River Styx to the Underworld. Speculation that a pair of oxen propelled a ship having a water wheel can be found in 4th century Roman literature “Anonymus De Rebus Bellicis”. Though impractical, there is no reason why it could not work and such a ferry, modified by using horses, was used in Lake Champlain in 19th-century America.