Deck log: the end of the road is a ramp

Written at the inn in Westport, Sunday night, 8 November.

"Nobody comes to Brier Island by accident. The road ends, and then there's me." Bev Thibodeau has worked the deck across Grand Passage since 1988. The crossing is five minutes. By her own arithmetic she has spent about two and a half years of her life in the middle of it.

We rode it nine times today. On the second run a boy of about ten crossed with a lobster trap on his lap in the back seat of his mother's car, because it was his school project and he did not trust the trunk. On the fifth, Bev stopped the ramp a foot short so a man with a cane could step off where it stops moving. She did not mention it. He did not thank her. Both seemed well practised.

At dusk the passage went the colour of pencil lead and the tide ran hard enough that the boat came in sideways, Petit Passage all over again. Cal used the spare recorder, windscreen on, and would like that in writing. Inés would like it noted that she ate dinner.

Tomorrow: the 07:00 boat, and Bev's kitchen at noon if her husband agrees.

— I. & C.