Moon River

We are catching the last ferry back to Saltspring Island as foot passengers, it is nine pm and already dusk. Our long summer days we love so much are already closing in and it is only the end of August. I pause to photograph one of the big ferries coming into the dock beside us, silhouetted against the sunset.

Docking ferries has always fascinated me and I suspect many others too. There is something so careful, so powerful and so sensual as the ship enters the dock at last. Those ferry drivers must stagger home each night strangely satiated after a day of this kind of primal activity.

A half hour journey across the calm waters to Fulford Harbour in the noisy passenger compartment and then we are walking up the ramp getting ready for a long hike up the hill to find our parked vehicle. But first I must stop to make another image of a yacht bathed both in the lights of the ferry compound and in the river of moonlight streaming toward us across the water from the San Juan Islands in the distance. A beacon in mid stream flashes once during the long exposure. Just time for this one picture with the camera balanced on a hand rail and then up the hill, round the corner, up the hill some more and along a side road to where our van waits for us shining softly in the moonlight.