Loading, Unloading a Ferry Boat

We don’t know just which ferryboat this is or where it is, but we have traveled on ferryboats a hundred times in a couple dozen countries. Sometimes the boat was open at both ends, so you drove on one end, and off at the other. The boat never turned around, it just went back and forth from one side of the river to the other. If the boat was large enough, vehicles would drive on at one end, circle around until the first vehicles were back at the loading ramp, first one on, was first one off. On really large boats, an would take huge trailer trucks, and sometimes our RV, to the upper decks.

A couple of times, such as the $5.60 trip across the Gulf of Corinth at Rio, Greece, the boat had only one end for vehicles to get on or off, and it was too small to permit the vehicles to drive in the circle. That meant everyone who drove on, must back off, and everyone who must back on, can drive off. Several Greek ferryboat men directed traffic, and told this one to back on, and that one to drive on, and if they had a reason to do one or the other, it sure wasn’t obvious. We had to back on, no problem.

As you can see here, often there was quite a drop off at the ramp. Usually there were huge trailer trucks, tourist buses and cars jammed in together. Once in a while there was no way we could have opened any door in the camper during the trip, and we don’t like being penned in, with no way out in an emergency. Once I measured, and found there was just room for my finger between our rear-view mirror and the bus next door. While the ferryboat was moving, both vehicles were swaying and the bus and camper pitched and rolled and almost, but not quite, touched.