Living here on the Sunshine Coast means that we frequently take BC Ferries from Langdale to Horseshoe Bay and back again. This system is efficient, timely and moves a heckuva lot of people.

Our local paper comes out every Friday, in it you will often find ongoing complaints about our ferry service.  It astounds me that people find fault with our system.

Whenever I feel my mind slipping into that whining mode about our transit, I recall this crossing. This is a frequent ferry in Dar Es Salaam and on the morning we took it, the captain made several barking announcements. We asked our guide, “What’s he saying?”  He told us, “The captain is asking everyone to move forward because the back end of the ferry is stuck on the bank because of the weight.”

“But, ” I said with an incredible grasp of the obvious, “there is no forward to move to.”

“Yes, that’s true,”  our guide shrugged and smiled.

The captain continued to gun the engines, black smoke poured out of various holes and eventually we surged off the bank. I had the sneaking suspicion this was not an unusual issue.