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Home » Columnists

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

S/V Dispatch

J.V. Houlihan

Sat, Jan 28

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

On Dec. 23, 2022 our 1982 Ericson 30 came to a violent end during a severe gale in Newport Harbor. Reverie , which I’d owned for 17 years, was a tough old boat; however, she was no match for this storm and sustained major structural damage. Sadly, she was beyond repair. To the boneyard she...
The Ocean Race

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Jan 20

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Having sailed out of Newport Harbor for about 20 years or so—and hanging around the beaches and waterfront since the 60s—I’ve been witness to some pretty wild sailboat designs and their sailors. It’s a harbor town with a rich sailing history dating back to the American Revolution when the French...
“I cannot, not sail,” —E.B. White

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Jan 13

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

When I was a very young kid, maybe four or five, I remembered a day that my mom and dad took us kids to Bristol. It was a Sunday, and we parked across the street from what is now the Herreshoff Marine Museum. My dad pointed the car right toward the east passage of Narragansett Bay and we looked at...
S/V Reverie

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Jan 6

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

I reported to work at the Point Judith ferry docks on 12/23/2022 at 0600. As I drove my car by the stern of the Anna C to punch in at the winch house, I saw that the bulkhead was breached; the tide would be high at 0730. This scenario was hinting at Hurricane Sandy tide levels. Not good...
Horses Redux

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Dec 30

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

I ride an old paint, I lead an old dam, I’m goin’ to Montana, To throw a Houlihan. —“Old Paint,” traditional cowboy song. Once, when I was bashing my old Guild guitar along to a Linda Ronstadt album on my beat-up, old thrift-shop record player, I heard her sing the above line. I was...
'Tis the season, I guess

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Dec 23

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

I’m not a hard science guy nor am I a weather expert; however, I work outdoors and spend minimal amounts of time in the house. I like to be out and about at least until it’s dark and the street lights come on; I’m a guy who was born in 1950 and was encouraged to “go out and play,” by his mom. (My...
Contrary Wind

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Dec 16

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Twelve years ago, a random guy came into the freight shed carrying a package wrapped up in brown paper. It was a cold and quiet February Sunday at the docks, and a few of us were waiting to help tie up the boat, and grab anything that needed to come off this last ferry of the day. When the guy came...
Easy Wind

Fri, Dec 9

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Ten years ago a guy walked toward me from the million-dollar corner and when he first opened his mouth I could detect a French accent. I also detected an incoming question. I anticipated a clash of French and English nouns and verbs with this smiling character. “Bonjour, je m’appelle Joey. Je...
Boatman of Edgartown

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Dec 2

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

When vehicles line up on Simpsons Lane to get on the Chappy Ferry in Edgartown, the head of the queue begins next to a building called the Old Sculpin Gallery. When returning to Edgartown from the island of Chappaquiddick, vehicles make a left turn and pass right by said gallery where there is a...
Nouns, verbs and grub

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Nov 18

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“Hey Brian, I’ll be hungry in one hour. Hit me will ya, please?” I shout to Brian Holder. “Hot or cold, Joey?” he asks. “Your call, brother,” I say. “It’s all you. I’ve got too much stuff rattling around in my head.” “Gotcha,” he says. When I go to write a...
Dune town, redux

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Nov 11

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

When we study some history we learn that locales define themselves within the confines of supply and demand economics. If people were digging in to settle somewhere, then they would need to develop some industry to fire up an economy and create some goods and services - whip up some supply and...
Dune town

Fri, Nov 4

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

The salty and sandy piece of terrain that lies between the Point Judith Lighthouse and as far west as the Thames River in New London, was and is constantly in motion. Sand moves below and above the water and like rust this natural process never sleeps. Hundreds of years ago there were Native...
A Block Island tour

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Oct 21

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

May the reading of these pages give inspiring thought of American survival on an island frontier where self-sufficient settlers, dependent on their own independence, bequeathed that spirit to their descendants. What a heritage! Maizie’s books find us. For various reasons they get written...
Ted Turner, outlier

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Oct 14

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

In 1977, a character named Robert E. “Ted” Turner was the skipper of the 12-meter racing yacht Courageous, as she competed for the America’s Cup off Newport, Rhode Island. (I’m writing this column 150 meters from where the boats were docked at Bannister’s Wharf.) Turner is an interesting guy who...
Sailing with “The Old Man”

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Oct 7

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

I used to be a First trip Cadet, and I knew quite a lot. Then I became a Third Mate and I knew Everything. Then I upgraded to second Mate, and then soon realized I was not as clever as I thought. Once promoted to Chief Officer, I knew I had much to learn. Then I became Captain and I...
Windless, maybe?

Fri, Sep 30

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

We have had a very uneventful summer along the south coast and Block Island since June. No wind, nor rain and only hot, soggy and muggy weather has hovered above our heads. Furthermore, in the month of August 2022 there was not one named hurricane. However, there was a tropical storm named Alex...
Celeritas

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Sep 9

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Back in the days of flip phones, 20-pound laptops, and pagers, Interstate Navigation - The Block Island Ferry ran a boat called the M/V Nelseco out of Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island. I was the guy who was sent to Newport to try and drum up business for the summer ferryboat run. The...
Bulkheads, docks, and boats

J.V. Houlihan

Sat, Aug 27

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

When I’m not in Galilee working at the Block Island Ferry docks, I’m usually in Newport Harbor messing around in my sailboat; I’ve been doing this drill for 20 years. About 18 years ago I met a dock master in the harbor by the name of Mark Holden. Mark came of age in Portsmouth and Newport as a...
A Rantum Scooting Flaneur

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Aug 19

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

The French term Flaneur basically translates to: a loafer, a stroller, an observer. It’s a simple word loaded with context; however it best describes a person who wanders around with no particular purpose, agenda or destination. Similarly, an old Yankee term I’m also fond of is based on...
Standby, redux

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Aug 12

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

In 2016, I wrote a column called Standby . It was a fun observational piece about what goes on in the black hole of the parking lot where I work in the summertime. (I’m in the front parking lot in the winter where George Lyons and Ray Gardner work the summer schedule.) The piece I wrote...
Two Rhody sailors meet at Fort Adams

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Aug 5

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

A few columns ago I wrote about the 2022 Newport Bermuda Race, and focused on three fast-moving foiling boats: Argo , Ultim Emotion 2 , and Malama . These rigs are impressive and are part of the new paradigm shift in ocean racing. I thought that I wrote a decent and...
Date Night in the time of a pandemic

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Jul 29

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

It is no mystery that people need some semblance of order and normality in their daily lives, in order to offset the chaos rattling around in their heads as a result of an amorphous, baffling, and truncated world narrative. On any given day over past several years, we all needed to reboot, reset,...
Writer to writer, with Amanda M. Fairbanks

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Jul 22

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

The one thing that all writers share, regardless of what topic they are inking up pages for, is that the blank page is whispering a dare to said writers. The page is daring this cruncher of the eight parts of speech to make something readable and commendable. The blank void wants and wants and...
Newport to Bermuda or Bust

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Jul 15

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

In 2019 I was sailing Reverie north past Hammersmith Farm in 12 to 15 knots of east-south-east wind. As I casually looked over my left shoulder I saw the trimaran Argo zipping by me going an easy 12 knots; the boat nor her crew appeared to be breathing heavy because they were...
Geezy Sailor, Redux

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Jul 1

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

In my last batch of nouns and verbs and prodigious modifiers, I crunched out a column on the quick because I was off duty and wanted to put the spurs to my sailboat because of a good forecast. Moreover, I’d just ordered an Audible book titled “Bleak House,” which is a nine-hundred-page monster by...
The Geezy Sailor

By J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Jun 17

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

As we stack decades we all realize that on a good day life is a humbling thing. As we age stuff happens on a daily basis, and we are constantly reminded of how limited we are in moving our bodies into contorted positions as we once did - when we were ahem, young. For example, in my 40s, and 50s, I...
Nods to the past and present

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Jun 10

Category:

Columnists, The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“Okay, Joe Joe, we’re taking car reservations starting today for the summer,” said Janette Centracchio. “Here are the new ledgers, and could you please write as legibly as you can, okay?” In 1980 this is the way car reservations were done at the Block Island Ferry. Here was the drill when Janette...
Teddy Boy of Galilee

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Jun 3

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Over the past three years or so if you’ve driven or walked off the Block Island Ferry, there is a good chance you might’ve seen a local guy walking a rather large brindle-colored dog. The guy’s name is Keith Smith and his dog’s name is Teddy Boy, who is a purebred known as a Leonberger. He is a...
Bad actors, acting!

J. V. Houlihan

Fri, May 20

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“Okay, Joey we’re doing a panning shot of you and Jo Anne walking into the barn while she struggles,” said Pete. “Then you’re going to tie her up and sing ‘Tip Toe Through the Tulips,’ to her. She’ll look frightened as you’re trying to calm her down with the song. Ya got that?” “Yup,” I said. “Will...
The Zen of E-Biking, maybe

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Apr 22

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Let’s get something straight right from the rip, here. I’m not a Zen kind of guy so don’t get all alpha- stated and mediative on me. Moreover, I’m not a Yoga-Gumby guy, either. I’m just not that guy; I guess I just like to see the word Zen in front of a noun. For example, if you plug the word Zen...
First on; First off

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Apr 8

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Rather than write about how gobsmacked I was at 0500 on a freezing cold Monday morning before going to load a ferryboat after seeing an Oscars’ clip of a guy smacking a gobsmacked guy over an insult to a guy’s wife in front of millions of people worldwide, and upstaging what could’ve been a fun...
Lapland and springtime nods

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Apr 1

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

My wife got it in her sights to see Lapland in late February; as she roamed the Arctic Circle she spied: reindeer, the northern lights, the IceHotel. (Yup, people sleep on a bed of ice in a hotel made of ice - I guess there is a market for everything. They sleep on furs and in a sleeping bag. Ahem...
Cranes, Concrete, Wood and Steel

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Mar 18

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“Concrete and steel go together like chocolate and peanut butter.” —Bill Rose, President of Block Island Concrete Co. Sometimes words and observations can come out of a person’s mouth and grab me so fast that I need to ask them to please repeat them. I just can’t process certain stuff that fast...
The Green Van

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Mar 11

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

It had bald tires, it ran on about four cylinders and was an eyesore. The van was modified for Ernie Woolf, a guy I surfed with in Point Judith, Rhode Island. He was about 6-foot 4-inches, and wanted to stand upright in this rig to put on his wetsuit so he cut a 3 by 3foot hole in the roof, framed...
Shifting years, gears and ears

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Feb 25

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

On 25 March, I’ll be shuffling into my 72nd trip around the sun and being the adaptable kind of guy that I am - ahem, do we actually have a choice? – I have come to embrace rather than despise the technology of the digital age. These extraordinary and life-enhancing changes are inevitable as the...
Mr. Cricket

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Feb 18

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Life can take care of things if we let it; we need to simply get out of the way and let it do what it’s going to do. When we get older we finally figure this stuff out because we’ve all learned through our life’s experience that if we set up an expectation and things don’t go as we planned, then we...
Cool vs. Style

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Feb 4

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

When I was about 17, I would ride my Schwinn Varsity ten-speed to the East Side of Providence and visit Thayer Street. It was a totally different place from my hometown with lots of college-town characters and local color where I’d scope the scene and check out the cute Brown University and RISD...
Jon Campbell: True Wit; True Grit

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Jan 21

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

What propels you along is not the outcome. If you have any maturity, you lose interest in the outcome. You just want to do what you do as evocatively as you can. —Tom McGuane In 1975 I met a guy named Jon Campbell, who I ended up in a band with that played Irish music. The minute I met...
Godspeed, Sailor

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Jan 7

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

One day my wife Cindy came home from work and said something regarding a man she was helping with the work she does as a family caregiver. What she said got my wheels turning on the quick step; hers had been already turning - they always are in regards to practicality, wants and needs. “I don’t...
The drill for 2022

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Dec 31

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

This past year of 2021 felt like it was a decade to this scribbling senior citizen - full-on geezer - not only because of the way things were and are developing in the world, but because of the velocity of these incessant and random developments i.e., storms, the election of a new president, the...
A seasonal lift

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Dec 24

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

On 6 December it was blowing pretty hard and the ferry schedule was questionable because of increasing winds. After the first ferry left at 0630 I grabbed some coffee at home and went to the Sand Hill Cove beach parking lot to look at the ocean. A half hour later at first light, while leaving the...
Horses

J. V. Houlihan

Fri, Dec 17

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

There’s not much that grabs me via the tube these days; I’ll take a good book over vacuously staring at the screen and trying to get interested in the characters and the narrative. However, there are exceptions and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is a said exception. Even though I consider Larry David a...
The Lost Boys of Montauk

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Dec 3

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“See what you think of this one,” said Susan Bush, the owner of Island Bound Bookstore. I was checking in her car at the ferry when she handed me a galley of a book titled “The Lost Boys of Montauk,” by Amanda M. Fairbanks. Susan has never flipped me a book that I didn’t like; however, this...
Captain Matty Rooney

J.V. Houlihan

Tue, Nov 23

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Where the Block Island Ferry runs between Point Judith and Old Harbor lies a patch of ocean that offers a variety of conditions and concerns for mariners. Wind direction, wind velocity, wave height, swell direction, poor visibility, tankers, tugs and tows, commercial fishing draggers, recreational...
Warhorse

J.V. Houlihan

Thu, Nov 18

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“I cannot not sail.” E.B. White I had planned to write an homage to Reverie today, which is a day after the 12 November Purple Flag day at the Point Judith ferry docks. The wind showed up from the east southeast at 0700 just as predicted, and the ferry was canceled...
Thank you to all Veterans

J.V. Houlihan

Thu, Nov 11

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

My dad lost both his parents when he was 17 years old; they died a month apart. He had no immediate family and had no place to live. He was a junior at Saint Raphael Academy in Pawtucket, Rhode Island at the time, and he had a best friend at school named John Cunningham. John’s mother Molly, a sin...
Fall 2021

J.V. Houlihan

Thu, Nov 4

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

The Endless Summer of 2021 is over, done, fini, kaput, and perhaps we’ll have a frost before Groundhog Day, and maybe we’ll even have a white Christmas! I know, the tone of that sentence is one of a curmudgeon, a geezer who is yawping about the weather and there is truly nothing worse than that. (...
Erik Hedegaard, a writer’s life

J.V. Houlihan

Thu, Oct 28

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“Hey Joey, whaddyagot?” asks journalist Erik Hedegaard. That’s a writer question loaded with sub-textual meaning. It asks: what are you thinking, what are you tracking down, what do you have that will get me thinking and set me off on a search-and-seize mission because I don’t have time for small...
Van Life

J.V. Houlihan

Thu, Oct 21

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“L.A. is like an open air loony bin, and there are a lot of vans out there. Everybody seems to have a van.” —Anonymous surfer in the line-up at Narragansett Pier, 1967 We all know that cool and hip trends begin out in California: surfboards, skateboards, movies, clothes, food, hot tubs,...
Van Zandt

J.V. Houlihan

Thu, Oct 14

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

I don’t believe in luck; there’s no such thing. Period. What I do believe in is that we make our own luck by throwing down for ourselves and what our deal is. We show up for what drives us, hustle, connect some dots, and take a shot for what we want and need. In other words, we need to be ready to...

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