My Ferry boat ride to Office

I am blessed with a unique road to office. And that is by means of a ferry boat. It's not always that i take this route, but yeah... now it has become almost 2-3 times a week every week. My office is about an hour and a half travel one way daily if I take my company transport. But company transport has its drawbacks, we need to adhere to its strict timings. If we miss it, it becomes so difficult to travel to office since my office is located in an industrial area which is not easily accessible by public transport. And the lazy bone in me always makes sure that i miss my bus. So the alternative that Sriman has is this Boat ride, an enjoyable and pleasurable trip to me... Read on to experience my Ferry boat ride...


I mostly take the morning 8.30 ferry. Since this is the shortest possible route to work for most of the population in the nearby villages too, at this time there is a huge rush in the boat. The ferry has about 6 wooden benches, 3 on each side and its so nice to occupy a seat on those... I normally am the quickest to rush and get a seat and enjoy the treat to my eyes...

Well, first of all, there are many who don't know the concept of a ferry boat.

A ferry boat, as can be seen from the picture, is a boat which is used to transport people, vehicles etc from one river bank to another. The vehicles range from cycles, to cars to even trucks and pickup vans. Its so convenient to use the water way. Its a huge saving of petrol and also precious time while guaranteeing a clean pollution free and peaceful ride to office. I just love this ride and the sights which it offers on the way.

The most remarkable things that i notice along are the schools of Fish. So many of them swimming together, rather jumping in and out together. I wonder how these small fish have the energy to continually jump for so long, also they do it in perfect unison, as if doing it in musical rhythm. All of them jumping in and out together. Occasionally, you c an find some single fish doing the jumping acts. As if performing solo. You will always find the small fish together and the slight big ones swimming alone.

Then we can see the poles which extend into the river, which are put up by fisher folks to plant nets to get a good catch. And sitting majestically on top of each of these pole is a white crane. Looks like there are sitting for some conference over there, a round table conference. They look to be in a perfect harmony unlike the normal board room conferences of ours. Once in a while you can see one of them getting up, swooping over the river and catching a fish for a meal. But most of the time they are on the poles. There is a nearby uninhabited isle. We can only say its not inhabited by humans. There are cranes here which continually stand in the water with one leg just to catch fish...

Then we can see the black fishing canoes with one or two fisherman on each. They row their boats and when they fill there is a good catch, they pull out the net, looks like they need a lot of effort to do so... They sing and hum merrily while doing their job. Then across the horizon where it is difficult to make out the difference between the sky and sea, you see a lot of ships sailing across. They are so many of them, but so very far.
Then comes the small motor boats with tourists in them. The locals have made this as a business to give tourists a ride in the river with these motor boats, though there are just about 2 or 3. The tourists wave at you in their ecstasy and you feel like returning their hello with one of your hand waving to them. Also passes along is the other ferry boat commuting people in the opposite direction.

The blades of the fan beneath the boat disturb the water tearing out a way for the boat. It is a nice scene to see the water getting back to normalcy once torn part, giving us a message of unity. Even though we are one, sometimes there are incidents which tear us down, but ultimately we have to become united some or the other day.
The water, so very serene... the green salty non polluted water of the Zuari... sometimes some fallen leaves are carried along with the water or even sometimes there is a small trace of oil left behind in the otherwise clean water...

Surrounding the river in most of the places is the green mountains and land. You can sometimes see some plantation on the hills, or some factory emitting smoke. You can also see some 3-4 churches all standing magnificently, each telling a century old Goan Life story. and at some places, we can just see the vast river and the horizon where the sky touches the river and we can only see the faraway ships.


The Zuari has 2 parallel bridges on it. One for the Road vehicles and one for the Konkan Railway. The one for the road vehicles is a busy one, Buses, bikes, cars etc ply on it busily.


The konkan railway bridge is beautifully built and is not so busy. sometimes you can be lucky enough to see the train passing over. It looks so beautiful. Sometimes you can see Goods train crossing over...

The Dabolim airport is close to the Zuari river, so you can many a times see an airplane passing by. you can also sometimes hear the loud sound of a jet speeding.
Sometimes in the late evening you can see a flock of birds passing by...
Late Evenings is the best time to travel. Various lights start coming up and the rives looks really enchanting. There is a soft breeze which blows and the sky color too is very inviting.

My travel time is approximately 30 minutes. These 30 minutes is a lot of time to do something which you like. Be it listening to music, playing a mobile game, or chatting with friends or just preferably enjoying the Zuari and the nature and doing some self introspection...
Well this is how my travel by the ferry is, a lively experience. Hopefully it will continue to enchant me for more time to come.Everyone should some or the other time take this experience...