Commuters fill VT ferry trip with yoga, music

PLATTSBURGH - Charlotte and Oliver Hughes are never tardy for class — a true accomplishment, considering they travel across state lines, and their “school bus” tops out at roughly seven or eight miles per hour.

Ken Hughes’ children, and his girlfriend’s son, Wyatt Trzaskos, live in Essex, New York, but attend Lake Champlain Waldorf School in Shelburne.

They’re on the 7:30 a.m. ferry each school day and always beat the first bell at 8:20. When classes are finished at 3 p.m., they hustle back to catch a boat home.

“It’s pretty routine at this point,” Ken Hughes said. “They don’t usually squawk a lot.”

For travelers who live on one side of the water and work (or attend school) on the other, this trip has become part of a routine. Still, it’s no ordinary commute.

Frequent passengers say they continue to appreciate this most scenic part of their day. And while rush hour city traffic can sometimes feel like a wild running of the bulls, the ferry can provide passengers their 15 minutes of tame.

Catherine Seidenburg, for example, is one of few Americans doing yoga on her commute to work.

The self-employed gardener also lives in Essex and often has to travel to Vermont for assignments.

“I love that time,” she said.

That’s because when Seidenburg drives her Honda Civic onto the Charlotte ferry, she can relax.

Sometimes she exits the car and stretches into warrior poses. Sometimes she shoots photographs. Sometimes she reads a book.

Seidenburg waxes literary just thinking about her commute.

“I like taking the ferry — the fact that it’s a boat, this whole mythical thing that the boat takes you across the water from one place to another,” Seidenburg said. “There’s something really special about it.

“I don’t see it as an everyday way to get to work like a train. You’re crossing a body of water. It’s easy to forget about that when you’re just commuting to work.”

For children, such as Hughes’ clan, the extended trip almost requires activities. They’ll listen to a Harry Potter audiobook together, or maybe start their homework.

Or they’ll perform an impromptu concert.

Hughes’ daughter, Charlotte, and his girlfriend’s son, Wyatt — both 10 years old —have been known to pull out their cello and viola on deck, quickly tune them, and string the musical scales while crewmembers watch.

“It’s fun. It’s unique,” Ken Hughes said. “That’s the best part about this, that the boat is their school bus, and they have a great extended family of people who work on the boat who look out for them, take care of them and appreciate what they’re doing.”

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Mark Duba appears serene. His hand moves minimally as it rests on one of two engine levers in front of him. He’s captaining the M/V Cumberland, which is approaching the slip on Grand Isle, on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain.

Duba parks the ferry and watches his boat empty. Off go compact cars and SUVs, pickup trucks and even a UPS van.

The boat reloads. Duba pivots and walks a dozen paces to the other end of his captain’s deck. Then he brings another fleet of commuters in the direction he just came from, to New York.

“Everything is duplicated on each end,” Duba says of his double-ended ferry. “Very simple but efficient design.”

Back and forth, back and forth. For more than 40 years, Duba has swung this pendulum tens of thousands of times, bringing hundreds of thousands of people across the lake.

Lake Champlain Ferries’ Plattsburgh-to-Grand Isle crossing never stops, with deckhands waving vehicles on board just as soon as they’ve released the latest batch of customers. The station runs two ferries 24 hours a day, year-round.

There’s also a lighter commuter route from Charlotte to Essex, which runs a single boat year-round … depending on the weather.

It’s unclear just how much business the company sees. Heather Stewart, Lake Champlain Ferries’ operations manager and a former captain, said it’s the company’s policy to not reveal ridership numbers.

At $10 a pop for a driver and vehicle, revenue is easily in the millions.

The company charges an additional $4 for each adult passenger, but offers commuter passes that take 30 percent of the price.

Some gripe about the expense levied by a private company that nets cash from 45-50 vehicles at a time (the pay stations do not accept credit cards).

But in the absence of a bridge, Lake Champlain Ferries has become vital to Vermont and upstate New York’s symbiosis.

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According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 9,603 Vermonters (3.2 percent of the state) work in New York, while 5,381 New Yorkers work in Vermont. These cross-state workers have two options: Take the ferry or circumvent it by driving a roundabout route that can be up to 100 miles longer, round-trip.

The ferries, therefore, play an important role in the economies of Vermont and New York.

In addition to people who ride the ferry to work, many cross the lake seeking services or leisure.

New Yorkers come to Burlington for the airport, for treatment at UVM Medical Center, and for experiences on Church Street.

Vermonters cross the lake for AuSable Chasm, Lake Placid Olympic Center, and for the culture of Plattsburgh.

There’s even a swap for big retail stores. The Burlington area has a Costco; Plattsburgh has a Target.

“I’ve definitely heard of Vermonters going to Target to the other side of the lake,” said Cathy Davis of the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce. “They shop and dine and take advantage of our tourism amenities.”

And on the way to the destination, shoppers get to experience a voyage that’s often the centerpiece of class trips and Instagram photos.

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Tom Beardsley used to take the ferry every so often, but now runs his own in Long Beach, California, His ferries aren’t a means of transportation so much as an excursion.

Beardsley left upstate New York in 2007, and his nostalgia bubbles over when talking about his trips on Lake Champlain. The ferries he operates in California don’t have the same vibe, he said. Not like what he remembers back east.

“Everybody sort of nods at each other. There’s a friendliness just on being aboard,” Beardsley said of the Lake Champlain ferries. “It’s a community.”

Hughes, who takes his children to school via ferry, shared that sentiment. He said passengers — especially the ones who must commute by boat every day — exchange a “knowing nod” about the tribulations of travel.

But there are more head turns than headaches.

He appreciates that the lake can be calm one day and rough the next. That on any day an eagle or snow owl might fly past.

“I never grow tired of the commute,” Hughes said. “Every day is different. The clouds, the lake, I just feel so fortunate that I have the opportunity to take part in that, because it really is, I find it personally to be an amazing journey to and from.”

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the following: The Costco store in greater Burlington is in Colchester. The location was incorrect in an earlier version of this story.