Butts Ferry – Lucid Gypsy

Butt’s Ferry down on Exeter Quay is operated by man power, it’s a floating boat that is pulled 150 feet by a cable across the river Exe. The current boat is 27 feet long and has been in use since 2005, but there has been a crossing there since the 17th century.

There is a sign on the riverbank that reads.

Butts Ferry

Tis yer you catch the ferry

A funny boat it be . . .

But it gets you cross the river

For only 30p

Jude at Travel Words has nominated me for the ‘Five Photos, Five Stories’ challenge, and I would like to nominate Ruth, a photographer and art teacher from Pittsburgh who also writes poetry. This would be an easy challenge for you Ruth, if you feel like taking it up, no worries if you don’t have time.

The challenge is to just “post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or a short paragraph and each day nominate another blogger for the challenge”.

It was a gorgeous afternoon for a stroll so I took the border terrorists and the camera down to the quay. The two don’t go together too well so the photos aren’t the best but you’ll get the idea. I did a circle down to the weir, across the suspension bridge – the dogs don’t like it because it bounces – then back over the blue bridge to where I began.

If you don’t want to walk up to the bridge, or if you just want a minute on the water, you can catch the ferry. If you do though you might just miss Fifi! I saw her gliding along with the gang, the odd one out of course, but looking good. In fact not only is she well, she’s getting rather stroppy, putting a much larger Mute in its place. Not too worry,by the time they emerged on the other side of the bridge it was peaceful again and off they went in search of the next bread throwing child.