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Out of TimeDecember 15, 2010
That's the view of the Woods Hole ferry dock from the departing Nantucket, taken a minute or two after noon. Note the nearly empty staging area. This is how you know it's a December midweek. In warm weather or with holidays impending that lot is so jammed with cars and trucks that you can't see the white lines. I took the picture at the beginning of the last leg of my trip home from Norway. The first leg began when Icelandair Flight 319 left Oslo at approximately 14:05 (that's 2:05 p.m.) yesterday. Oslo is on CET, Central European Time, which is Greenwich + 1 hour. The Eastern Time zone, in which Martha's Vineyard lives, is Greenwich – 5 hours. That means that the difference between Oslo time and Martha's Vineyard time, which is also Logan Airport (Boston) time, is 6 hours. Thus a person can leave Oslo at 2:05 p.m. and arrive in Boston at approximately 5:30 p.m. -- some 20 minutes ahead of schedule -- having spent about 7 1/2 hours in the air. And thus a passenger on Icelandair Flight 631, from Reykjavik to Boston, can see sunset out the west-facing window of the Boeing 757 for more than three hours. This was very cool. Some people watched movies or TV shows on the screen in front of them. I watched our flight charted on various maps. Some maps showed the landmasses we were passing over, with major cities labeled. One gave a directional heading. Even without it, I probably would have realized that the sunset direction was more or less west. And one showed a map of the globe with night and day marked out in big Arctic-to-Antarctic loops. Early in the flight most of Australia was dark; only the southeastern coast, Sydney and Melbourne, were in daylight. By the time we reached Boston, the light of day was bathing all of Australia from east coast to west. All North and South America was in daylight while nearly all of Europe, Asia, and Africa was dark. I thought of the old joke: "Why does the sun never set on the British Empire?" "Because God doesn't trust the British in the dark." The thought of all those North Americans wide awake and making mischief while Europe, Africa, and Asia slept gave me the creeps. Icelandair Flight 631 flew along the cusp of the day/night line most of the way to Boston, which was why sunset lasted more than three hours. "Our" time, the time for those of us flying west, was given at the bottom of the screen. Across the top were the times for various cities around the world. Boston wasn't there, but New York, also in the Eastern Time zone, was. Oslo wasn't either, but I knew Oslo was London + 1, the same as Praha (Prague). I watched the miles and kilometers from departure point increase while the miles and kilometers to destination decreased. Likewise the flight's elapsed time increased while the time to destination decreased. "Our" time gained an hour every time we entered a new time zone. I wanted to catch the moment of change but I never did. By the time we landed in Boston, it was dark. In Oslo, which I had left at 2:05 p.m., it was now 11:30 p.m. or so. I'd been up since before 8 a.m. Oslo time, 2 a.m. Boston time. Between Reykjavik and Boston I ate noodles and drank an Icelandic beer. It was too early for supper, too late for lunch, and probably too early for beer, but it seemed a good idea to eat something. The next leg of my journey was by bus. The last Peter Pan/Bonanza bus leaves Boston for Woods Hole at 7:30 p.m. Knowing that at this time of year the 7:30 bus reaches Woods Hole after the last boat has left, I had made a reservation at Inn on the Square in Falmouth, which is just around the corner from the bus station. All this fluidity of time made me uneasy: Would the 7:30 bus show up in my time zone, and where would it stop? I cruised back and forth with my reclaimed bags on a luggage cart, hoping that this wouldn't be the night of nights when the bus driver forgot to stop at Terminal E. He didn't forget. I was the only Logan Airport passenger. A few got on at South Station, but this was not a crowded bus. I'm pretty sure I slept part of the way: I remember rolling through Quincy, just south of Boston, but the next thing I knew we were crossing the Bourne Bridge. I wasn't sure it was the Bourne Bridge till the rotary appeared right where it should be on the opposite side. Inn on the Square was quite satisfactory. The wi-fi was free, and the new restaurant next door serves an excellent breakfast. Checkout time was 11 a.m., and shortly thereafter I appeared at the Falmouth bus station with my bags. I rode to Woods Hole on a ticket stub. I suspect that most bus drivers honor the stubs of Vineyard ticketholders who have to abort their journeys in Falmouth for want of a late ferry. I also suspect that the rules and regs don't explicitly allow this much leeway. The rules and regs don't know the situation. The bus drivers do. Here is what the Vineyard Haven ferry dock looked like at about 12:45 to the eyes of the returning islander.
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