The monster machine takes it's first bites of the capsized ferryboat.
I last referred to this eyesore in my post "A Tale of Two Pontoons" in June of 2008 when I reported on the completion of the new ferry landing a half kilometer up the promenade. The ferry service from this new landing only recommenced last year as I understand there has been much legal wrangling over the franchise.
I never did tell the tale of the " ferry boat feud" as at the time I was unsure of even the rudimentary facts and feelings were running very high on the issue and I had no wish to fuel the fire. With the passage of time passions have subsided and I have managed to glean some information about events surrounding the dispute.
During the summer months a regular ferryboat service ran between Santa Luzia and Terra Estrieta beach. The holder of the franchise to operate this service was apparently a rather surly individual who hailed from somewhere other than Santa Luzia and due in part to his attitude and in part to the way he ran the ferries to suit his lifestyle, rather than that of his customers, he was not particularly popular in the town.
Now one fine September day in 2007 the daughter of one of his more outspoken detractors arrived at the landing requiring transportation across the ria and for reasons best known to himself the truculent ferryman refused her passage and more importantly insulted her mortally calling her good character into question.
When the distraught daughter arrived home and related the insults to her family the incensed father naturally tore down to the landing to confront the detestable mariner. He was greeted by the beast and his crew and received a duffing up for his trouble. News of this confrontation spread through the village like wildfire and though I do not know the who, the why or the wherefore this led to a further altercation involving the mayor outside his house later that evening.
Now Santa Luziense are a proud people and an insult to one is often considered an insult to all. There was only ever going to be one response to a blood insult to one of their own and during the night the ferryman's ticket office mysteriously burned to the ground and it was made clear to the offender that he was no longer welcome in Santa Luzia and should he return he would probably end up "sleeping with the fishes".
The ferryman took these threats at face value and stayed away but put the story about that he would be back and would bring his own security with him.
The authorities also took the threats, from both sides of the dispute, seriously and the following weeks saw round the clock foot and horse mounted patrols of Santa Luzia by machine gun toting GNR officers.
All kinds of negotiations apparently went on behind the scenes but the truculent ferryman insisted the franchise was his and it would be him or no body running ferries in Santa Luzia. Thus the matter ended up in the interminable Portuguese legal system and ferries have not run since then until this year.
The fact that ferries began to run under a new franchise and that the old landing has now been removed suggests that the matter has been resolved in the courts............however the fact that the "Policia Maritima" photographed and documented every step of the demolition operation suggests that this saga may still have some time to run.
The one good thing is that the area in front of the new Porto Da Pesca is now much nicer to look at as during the almost four years of neglect the winds and tides had taken a heavy toll on the old landing which was in grave danger of breaking free and drifting into the new port and the vessels moored there.
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