Jia J.
Yelp
The ferry ride to Governors Island took about two minutes but this did not nearly justify the Dantean two hour quest to board the ferry itself.
Having inherited two $4 tickets good for the South loop (points South of East 34th Street), Sean B. and I took the F to York street and painstakingly guessed our way to the Fulton Ferry Landing. Everyone; it's just at the end of Old Fulton Street by the ice cream house and Bargemusic concert boat. This will only be obvious in hindsight for the unlucky souls who do what we did and try to rely on uniformed NYC cops and other officials for information on the territories that they patrol for their jobs...they're definitely too busy having social hour and daydreaming about donuts to lend a clue.
Mislead from here to there by bystanders' halfhearted guesses, we weaved our way through the intestinal backstreets of DUMBO, and accidentally gained admission to the Hip Hop Festival, where we might have had more fun. Being honest people, though, we exited the scene and proceeded to the pier, where a clusterfuck of a whole different crowd (to spell it out, Brooklyn yuppies and European tourists) was milling about asking beleagured summer campish employees where the hell to wait.
I asked one guy under a shed (confusingly shared with the Water Taxi ticket merchant) if the South Loop ferry did go to Governors. "...myyyuh..." he mumbled, not making eye contact. I wasn't sure until one hour later via word of mouth and dockhands' shouts that his answer was affirmative.
Good thing I was with someone, otherwise I would definitely have perished from the thirst induced by the onslaught of the sun upon our heads. Sean B. grabbed two pricey cash only bottles of water from the nearest concession stand, and we consumed our rations sparingly, unsure of when the next ferry would arrive.
One came and went. "ONLY FIFTY PEOPLE and NINE KIDS!!" I heard. Felt very Ellis Island. Just as in a line for a Six Flags ride, we were denied admission at the last moment, and barred back by a chain and verbal assertions until the next boat. Then followed a crazy long stretch of time during which nothing arrived and there was nothing to be seen but 1,000 other free and easy watercraft reveling in City of Water day. To avoid this insult, I alternately stared at the bricks in the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, a dingy stretch of sand by the dock, and a dusty sparrow trying to remove its tiny beak from a discarded Cheerio.
After the first hour lapsed and two Midtown ferries had come and gone, I couldn't help bitching pretty hard about how we could have traveled into Manhattan to the free, large, breezy ferry about ten times by this point.
A girl I couldn't hate beamed and encouraged me to look at the beautiful view. Of course, she made me feel like an asshole, but only for a moment...she was obviously foreign (hence the novelty of the BK bridge's underbelly), and it's easy to be distracted when you're nuzzling your boyfriend the whole time, as she was. But even Pollyanna and her sweet knight started rolling their eyes towards the end.
When we were on the brink of praying to God and wiping froth from our mouths, the boat bounded in. It took us to South Street Seaport (first of all, who the hell would take a ferry for such a short distance?), then to Governors Island, where we ran for shade and sat for a good long while, panting like sick dogs while the more energetic delighted in trapeze lessons administered by supple, shirtless men.
Two stars for being the best possible promotion ever for the free ferries. A Manattan departure is the way to go to get a reliable, airy, and scenic ride. There's supposedly also a free Brooklyn ferry hundreds of yards from the East River Ferry landing, but I'll try that once I recover.