‘Weird and beautiful’: Taking the commuter ferry from Hingham’s ice-blanketed harbor

Transportation

The Hingham/Hull MBTA ferry has had to cancel most trips in and out of Hingham for the rest of this week due to ice in the Shipyard terminal.

Looking for an Alaskan cruise on a budget? Life hack: take the MBTA commuter ferry to and from Hingham to Boston.

Though, unless you caught one of three evening routes that ran tonight (4:30 p.m., 5:40 p.m., 7 p.m.) out of Boston, you’ve literally missed the boat for this week. All other ferries for Thursday, Jan. 29, have been canceled, and no boats will run on Friday, Jan. 30, because an impressive amount of ice continues to form in the Hingham Shipyard’s harbor, where the ferry terminal is.

“It’s not common . . . it’s been at least probably eight or 10 years since we’ve had ice like this,” said David Perry, director of ferry operations.

Rowes Wharf in Boston is clear, as is Hull, the ferry’s other South Shore origin point/destination.

In contrast to Thursday, the Wednesday commute went fairly smoothly with just minor delays. Braving the frozen tundra, I took the 8 a.m. boat into Rowes Wharf and got a coveted window seat, not knowing there would be a nature documentary screening outside of it.

As we navigated out of the harbor, sheets of thick slush caused the boat to bounce a bit, dancing to the soundtrack of the ice scraping along the bottom of the boat. The vessel created waves of undulating snow and ice that truly looked like footage from an arctic expedition. In the morning sun, it was beautiful, but I started thinking ahead to my evening commute. The idea of doing this in the dark of night was giving “Titanic.”

But, Perry assured me that if the ferry is running, it’s safe.

“We don’t get into a position where were going be getting the vessels into danger,” he said.

It’s safe thanks to an ice-breaking tugboat that keeps a channel clear of ice.

“Once the ice came in, we mobilized quick,” said Perry.

They hired the tugboat from a business in New Bedford, and it has been escorting the ferries in and out of Boston.

But, the ice keeps getting thicker.

Enter: The Shackle.

With a bit of drama, this strong-named ice-breaking vessel from the Coast Guard is arriving in Hingham today from Maine. It spent the night in Boston.

While the New Bedford tugboat uses its hull and “little donuts in the ocean” to break up ice, the Shackle is designed to break thicker ice in a straight line. These two vessels working in tandem are the reason the commuter boats were able to run at all this evening and get people home.

Yesterday, I opted for the 4:30 p.m return boat to avoid seeing the heart of the ocean in the dark. And I’m so glad I did, but not because it was scary. Quite the opposite: Traveling on a newer boat (a catamaran versus a monohull, I learned), the ride was completely smooth. Not white-knuckling my seat, I was able to take in just how stunning it was. As we approached our destination, the sky above the frozen water turned cotton candy pink, dotted with lights from people’s windows. All that was missing was a polar bear in the distance. As we got closer, the sunset intensified to a Lisa Frank hot pink, and passengers stepped out into the single-digit evening cold to take photos.

“We’re experiencing the same thing you are,” Perry said of himself and the crew. “It’s weird. It is beautiful, and it’s weird, and it’s overwhelming, and it’s challenging.”

On our way off the boat, we were treated to an ice-breaking show by our friendly tugboat from New Bedford. Then, I walked through 5-foot walls of snow to get home.

A transplant from neighboring Connecticut — but the New York part (IYKYK) — I joked that I didn’t realize moving “up north” would be this intense. But, as it turns out, the East and Hudson rivers in New York city are frozen too — not completely frozen. That’s a phenomenon that has not happened since the 1800s (and one that George Washington reportedly used to his advantage during the Revolutionary War), Gothamist reports.

But anyway, about Hingham. Temperatures are not due to warm up any time soon, and there’s potential for more snow, so the ice is not likely to go anywhere.

“The ice breaker can clear a path, but then it closes right in,” Perry said.

He could not predict whether ferry service would run next week, but he said he’s committed to getting commuters to and from work. And with the Shackle on our side, this commuter is optimistic.

“We’re an integrated system,” he said of the MBTA. “We feel a part of that family, and we want to support our brothers and sisters on the commuter rail, and if they’re feeling stressed, we want to keep running and give people options. But we’ll never do that at the risk of safety.”

All that to say, a round-trip ferry ride is $19.50. This Arctic cruise on Viking starts at nearly $80,000.