Halt in boat rides makes waves in Newport Bay

Cheap, funky and wonderfully reliable, the Balboa Island Ferry remains an old-time relic in the crowded waters of tony Newport Bay.

This week, for the first sustained period in half a century, the wooden boats that reliably lug cars, locals and vacationers between Balboa Island and the peninsula have stopped chugging. Although the shutdown for overdue repairs is temporary, it’s interrupted the unhurried rhythm of the beach town.

A short pleasure cruise for beachgoers -- or harried brides and grooms -- and a shortcut to Pacific Coast Highway for locals, the ferry carries 1.5 million people across Newport Bay each year.

The three-minute trip offers passengers “as good a view of the bay as they can get anywhere,” said Seymour Beek, a co-owner of the three-ferry fleet.

This week, contractors are replacing the steel beams and wooden planks of the vehicle ramp that connects the floating dock to the island; the $250,000 project is supposed to wrap up Friday afternoon. The ramp on the peninsula side, smack in the middle of the Fun Zone carnival strand in Balboa, is scheduled for repairs about three weeks later and will probably shutter ferry service for five weekdays, said contractor Efrain Serna.

The last time the family-owned operation shut down for an extended period was to perform similar repairs -- when President Eisenhower was in office.

The steel supports are rusty from five decades of saltwater smacks, said Beek, 74. His father, Joseph Beek, a Newport Beach developer, took over the ferry service in 1919 when it was just an 18-foot rowboat with an outboard motor meant for human cargo only.

In those days, Beek said, Balboa Island was home to just 10 residences, all shuttered during winter.

“There was hardly anybody around,” Beek said. “If somebody wanted to ride across the bay, they made a phone call and got picked up.”

Christine Ontiveros had no such luck this week at the peninsula ferry dock. The Whittier language-arts teacher had soaked up sand and sun with her daughter, her niece and her niece’s friend, and they had planned on capping their day out with a three-minute sunset cruise. But they found the dock blocked by yellow caution tape.

“I’m sad -- this is my break,” said Ontiveros, 52. The two teenagers, who had never ferried across the bay, were disappointed, she said.

“It’s just like a thing to end the day,” Ontiveros said as the Fun Zone Ferris wheel turned in the fading light. A few other regulars have grumbled about the pause in service, and City Hall has fielded a handful of calls on the closure.

On busy summer days, the ferry boats launch every three minutes or so for the 900-foot journey, hauling as many as 1,300 cars a day, Beek said. He estimates he’s made the trip himself some 25,000 times. Occasionally, busy boat traffic can slow the 65-foot vessels.

Passengers drop to a trickle when the weather clouds over. But the ferry runs from 6:30 a.m. until midnight and later on weekends, rain or (mostly) shine: “If there’s anyone to take across the bay, we take ‘em,” Beek said.

But even the ferry -- operating in some form for nearly a century -- has been subject to inflation. Nickel tickets have jumped to $1 for adults and 50 cents for children.

Beek recalls a few folks going overboard in years past, including children diving off without paying their way. On later trips, a few turbulent days sent sea spray splashing on cars. The boats accommodate 75 people and three cars and require constant maintenance.

This week, a handful of thwarted drivers executed three-point turns at the barricaded ferry entrances, and dog-walkers and joggers on the island gawked at the construction work.

Part-time island resident John Lockett missed a dinner date with his son Tuesday night -- $1 tacos they were planning to share on the other side of the bay. And Lockett wasn’t about to take the long way around via Jamboree Road.

Hetty Robinson, who grew up on Balboa Island, remembered boarding the ferry as a teenager in the ‘60s: She would make trips to the library to scope out boys and dance at the Rendezvous Ballroom, where surf guitarist Dick Dale played.

“There was a smell and a feeling and the weather -- you would ride that ferry, you might hear the foghorn off in the distance,” said Robinson, who runs an Italian seafood restaurant that her parents founded on the island.

And for her 84-year-old mother, who doesn’t drive, the ferry was a lifeline for errands to the drugstore, post office and beauty parlor across the water.

“It gave her an independence, that little ferry,” Robinson said.

Ferry service is expected to resume Friday evening -- just in time for the weekend.

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susannah.rosenblatt@latimes .com