I have talked a lot about correspondences between Furillen in its real and virtual forms. But the Furillen ferry is one thing I took some liberties over.

Although there definitely is a ferry that will take you from Stockholm to Furillen – or from Nynashamn to Visby, to be precise – it looks like this …

… rather than this …

… and it stops here ….

rather than here …

But this is surely one of those instances in which the virtual version of Furillen is a clear improvement on the real thing.

I hadn’t planned to install a ferry at Furillen. This (south-east) corner of the sim was originally home to a dockside building that I found in my inventory. It looked rather good, I thought …

… but nobody seemed to go inside, and I didn’t really know what to do with it.

Then I acquired a ferry – beautifully named ‘Queen of Denial’ – and terminal as a prize in the Madpea hunt.

I didn’t participate in the hunt in order to get the ferry. I was actually after this operating light, made by Tab Tatham at Junk …

But when I unpacked the ferry and terminal, I liked them so much I thought I’d give them a try at the sim.

They were made by Analyse Dean, whose brilliance as a boat maker is well known to anyone who – like me – enjoys sailing in Second Life.

Some beautiful pictures have been made of both the boat and the terminal. It’s a strangely evocative and romantic place.

While the ferry looks great from the outside, it is just as impressive inside, with full seating …

… an engine room …

… and a detailed bridge …

Connected to the ferry by a gangway …

… the terminal is just atmospheric …

Selling ‘zombi fied chicken’ to passengers …

… this place feels empty and unworldly …

… like somewhere you might wait forever …

… and without much optimism about the person you’re waiting for will actually turn up …

… or that you’d even want them to …

… although some people do turn up expecting to go on a trip to the sun.

But as much as I love the ferry, it came with a twist that makes life for Furillen’s janitor somewhat complicated.

Out of the box, the boat is set up in the process of sinking, with its alarm sounding. You have to pump water out manually, then mess around with controls down in the engine room in order to restart the generator that fused due to flooding.

Having done this, one might expect everything to be well. But this isn’t the case. The ferry is ‘live’ – there are buttons to press, anyone can try driving it away (not that there is anywhere to go), and the owner can’t disable this feature.

And if the ‘wrong’ combination of buttons is pressed, the ferry goes back into sinking mode, the alarm sounds, and the whole process of pumping water has to begin again.

Funny, eh?

When I set the boat up I imagined that this might happen now and again … no big deal.

Well it happens at least once a day. It seems that few visitors can resist pressing those buttons in the ship’s bridge.

It happened, in fact, as I was writing this blog and needed to take some pictures.

You wouldn’t notice this because you can’t hear the alarm. I made the ferry into a separate parcel and set it up so noise from there isn’t transmitted to the rest of the sim.

As for the boat itself, I have managed a shortcut, which means that all I need to do is delete the boat and rez up a new one, which I have set up in non-sinking mode.

Still, it’s a few minutes of work every day that I could do without.

So please, when tempted to press one of those inviting buttons …

… spare a thought for your janitor.

ps. I am well aware that this post is likely to make things worse !

pps. These great pictures of the ferry being driven are by Blip Mumfuzz but they shouldn’t be misunderstood – she didn’t touch a thing. I have really enjoyed her series from Furillen, so check it out.