Sleepy workers all in the same boat
I'M BEGINNING to understand why horses are capable of falling asleep on their feet.
It's 5.30am and I'm standing at the QC1 terminal shivering in my boots... literally.
I'm not the only one either.
Surrounding me like so many high-vis-clad cattle are what seems like hundreds of workers waiting to catch the next barge over to Curtis Island.
It's a bit surreal, actually.
A whole sea of sleepy people wearing fluro vests and clutching lunchboxes.
It looks like we're in the middle of some strange kind of zombie film rather than people simply going to work.
Once on the barge, I have to fight an almost irrepressible urge to snuggle up to the guy next to me and go to sleep.
The ferry is rocking against the waves and so many humans make the air warm and drowsy. I'm getting dangerously close to just gently resting my head on this man's nice, comfortable, yellow shoulder and zzzzzzzzzzz.......
Good thing I'm not driving the ferry.
It's something Glenn Bisset does every day, five times a day. Running workers to and from the island in what he describes as, "One of the busiest, if not the busiest harbour in the country".
I meet Glenn on the way home when I'm much more alert and am not tempted to sleep on him.
He shows me how to view the harbour from his point of view - the captain's chair (which is amazingly comfy, by the way).
It's fun but daunting to see all the buttons and hoo-ha that goes on a single dashboard and to realise something which seems fairly straight forward is so complex.
"That's what I like about this job," Glenn says.
"Every day is a challenge."
