Halt in boat rides makes waves in 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.