No man is an island, as John Donne pronounced, but often he prefers to live on one. Then, having abandoned continents with their irritations and temptations, he demands continental advantages and conveniences, as if he'd never left at all.

He wants the best of two worlds, the worst of none.

And that, in a cockleshell, is the damned problem with B.C.'s ferry system. Well, the main one, anyway.

Now, before I'm voted off this Island and others in this archipelago, I want to say that I have deep respect for those who find a meaning in life that escapes so many others and seek a sanctuary in which to appreciate and contemplate it.

Continents, too, are islands. We have names for different parts of it, but one vast ocean surrounds us all. There are some, though, who can't tolerate being on an island. Some of them have grown up in flat places of vast vistas and big skies. Every ribbon of road or rail, they know, leads somewhere and they can take them any time they choose. Lining up is unnecessary, reservations not called for.

Some are unrepentant citydwellers, who need no roads or rails to get anywhere for they're already there. Lining up is accustomed ritual, reservations a way of life.

When they come to our Island they use words like "marooned," phrases like "cut off" and stagger around clutching at things as if they were crouching on a storm-tossed skimboard at sea. They catch sight of the Olympic Range and whisper to themselves: "Land."

For some among us, the modest pressures of humanity and its works on this Island prove too much to bear. They are moved to move on: further into the forest, further up the beach, higher up the mountain or - why not? - to a smaller island.

And once there, of course, they become savage in the defence of their lair. They proclaim themselves trustees of fen and fell, and make life as difficult as possible for anyone else trying to follow the dreams that they held.

Those who count on skilled or unskilled labour to respond to their needs expect it to live elsewhere and commute -- by ferry.

And those among them who desire to escape to less tranquil places once in a while expect that ferries should be at their beck and call, too, as is the right of anyone who lives on a section of a highway system that just happens to be covered by water.

Those who operate and supervise the B.C. ferry monopoly sneer that "alternative service providers" can't be viable on low-volume routes that are becoming less affordable for both passengers and the ferry corporation.

With their haughtiness bolstered by statute, they decree that any independent ferry enterprises must be contracted to the monopoly, and that the corporation must bear no risk of absorbing or underwriting any additional costs.

Safety, apparently, is a major difficulty in contracting out routes. Understandably.

We don't need any more boats slamming into docks at high speed, a Cap'n Crunch at the helm.

And no prospective contractors would have the "experience" needed to operate a ferry service, said the corporation's president who came from running an airline.

B.C. Ferries rejected a bidder for the Mill Bay run as "too costly." Costly for whom? I wonder.

For the love of Pete, those who are moving and shaking our ferry system should be reaching out for people anxious to preserve the remnants of what's supposed to be a service, not slamming the bulkhead doors in their faces. And they should be offering to show them the ropes.

And why aren't our island communities clamouring to run their own services, like the one running between the "mainland" and the Isle of Skye across the Kyle Rhea without government or council subsidy?

Its crew operates the ferry turntable by hand and it can carry up to six cars and as many passengers and sheep as fit on the deck. The crossing takes five minutes and it runs every 20 minutes from either end or "as required."

Sounds just the ticket for those here of simple, island tastes.

cruachan@shaw.ca