Who Are Those Guys

by Marcia Peck

Our Man on Angel Island—Allyn Schafer was born in Southern California, but grew up in Sacramento. When he was a child, his dad would pack up the family and head to Olympic National Park for their summer vacations. Allyn developed a great love for the forest and nature, and at age 20, he got a seasonal job as a deck hand on the state park boat that ferried people to Angel Island from Tiburon. His part-time job turned into a vocation. He now has his captain’s license, up to 500 tons, his mate’s license for 1600 tons, and he is currently working on his master’s license for 1600 tons. Not bad for a summer job start.

The cool thing about Allyn’s job is that he gets to live on Angel Island in the old coast guard house at Point Blunt. He says with a wink,“I guess that’s all personal perspective.” So far he hasn’t encountered any ghosts, but he does have a fog horn in the front yard that wakes one up in the night, and a green light that constantly sweeps through the bedroom window. He says, “it kind of reminds you of a cheap motel.”

Allyn originally joined the Corinthian Yacht Club as a junior member in 1982 so he could park in the club parking lot. That way he could just walk to work at the ferry dock.

While working on the ferry, Allyn has some very interesting, often humorous, and sometimes embarrassing experiences. He recounts one day when the ferry, lovingly referred to as the “toaster”, broke loose and wiped out the CYC dock. He had to land his ferry in the club harbor, between C and D lines to let people off! On another occasion, a toasted mate, who had had a few too many at Sam’s, jumped off the ferry on the way to Angel Island, so Allyn and the crew could practice their man-overboard drill!

His most embarrassing moment came when they tried to load a dump-truck on the docked ferry. The truck caught the ferry under one side and tilted her over till she was standing on end. A chagrined operator Schafer had to call a tow-truck to pull the dump-truck off the pinned ferry. Of course an audience was in attendance at the proceedings.

When not running the Angel Island park ferry, Allyn can be found crewing on the J-24, Sockeye on Friday nights. His 11 year old son, Nick, is also getting into the family boating scene. Nick was recently awarded a sailing scholarship by The Corinthian Women.

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