Lou Cook

BY MATT LARSON

Riding the ferry makes many people happy, and it makes some people so happy that they pursue careers on the ferries.

Lou Cook, deckhand for Blue & Gold Fleet, is one of these people. This former interior designer used to take the ferry from San Francisco to Larkspur for work, or would just hop on board a ferry to brighten her day. She’s now been working on the Bay’s waterways for the past 15 years.

“Being on the Bay is so great,” Cook said. “Even if you’re having a tough day, just look out the window. There’s no better office.”

Cook remembers the first time she was turned on to the notion of the ferry. She had moved to San Francisco from Washington D.C. and was commuting to Larkspur by bus. While purchasing a bicycle to assist with her commute, she overheard a cyclist talking up the ferries.

“The bike store guy’s friend came in really jazzed up and happy,” she recalled. Cook remembers him saying something like, “Dude, I took the ferry to Larkspur and rode my bike up the fire trails!” Cook’s reaction: “I thought, ‘Oh, ferry to Larkspur. Maybe I could do that.’ So one day I gave it a try and I just loved it. It started being the best part of my day.”

What could make the best part of your day even better? For Lou, it was meeting her husband on board.

“We were doing the reverse commute so there were only like five or six regular commuters, a sprinkling of others,” she said. “One day there was a little waft of fog on the top of Angel Island and the sun was backlighting it a little bit. It was just so beautiful I had to get up and look at it on the outside deck. My future husband came up behind me and said, ‘That’s very difficult to photograph.’ I said, ‘Oh really? Tell me about that.’ I’m one of those people that likes learning stuff, so we started chatting like that and it just kept on going!” That was in 2001 and they’re still together today.

It was also a bit of fate that led to Lou working on the ferries. She was in between jobs after getting laid off and needed to lift her spirits. “I wasn’t feeling really happy about life and I thought I’d just go for a ferry ride; I always feel better on the water,” she said. “There was a woman working there—at this point I was in my late 40s—and I thought, ‘She’s older than me! I wonder if I could work on the ferries.’”

After a short conversation, Lou had instructions to go down to the union hall to sign up. “As soon as I got back from my ferry ride I did that,” she said. “I was kind of burning out on the whole office thing.”

Over the course of her maritime career, the Bay has inspired Lou to do some writing. You can read her blogs at medium.com (search “Lou Cook”) and read about the first day she started training to be a deckhand. Last year she published her first novel, called Murkey’s: A Rabbit Noir.

“It takes place on the waterfront at Murkey’s—a diner on Pier 13 that doesn’t really exist,” she said. “I call it ‘rabbit noir’ because it’s noir with humor.” You can find it on her website at loucook.com, and you may notice a familiar image on the cover.

We were going to ask Lou what she felt is the best thing about taking the ferry, but she answered it before we had the chance! “It’s a complete getaway,” she said. “You don’t have to be a commuter to just enjoy a round trip on the Bay. It just gives you a little change of focus and lets your eyes rest on something besides buildings and cars. The mountains, the fog coming in, the bridges, the light, the birds—the whole Bay is fantastic.”