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Restaurant taxi maps a busy course on summer Sunday
Fairview Beach water taxi is busy on weekends, ferrying folks between their boats and restaurant
Date published: 8/2/2009 By Rob Hedelt IT'S 11:30 on a summer Sun- It's a 26-foot, tri-hulled pontoon boat that serves as a water taxi for the thriving Tim's II restaurant and crab house, a magnet that on busy weekends draws hundreds of boats to the King George County riverfront. Steffen is the guy who picks up boaters after they anchor or raft up in front of Tim's II, a restaurant built on a pier that extends into the Potomac River. There are only a handful of spots at the dock for boaters to tie up. So droves of boaters toss out their anchors and radio, yell or wave for Steffen as he zigs and zags between boats. "I don't worry about getting around the boats, it's the people walking around in the water that worry me," said Steffen, who lives near Montross and has been wheeling the water taxi for nearly eight years. "Some get a bit oblivious by the end of a hot day out here." Steffen gets occasional help from driver Robert Jackson, who mans a second rig on busy days. The pair said there are plenty of challenges to wheeling the long, blocky rigs powered by 90-horsepower outboards and filled with seats for 22 passengers. "The currents may be going one way and the wind the other," said Steffen. "The canvas top here catches that wind, almost acting like a sail at times." Both drivers said you get used to handling the rig by putting in hours at the wheel, maneuvering the specially connected bow boarding platform up to waiting boats for passengers to step on. "To be honest, the toughest thing about this job is worrying about scratching someone's boat when we pull up," said Steffen. "Most of the time we don't, but it can be tricky when the waves are kicking up and both boats are bouncing."
Date published: 8/2/2009
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