The last passage for Newcastle's longest-serving ferry master

It was a few days before his retirement, and stepping up the narrow stairs into the little bridge was like walking into a part of his soul. This small room was so familiar that it was as if the walls held the space for him.

Butch, the old salt who had been tinkering away while the Shortland was docked on the city side of the harbour waiting to board a few students and workers on their way home to Stockton, happily gave up the controls.

He lounged back on a bench seat that ran along the back of the bridge as the afternoon sun turned to a glowing burn and let the city's longest-serving ferry master take the helm.

Stephen Doley rested his hands on the controls, and the engine under his feet rumbled to life. He reckons that, over the last 48 years of skippering the ferry across the channel, he has spent more time in this little room than at home - the trio of wheels and throttle levers, the battered old radio and comparatively new radar, and the array of dials and navigational instruments; he knows this place better than the back of his hand.

The vessel peeled easily away from the foreshore and cut its familiar line across the harbour toward Stockton. A round trip only takes a few minutes, but Mr Doley works the entire time, methodically stepping from one wheel to the next. It comes to him as if he was born at the controls.

A big bulk carrier is preparing to depart the berths under tug, and he eyes one of the city's iconic Svitzers as it tacks alongside his vessel. The skippers acknowledge each other with a wave, and the voyage carries on.

"All good," he says as the tug turns away, and he turns his attention back to his controls. "Back in the days when we didn't have radios, and we had the taxis parked over at Stockton, if we had any trouble on the ferry, we would flash our lights, and they would know to call the police."

Do this job for long enough, and you learn the unspoken language of the harbour and the countless people who work on it.

Mr Doley's first job was also his last. He has been working on the ferry for nearly half a century. He has taken the local knowledge - the understanding of the harbour's unique currents and depths, its schedule and unsleeping habits, and how to navigate the constantly busy and constantly changing waters. He saw Queen Elizabeth II open the Queens Wharf precinct in 1988. He saw the infamous tower of the same name come and go.

"When they put the tower up, they couldn't align it," he said, "They had to take it back away because it wouldn't fit."

Asked if the notorious local icon had the same phallic reputation when it was built as when it was eventually demolished, Mr Doley smiled. "I think it did," he said confidentially. "Yes. It did."

He sailed in the Pasha Bulker storm - one of so few times that he can recall ever suspending services that he says he could count them all on his hand - and has saved any number of misguided night owls who, after missing the last ferry home, thought they could swim the channel to Stockton only to get caught in the deceptively powerful current.

One unfortunate woman, he remembers, he had to fish out of the harbour after a lovers quarrel that saw her and her partner in the drink. Mr Doley helped the hapless swimmer on board only to discover she had lost her clothes in the plunge and had to think fast to save the embarrassment as a crowd converged outside the Queens Wharf brewery to witness the rescue.

The deckhands lent the poor woman a jumper, and Mr Doley rustled up some rain gear before he called the constabulary to help.

"I said, you better come down and help this lady," he said. "She'd had a blue with her boyfriend and jumped in, then he had jumped in, then she had tried to swim away and ended up out in the middle of the river."

"And that's only one of the people I've pulled out.

"It's never a dull day."

A moment later, as the vessel cut along its path, Mr Doley pointed out to an indistinct patch of water.

"The Blue Bell sank over there," he said, recalling the fatal collision of the steam-powered ferry with the freighter Waraneen in August 1934, killing three passengers. "The bloke who was my skipper was actually the deckhand on board."

There are other stories, too, as the Shortland sails along its route, back and forth constantly between the two suburbs, and Mr Doley knows them all.

This was the working life that he had always imagined for himself. Somewhere at home, buried in his files, there is a certificate from his school days that he remembers had a section where students could fill in their career aspirations.

"This is all I wanted to do," he said, smiling. "I got the certificate out the other day, and it had on there, ferry deckhand."

It was only natural for Mr Doley to find his life on the water. His brother and father had jobs in the harbour and were good workers. He was 15 when the boss knocked on his door one night and offered him the job.

He left school for the work and, at 18, qualified as a ferry master and started driving. He wakes up every morning at 3am and is on the vessel by 4.15am. He prepares for the day's voyages, checking the engine and oil, auditing the safety equipment, and makes his first passage of the day at 5.15am.

After almost a half-century at the helm, he has come to know his passengers almost as well as he knows himself.

"I was born and bred in Stockton," he said, "I went to school at Stockton. I've known a lot of people over the years, and there are a lot of generations there."

Then, with a bashful grin, he said, "It can be a good thing and a bad thing. You know them, and if you leave them behind - because they've missed the ferry - you have to come back and see the same people on the wharf waiting for you. Sometimes, they're nice about it."

"There have been some really nice people over the years. They come down and offer you a doughnut. You might help them with their groceries, or prams, or wheelchairs. They thank you for what you do."

Mr Doley looks out through his office window at the helm at the panoramic water view of the city that he has seen change so many times. He's not sure how he will spend his retirement. He worries he might get bored. After so many years, it's hard to imagine not waking up and going through the paces.

He will start by visiting his children, Kristy, Nicole and Stephen, and spending time with his grandchildren. His brother, Robert, has a farm near Tenterfield, and he will try his hand at that for a while.

"There's plenty of work for me," he said. "I'll take it easy for the first 12 months and wind into it.

"It will be different for a while, I suppose. But it's like anything - you just have to wind yourself into it."

As the ferry returned to dock on the city side of the harbour, Mr Doley took his hands off the controls and made his checks. He knows he will never forget what he has learned. The harbour will always be with him - he's got salt water in his veins - but one of the countless joys about the later part of his career has been teaching the younger deckhands the ropes.

"You work here, and you try to pass on a lot of knowledge to the young people coming up, and that's been good," he said, "You see them progressing and finding more opportunities than we had.

"That's why I tell new people never to stop learning because when you do, that's when you can make a mistake."

Mr Doley stepped off the Shortland and back onto dry land. It was the end of another day. His last day at the helm will be Friday, July 12, wrapping up a career as both the youngest master to captain a Newcastle ferry and its longest-serving driver.

"I'll miss everyone I've worked with over the years," he said earlier this week. "You meet some great people in this job."