The George Town / Butterworth ferry

I noticed that I had a handful of photos of the Penang ferry, which connected the island to peninsular Malaysia until a bridge was built. George Town is the urban area of Penang island, and Butterworth, the opposite urban area on the mainland, so it was a very convenient service. They are separated by 3 km of the Penang Strait. Crossings took about 20 minutes. Here's a picture taken by my dad in the 60s.

The ferries are operated now by the Fast Ferry service. The ferries were named after islands of Malaysia and this one, Pulau Tioman, is named after a resort island to the east of the state of Johor in peninsular Malaysia.

Which way is the ferry headed? From the building near the right edge of the photo, I think it's headed for George Town. Which means that the photo was taken as we left Penang.

Here's a photo of the vicinity of the ferry terminal on Penang, taken in the 70s. My photos have not withstood the ravages of time as well as my dad's.

And here is another ferry, the Pulau Lumut. Wikipedia tells me that it's been renamed Pulau Indah.

Neither ferry is in service any more, so those names have passed into history. The oldest ferry in the recently retired fleet entered service in 1971. Only one ferry of this class, the Pulau Angsa, is still serving motorcycles and bicycles. It turned out that the car service ended very recently, at the end of 2020, because the ferries were too decrepit. Now cars have to use the bridges and three water buses carry foot traffic. So passes the era of a historic ferry service. Sic transit.