It's turns out that the ferry hit a "dolphin." This type of dolphin is a wood and metal piling sitting in the water, with arrows pointing inward to provide direction to the ferry captain and pilot.

[Linked Image from uploads.disquscdn.com]

This is the actual dolphin that was hit. The damage is on the south facing side. In the upper left, you can see the metal triangle direction pointer.

[Linked Image from uploads.disquscdn.com]

This means the ferry came from the south of the dock, for some reason. I was on this exact same ferry 90 mins prior. It was the first landing of the day for Faunteroy. At that time we too came in from the south. Being the very first vehicle, I saw the reason why we came from the south is that a barge crossed in front of the ferry and we went around it to avoid hitting it.

This is the second time in a week that a barge has crossed in front of the ferry. Last week, a barge caused a huge wake, and even being as heavy as the ferry is, carrying 140 cars, the ferry wobbled side-to-side, up-and-down when it hit the wake. I thought there were maritime rules that barges had to be a certain distance from the ferry, or stop while the ferry proceeded in front of the barge given that we're transportation. and we take priority.

Contrarian, extraordinaire