Mayor Eddie Elleway says council is hearing ‘mostly disappointment’ from local businesses who have come to rely on ferry services.

“Everybody’s found different reasons why they enjoyed having the ferry,” he said.

“Businesses as far away as Tumby Bay are noticing the difference but…in particular, businesses in Cowell are hurting. We as a council…our aim is to get it back running. It’s been a real bonus to Cowell to have it.”

In contrast, tourism operator Dale Chopin, of Harbour View Caravan Park, says Cowell tourism remains strong despite the lapsed service.

“If we relied only on the ferry for business we wouldn’t be here now,” he said.

“Certainly, there’s a lot of local business that are missing it but we’re not relying on it. It has affected us to a certain extent, but not greatly.”

Cowell Chamber of Commerce spokesman Shaun Hornhardt agrees that Cowell businesses remain strong but believes tourism operators and local passengers have still been hit hard by the loss.

“We are absolutely, categorically, looking forward to it starting again,” he said. “We’d do anything in our power to make sure it starts again.”

Janet Turner of Turners Oysters and Seafood believes their business is attracting fewer sales without the ferry traffic but is still confident for the summer tourism season.

However, local mussel business Flinders Seafood grew up around the ferry service – shuttling mussels between Port Lincoln and Wallaroo sites – and is now incurring some serious costs as a result of the service’s suspension.

“It’s totally inconvenient because we’ve now got to employ a truck driver to go right the way around the gulf,” Flinders Seafood director Geoff Turner said. “It wasn’t a cheap service, but it was effective, because we didn’t have to put a driver on the ferry and our staff picked it up off the other side. I used to just go across to the Wallaroo office on the ferry quite often.”