Where I am right now (and maybe you too), it's still the middle of winter - spring seems so far away... but in this story, the current season is late spring. That magical time of year when everything is bursting with life and new growth, and the sun warms you down to your toes, but the nights, which are growing shorter and shorter, still have a damp chill in them. In case you were curious.
Fighting a ferryman on his own boat is rarely going to end well… unless one is also accustomed to fighting in a small boat.
That is a very wide body of water. Four miles?