“Capt. Smiley” fought to keep her head above water until she became a tour guide for Baltimore’s Ride the Ducks tour company. Now she uses the “Wacky Quacker” yellow-billed duck whistles to keep herself and others smiling.
Jeanne Williams, 41, has been working for Baltimore’s Ride the Ducks since 2003. “Capt. Smiley” is her own personal joke – if she can do a little bit to make people smile, she’s doing her job
“When I’m driving the Duck Tour, all I can do is quack,” Williams said. “Even in my own car I quack. I used to have a road rage problem, but now I just quack my way through it.”
After graduating Indiana University in Pennsylvania in 1989, Williams worked for RedStar Yeast as an assistant plant manager. She left in 2000 and got her captain’s license in June of 2002. She now earns $20 per hour on her Ride the Ducks salary.
The scenic 70-minute land-to-water Duck Tour begins at Light Street Pavilion in the Inner Harbor. The tour passes sights like Edgar Allen Poe’s grave, Fells Point, and the Washington Monument.
“My favorite part of the ride was passing all the people on the streets and quacking at them, seeing if they’d wave back at us,” said Courtney Salyer, 18, on vacation with her family from Kingston, Tenn.
Entrepreneur Bob McDowell launched Ride The Ducks in 1977 in Branson, Mo. The company partnered with Herschend Family Entertainment in 2001, and opened Ride The Ducks of Baltimore.
The vehicle used for the tours is based on the WWII DUKW vehicle, an amphibious design first built by General Motors. DUKW is a military acronym; the letters indicate that it was designed in 1942 (D), for utility/amphibious purposes (U), with front wheel drive (K), and two rear driving axles (W).
The first military use of the DUKW was in March 1943, when the U.S. landed Army troops on Noumea, New Caledonia. Approximately 2,000 DUKWs brought to shore 40 percent of all supplies landed between June 6 and Sept. 1, 1944, according to the Ride The Ducks Web site.
Today, there’s never a lack of DUKWs driving through the streetsof Baltimore, with tours running seven days a week, at least three times a day.
Williams begins every duck tour by saying, “When you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you.”
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