On the ferry you might have been hit by the rising water. It's sinking to give a taste of the challenge of the third level, which is a huge difficulty spike due to inadequate time management on my part.
The climbing mechanic is something that seems to have come up a lot, I should probably have made it more intuitive. Death sound barely crossed my mind, especially since the game just reloads the level entirely which would stop sounds from playing so would need to do some global variable shenanigans, but I digress.
The ferry also has a little spike pit to the left of the dresser by the cannonball trigger.
In future I'll make text last a little longer.
Thanks for playing!