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Non Fiction
Fog Index Factor: 4.95
6,260 Words Precisely
Copyrighted 1993 TrixiePixGraphics
Published in Great Lakes Boating
ROUGH BAR
Part One
Copyright 1993 TrixiePixGraphics
It was a scuddy day. Cold, black gobs of cloud hung from the bottom of the overcast, swept along like balloons against a ceiling, rolling and tumbling toward a north easterly course. Sudden puffs of wind fell out of nowhere and hit the cheeks, betraying the unpredictability of the approaching front. Dirt swirled in the gutters along Charter Boat Row down at the docks; a single drop of rain fell-- then no more. The exhilarating smell of lightning hung on clammy puffs of air. 'Twas not a day for ships or ducks..
A greasy old buggar had been working on a dilapidated little plywood cruiser. Seemed he'd been working on that scow for a hundred years. There couldn't possibly have been that many things wrong with her-- twenty seven feet of boat can only conceal so many mechanical malfunctions. Perhaps for that crusty old man the fun was not in the fixing, but in the fiddling.
I usually nodded politely as I passed his slip, on my way to the car after checking the lines and pumps of the company tug. Sometimes he looked up. Sometimes he nodded. Sometimes he ignored me altogether, and merely continued his assault on the English language from down in the grimy bowls of that misbegotten small craft.
But sometimes....
Sometimes-- like this time, he popped out on deck and leapt spritely to the dock to block my way, and to grill me for long, painful minutes about the mysterious mechanical goings on inside a flat-head six-- hours, really, unless I became downright rude and walked away.
I cursed myself-- I should have anticipated this. I should have quickened my pace six fathoms back-- that would have put me past his slip before he had time to disembark and to cut off my escape. But now there was only one hope-- to make a run for it and knock the old man down if he got in my way....
"Howdy, Shorty." I said noncommitally. I almost said "How's the boat--" But caught myself in the nick of time. That had been too close--
"Hiya." He said in that nervous way he had when he knew a body wasn't overly anxious to talk to him. Spasmodically he lurched more into my path, so I couldn't even rudely brush past him. I remember thinking, "My God-- he must have practiced that maneuver for years. He was so deft."
"Say, uh....... I got a little trouble here." He motioned toward that rag-a-muffin boat. Close up it was worse than I'd thought. Shorty clenched a short, non-filter Camel; it looked more like a joint. I didn't know they even sold them anymore. His greasy fingers pinched it, held it tight against yellow teeth and he took a drag that would have choked a Rhinoceros. I remember wondering if some folks just couldn't afford a razor... He talked as the smoke fell out of his mouth, hacking all the while.
"Yea, uh, I was wondering-- could you turn 'er over for me? I think I got 'er all taken care of-- just gotta crank 'er up." He was already heading for the boat, motioning and showing me where the key was. Unconsciously I took a step towards him and a gleam in his eye told me he knew his hook had set.
"I gotta hold some wires here-- you just go ahead and crank 'er for me when I say." His head disappeared in the "engine room". I sighed silently, then stepped aboard and up to the exposed control console. Let's get this over with quickly, I thought.
A tangled tuft of greasy hair showed briefly, "Hey-- I sure appreciate this. Really. I sure appreciate all the help you give me. Okay-- let 'er fly!"
"You ready Shorty?"
"Yea! Let 'er fly!"
Arrr...rrr...rr----
"Aaaaaaahhhhhrrrrgggggg!"
A wisp of smoke drifted up from the control panel. Shorty emerged shaking one hand-- a charred, twisted length of wire in the other.
"Wrong wire." He said matter of factly, though he always seemed to tremble. "Just a minute here--" And he rummaged through a water-soaked cardboard box of junk and tidbits. Snatching some tiny piece of unidentifiable something he shot back to the engine and promptly announced,
"Let 'er fly!"
"--Your fingers, Shorty," I thought, and hit the button with no remorse.
Arrr...rrr...rrr...rrr...rrr...rrr...rrrrrrrrr.......rrrrrrrrrrrrrr-clik clik clik clik----
"Sounds like a dead battery Shorty." I smugly offered my brilliance in such matters. If the battery was dead, I could depart.
"Yea. Okay. I got another." He grunted once or twice hooking it up-- My God he was fast.
"Let 'er fly!" He said.
The engine sputtered, coughed, revved to life. From the stinking bowels of that scalawag ship an acid stench arose. The exhaust billowed thick black smoke-- that changed to grey, then to white, then to blue. There was a rattling, a clank-- a vibration, then a backfire and a screaching that sent the startled seagulls within fifty yards yelping to flight. That each revolution of that engine perpetuated even one more.....was a miracle.
Shorty emerged positively radiant. He slapped the dash and exclaimed what a fine ship she was-- You'd think he'd just given birth. He took her throttle then, and commenced to jerking her in and out of gear as if to show me what she was really capable of. He slammed her hard to forward, then rammed the throttle home. The boat lurched against sun-bleached, fraying lines, then held tight to the float, nearly knocking me down. Smoke billowed about the dock and several fishermen from up the dock looked to see what kind of catastrophe was going on down there-- I was frankly embarrassed to be aboard that offensive little craft.
"She's got a lot of power, this little girl.." Shouted Shorty above the clamor. "--Seaworthy, too."
I smiled, and when Shorty's hand left the throttle for an instant mine shot forward and pulled her back to idle. I didn't think the motor-mounts could take much more. Shorty's head jerked around as if he'd been shot through the heart-- then he saw my hand on the throttle and gave me a quick scowl. I hadn't wanted to be aboard when she blew up, I thought in my own defense. Let me get a few meters down the dock, at least.
"Got to go, Shorty." I said. "She sure does purr. Good luck."
I had been trying to be decent about it all-- 'she sure does purr', and all of that. But that was my fatal mistake, for Shorty then insisted that I "see her in action".
I dodged and weaved. Shorty persisted. "Just a quick turn around the marina," he said-- "Just lemme show you how she moves through the water-- I may want to sell her some day....." And his voice trailed off as though I'd been offered his first born at half price and it was a reverent instant in time--
Shorty slipped her lines, backed out of the slip, smashed her to forward gear and one hundred percent, and we were off.
She actually did have a little poop. I was accustomed to long weeks at the wheel of a tug that only crawled tractor-like over the swells and the contrast was startling..
We roared off around the breakwall and out into the wide mouth of Grays Harbor. Shorty held that throttle to the stop so tightly he must have surely stretched the control cable. He was going to show me her very, very best. I cocked an ear this way and that, trying to ascertain exactly which unnatural sound was going to be our undoing first. I moved aft of the box that covered the engine, and as I did so my feet nearly vibrated off my legs. I looked down to a hole in the floorboards through which I could see the tail of the reduction gear as it quivered smartly in tiny circles-- there were no motor mounts there at all, but only rusted brackets that had long since parted. Water was pouring through the stuffing box and spiralling outward 360 degrees from the shaft flange. I moved through it like a kid through a sprinkler, aft, to a rotted vinyl settee fastened haphazardly along the transom. I sat down and watched Shorty wrestle that wheel, throwing us into hard banks, this way and that...showing me "what she could do".
I put my arm up along the transom deck and tried to relax and to tell myself I'd yet live through it. The breakwall grew smaller and smaller astern-- I'd known Shorty had planned a longer ride, but.... And it was rather exhilarating to be doing twenty knots, leaping gaily over the little wavelets. I leaned back and found myself almost enjoying the cruise, and idly fingering a bit of cloth that protruded from somewhere...just fingering it...twirling a small shred of material around my thumb....thinking I might want to buy a fast boat someday. Not Shorty's boat-- but some other fast boat. A man could sure cover some country in a fast boat. My mind wandered....idled along trying to think cheery things... The small bit of cloth moved away from my finger somehow....couldn't quite...feel it. I probed unconsciously for it-- it had to be somewhere... I found my index finger tracing a small, round hole in the deck. The hole went down, and down. The cloth had been right there, yet--
I sat up suddenly and looked squarely into that hole. It was the fuel tank filler. It had been plugged with a greasy rag, and my absent-minded fondling had shoved it down the tank. I stared at that stupid hole for twenty five seconds after realizing what I'd done. Then I heard the engine sputter.
Shorty jerked the throttle like he was pumping water....right up until the engine wheezed and fell silent altogether. He glanced at me, embarrassed, and headed below to the "engine room". But I caught him short, and showed him the hole.
My honesty was rewarded with a heavy scowl this time, as if to inquire what kind of seaman I really was.... I apologized more heartily than perhaps was appropriate-- then Shorty intolerantly fetched a rusty length of clothes hangar that had been bent and fashioned for that very task months or years before, and we commenced to the trying, irritating, frustrating, maddening, tedious and rather unsuccessful business of trying to catch that rag.
We'd not been long at that endeavor when I began to be annoyed by the motion of the boat. Crashing noises were beginning to emerge from the cabin, and miscellaneous tools and empty beer bottles were rolling back and forth around my feet with alarming force. I glanced up to see the brilliant white gnashing teeth of the Grays Harbor bar, gleaming against the blackest, most foreboding sky I have ever seen. My eye flicked upward to the horizon to see a jagged spectre of lightning charge the ocean two miles out. I looked apprehensively back toward port, and swallowed hard to see it shrinking, far away over an endless geography of sharp, building seas. The storm was mounting to its awesome fury. We were being swept out on the ebb tide like a bug going down the commode--
And the bar was rough.
There wasn't a boat on the ocean. Even the Kamakazi commercial crabbers had run in for this blow. I thought of an anchor first.
Shorty didn't carry one.
I thought of the radio-- at least he had a C.B.! I dialed channel 9 and called in the blind.. Shorty all the while regarded me indignantly, and fished harder for that rag.
A "REACT" station answered up in a professional reply and took our position. A few minutes later the Coast Guard came directly on-frequency and advised they'd send a boat "forthwith". And at that I relaxed. We'd had a bit of a fright-- but the situation had been handled early on, and properly. Even if Shorty's loathsome little boat sunk at that very moment, I was sure I could tread water 'till "the boys" got there. Sheesh. How did I get into such predicaments anyway? Well this was the last time. Well this was certainly the very last time..
We rocked and rolled and swore and fished for that rag. It passed the time until the Coast Guard found us. The engine started once or twice, only to die again from the clogged fuel line. And thirty minutes later there was no sign of the Coast Guard. Another glance to seaward affirmed the immediacy of our plight. In four minutes we'd enter the breakers on the bar..
Shorty wasn't talking much. He just moved nervously about, fidgeting with this, fiddling with that. I set about to make the mostly open boat as seaworthy as she could get. Asking about bilge pumps, Shorty showed me a small garden hose device, designed to be powered by an electric drill-- dockside, of course. And there was a cracked plastic bucket and a coffee can. But the floorboards were secured permanently to the stringers, and the boat would be ponderously heavy with water before we could get the cans to it.
Shorty went and sat inside the tiny cabin, dejected. I suggested it might be safer out on deck, where he could at least get away if the boat capsized. For a moment he looked as though he hadn't heard-- then he moved deliberately outside and took a place near the wheel.
We speculated on our odds for a few moments...what would likely happen first-- capsizing or sinking. I looked up once to see Shorty dawning a life jacket, and snugging it down tight. I inquired of any others aboard-- Shorty shook his head and clutched the one he wore even tighter. There was a seat cushion that would supposedly float. I placed it where I might be able to get ahold of it quickly. I thought of trying to find some scraps of line with which to somehow tie the cushion to my body so that it wouldn't be lost in whatever mayhem was to follow, but felt I'd almost rather go down with that miserable little ship than to allow her to reduce me to looking so utterly ridiculous--
The seas became more violent as we were swept onto the shallows of the bar. The huge ocean combers were breaking from jetty to jetty, all the way across. As we grew nearer we began to hear their peculiar hiss as the crests raced and tumbled down their faces. Sometimes hard gusts picked their tops off and sent them flying. I wondered how many breakers we'd survive. I estimated two to four. I wondered how plain old water could be formed to look so ugly and mean. When the boat gave out, we'd live a little while in 39 F. water. But the waves would beat us under, and exhaustion would come very quickly. I wondered if Shorty would survive after all. I doubted it. He was old; if nothing else his heart would go. For a fleeting instant it seemed such a waste that he should die of coronary failure but remain afloat with the life jacket, while I drowned with still a strong heart for lack of one. I wondered if it'd be possible to keep myself up, holding onto Shorty's body-- dead OR alive. I begrudged him that life jacket-- but it WAS his boat. I'd take my lumps. Then we were in the breakers..
We rode over the first one with little ill effect. I was surprised at how little water she made-- the second, however, made up the difference. A tiny chunk of the top of that wave curled right over the gun'ales and slopped into the boat with such force that it smashed one of Shorty's empty beer bottles which had been lolligagging back and forth-that hunk of ocean must have been two hundred gallons in size. We knew what was to be done and that there was nothing but to do it. We threw the engine cover back, dropped to our knees, and began scooping water from around the engine, wherever the cans would fit.
Straightaway the side of Shorty's plastic bucket broke off, and he was reduced to bailing barely a quart at a time.
I felt us rise up...and up...and still up with a huge, smoking sea beneath us. The sound-- the look of it alone was terrifying. The ascension was almost exhilarating....like a carnival ride. But the seething crests blew water over the rails at an alarming rate. Then I didn't even look up-- just bailed and hoped and tried to keep myself in such a position there on the floorboards that when she went over on her top I would remember which way to swim to get out from underneath her. Every time she lay up on her beams I held a large breath, ready, but continued to bail.
The huge storm seas came and came and we bailed into oblivion.. That obnoxious little boat rolled and broached and spun and pitched. On the tops of the breakers the wind screamed and shrieked-- but in the bottoms the air was dead and it was almost quiet but for the hissing of the seas far overhead.
When a crest passed under us and she fell into the trough my stomach went into my throat; we were nearly weightless. And then another would thrust us upward like we were rocket propelled. And I found it impossible to believe that we had stayed afloat.
Supplies were sloshing to and fro in the cabin. The portable head floated on its side and smashed against the little galley stove and the bulkhead. It was like the inside of a washing machine. Her head was heavy; she had a pronounced list, and that caused her to take water all the more. The seas were somewhat uniform in their onslaught, coming simply as waves.....huge, whistling waves. It was not a "haystack" kind of seaway, else we would not have made it. The total length of the bar condition was made up of perhaps thirty seas. They were olling, exchanging and replacing one another, but the actual curlers resided in the area of one mile.
When the little vessel was so low and sluggish I thought she could not endure two more seas, they began to slacken. Less water came aboard, and after some minutes we even gained against it. I looked up to see the crashing chaos that was the bar, to leeward, and to windward naught but a black, ugly, chilling ocean. We'd crossed that bar and were well offshore.
The curtain of night began to draw itself down upon us.. The wind howled through our tiny wire stays.. The sea moved and writhed as though she had some sinister power beyond the wind. I felt the most peculiar despair...beyond hopelessness...a separation from humanity. I felt the need to reach out to the tiny lights so far across that ragged horizon, to tell them we were "here"...cold and lost in the dark...come fetch us home...
The seaway offshore was still rough. Had we encountered such seas immediately upon putting out from a port, we would have quickly darted back to safety thinking no vessel could ever live in such a state. But after the bar.....these pithy thirty footers were welcome and reassuring.
Continue to Part Two
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