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ROUGH BAR

Part Two

 

We bailed a little, talked less. The thought of the Coast Guard boat was some consolation-- not alot. As captain of a rescue tug, I'd had innumerable encounters with Coast Guard resources-- many, disappointing. Still we held on to that uncertain thread of hope.

The ebb current carried us far offshore, to a point where its influence began to wane and that of the wind began to win over. We drifted northward a mile or two, away from that emptying river; that eased the seas somewhat, though the storm showed every indication of increasing in strength. The seas became longer and with a greater period, yet they increased again in height.

I sprang upon the notion that the rough seas may have loosed that rag in the fuel tank, putting it in such a position that we could finally snag it out. Shorty fetched a flashlight and I went to work with the clothes hangar. But Shorty was convinced that if he held the flashlight too close to the fuel tank filler it would explode the boat. I argued, reasoned, tried to explain that the bulb was sealed, and that no actual spark could escape it to ignite the fumes-- besides it was blowing thirty five knots-- the fumes weren't hanging around. But Shorty couldn't see the logic of it, and I was left to fish in the dark for that ridiculous rag.

I did manage to snag it once or twice. ---Couldn't catch it up, but I realized it was only intermittently covering the fuel pick-up line in the bottom of the tank. I told Shorty to "Let 'er fly!" He did so, and the engine caught, coughed, and sputtered to life. And at that instant so did our hopes.

Shorty motioned me to the wheel, and I gladly accepted. I engaged forward gear and set off to have another look at that bar. If we'd made it across outbound with no steerage, perhaps we'd make it inbound with an engine and a rudder.

Somehow, she was a markedly less seaworthy boat underweigh than lying dead in the water. I fought her wheel as she sheered and tried to broach on the face of every following sea. Her screw was small and designed to turn fast-- she needed huge applications of power and rudder, stop to stop, to control her. We moved gingerly along, creeping, playing every sea to make her go a direction we wanted. The wind increased and as we neared the bar the seas became steeper and more menacing. A quick check of the current table showed that we were approaching maximum ebb in an hour and a half. Seas would become positively evil in that time. There would be no hope of crossing the bar for at least three hours, and if the storm became much worse, perhaps not even then. Hopelessness settled back into my thinking.. I recall wondering if this was finally it.

Suddenly Shorty stood up and shouted over the wind, "The Coast Guard-- there they are!"

I jerked my head, and sure enough, our savior was busting out through those towering seas, hell bent for leather. My God. Our Coast Guard. I felt the same pride and lump in my throat a military man feels when he snaps to attention to the call of the "Star Spangled Banner". I could have kissed that crew-- squarely on the mouth.

But after a few moments Shorty asked innocuously, "Where're they headed?"

I looked. Where were they headed..? Oh-- slightly off course, I thought. Never to worry.. I switched on the C.B. and called the REACT station again. Thank God we hadn't drifted out of range. They answered up loud and clear-- I advised: "Have the cutter alter course thirty degrees to THEIR port, will you?"

"Roger," came back. "Understand, you want the Coast Guard vessel to change course thirty degrees to THEIR port, is that correct?"

"That's a roger," I replied, thankful that we hadn't been subjected to some Abbot and Costello routine of lefts and right, ports and starboards and WHOSE and WHATs..

Watching the cutter, there was an appropriate delay in action-- I envisioned the orders being relayed to the station, then to the searching cutter. I could almost hear their transmissions go out through the night.

Then the cutter altered his course-- thirty degrees to MY port, and went romping off into the murk.

I grabbed the mike to issue a new course; my finger tightened on the key-- and with a start I realized the engine was silent. We were about to broach and capsize. Throwing down the mike, I hit the starter button--

RRrrrrr--- click click click click click...

I snatched the mike to relay the message that we were indeed in serious trouble now.... But as I keyed up, the little light in the meter box pulsed, then went out. The whole ship was dead.

Shorty scrambled below to wrestle with his mizmaze of wires. I grabbed a rail to steady myself against the now vicious lurches of the tiny boat. And I watched dumbfounded as the flashing blue light of the cutter disappeared over the horizon in a frenzy of spray and busting seas, not to be seen again, that night.

For another hour we bobbed and rolled; we were thrown against every sharp point of the inside of that boat. We bailed-- though we scarcely knew why we bothered. I thought of knocking Shorty alongside the head and bloody well taking that life jacket. He was a smallish man. I could have done it. But honestly, it was a passing fancy.

The ebb grew stronger and pushed us once more beyond its influence. We drifted north again, until we could no longer see the lights of Westport. I could hear Shorty retching in that stinking little cuddy cabin. I chuckled. Then one solid laugh slipped out. Shorty stopped retching for a moment to listen; then resumed.

Finally he announced, "Let 'er fly".

Bloody well yes, I thought. Let what fly?

"Let 'er fly!" he repeated.

Oh--! I hit the starter..

Rrrr...rrr...rrr...rrrrr.....rrrrrrr.......rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr--

He'd hooked the two batteries together to give the system twenty four volts, but it still wasn't enough to turn the engine fast enough to start it. Quickly Shorty produced a hand crank. The engine was of such displacement that it could not be cranked by muscle alone, but with the help of the batteries....

"Let 'er fly!"

I did so.

Shorty cranked until I thought his arms would fly off...but it was enough to spin her, and she once again coughed hesitantly to life. Shorty darted outside again, now fully apprehensive of being trapped in that little cabin when we capsized.

By now the water was far over the floorboards. The flywheel and crankshaft pulleys were submerged, and they threw sea water around the inside of that cuddy cabin like the inside of a car wash. As it fell upon the distributor cap and wires, it caused the engine to miss and cut out. Shorty dashed below and scooped some floating blankets out of the brine, and fashioned them like small tents over the moving parts of the engine. As he did so the highly conductive salt water passed the engine spark straight into Shorty's frail figure-- he yelped like a dog every time he got a full-strength charge. I couldn't help but smile-Perhaps the little son of a bitch would be electrocuted entirely, and I'd yet get my hands on that life jacket. I increased the throttle so slightly...

A thought came into my head-- my hand shot forth and grabbed the radio's mike. I keyed it and had it almost to my mouth....its tiny light flickered, flashed brightly, then went out. Twenty four volts had proved too much, and the radio was dead for all time..

I tried to maintain a course that would minimize the seas coming aboard, and Shorty bailed like a demon. The water slowly fell back to a level even with the floorboards, and the tiny ship began to answer the helm in a more predictable way.

Shorty went aft and fiddled with that clothes hangar and the rag, but it was pitch dark, and he was merely groping. When the engine began to wheeze and to starve out, Shorty would rattle his hangar frantically around the inside of the tank, and it usually seemed to knock the rag away from the fuel intake. The engine would rev to life and we'd say our "thanks" one more time.

I motored gently into the seas for awhile, and we discussed our options.

One thing was certain; the engine would quit again. It might run an hour or a minute. But inevitably it was doomed. The generator had failed at some time during the adventure, and there was only enough spark in the batteries to power the ignition for a short time. Or the rag would again plug the fuel line, and we would not be able to remove it. When the engine failed, we would drift or capsize. Assuming the latter, the game would be over. But assuming we drifted...considering the prevailing wind we would eventually blow onto the rocks along the rugged, deadly northern coast. There would be no question of survival.

The only possible course of action was to GO-- somewhere, anywhere, while we still could go. If we motored farther off shore, then we still may capsize when the engine died. If we tried to run in through the surf to the beach, we would certainly capsize and may be pounded to death in the breakers. If we tried to cross the bar, we were in worse trouble yet. It seemed utterly hopeless, and I began to ponder not the "if" of anything, but only the method of my demise.

Shorty was on his hands and knees cursing and bailing when it came to me. It was insanely ingenious-- but daring, perhaps, enough to work. At least we'd be close ashore and they wouldn't have to look far for the bodies!

I altered course a hundred and twenty degrees, so that we ran along almost in the trough. The little boat bucked and leaped over those great, black, invisible monsters. I nursed her, but pushed her too. With a good speed of five knots, I also had steerage.

We ran south of the long, submerged south jetty, then turned and ran straight in for that shallow sandy beach. Almost immediately the breakers began to build and to break and curl. We continued on; if the engine quit from there in, we would capsize instantly.

The plan was simple: From the beach at Point Chehalis on the south shore of the entrance to Grays Harbor an exposed rock jetty extends almost a mile outward, thence a submerged jetty extends another mile to sea. The submerged jetty is close to the surface in places, deeper in other places, depending upon how far any section of it has, over the years, sunk into the silty bottom. Heavier swells break across the submerged jetty, and sometimes right over the exposed jetty as well. The worst of the bar phenomenon is contained in an area between the seaward tip of the submerged jetty, and Point Chehalis. My plan was to ride a big one, and ram the boat onto the rocks at the seaward end of the exposed jetty. From there we would crawl ashore to Westport. It seemed our only hope.

As we drove along the south side of the submerged jetty the line of break over the submerged rocks was incomprehensible. Our tiny vessel barely lived in the froth and surf that ran headlong and unobstructed to the beach-- but the seas fifty yards to leeward shown like a thousand waterfalls through the gloom of night. The engine sputtered, coughed, ran and wheezed again. Shorty stayed faithfully at the job of chasing that rag around the inside of the tank. We could show no lights for fear of draining what remained of the batteries. No one would even know a boat was in trouble out past the breakwall.

With every meter closer to the beach, the surf became heavier, steeper, taller, until finally we realized that we could not distinguish the exposed jetty from the sunken section-- it was all a line of spume and spray and disaster. The whole of it was swept by every sea, and we could not find any exposed rocks to ram her onto.

I deliberated only a minute. The engine was sputtering, we were full of water and so heavy that she might turn over at any second despite my continual bursts of power and work at the wheel. I turned hard a'port and, watching my chance, let a huge hissing wave lift us up from astern. At just the right instant I rammed full throttle, and we began a sickening slide towards that impenetrable wall of broken white seas. Shorty raised himself up from the settee when he heard the change in power. He looked sickly over the bow, then settled back down and held steady to his task, worrying that rag. I said my goodbyes, and we entered the white water that crashed over the jetty.

Instantly the bow fell into a black hole to which there seemed no bottom. A wave loomed up and in another half instant we were slammed into the back of the sea ahead. The windshield and much of the day-roof was knocked off and hit me across the face and chest. I fell back onto Shorty under hundreds of gallons of water.

I recall the violent motions of the boat as we were swatted over the jetty on the back of that wave. All the while we struggled to untangle ourselves from wreckage and to push the windshield and part of the cabin aside, then I lunged for the wheel. But it was far too late-- we were already through, and ahead lay only calmer water between ourselves and our port.

The vessel lay over on her side leaving half a foot of freeboard. I stepped to the low side with the coffee can to start throwing water over the side-- but my weight pushed the gun'wale under. I jerked back to the high side, and she reluctantly came back. Part of the bow decking was actually under, and for a moment I believed she was going down, bow first. The engine still ran, though I could see a white, foamy substance like shaving cream emerging from the oil breather cap-- she was churning up salt water and motor oil in her crank case.

I left the throttle at full power, though she barely made any headway at all against a still strong ebb along the inside of the south jetty. The current pulled her hard, trying to drag us back into the spillway-like chaos of the jetty. Seas continued to smash all the way across.

We held a course parallel to the jetty, a hundred yards to the north, but chunks of ocean hit us even there.

We moved along at a snail's pace, aware that even if the engine quit there, we would be swept back across the bar or the jetty in a matter of minutes. We nursed her, cursed her, baby'ed her and prayed for her-- that engine wheezed and clanked and spit, showing no oil pressure at all on the gauge. She missed and sputtered....almost to a stop-- but a few frantic jerks of the throttle always brought her back. And an hour later we limped broken and beaten into Shorty's little slip.

Shorty lovingly made her fast. The engine died when the throttle was pulled back to idle. We stepped off onto the dock to regard her: a smoking, steaming, creaking, miserable old hobo of a boat-- But Shorty's eyes reflected only love and gratitude. --While mine were too red from brine and oily bilge water and strain and fatigue....to show anything at all.

I'd been twenty years at sea, through three hundred rescue missions in the North Pacific. I'd served aboard sailing freighters, camp tenders in the winters of the Georgia Straits; I'd skippered long-liners off the Oregon coast and purse seiners through Washington's storms...gillnetters through Juan De Fuca's westerlies, and a troller through a seismic turbulence that claimed fourteen boats all within my view.

But never had I been through such a night.

Two days later I walked down that long, familiar float to check the lines of my own sturdy ship. Halfway there Shorty stepped out from his finger pier to block my way... My stomach tightened. I stiffened and walked on faster, resolute. But Shorty's manner was odd-- lifeless, somehow.

As I came abreast his slip I noticed an oily scum on the water where his boat had been. I didn't have to look down into the muddy grey water. I knew his ship was down there, broken and defeated by the storm.

I turned and went back up the dock to the phone.

Two hours later my crew showed up, and three hours after that Shorty's boat sat proudly in dry dock. There he could fiddle with her to his heart's content...in safety, for the rest of his days, for he should have never been allowed at sea in the first place.


And that's just what Shorty did.