"Isn't this a little silly? I can arrange transportation for you without going to all that trouble."
"It's the arranging that's the problem, Mr. Shearing. Just who in hell do you trust, and of those, who can I trust? Besides, we have to keep out of sight for a couple of weeks anyway. I can't think of a better way to do it."
Sitting in Neah Bay, I could think of a hell of a lot better ways to stay out of sight. We'd used up five days getting there, and we were running short of time. Out there was a Pacific storm, nothing really bad, but not something you want to go out in. I thought of the alternative of calling Shearing and having somebody come get us, but there was a problem with that: besides Shearing's man, who else might show up? Remembering that Pontiac pulling up behind us, and the glass spattering all over me, there wasn't much choice in the matter. I went below to check the storm sails.
Chapter Seven
The wind was blowing about twenty knots from the northwest and the sun was bright when we put out. Steen had got his hot shower, and I'd run my clothes through the dryer, but there hadn't been time for me to be sybaritic with the hot water. A shot of rum chased down by beer gave me the illusion of being warm, but that wouldn't last. Despite the sun, the wind was cold.
I was a little worried when we went past the Coast Guard station. They might send somebody to remind us about the storm. Because of that possibility, I lost a half hour sailing back down the Straits to give them the idea that we were running for Seattle and home base before we turned and beat back straight into the wind, using the motor to help us point higher. The sun was almost down when we sighted Tattoosh Island, a little granite bubble about a mile off Cape Flattery's wooded hills, looking alone and defenseless in the yellow twilight. The Coast Guard light there looked inviting and safe on its rocky base above the water, but surf was already pounding against the base of Tattoosh, throwing spray a hundred feet into the air. The Coast Guardsmen would get wet going from their white wooden barracks to the light spire.
In that weather we didn't dare use the little channel between Tattoosh and Flattery, but I wouldn't have anyway. What I wanted was sea room and lots of it. With a boat the size of Witch there's little chance that the wind and sea alone can do anything to her if you know what you're doing. The real danger is being run onto something hard, like land, mud, rocks, and the shore in general, and there was plenty of that around the lonely coast. We could be forced ashore by wind and sea, driven against rocks to leeward. Fire, fog, and a lee shore were the ancient fears of the old sea dogs, and things haven't changed much for the modern sailboat skipper.
We were ten miles off shore before dark, running almost broadside to the wind which had risen to thirty knots and was getting colder. Witch swooped along, enjoying herself, the waves lifting her high in the air, holding her there for an instant, then letting her slide sidewise into the troughs. There were high waves with big foaming whitecaps, but no breakers. It's only in places like Juan de Fuca that you get real breakers in less than a gale.
There was no chance of a hot dinner. Neither Steen nor I was up to making the stove work in that violent motion. I couldn't keep the pot on the stove without holding it, and I needed both hands to keep from being thrown in the cook fire. Steen didn't dare even go below. The change from the short chop of the straits to the long pendular up and down, up and down, of the Pacific was turning him slightly green. He huddled miserably in a corner of the cockpit.
"Take the helm," I told him.
"Uh, yes, but I'm, well, I'm not really up to it . . ."
"You'll feel better with something to do. Watch the horizon, just glance at the compass enough to keep us on course. Southwest as long as we can hold it." I waited for him to sit beside me on the stern seat, let him get the feel of the tiller before I let go. Witch was really lively, with the seas trying to throw her off it was difficult to hold a course. She had a weather helm that nearly tore your arm off. The wind was picking up, with each gust it didn't die back but blew harder, and I kept an eye out to windward. I didn't like the dark clouds out there at all. Overhead the sky was clear, a few stars visible in the last twilight, but to windward everything was ink black, no sign of sunset at all, giving an unshakable feeling of doom rushing down on us.
"Time to shorten sail," I told him. "I'm going to get the storm staysail up while there's still a little light." Actually I had cut that pretty fine, but I wanted to carry all the sail we could to get enough sea room to run away from the storm.
Going up on the foredeck was no picnic. I struggled into all my gear, waterproof trousers and jacket, sou'wester, sea boots, and put a horsecollar life jacket on over the whole mess. Not that it would do me any good; if I went overboard the chances of Steen being able to maneuver the boat in the rising seas after dark were just about nil. I passed a line around my waist, tied a bowline and used the free end to pass between my legs, up over my shoulder and back to the knot so that I was encased in a rough harness. The other end had a clip on it and I hooked it on the wire guard rail, praying that I wouldn't have to test the strength of that rail by being dragged through the water.
It took determination to leave the relative safety of the cockpit and go forward, even though I knew it had to be done. The one real danger, other than the wind shifting directly on shore and blowing us on the rocks, would be dismasting. With too much sail a strong gust might carry something away, and there would be nothing we could do after that. I kept telling myself that, but the foredeck looked awfully small and wet and was plunging around like a roller coaster.
Once I got out on it, it wasn't as bad as it had looked, of course. Things almost never are. Yet, in one way, it was worse. The soaked teak decks had got some oil spilled on them somewhere, or maybe there was some on the soles of my boots, and my feet wouldn't grip. There's only one really safe footwear on teak decks, bare feet, but in that cold I wasn't about to take my boots off. The very thought of it curled my feet into hard little balls.
The wind was rising and kept trying to tear the sail out of my hands, and the stiff salt-soaked Dacron fought me like a maddened sea ray. I'd get some stuffed into the bag and the wind would blow it out again, while with just the jib and no staysail Steen was having trouble keeping his course, letting her wander off down wind, then point too high into the seas so that gray water rushed across the deck. I couldn't blame him but I could wish for a little experience at the helm while I changed sails. Eventually I got the storm staysail up and the others down and bagged, tied lines onto the sail bags and tossed them back into the cockpit, secured all the loose halyards and used the bow mooring line to lash down the spinnaker pole and boat hook. We were as ready for the gale as we'd ever be, and none too soon. The black clouds to windward were rushing down on us with their message of doom that stayed all too real despite our feeble efforts to joke about it. Intellectually I knew we were safe, in for a rough time but no worse than a lot of small-boat sailors have weathered, but it's hard to be intellectual when the ocean is so big and you're in a tiny boat. In the dark the waves looked enormous, and I thought I heard breakers now and then.
Steen did look better. The work of steering had forced him to think about something other than his own misery. Unfortunately, the motion of the boat was getting to me now, which made me mad. I never got seasick. Well, hardly ever. But I never set out into a gale without a hot meal, wearing damp clothes and wet boots and not having enough sleep, either. I thought about Dramamine, but I couldn't risk the drowsiness that comes with it. Better to be seasick than asleep, I decided. I could get the boat through the storm but Steen couldn't alone.
About midnight the real storm hit us. Until then we'd had squalls, gusts so strong the foam blew up from the sea and splattered across the deck in sheets, salt water mixed with sleet, the sky overhead as black as paint, then the wind would die away again to forty knots, letting us claw away from shore until the next one hit. Then, unexpected after we'd become used to the squalls, the wind rose to an insane fury, screaming through the rigging
and heeling the boat way over until the close-hauled boom was nearly in the water. I leaped at the sail, clawing down the main and wrapping lines around it while it flapped and fought me, the wind trying to throw me off my perch on the cabin top into the dark foam all around us. After the main the storm staysail was easy, and I dragged the thick canvas back into the cockpit before stuffing it into the bag. We ran down wind under bare poles, and I prayed we had enough sea room to keep off the rocks, but we'd never do it that way. We lashed the helm to leeward, getting Witch to lie nearly beam on to the sea, heeled right over with the water breaking all around us. Heavy water came aboard, breaking just at the cockpit and filling it, drenching us through our oilskins as the chilly brine found its way through every opening in our clothes.
Frantically I ran below, tore through the gear in the locker under the bunks in the forepeak, found the sea anchor and bent on my heaviest mooring line, my fingers thick with cold and almost unable to tie a knot we could trust our lives to. While I was paying it out over the stern we took another breaker, and I knew we couldn't lie beam on to that sea any longer.
The sea anchor got Witch stern on to the seas and I lashed the tiller to port, bringing the storm onto our quarter, trying to keep out from shore as much as I could. Exactly stern on to the waves she rode easily, but as soon as we tried to work across the storm waves broke against the transom, filling the cockpit and threatening to come below. We had more sleet now, laying across the deck until everything was covered with it, a sheet of ice crystals laying there until another wave broke across us to wash it away.
The noise was unbearable. The wind set every line as taut as a violin string, and something developed a rhythmic thump! thump! that we never could find, making us wonder if the mast was coming out and conjure up imaginary disasters below the waterline. Below, the sound of water rushing past the hull was deceiving, and three or four times an hour I would lift the floorboards, looking for the leak I was sure we had developed, but each time the water level was about the same, only a little being added when we'd get another sea in the cockpit and there would be a trickle around the scupper hoses. Witch was doing fine, but her crew was nearly finished, our teeth chattering with cold and nervous exhaustion, every movement an agony. By four a.m. I was ready to face a dozen Pontiacs and men with guns, to fight any danger that you could shoot back at. Here we could do nothing, it had all been done. With all sail down and the sea anchor set, Witch drifted to leeward making about two knots toward the shore no more than ten miles away, and I couldn't tell how close the rocks were. When we'd attempt to steer away from shore we brought heavy water aboard, too much even for Witch's sturdy construction. I kept the radio on, listening to weather reports, not surprised to hear that the small craft warnings had been replaced by gale warnings from Tattoosh to Cape Blanco. To make it worse, I had to have some rest. Steen didn't know how to deal with an emergency, and in my condition I couldn't. Finally I went below, leaving him out there to keep watch and try to steer between breakers, sitting proud and alone in the stern singing old Viking songs to keep awake while I tossed fitfully in the bunk. It was the longest night of our lives.
But morning came at last, a lovely day with bright sun to show us a good three miles off shore. The wind veered more north than west and drooped to forty knots. We brought in the sea anchor, turned southwest by south under storm staysail and double-reefed main, glad to see the coast drop away rapidly as Witch tore along at a good eight knots in the quartering wind. On our first full day at sea, despite the night we'd spent under bare poles with the sea anchor out, we made a hundred miles.
In a way it was as well that the worst was over the first night. From there south things were better. We ran into another storm off Astoria, deciding us against putting in there for supplies although I hadn't really wanted to anyway. The Columbia River mouth bar is a graveyard of ships and I wanted nothing to do with it if I could avoid it, and certainly not in a storm although the temptation to find a quiet anchorage was strong.
We ran out of beer about then, and other supplies were getting low, but I didn't have charts for the whole coast. There wasn't any real need for charts as long as I didn't put in, and we didn't see land at all, keeping fifty miles out for enough sea room to ride out anything we were likely to meet. Witch ran beautifully before a following wind, clipping off a hundred and forty miles a day with no strain, and with that lovely northwest wind I didn't want to run to port and lose it. Our big problem was sleep. Somebody had to be at the helm at all times, and three-hour shifts off watch just aren't long enough to get proper rest. Steen was an iron man, taking long tricks at the tiller, but I could never relax completely even though he had the helm. We learned to sleep whenever we could, the man off duty leaning against the back of the cabin, talking to the helmsman, then his chin would drop and off he'd go for a few minutes.
From what I remembered the only harbor south of the Columbia River was Crescent City until San Francisco, and the storm off Astoria carried us past that, while San Francisco was altogether too large a city to be seen in. We passed outside the Farraion Islands on the night of the sixth day, and by dawn we were off Monterey Bay. I put the helm over and headed for Carmel, easy to find without charts. There were tourists in the city, and nobody paid any attention to a couple of bearded characters in old clothes wandering through the little shops, eating at restaurants and buying groceries. Steen wanted to stay ashore for the night but I talked him out of it, and about midnight we put out to sea again, bucking the strong on-shore wind that seems to blow in that region all the time. Along the shore they have little wind-screen fences to protect the trees from it. Our course ran east of south now, taking us along highway one, which should have been great scenery if we'd been close enough to see it, but with that strong on-shore wind and fog I kept well out to sea.
I was a little nervous about rounding Point Concepcion. The Coast Pilot called it the Cape Horn of California and warned that there were always strong winds there, but it wasn't bad at all when we got to it. We took the inside channel, and nine days after we left Neah Bay, fourteen days out of Seattle, we anchored off the coast of Anacapa Island in a little protected bay off shore from the park ranger station. A couple of overnighters from the mainland were there with us and one showed altogether too much curiosity about our Washington registration number. We told him some story, I don't remember what. By that time we were ready to say the most fantastic things to people anyway.
We lay in there for two days, drying everything, cleaning up the boat, catching up on sleep, taking short cruises around the island and rowing ashore in the dinghy. We climbed the steep sides of brown parched hills and had our clothes and skin thoroughly punctured by a devil-plant cactus, a little ball of spikes that seems to jump at you. When you get one on you it sticks to whatever you use to take it off like the magical glue of the old Katzenjammer cartoons until finally you have to find something you're willing to throw away and use that. Even then if you aren't careful it will jump back on you and you have to start over.
Anacapa Island is a national monument, three hills jutting out of the sea twenty miles south of Oxnard. At high tide it is three separate islands, or as near to that as makes no difference, but you couldn't sail between them with a rowboat. Bull seals keep their harems on the lee side, and the hills are covered with devil-plant and a sunflower that looks like something that ought to grow on the moon. There is a big lighthouse at one end, with a complex of buildings, but it's been abandoned now, the light made into an automated signal. I wondered about that—with so many people unemployed in this country why do we have to eliminate the old romantic jobs? An automatic light can't throw a line to a fishing boat run on the rocks, or see a ship in trouble and radio for help, and it can't save that much money over the needs of the kind of man who would be a lighthouse keeper. Every summer the Forest Service sends dozens off to fire stations, surely we could man posts like Anacapa? It would be dignified work for a man who couldn't find anything else. But we don't a
nd the only people on Anacapa are two rangers who have a Quonset hut at the other end of the island chain.
The weather was warm, and the wind died out at night, leaving the water calm until morning when a little riffle would show, the wind slowly building up to the steady fifteen-knots northwest wind of the afternoon, dying away again at night. Our second night we were sitting below, drinking beer and feeling pleased with ourselves, when there was a flurry of splashing in the water outside followed by a clatter on deck. We rushed up to see a flying fish about eighteen inches long flopping on the foredeck. I picked it up, spread the wing fins, which looked like the webbed feet of a frog. It was really a beautiful thing. I'm told they're good to eat but this was the first one I'd ever seen, and I tossed it gently over the side, watched it swim in a furious circle leaving a bright phosphorescent trail before darting off. Every disturbance in the water produced a bright flash of light, and when the tide streamed past the anchor rope it made a silver ribbon stretching out to the depths. Chinese communists and the cold war seemed a long way away.
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