The Boat Who Wouldn't Float

by Farley Mowat

  I can only recall two bright moments. One was when, in a state of blind fury, I forced my way into the office of the governor of the islands and had the pleasure of calling His Excellency an s.o.b. (he refrained from having me arrested, as he might reasonably have done, contenting himself with having me frog-marched out the door). The other bright moment was when the pirates presented me with their bills for salvage and repairs and I not only refused to sign them on behalf of the insurance company, but publicly recommended (with appropriate gestures) that they use the bills to relieve a temporary shortage of absorbent paper which was then plaguing the islands.

  This dark interlude came to an end in the last week of July when Claire arrived. Suddenly the sun shone (quite literally: there had been almost constant fog since my arrival). Itchy was moderately clean again (although we kept finding deposits of St. Pierre, sewage in hidden corners for the next several months); she had been fitted with a new and reliable diesel engine, replacing the horrible bullgine; her bunks had been enlarged, and she was at least as tight as she had ever been. Claire’s presence dissolved the bitterness in my soul and I sought out my erstwhile St. Pierre friends and made my peace with them.

  Martin, Théo, and Paul (who had not really gone to the West Indies) were so relieved at the rapprochement that they threw a party for us. It was a good party, and when Claire and I set out to return to Itchy—launched now, and lying alongside Paulo’s boat again—we were in a gay mood.

  I have not previously mentioned that Itchy lacked toilet facilities. The truth is that I had never thought about installing them because, until Claire’s coming, they would have been redundant. The bob chains forward, and the bumpkin aft, provided adequate comfort in an open-air environment. For men.

  Having boarded the ship I went below to light the lamps, leaving Claire the privacy of the dark and slippery decks. Soon I heard a mammoth splash and rushed on deck with a flashlight to find her small, white face bobbing in the black, oily waters alongside. She was not alone. A few feet away my flashlight beam picked up the grinning gape of a cat that had died hard, and died a long, long time ago. Fortunately Claire had sense enough to keep her mouth shut. Had she swallowed any of the water of the inner harbour it is possible my story would have ended on a tragic note.

  Rescuing her was something of a task because, as she pointed out when she was finally dragged, dripping and furious, on to the deck, “Nobody can swim with their slacks down around their ankles!” In truth, she must have found it a harrowing experience, but when she had been taken up to Paulo’s, hot-bathed, fortified with brandy, and given clean clothes, her good nature reasserted itself, In fact, I was so pleased with her that I redesigned the forepeak of the schooner so that there would be room for a small convenience, “Ladies, for the use of.”

  Although the general situation in St. Pierre had now become comparatively pleasant, there was one sore spot left and it grew steadily worse until it threatened to erupt into serious trouble. The local pirates were demanding immediate payment in full, and were adamantly opposed to a negotiated settlement. I, on the other hand, was equally determined not to authorize payment of a single sou until they modified their demands. Things came to a head when an avocat appeared on board to tell me that unless I paid up, and at once, he would slap a blanket on the schooner. This is a nautical phrase, which means the arrest of a boat and her delivery into the hands of a bailiff.

  My reaction can be imagined. I had already lost almost two months’ sailing time because of the machinations of the St. Pierrais, and I was double-damned if I was going to lose so much as another day. Nor was I going to pay what amounted to an exorbitant ransom for Itchy’s freedom. I devised a counter-ploy.

  Under the pretext of testing the new engine I announced my intention of making a short run down the North Channel. To allay suspicions (the pirates were a deeply suspicious lot who kept Itchy under close scrutiny), I did not apply at the customs-house for a clearance. I did invite several island friends to come along for a joy ride; their presence being calculated to guarantee that I was not about to make a break for far horizons.

  Only one St. Pierrais was privy to my real intentions—not that I couldn’t trust the discretion of my other friends (I couldn’t), but because I did not need their witting help. The man whose co-operation I required (and to protect the guilty he shall remain nameless), was under sufficient obligation to me to warrant my trust.

  Early in the morning we let go our lines and motored gaily out of the harbour. Half an hour later, off Colombier, we encountered a dory that was apparently experiencing engine trouble. I put Itchy alongside, and informed my surprised guests that they had better board the dory immediately—unless they wanted to be carried to Nova Scotia, whither, I told them, I was now bound. They were so dumbfounded they departed with only token protests.

  Itchy had only three miles to go to escape from French territorial waters, and within the hour we were safe on the high seas. My one regret is that I was not present when the brigand band discovered we had escaped them.

  The bills were eventually settled—after two years of argument. The sum paid by the insurance company was about a third what had been demanded. It may be thought I would never dare show my face on St. Pierre again. Not so. When I returned three years after the event to make a film about the islands, one of the worst of the pirates was the first man to buy me a drink. Far from holding a grudge, these gentlemen welcomed me like a returning prodigal. Being a WASP, born and bred, I suppose I will never understand the Gallic point of view.

  As a result of the spring mix-up, plans for the season’s voyage had to be radically altered. There was not sufficient time remaining to allow for a major off-shore voyage. Also there was the fact that Claire, smart and able as she was, could only be classed as a “green hand,” not yet ripe enough to dare the ocean main. I therefore proposed that we spend what was left of the summer cruising west along the southern coast of Newfoundland with Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, as our objective. Cape Breton, being Scots, seemed like a safe place to leave Itchy for the winter, as well as representing an ideal departure point for a major voyage the following year.

  Beyond the stark reefs called Les Enfants Perdus we hoisted sail and made a pleasant passage across Fortune Bay, skirting Pass Island, and holding to the west until we were well clear of the area usually patrolled by Blue Iris. Policemen have long memories, and their sense of humour cannot always be relied upon.

  Probably because I had forgotten to pour the customary libation to the Old Man, the weather turned against us, and a sou’west storm forced us to run for the shelter of Pushthrough, a little outport lying at the western mouth of a maze of great fiords called Bay d’Espoir.

  This diversion proved to be a fatal move as far as our plans were concerned. Blinding fog and/or sou’west gales and pouring rain kept us glued to the Pushthrough wharf. There we entertained many local residents, one of whom told us how the place got its name.

  The settlement is divided into two parts by a narrow channel, or tickle. One night, long, long ago, a giant blue whale made the mistake of trying to take a shortcut through the tickle, and got stranded. He was in trouble, but so were the human residents. They knew that if he died and decomposed where he was, there would be no living in the place for years to come. Either he or the people had to go. After some futile attempts to tow him out backwards with rowboats (there were no engines in those days) the entire population waded out into the tickle—and pushed him through.

  Pushthrough gave Claire her first experience of housekeeping on a small boat under conditions of real adversity. Because Itchy’s decks were almost as porous as her hull, the interior of the cabin quickly became saturated, and stayed that way through the next seven days of almost constant rain and fog. An astounding variety of moulds and other fungi began to flourish in the cabin. Claire’s sotto voce comments as she scraped an inch of green fuzz off the bacon, the bread, or the butter, suggested that her private school education had been much more ca
tholic in content than I had previously suspected.

  On the day she found a thick layer of gelatinous blue mould inside her slippers after she had put them on her bare feet, she surpassed herself. I lay on my soggy bunk and chortled, until she rounded on me.

  “Go ahead,” she snarled. “Laugh your fool head off! And when you get done, take a look at yourself in the mirror.”

  Intrigued, I wiped the moisture off the mirror and peered into it. There was no doubt about it: my reddish beard had developed a distinctly greenish cast.

  For fear of becoming fungi-food before our time, we fled from Pushthrough into the fog-and-storm-free inner fiords of Bay d’Espoir, seeking warmth and sunshine. We found both, and as we penetrated deeper into the mysterious recesses of the bay we became so enamoured of its many inlets, hidden harbours, rock-walled runs, and majestic scenery that it was not until the end of August that we bethought ourselves of continuing our western voyage.

  The bay is called Bay d’Espoir only on modern maps; to the people who live near it, it is Bay Despair. But its original name was Bay d’Esprit, given to it perhaps four hundred years ago by French fishermen-settlers. This is a true name, for it is a haunted place—haunted by memories of the past when each of its innumerable coves held a handful of families of French, Jersey, English, or Micmac Indian origin; and haunted too by the pathetic shades of the Red Indians, the Beothuks, who were slaughtered to the last man, woman, and child by English settlers.

  At the time we cruised its dark waters the great bay was almost devoid of human life. Pass-My-Can Island, Harbour le Gallais, Great Jervais, Roti Bay, Barasway de Cerf, The Locker, Snooks Cove, Jack Damp Cove, Lampidoes Passage—all, all were empty; an omen of the politically ordained future which will soon see most of Newfoundland’s remaining people concentrated in a few score “industrial,” and mostly inland, towns on the modern urban model.

  Only at Head of the Bay, forty miles from the open sea that once gave them their life and sustenance, were there any people. And this was truly Bay Despair. Here in the depressed villages of Milltown, St. Alban’s, Morristown, were the descendants of the sea-dwellers, lured to these sad places decades ago by the labour recruiters of an international pulp and paper company which needed cheap labour in the woods. When the cream of the pulpwood had been cut, the company pulled out without a thought for the dislocated lives it was leaving behind. It is an old story, told too many times—still being told. The story of the manipulation of simple people, and the rape of the land itself, by men devoid of conscience.

  Late in September, when we finally roused ourselves to make another attempt to sail westward toward Cape Breton, Itchy absolutely refused to co-operate.

  Ever since she had rounded Cape Race on her maiden voyage she had shown a singular reluctance to sail west. I think she may have guessed, from the first days when I became her owner, that it was my eventual intention to separate her from her native shores, and she had made up her mind to thwart me. It must have been so, for nothing else can possibly explain her behaviour whenever we turned her bows westward; or even threatened to do so.

  On the day we planned to leave Head of the Bay Itchy refused to go into gear (the new engine was equipped with a three-speed gearbox). We took the whole gearbox apart-a mammoth task—and found not a thing at fault: When we reassembled it the gear shift worked, but Itchy had meanwhile slackened her keel fastenings and had begun to leak so prodigiously that we had no choice except to haul her out on the beach at Milltown.

  And there we had to leave her for the winter.

  The following summer we made another attempt to force her to the westward. Although she resisted mightily, we managed, by stubborn perseverance, to get her as far west as the island archipelago of Burgeo, about midway along the southwest coast, and some eighty miles from Bay d’Espoir. This struggle exhausted me in body and in spirit, and when, just off the Burgeo Islands, she literally pulled out all the stops and began to sink again, I headed in for the land in a state of sullen rage.

  There were no facilities for hauling her out at Burgeo so we spent days frigging around trying to staunch the leaks from within, and making no progress. One morning we awoke to the realization that again the sailing season was at an end, and that we were not going to get Itchy an inch beyond Burgeo that year.

  I have occasionally been accused of being pig-headed, but the epithet is undeserved. If I am anything, I am a moderate, calm, and reasonable man. Which is why I said to Claire:

  “No bloody boat is going to beat me. If she stays here this winter, we stay too. We’ll watch her like a hawk. And when spring comes I’ll have her in such shape she won’t be able to pull any more of her damn tricks, at least until we get her to Nova Scotia. What do you say?”

  “Why not?” said Claire, being the kind of woman who is game for anything.

  I set about making arrangements for winter storage for the vessel, while Claire went off and found a house for us at Messers Cove, which lies on the western extremity of the Burgeo community.

  The house she found was small and snug, perched on a bold rock overlooking the open sea where it was swept by living spray during sou’west gales. Claire also found a new member for our family. This was Albert, a young black water-dog from Grand Bruit; of the same lineage as Blanche, the shipyard dog of St. Pierre.

  Some of the effects of our decision were remarkable. Itchy promptly stopped leaking (well, almost). For want of a place to haul her out, we had to moor her for the winter in a cove where there was a lot of ice movement; yet she went through the winter without taking the least damage and emerged in spring in perfect working order. From being our intractable and bloody-minded adversary, she had become a docile and loving little boat—until the June day we tried to start west again.

  Despite my generous libations to the Old Man of the Sea, Happy Adventure (she had reverted to her original name) evidently had much more influence with him than I did. She used her influence shamelessly. Every time we put out from Burgeo we ran into westerly gales, impenetrable fog, massive seas, or all three at the same time. Furthermore, every time we tried to head west something went wrong with the engine, the rigging, the hull; or else the leaks reappeared as ship-born gushers.

  After three weeks of constant defeats Claire and I felt we needed a rest and we decided to sail to the nearby settlement of Jerts Cove, huddled under the massive cliffs of the Grey River fiord. We intended to spend a few days visiting a friend who lived there, resting our bodies and restoring our spirits before again tackling the western voyage.

  Grey River lies east of Burgeo and Happy Adventure went eastward as happily as a bird on the wing. But when we tried to return to Burgeo we ran into a heavy gale. Happy Adventure parted her forestay, dirt got into the injectors and killed the engine, and we were forced to turn and run before the wind and seas. We did not regain the land until we reached Richards Harbour, sixty miles east of Burgeo.

  It was then the middle of July and I was beginning to realize how completely outclassed I was in this battle of wills. When we put out of Richards Harbour, and promptly lost our way (the compass began acting wildly) in a heavy fog, I resignedly let my stubborn little vessel have her head, and she took us into Bay d’Espoir. We bowed to fate and gave up the unequal battle for the year.

  There are much worse fates than having to spend a summer in that seductive bay. As we became increasingly familiar with its intricacies we reaped special rewards. One of these was when we penetrated into Conne River, and encountered the last remaining settlement of Micmac Indians to live in Newfoundland. One couple, Michael John and his blind wife, adopted us, treating us as their own children. Michael, then nearing eighty, but still as tough as basalt, told us ageless tales of his people and of the vanished Red Indians—tales no white man had heard before, perhaps. He gave us a vivid but heart-breaking glimpse into an older world and, it may be, a better one than ours.

  We also met again a certain robust pair of brothers from Hermitage Bay who were the only men
actively fishing in Bay d’Espoir. Whenever we ran across them, which was often, they came alongside and loaded us up with redfish, lobsters, salmon, cod, and big sea trout. They also solved the problem arising from the absence of a convenient liquor store.

  Bay d’Espoir fed us surpassingly well. In Harbour le Gallais we would strip off at low tide and wade about collecting blue mussels, horse mussels, soft-shelled clams, and dainty scallops, or we would borrow a few lobster pots and use them to catch a meal of crabs.

  There was one particularly memorable occasion when we were moored in a glorious little harbour at Raymond Point. Late at night Claire and I were lying cosily on our bunks reading by lamplight. Albert had gone ashore and was sniffing and snoofing at the water’s edge. We heard a mighty splash and a few moments later his claws clattered on the deck. He dropped something squishy in the cockpit, then went ashore, and again we heard a splash.

  Curious, I climbed the companion ladder with a flashlight and was in time to meet him coming back aboard with a two-foot-long squid squirming in his mouth, its tentacles flailing in futile protest and curling limply around his ink-bespattered muzzle.

  Great schools of squid were then running up the bay and Albert, being a fishing dog without prejudices, had decided to catch a mess of them. His procedure was to sit on the end of a nearby abandoned wharf and wait for the phosphorescent flash as a squid surfaced close to him. Then he leapt, a full-bodied dive that carried him far under the surface. He did not get every squid he tried for, but before I went to bed he had caught seven of the strange, big-eyed beasts.