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| The Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean at Astoria, Oregon, USA |
Home was in Portland, the father worked as an engineer for an optical company. Young Louis visited in the summer – he lived with his mother down south in the desert during the school year. This was the first year for the boat. Dad had built it in the garage over the winter months and spent hour after hour reading books on how to sail. Vera christened the boat "Grampy's Ark," and the name was artfully applied on the back of the transom. Louis and Vera had spent a few late June and early July days at the coast in a kitchenette unit on the beach – the boy’s allergies made the days in Portland a misery. They thought perhaps the salt air would help. Even if it didn’t, allergies were easier to ignore when at the beach. Dad worked in Portland but drove to Garibaldi with the boat for the long holiday weekend. The highlight of the week had been the July 4th fireworks show at the beach in Rockaway. But now, it was time for some serious sailing.
They arrived at the Astoria public ramp in late afternoon. Vera said she’d see them in Portland in a couple of days, and Dad and the fifteen-year-old set off up the river. There was some concern that the waters would be rough – the Columbia River bar is known for being nasty and treacherous. But that afternoon they weren’t near the bar, although the boy worried about it some. The water wasn’t bad at all, really. It was slow sailing though, as they were hard into the wind and had to tack frequently to make any progress upriver at all.
Near dusk, they were sailing past a small kidney-shaped island a few miles up the river from Astoria. They had not gotten very far, it had been really slow-going. It looked like a nice camping spot. They sailed into the little shallow bay on the concave side of the island, set up camp on the shore and secured the boat off-shore in the water nearby. They let the boat drift out into the little bay about fifty yards and secured it with two anchors on long lines stretching away from the boat at right angles, anchor flukes buried in the sands of the beach – this, it was thought, would position the boat still in water as the tide ebbed later in the evening. It was too shallow closer to the beach. In the morning, at first light, it would be easy to grab the anchor ropes and drag the boat back up to the beach to get it loaded and an early start. It was a good plan, but you know how that goes.
Supper was hot dogs boiled in beer and what was left of a sack of potato chips leftover from lunch the day before. But camp-stove food is doubly tasty when the view is of one of the country’s most scenic rivers and the surrounding shoreline. Later, a starry sky and the lapping of near-ocean waters and waves as the daylight faded past sunset-purple completed the sense of contentment and well-being. They lay in their sleeping bags for a time not too far from the shimmering embered fire, trying to hear every sound and see if any shooting stars or better yet, a few satellites, would present themselves. The softness of the sand made for comfortable, giving beds. It wasn’t long before they were asleep.
Early morning came with the sound of loggers chopping firewood on a beach – a mile or two away. The sound of the axes ricocheted across the water so strongly that it sounded like the wood cutters were close enough to share the morning coffee. Laying there listening to the ringing of the axes, it occurred to the boy that he couldn’t hear the water lapping the beach at all. He sat up and looked toward the boat.
It was still there of course. It was laying on its side on almost dry sand. It was laying on its side on almost dry sand just about a mile from any water. It was pinned like a bug to a science project by its two anchors, out near the center of what had been a bay the evening before. This morning, however, this once-a-bay was more a tidal flat. A very nearly dry tidal flat. The tide here so close to the Pacific was a bit more extreme than they’d anticipated. So much for an early start – they’d just have to wait for the river to come back to them to refloat the boat.
This took several hours, but what goes out, comes back in, sooner or later. They loaded the boat at their leisure with no reason to hurry really – and waited. This island seemed a bit smaller than it had the night before and more confining. As the water crept closer and closer they got impatient and repeatedly tried to pry the boat closer to the water with levers – good stout tree branches they picked up from the beach. But a several-hundred pound boat is difficult to move with branches, even larger ones. Once the rising water got under the keel, this became a bit easier and finally about eleven AM, which was six hours after their intended departure time, they got her back into deeper water and underway.
The wind wasn’t too strong right away and that was getting a little frustrating. What little there was came from directly astern the boat and was inconsistent in both direction and velocity. But they sailed at a somewhat steady pace upriver; the little 17-foot sloop wasn’t fast, but it was a solid boat and steady and it didn't take a lot of air to move it. The sun was shining from a clear sky and the day was warm and pretty. A little after noon, the wind got somewhat fresher. Minute by minute, growing, building, it not only got fresh, it got mean.
Still directly from the rear, it was blowing fitfully, gusting and eventually whitecaps covered the river from southern beach to northern cliff. The boat was broaching side-to-side, and it was all Dad could do to keep it headed east, the stern fish-tailing wildly with each gust and him trying to hold it with the rudder. In the midst of this, the wind began to shift from side to side, causing the boom to swing. The boy was up on the deck, fooling around with the sail, when a sudden gust and a yaw brought the boom swinging across the boat – slapping him into the river. This was a refreshing river too, as the Columbia not that far upstream begins its course as melting snow… The antics of the soggy, cold nearly-drowned boy provided no small source of entertainment for his father.
Warming up on deck again, one with a slight headache and a bump on his noggin, the other with bruises and muscles like quivering jelly from trying to hang onto a tiller with a force of its own, the hapless two began to think about putting into shore for a little while to reconsider this frolic, or at least a small R&R. Was this boat seaworthy? Did they really like sailing anyway? Was continuing this adventure necessary?
The town of Cathlamet came into view on the north bank, and it had a neat little dock just right for tying up for a while. Now docking was and is a fairly simple procedure, although timing is important. The tillerman (the Dad, Captain, or ship's master) brings the boat up steady and slow beside the dock, and the "hand" (boy) takes down the mainsail just at the right moment and as the vessel then slows to a crawl beside the dock he leaps off onto the boardwalk as it gets just right there and ties the bow and the stern to the dock cleats provided. Then you hike up the hill into town and have lunch at a nice café.
Unfortunately, the Ark rolled at the exact right moment and the salty seaman leapt off into the murky, oily thick-black waters adjacent to the Cathlamet dock, instead of onto the dock itself. Then, after motivational discussions were held concerning the critical nature of teamwork between ship's master and crew, the sailors did have that lunch. Walking up the hill into the town in the northwest summer sunshine made them feel some sort of Tom Sawyerish - Huck Finnish cheerful. Different river, different boat, maybe, but the same kind of good times. Life is pretty good when you are on your own time, on the water, in the sun.
There were still several good sailing hours left in the day and the afternoon went a little better mostly. The wind was still directly astern, but it was steadier. The sailors were finally beginning to enjoy the day and the water despite the nasty winds, the bruises to the tillerman resulting from a wildly-yawing and rolling boat, and an occasional bashing by an errant boom or a miss-step into the river. But pretty soon a couple of new opportunities presented themselves.
The annual Rose Festival had concluded that weekend in Portland and the Navy had sent a couple of warships to make a port call for the festivities, as they always do. Eager to get back to doing Navy things, these two ships left Portland that morning and by the time they reached the vicinity where the two heroes were sailing rather stolidly upriver, they were moving along pretty good. They were moving briskly. They were headed right past the sailboat in what now looked like a much narrower river.
Navy cruisers and destroyers aren’t slow ships and they have knife-edged hulls. As they slice through the water, they don’t generate the kind of rolling, gentle bow waves and wakes that slower, chubbier freighters do, nor the kind of waves and wakes that pleasure boaters can really enjoy. No, they are more akin to your tsunami. They roar down onto any nearby small sailboat more or less like a solid concrete wall at thirty knots. No amount of setting of jaw or steeling of the soul can mitigate the on-rushing freakish nightmare-horror of these five or eight foot near-vertical waves. There were two of these ships, both charging downriver toward the Pacific, one cruiser, one destroyer-escort. Two bow waves, two stern waves, one after the others. It was like having teeth knocked down your throat by a sledgehammer, four times.
That was enough for the day, I suppose. This section of river started to calm in late afternoon, once the roiling wake of the two dreadnoughts subsided; our two sailors got the Ark put back to rights and ship-shape again. About this time a narrow crescent-shaped beach presented itself against the base of a small cliff on the north shore. This cliff ended on its western-most extremity with a jutting outcrop of rock that sheltered that beach from the wind and waves. Louis worried that the beach wasn’t really wide enough to give them enough separation from the water when the tide came in – remembering the debacle they’d experienced with the receding tide the night before. But this one was rising, not ebbing. The high-water marks on the cliff-face behind them at about the six-foot-high level weren't a big confidence-builder either. But the experienced, wise and worldly father said no, it wouldn’t be that bad this far upriver; no, he was sure there wouldn’t be any problem .
So they had a great camp-stove supper of beef stew out of a can, bread and butter and Dad had a beer. Louis was necessarily content with a 7-Up. They were now far behind schedule and of course wanted to get an early start so they retired to their sleeping bags fairly early that evening, after telling and hearing the story of the wrecked freighter moored just across the water on the southern bank. The freighter, the Kaptiannis, one of Aristotle Onassis’ tubs, had tried to come across the Columbia bar the winter before without the benefit of a pilot. This all in the interest of saving a few bucks. The ship suffered a broken keel when it bottomed in the shallow water and was eventually to be written off and sold for scrap. Meanwhile, it was moored beside the Columbia west of Longview while everyone waited for its disposition by its insurers. It was silhouetted against the sunset and in the evening had a few lights along its decks, giving it a very mysterious air in the darkening night. After awhile, as things grew peaceful, the adventurers stretched out and drifted off.
It didn’t take long for the boy to fall asleep, and just the same, it didn’t seem like that much longer before he was awake again. But it wasn't morning yet and something didn’t seem right. Had he been dreaming about sailing a sleeping bag down the Columbia River, noting the passage overhead of the Astoria Bridge as his bed floated into the Pacific and off to Japan, or was it real? Aw shucks, it was real.
The incoming tide was about to claim them and slowly float them away, as it inexorably swallowed the narrow beach where they lay sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. The protective log behind which they had placed their sleeping bags was only slowing the flow of the incoming tide, and while that barrier log did keep their sleeping bags from being totally immersed, the rising water was going to eat the entire beach and that very soon. Louis woke up Dad so he could enjoy this new opportunity also. There really was only one place to go, cliff on one side, river on the other, tide marching in – so they clambered back aboard the boat and slept like babies in their soggy sleeping bags. Well, like wet babies anyway, but let's not be negative about it. It's all about the journey, right?
In the dawn, these two intrepid but weary and damp souls once again put into the main current of the Columbia to sail onward to Portland. They were not on time. They were not anywhere close to being on time. And the step-mother was worried, as relatives frequently are when their former loved-ones are such weary and damp, albeit intrepid souls, loose on the world, and tardy. She called the Coast Guard, she called the county sheriff. She drove along the banks of the river, looking for signs of the little green and white sloop. She plotted retribution on the father all the while. If he had somehow survived, she would kill him. Later in the morning, she met relatives on the Longview Public Beach for a death-vigil; she was sure now that it was not a search and rescue, but a body-recovery effort.
However, about eleven AM, the little boat hove into view. A power boat was dispatched out toward the Ark as it sailed stately past, unaware of the turmoil on the beach and the fact they had been declared overdue and missing, and as the father was about to wave it off with a torrent of special words about right-of-way rules (words heretofore unknown to the young deckhand but duly noted for future use), the operator of the Chris-Craft or whatever it was yelled across the water that "a lady onshore wanted a word."
After a tender reunion on the beach, Louis left with some relatives for a short vacation in Seattle and no sail boating, which he of course regretted, having become quite fond of it. Dad, well he survived the tête-à-tête with Vera and stayed up late that night planning another adventure on Grampy’s Ark. He might just as well have, since he wasn’t allowed in bed until he dried out. In fact, he was not permitted back into that bed for several days.
And all was not lost, after all. Sofas are at least more comfy than wet sandy beaches, are they not, and those were fun. Eventually they would get the hang of this sailing thing. He wondered was it possible, in a life well-lived, to sail a 17-foot sloop around the Horn and up to Florida? Grampy's Ark never saw Florida, but, eventually, the stars lined up fortuitously over the Columbia, the winds blew steady and the sails filled.
