During an unsought adventure on the high seas of Morro Bay Harbor, a humble implement comes to the rescue.
Charlie Hagglund waved the dipnet as though rustling butterflies. Rescued from a pier side garbage can, the implement had spent its lifetime catching fishes too large to board or too small to hook. Handle bent, hoop sagging, netting rent in several places, Charlie saw the jetsam for what it was; a business opportunity.
For a boy of thirteen Charlie’s lifestyle, while expansive, was pretty much self-supported, though partially subsidized with the small allowance provided by his Auntie Lillian as payment for the chores of maintaining yard and migration of trash. The cost of fuel for his small boat with Evinrude outboard motor, Saturday movies, and books had been covered by entrepreneurial services such as water-born grocery courier and boat washer. Recently the cost of movies had doubled, and an occasional purchase of Coca-Cola at the Morro Rock Yacht Club was adding to his cost of living. Much to his chagrin, he had befriended a girl.
Well not a girlfriend. Exactly. More like a girl-sailor-friend. Charlie had met Peggy Phillips. She knew her ropes.
Charlie gently straightened the dipnet’s bent handle in a bench vise. This he reinforced with split bamboo secured by a three-seam braided wrapping of fishnet cord. An eyelet from a discarded fishing rod was laced a third of the way up the handle from the head of the net. Cordage from hoop’s end to the eye provided standing rigging to prevent a further sagging. Torn netting was repaired free-handedly by the experienced fingers of a boy raised among commercial fishermen. He considered varnishing the fancy worked handle but decided function should rule over form. After scrubbing a half-dozen discarded five-gallon paint buckets from the dumpster of the former Starr’s Boatyard, Charlie Hagglund was in the baitfish business.
Negotiations settled per-bucket price in a handshake contract with Victor’s Landing, home port of Morro Bay’s sportfishing fleet. These vessels were known as “party boats” to working fishermen. Whether the honorific or slur came from scorn or jealousy was a topic of heated discussion on stormy days inside waterfront taverns.
Now all Charlie needed was fish and the time to catch them. He was pretty sure he could net sardines at the north end of the harbor, inboard of buoy number seven, beyond passage of which he had been forbidden. Kelp and eel grass might be a problem that he could solve in the field. He would have to start early, before sunrise even; if only “Bob’s Comet” had running-lights. Charlie was not a sailor to scoff at Coast Guard regulations. Capital investment was called for.
To avoid waking his liveaboard neighbors Charlie rowed “Bob’s Comet” canoe style until she cleared the boat basin. Oarlocks were unavailable as they provided base for two Fulton Industries ninety-degree flashlights fitted with colored filters; red for port, green for starboard. The used-up fishing rod was mounted to the forepeak bearing a penlight to give reference to those ahead. Evinrude provided stern light.
Darkness provided little challenge. Familiarity with channel and landmark eased the way to harbor’s north end. The five mile-per-hour speed limit was defeated by a stronger than normal ebb. Charlie throttled the engine back to idle, using it more for steerage than propulsion. Taking in “Bob’s Comet” to insure everything was shipshape he found buckets and dipnet secured but ready- to-hand. He made out in the shadows the brightly colored seat cushion he had purchased at an extravagant cost. It seemed to be the gentlemanly thing to provide if one was to host a young lady on a casual harbor cruise.
Drifting more than motoring gave time for dawn-dreaming. Peggy Phillips came down from Alameda with her retired Coastguardsman father to visit her uncle. That she was a temporary fixture in Charlie’s life, for she was destined to return to her home waters, was a fact for which the normally realistic side of his mind had refused to make way. Maybe he should do something special for her. Buy her flowers? Maybe a plant. An Azalea? Would an Azalea grow in Alameda? He could swing it if he got at least three buckets of baitfish. He could surprise her when they met at the yacht club later that afternoon.
Like water through a chink, reality has a way of flooding fantasy. With the uuua-haaaa of the breakwater buoy, the gentle lap of harbor wave, and the drone of the idling Evinrude, Charlie was asleep. With the cough, spurt, cough, spurt, silence, Charlie was awake. The Evinrude was asleep!
“Bob’s Comet” now broke the harbor’s speed limit by dawn’s early light completely without mechanical aid. She was mid-channel headed stern first towards the harbor entrance. Or, in this case, exit! Charlie blanched as he saw the rusty green number seven can pass by to port. Or was it starboard? He was going backward.
“Holy crapola!” he exclaimed. “Time to row!”.
If nothing else Charlie was a good ship’s rigger. Looking at the oarlocks befouled with jury-rigged running lights he gauged the amount of time left before he was swept out to the sea buoy. Could he lasso it and tie off until help came? Tying off to an aid to navigation was against regulations. But so was drowning! Besides, it wasn’t the sea that frightened him. It was the fury of his Auntie Lillian that he dreaded.
Without deep thought or analysis Charlie grabbed the dipnet and seat cushion. He incased the cushion inside the net with a hastily woven web using a healthy length of fish cord cut from a skein kept close at hand for just such emergencies. Locking the Evinrude in place he fashioned a yoke of cordage to the traitor Evinrude’s throttle arm. He managed to slip the dipnet’s handle through the yoke by holding the hoop upright. Once net was submerged he began to scull the boat shoreward.
Ebb dragged “Bob’s Comet” with leaches’ suck. Charlie prayed that cordage and repaired dipnet would hold up under the strain. He didn’t choose which side of the harbor, mainland or spit, he aimed for. Tide and current made that decision for him.
Reaching the onshore edge of the outgoing stream, tide relinquished its hold and current took over. Safe from being taken to sea Charlie now faced the prospect of being washed up against the jagged rocks of the south jetty. Just before contact he abandoned ship. He found himself standing waist-deep on a sandy bottom. He felt a wriggle beneath one foot. A fish escaped his trod. Flatty or leopard shark? Not waiting to find out Charlie pulled the boat ashore. A breaking wave completed his soaking.
“Shipwrecked, castaway, and on the wrong side of the harbor. Things have just got to get better,” Charlie thought but did not say.
Wet, a little cold, but otherwise unharmed he assessed his situation. He had about four, maybe five hours until slack tide would allow him to row up-harbor. Charlie was a busy boy. He didn’t have time to sit on the beach and wait for the tide. He would pull the boat along shore to above the yacht club, free his oarlocks, launch the boat and row across the harbor. He would be late, and he had all the appearance of a drowned otter, but he would keep his appointment with Peggy.
She was waiting on the pier. “Where ‘ya been, stinkpot boy?” she asked.
“Shanghaied by time and tide, madam,” he answered.
“Life of the sailor. You watch too many movies. Bad news.”
“It’s the day for it.”
“Somethings going on in Egypt. Dad’s been called back to active duty. We’re going home.”
“Egypt got a navy? When?”
“Now! What d’ya think I’m doing standing down here watching ‘fer ‘yer sorry ass like some sort of fisherman's wife?”
“I love it when you talk all salty like that.”
“Ugggh!”
The longest walk of Charlie’s life was following Peggy up the ramp and out the gate to the yacht club parking lot where a massive Buick sat idling. There were no words. Peggy’s gentle kiss on Charlie’s lips would haunt him with every memory and dream.
As the Buick fled the Embarcadero, Charlie felt himself grow smaller.
thank you Al, I have scads of wonderful memories at and around Morro Bay, and the rock. I once had a trailer there on a permanent space(for about ten years) I was there so often that the waitress's at the Whales Tail didn't bother asking for my order They just brought out what I always had. your story gave me a full inner smile.
Morro Bay sounds like a wonderful place to grow up in. But I was expecting more from this story than a simple breakdown of an Evinrude motor and a lucky break, keeping 13-year-old Charlie from drifting out into the Pacific and disappearing. I guess the heroic part was getting there in time to see his fishing friend off and get his first real kiss.
Reminds me of the time I had my 13-year-old nephew with me when I went to visit my cousin, staying on a 1948 Chris-Craft in Pompano Beach. The owner of the house where my cousin tied up his boat had a 13-year-old daughter. It was love at first sight that lasted all of four days before we had to leave again.
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Sarah Thompson has ten days on Maui to find her lifetime after lifetime soulmate. She is certain he is waiting for her there on one of the last remaining land masses of Mu still above water.
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Charlie Hagglund waved the dipnet as though rustling butterflies. Rescued from a pier side garbage can, the implement had spent its lifetime catching fishes too large to board or too small to hook. Handle bent, hoop sagging, netting rent in several places, Charlie saw the jetsam for what it was; a business opportunity.
