Large Fierce Mammal

Picture rowing like mad toward that copse of evergreens in the middle of the picture, only to meet up with a hard “NO!” and a bitch slap to the right about halfway between here and there. Click to enlarge. Photo credit: Rolland C. Reynold

As with all things born of youth, over time, expeditions to Covey Island fell progressively more under the thrall of life realities afflicting their participants, and so became sporadic overall, with some occurring in my own absence. I can no longer recall how much time lay between the events described in our last chapter and those to be revealed here, but I can say with certainty that what follows occurred the next time I was there.

On this particular day, Meisner’s Cove was the scene of another odd experience, this time involving me, Mrs. Cynthia (Cyndi) Baker, wife of the intrepid captain of the boat, and the wooden rowboat we used to ferry people and cargo from the anchored main vessel (by now the Mi-Pet-Val-II) to the beach and back. This again played out in the early morning, but after breakfast when everyone was up and about, when I undertook my customary once-per-camping-trip oar powered circumnavigation of the island. As I was preparing to set forth, Cyndi approached me to go along for the ride, and as the wind was light, I accepted her kind offer of the extra ballast.

My normal course took me clockwise around the island, heading first around the northern limb of Meisner’s cove, but this day I decided to do the trip in the opposite direction, and everything was ordinary until we approached the beach on our return. Mi-Pet-Val II was anchored mid-way up the cove, in sufficient water so that low tide wouldn’t leave her high and dry. The tide being high at the time, I took a course around her before turning east toward the beach for the last few pulls home. Halfway between the ‘Val and the shore though, something funny happened.

As though caught in a strong cross current, the bow of the boat veered abruptly to the right (my left since, as rower, I was sitting facing the stern, and so away from our direction of travel), as though given a strong and sudden shove or pull. So sudden in fact that it nearly knocking us both onto the port side gunwhale and caused the opposite oar to pop out of its lock from my reactive force on that side as I registered the turn and automatically tried to keep us tracking straight. We now found ourselves drifting slowly south from residual momentum, and parallel to the beach, with it lying about 50 yards off our port beam. There was little wind, it was high tide, I noticed that the water showed no signs of a current either on the surface or disturbing the seaweed below, and after having been turned we weren’t being carried with any kind of speed along the beach. I reseated the starboard oar in its lock and attempted a left turn back toward the beach only to find this was, for whatever reason, not allowed. No matter how hard I pulled on that single oar, the boat would not turn toward the beach, and all I accomplished was to move us further south parallel to it.

At this point, my passenger asked me what I was doing and I explained what she had apparently missed as I made a wide turn to the right that would put us in position for a high speed straight run for the beach that I hoped would carry us through whatever was happening in the water. As it happened, as soon as we reached the same distance from shore as before, the boat seemed to suddenly slow as it once again veered right, again ending up drifting parallel to the beach.

“What in hell is going on?” My passenger asked.

“It would seem we’re not allowed back on the beach,” I replied.

However, progress is not made by those who listen to reason, and so we formulated a plan. On the run in from the Mi-Pet-Val II there was a prominent and huge submerged boulder that had been clearly visible to the north of our track just about when we got turned the first time. We resolved to return to the ‘Val for a short rest, and then make another run for the beach. As soon as my passenger spotted the rock, that would be the signal for me to drop the port oar in the boat and focus all my efforts on the starboard one in hope of overcoming the invisible current that was pushing the bow off course.

At her signal, I executed the plan and was soon standing off the seat as legs and back strained against the oar to no avail. Finally, the oar popped free of its lock again and I nearly fell on my back on the bottom of the boat at the unexpected loss of support. Drifting again, and feeling played with.

By this point, our travails — mostly the swearing actually — had attracted the attention of the company ashore, and it was only when we enlisted their aid, having them follow us south along the cove until we found a place where the track we were “permitted” to follow converged sufficiently with the beach for a line to be thrown to them, that no further resistance was offered. From there they handily towed us back up the beach while those of us in the boat used the butt end of oars to fend off the rocks, and thus finally successfully made our way back to the original launch point.

Whatever had afflicted us had not been encountered by any of us veterans before, and multiple runs from the beach to the ‘Val for the rest of the trip met with no impediments. Lacking a larger sample of experience, one assumes an errant current and leaves it at that. Yet as I sat on the beach looking out over the cove later that day, I was recalling the path flown by the Raven, and swum two years later by the Porpoise, and how it seemed to mark the line that had proven impossible to cross under the impulse of my own muscles.

Another uneventful camping trip followed that one, but the one after that was … eventful … and unfortunately saw things veer decidedly toward the life threateningly nasty side.