December 2, 1999

Thanksgiving Weekend

The future daughter-in-law seemed out of sorts, and that made everybody uncomfortable, so we compensated by over-consuming food on Thanksgiving day ... and the next day ... and the day after that. It did not help that the much-vaunted paddle with son and intended was squashed by the first Pineapple Express of the season, courtesy of La Nina. In lieu, we wandered around a muddy bare lot, site of a house in six months (we hope), though the intended pouted in the truck by herself.

Time to fade out into the marshes and channels out Brownsmead way. Email the Portland crew ... nope, nobody home. Oh, well, I know how to do this stuff -- who needs companions, anyway? Packa packa packa, fill water jugs, find clothes, buy more food, beg a homemade turkey sandwich off the sweetie, stuff the yak on top of the canopy and lasherdown! Trundling up the highway, rain stomping the tin ceiling, turkey gurgling inside. Hallooo! That slide they "fixed" last summer has re-annointed the RR tracks at the put-in. Ma Nature bats last, dudes.

State game cop in his warm PU, checking hunters returning from the wet. Now he has "hid" his PU behind some other rigs -- some of the boats returning to the ramp had been doing touch and goes ... heh! heh! Officer Klepp on the hunt! He eyes me top to bottom when I tell him, "Yeah, I'm goin' camping in the islands ... I have a tarp!" And shrugs and makes a face as the rain dribbles down his chin.

There is a slight diminishment of the wet stuff as I unload and repacka repacka repacka everything in hatches and slide off the beach. Pelt pelt pelt on the hat and deck ... splash splash splash on the water. We're having fun, no? Dippy the deck duck is -- always smiling.

The ebb current is supposed to be fading, but it's not, so I hump myself against it, as a headwind develops. Not working hard enough to keep the hands warm, so out come the pogies (first time in '99!), sliding past snowberries, rose hips and red osier dogwood bankside. Nobody else around. Two and a half hours later, I drag ashore on Tenasillahee Island at the campsite and hustle the tarp 200 yards to the treeline, spending half an hour in setup, cold-handed, but torso-warm. Hypothermia should dull my thinking processes, yes? If I can set up a tarp, I'm not hypothermic, yes?

Back to the boat and stuff meshies full of goodies -- two trips and everything is under the tarp. Pelta pelta pelta. I could get tired of this rain! Hot cocoa and I feel smarter -- maybe I was a little cold!

It's late in the day as freighters slip by in the mist. Set up the tent in a break between squalls, and the light fades. Hit the Coleman lantern (fresh mantle) and warm up dinner. More freighters, and the VHF gurgles with ... green-to-green ... we'll pull over to the red line a little cap, we're running light. These guys are very polite, and their patter alleviates my lonesome feeling. A week ago one of them cut a corner too much and flattened some sand downriver in a narrow spot. Took a couple high tides to get off.

Dinner down and wet suit off, I finally warm up and begin to enjoy the solitude. Pelta pelta pelta on the tarpa tarpa tarpa sounds peaceful. Dark for two hours now and off to bed, enveloped in fleece and Polarguard. Reading lasts ten minutes and I am dead to the world by 7 pm!

In the night rain noise disappears, and out-of-tent forays get simpler. By dawn, the tent is dry, courtesy of a light downriver breeze. Sunrise is spectacular, golden highlights kissing the east and pale blue stuff popping out to the west. That must be that "sky" stuff they talk about. Geese and a hawk or two do drive-by snoops as I slide out of the tent for the last time. More freighter traffic and I transfer gear to the yak, one trip this time, courtesy of three full meshies draped over shoulders and tumped to the forehead.

Off into the eddy as the freighter wake squashes through, surfing a little across the line and into head current, then around the top of the island into lovely tail current, drifting and watching the grebes and loons. Warm, dry, quiet, and two seals spyhop me, bristling their brows at the curmudgeon in his cockpit. No one all the way down the Clifton Channel.

An hour later, I am back at the ramp, courtesy of a two knot tail current and a tailwind. Hunters are gone, driven away by nice weather.

Drifting back along the highway, seems like that grouchy future daughter-in-law's image is very faint ... think I'll keep the yak. Maybe my son should consider investing and divesting. Polyester resin and true love may have equal lifetimes.
---
Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR

Copyright 1999 by Dave Kruger.
May not be reproduced or redistributed without author's permission.
Originally posted on Paddlewise mailing list on 12/2/1999.
Republished here with permission.