September 1, 2004

A Lazy Bluebird Day on the Astoria Waterfront May, 2004

It was thundershowers and squalls for Sunday, and it seemed a day for laziness and lollygagging. So we did that, moseying across the Columbia to Willapa Bay and spying all that mud and exposed sand, hitting Aunt Carla's greenhouse for a couple small plants, and then back across the big bridge.

But, where are the clouds? Where's the wind? Holy freaking batnoids, Robin, it's a bluebird day!

So I hie myself down to the East End Mooring Basin, a rough and ready haulout for commercial boats and a few hardy sailboats whose owners do not mind a little float banging when it blows, off for a full-on waterfront crawl along the shore of the Columbia and back around the big point near the Port to my home bay and its small ramp. One pm seems like a good launch time, especially because this picks the very tail of the ebb on the downstream leg and then employs the early flood to push me home. Old, lazy guys are full of treachery.

Failed sturgeon catchers are coming home, up the ramp, as I slide in and exit past the downstream wing dam, six-eight knots of wind in my face, against a knot or so of tail current. Makes for a nice little rolic in the kayak's gait. Many sturgeon party boats dot the water, but their inhabitants all seem glum, and I see no bending poles. I think I'm having more fun, but I won't gloat ... much. Grazing the docks and piers of my town, spying on the Bar Pilot station, two over-water restaurants, a couple fish processing plants, a research buoy string, the big pillars supporting the Astoria Bridge, and hoping for a couple helpful eddies.

A 25-foot sailboat is leapfrogging me on tacks, dicing back and forth across the ship channel, making way more hull speed than I am, but about the same net gain, and we meet at the opening to the West End Mooring Basin, much tonier than the East End, with its hundred or so party boats, sail and power -- no commercial boats here to taint the water! Hah! The sailboat says Sea Scouts on the side, and old buddy Toby is at the helm, with another adult aboard, and ... one ... lonely sea cub as crew. We dog each other down the slips, me looking for the Elizabeth Rose, them looking for home. The Elizabeth Rose, a 35-foot converted troller, is gone, upriver on a gentle cruise for two same-age guys, enjoying a serene breakfast on the water, and a sedate return. But they aren't here, so I dodge back out the opening, in time for some bargewake clapotis (the big thrill of the day) off the sheet piling which defines the marina entrance.

Next stop, the Seven Seas Mariner, a French-flagged mid-size cruise ship, decked with balconies and sleekly white, set off against scruffy dockage at the Port. I stay a hundred yards off, slowly sliding by, distracted momentarily by one of the USCG's big choppers, which does a low flyby over all the party boats in the river. They hit channel 13 briefly, and generate an unintelligible response, so I ogle the side of the cruise ship some more, and head towards the stern.

Oh, somebody in a small runabout cruiser is at my eight o'clock, matching my pace, between me and the cruise ship. I speed up a little, and so does it; I slow down, and it does, also. It's just aft of the angle I can turn my head for a better look, so I dawdle on along, until I hear, "Hey! Dave! Is that you?" Now I swivel the boat for a better look, and By Gawd, it's long-time local Tim, decked out in his Coast Guard uniform, along with another Coastie of higher rank, and Willie the County Boat Cop at the wheel, all. pacing me!

What do those guys want? Tim and I jaw for a while, and he tells me I'm not a terrorist, but that they've been watching me ... and so was the chopper. I say, "Oh, that must have been you guys talking to the helo." Yup, it was, and I'm no longer an object of interest, so we tell a couple more stories, and Willie turns the boat back upstream.

I guess I'm flattered. An old, grey-bearded, slow sea kayaker, muddling along the docks, but now I'm a "possible terrorist!" No, they were joking, but I wonder what someone Tim did not recognize might have encountered. A stop, and a check for ID? Let's see your flares, and your whistle? What's that thing in the bag on your deck? And how about that subversive yellow duck on the bow?

Naw. That wouldn't happen. They'd probably just make sure I kept on going. But, now I got a good story about the day they called out the County Marine Patrol on me. Willie and I will laugh about it this winter when I see him checking duck hunters upriver, rain dripping off our noses. And Tim will tell the two Russian kids he adopted about the old grizzled guy on the water. And when he and I meet in the coffee shop, we'll chuckle about it ... and maybe exchange a couple secret handshakes ... just because we know them and can do it.

And that's what an unexpected bluebird day can bring, in the era of Homeland Security. Glad I lived this long.
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Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR

Copyright 2004 by Dave Kruger.
May not be reproduced or redistributed without author's permission.
Republished here with permission.