September 1, 2004

Existential Camping

Three days to cover ten miles? Well, it might be expected when the wind is in your face and two of the boats are doubles paddled singly, with a kid up front. Great company, but difficult to make miles. And, on top of it all, here came the rains, after a week of sunny, fine weather.

The east side of Nootka Island (Vancouver Island, BC) is a narrow waterway easy to thread, but bereft of good places to camp. However, Kirby's map promised one on Nootka, just north of Bodega Island, a few miles from Plumper Harbour. Alas, it was not to be. The site was nonexistent, or only usable during neap tide phases, and we had maximum tides, with a big one at 2 am. So, we moved our cumbersome entourage down-bay, along the west side of Bodega, shifting and searching, eyes and ears on the oncoming front.

Rich and Bill spotted a slight, flat bulge in a cove on Bodega that might be above the tide, studded with two-inch alders on two-foot centers. Nobody liked it, so they sent me around the corner to see if Plumper was a possibility. Fifteen knots of headwind and increasing drizzle nixed that, so we were stuck.

An hour of brush thrashing and rude sawing on the alders formed enough area for three tents, and as the rains intensified we got them up, and erected a double tarp over the fronts. Now the rain was gushing, and Rich and the kids took baths on tarp dumps, all laughing. The adults grinned determinedly. Dinner was impromptu, emptying our larders of everything -- our ride out was due the next morning. As the rain increased and the wind reached gale force, whipping us, the tarp, and slicing rain onto us, we dined magnificently. Eleen was stunned I had a few scraps of dry paper towel to assist cleanup, and we cackled like demented crones at our "fortune."

Asleep.

And, then, awake at 2 am, to the sounds of adult groans and kidweeping next door, the outcomes of a horrible inside-the-tent bathroom accident (no, not number 1 -- number 2) at the highest tide stage. We were squeezed onto small, isolated islets barely three inches above the water, hoping it did not lap onto us. Our only resort would be scrambling up the bank behind us and grabbing trees. The boats banged and drifted, afloat and tied off to a big stump.

An hour later, the tide began to recede, and all of us crashed again, to awake at first light, for cleanup of the number 2 accident, and a gargantuan breakfast. Two hours later, our shuttle arrived, and we shifted the gear to the boat, boats folded or strapped on, the rain still pounding down. We were wet, wet, wet.

On the way back to Zeballos, Bill and I got the stern, cleaning ourselves with the lash of wet, and howling at the gonzo experience we had just had. Memorable and horrible. Is this existential camping?
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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.