Probably before the prop accident. Maybe. I dunno………….
We had just spent the day buying building supplies and we still had to load them onto the big boat and head up channel to our cabin up the BC coast. I could see the fog bank rolling south into the bay where our boat was docked and it was very late in the day. Scheduling was giving way to trepidation.
When we finished unloading the car it was dark, cold and the fog had filled the bay like a flooded valley. We couldn’t even see the gas barge at the end of the dock. Visibility was about fifty feet and seemingly getting worse as it got darker. We made our way to where the boat was tied up and, like all self-absorbed guys with an agenda to keep, I was trying to figure out a way to traverse the ten or so miles and narrow passages of our route home despite the obvious. I stood at the end of the float and looked into nothingness.
One of our neighbours, Drew, was at the gas barge filling up. Drew had lived on the coast for much of his sixty years and navigated most of the channel every day. He seemed to be preparing to leave.
“Hey, Drew!? You are not planning on going out in this are you?”
“Yep.”
“But you can’t see! I mean, I know you have a compass but that’s not good enough. Is it?”
“Yep.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
“Hmmmmmm……..well, if you’re going and you seem so confident, I’ll follow you to your place and we’re only another mile further north. I’ll crawl along the coast for that last bit. Hang on. Give us a minute. We’re going to follow you across the bay and through the passes. We’ll tuck in behind you until we get to your place.”
“Uh, well, I dunno………….? That seems to put a lot of responsibility on me, Dave.”
“Actually, it doesn’t. If you really think about it, all the responsibility is on my shoulders. You are free of any burden.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Well, see, it’s like this; you’re going anyway. We are following you. Should you falter or hit a rock, I am right there and I have to rescue you. Huge responsibility for me. But, if you succeed, there is no incident. You get nothing but credit. You’re the hero. So all I see is upside for you.”
“Yeah. OK. I guess you are right. We’ll leave when you’re ready.”
Drew’s boat is a slim, 30 footer, only five feet at the beam. It sits low in the water like a canoe and makes about as much wake, going full tilt. Our boat was a beamy 26 footer and, despite the dimensions cited, at least twice as big. We push a lot of water until we get on a plane and it is only then that the boat is easily steered. At slow speeds we tend to lurch to and fro and ‘plow’ through the water.
Drew left and we tucked in behind. Locals don’t use modern navigational aids or equipment and, in Drew’s case, that Spartan outlook carried to lighting as well. He had one small running light. Maybe three candlepower. When he was forty feet in front of me, he disappeared. At 30 feet, it felt like I was going to drive right over him. Follow-the-leader was extremely difficult and, worse, if I failed to keep close, Drew might just blend into the fog and there was no way to find him. Go a bit too quick and I’d end up in his lap.
By the time we had traveled across the mile wide bay, I was pretty much convinced that this was not such a great idea. Unfortunately, turning around was not an option. I left the dock with the conviction that I could keep Drew in sight but it became evident that doing so was going to be more a matter of luck than seamanship. The fog was getting thicker and one moment Drew was virtually underneath my bow and the next, he was gone with only faint traces of his wake to prove his existence.
At the far end of the bay there is a tricky and narrow pass between a few small rocky islets. Tricky and narrow defined: a fifty foot wide space surrounded by reefs, rocks, shallow water and requiring a few tight turns at just the right time.
Drew drove at about three knots for half an hour on a compass bearing approximating due north. He didn’t deviate much. He seemed unerring. At times, I was sure that he couldn’t see the bow of his own boat.
About forty minutes out, he turned right. So did I. Three minutes later, he turned left. I followed. Then it was an hour or so more of simply running blind.
I lost him on a few occasions and looked to his boat’s wake for a clue. But the sea was a bit choppy and what wake that existed was as much imagined as seen. At one point I was convinced that he was gone and I was looking left and right to make sure that I didn’t pass him.
‘Whoa’! Almost landed on top of him! He had been dead ahead.
To Drew’s credit or dysfunction, I never once saw him turn around to look at me. I came up too quick, and I fell back into the nothing, I almost passed him and I almost lost him. Several times I almost ran over him and I honestly don’t think he ever noticed any of it. Sally and I were sweating.
After two hours of this I confess to being exhausted and not a little frightened. Then Drew stopped. I had almost rammed him again.
“I’m home”, he said. “Would you like me to accompany you to your dock?”
I looked around. It was all greyness. I peered into the wet bleakness and saw nothing. Then, just as I was about to question him, I glimpsed a shape that I made out to be another boat at his dock. He had not missed his destination by even a foot.
“Yes, please. Sir! I have no hesitation in following you anywhere. You have radar in your head! Lead on!”
Twenty minutes later Drew stopped again.
”You’re home. See ya later!” And he turned around and disappeared.
Sure enough, just a few faint lines of our dock appeared through the mist. We were home.
There is no getting away from the fact that Drew did well. But he topped himself later.
I was at the local store a week later and sang Drew’s praises for his piloting skills to a neighbour.
She laughed. “Drew told us the story, too. Seems he was taking the long way around the island instead of the shortcut because he wasn’t sure if he could find it. He was actually aiming to be a mile further east when he saw the entrance to the pass. He was just as surprised as you!”
I don’t know the truth. I prefer to believe the locals are special.
Our Off the Grid Home 
Remember…. you only have nine lives! Don't use them all up too fast!
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