Chapter 24: B.O.A.T.

When Tom and I have a disagreement he sometimes drives off, tires squealing, to a place where everybody knows his name—the West Marine store. Other times we’ll be out doing errands and the Bronco refuses to go past this particular store without turning in. Today we almost make it past West Marine, when Tom suddenly applies the brakes and says, “I need some 5200.” He pronounces it fifty-two hundred.

“What in the world is 5200?”

“It’s a great adhesive sealant that bonds things permanently. When it cures it’s like welding. You could glue an elephant to the dock just by putting some 5200 on his foot.”

So we stop. I wait in the car and read while Tom is inside the store buying this magical new sealant. Other women are reading or just waiting in nearby cars in the parking lot, but their husbands eventually come out of the store carrying brown paper sacks full of marine items. They drive off. Still no Tom. My biggest fear, during these hours in the car, is that I’ll finish the book I’m reading before he returns.

Waiting in the car reminds me of all the times my sisters and I sat in the car outside the taverns when I was a kid. We didn’t mind too much, really. We filled our time counting the cars and logging trucks that went past Lou’s Place or The Green Owl. Sometimes laughter, even our mother’s laughter, would come floating out of the tavern along with the cigarette smoke and the smell of stale beer. After a while Mom or Daddy would bring us each a candy bar.

Now Tom brings me a sack with three charts, two tubes of 5200, an oil filter, engine oil, some pipe nipples and hose clamps, a receipt for $95.38—and no candy bar.

“What are the charts for?” I ask.

“Dan, in the store, thinks we should sail to the west coast of Vancouver Island for our vacation. He says Barkley Sound and the Broken Group Islands are real nice. If you decide you don’t want to go there I can return the charts.”

“Never heard of the Broken Group. Might be just fine if we can go hiking.”

The next day at the library I find information on cruising the coast of Vancouver Island up to Barkley Sound, and read this: Hundreds of ships have met their doom along the storm-torn shores of the Pacific Rim. The most ominous shores are between Port Renfrew and Cape Beale, an area generally known as the Graveyard of the Pacific.

I wish I hadn’t seen that in The Pacific Rim Explorer by Bruce Obee, or seen those other books that show shipwreck locations in Barkley Sound, on the edge of the Graveyard. I’d heard that dangerous places like this, called graveyards, were scattered across the Pacific Ocean. Now I find out one of them is between us and our vacation destination. It’s true we need some ocean experience—with our goal of sailing to the Caribbean—but in one of the graveyards of the Pacific? When we sail we’re either in a dead calm or a gale. Maybe we shouldn’t go to this particular place. I read on and learn that, at 12,079 square miles in area, Vancouver Island is slightly larger than the state of Maryland. Each year between mid-May and early September cruisers circumnavigate the island counter-clockwise, taking at least a month to explore the island’s secluded inlets. We only have nine days. Barkley Sound is as far as we can go. Seems a little risky, though, to kiss our first ocean waves in an area famous for its high number of shipwrecks.

Further research discloses that the best time to cruise the west coast of Vancouver Island is in June or early July because of a greater potential for fog later in summer. I read that the alternate spelling for the eighth month of the year is Fogust.

That evening Tom’s face lights up when I tell him what I learned at the library.

“Sounds like a great place to test our boat and ourselves,” he says.

“Can’t we just sail to Sucia Island and spend a week hiking, sketching, and napping?”

“If we’re ever going to sail on the ocean we’ve got to get some experience out there. Tell you what. You can be in charge of the sail plan. When you think we have too much sail up we’ll reduce it.”

“Well, I guess we might as well go and get it over with. At least we’ll be sailing to the salmon-fishing hot-spot of British Columbia. I can try out my fishing gear and catch us some protein.”

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