The prawn boat docking did not go quite as smooth as one might hope. The crew seemed new.
The crewman on the starboard forward deck, dock line in hand, watched the dock as it got closer and as he prepared to loop a line around a cleat, the aft most deckhand called forward, “get a bumper.” The forward crewman replied out loud, “oh yeah,” and dangled a faded orange ball of a fender between the dock and the boat.
The front of the boat pressed against the dock as its stern rotated to starboard pressing against another orange faded ball-shaped fender. I went back to work. When I looked down again the crew had finished docking and were preparing to leave the boat.
On the stern was written Nordic Star.
I called “Nordic Star” to the crewman standing amidships. He looked around for my voice, and finally looked up at the top of the mast and found me. I asked whether his skipper was named Joe. He replied no. I told him that Joe rented the boat in 2016.
He said, in the form of a question, “He was the guy who had only one arm?” I told him no, and went back to my work.
In 2016, Jennifer, Hilary, and I were in Quigley Cove when I sheared a fuel-line bleed screw off our engine. The Coast Guard suggested my motoring our dinghy to Nordic Star, which was 1.8 km away. The captain had a sat phone and could perhaps help me.
The captain was Joe and in addition to letting me use his sat phone to order new parts, he had forty litres of gasoline in two new Jerry cans flown in on the float plane that brought him the parts he needed.
While I finished up my work at the top of the mast, the new captain of Nordic Star came by CaroBabbo and told Jennifer that Joe would be in the harbor later that evening to meet his new boat.
We never did see him.
I was at the top of the mast for about two hours. After Jennifer lowered me to the deck, we went below threaded the new cable through the plastic conduit from the engine compartment to the basement. We ate something quick and I walked back to Stryker.
I’m not sure why Doug’s attitude towards me changed. He clearly liked me more and treated me better when I returned to the store and told him the new antenna was installed, the cable run and it was time for Gilbert to return to attach the second connector.
I wondered if, and at times convinced myself that, it was because I did climb to the top of the mast, did spend the time up there, installed the antenna and ran the cable. I thought that he gave me the large task just to get rid of me because he really wasn’t interested in the work.
I’ve also thought that it was just a matter of time and getting to know each other. I learned that he and Gilbert discussed the situation on Caro Babbo, and through that conversation he gained a better measure of me.
But when all is said and done, I end up with this conclusion: he likes me better because of Jennifer. Like her mother, everyone likes Jennifer. When I was off with Gilbert, Jennifer was speaking with Doug and building a relationship. Jennifer is a man’s woman. Men enjoy speaking with Jennifer, they like the conversations, they like her mannerisms and how she deals with men, and because they find they like her so much and want to be around her, they are quite content to like me, too.
I’ve never been called a man’s man.
Gilbert picked up the parts we needed along with a butane soldering pencil and we drove back to the dock.
He cut the new cable to length, leaving enough extra for it to reach the radio easily rather than just enough to connect to the signal splitter. He tested the antenna and told me I did good work.
Gilbert drove back to stryker alone, but I walked along the dock with him for a short while. He asked me if I’d waterproofed both the antenna and the connector as he had told me to. I told him it looked like an iced cake. He laughed. And then he asked me how many loops of cable I had left at the masthead. I said had just left with a dip below the antenna. He told me I should have left two loops so that I could attach successive connectors without running a new cable.
One Thread Ends.
After Jennifer and I restocked the basement with the bins of supplies, bottles of cooking oil and jars of grains and beans, we walked up to the store. When I went up earlier to fetch Gilbert, Doug surprised the hell out of me by handing me a small cardboard box with a 2 kg piece of ling cod. I told Jennifer when I returned to the boat that I almost felt like crying. It was such a nice thing to do.
We brought with us two small jars of honey from bees that I had raised in Atlanta. Doug was very surprised and pleased, and Gilbert seemed more than surprised.
We stood at the counter with Doug discussing this and that, and somehow started talking about having parts delivered to Klemtu. Most likely the conversation was started because Nordic Star was in the harbor.
The airline that flew those parts in was based in Port Hardy and I mentioned that I knew one of the pilots who lived here. Jennifer, Doug, and I were smiling. We were enjoying the conversation.
Doug asked me the name of the pilot, and after a moment I said Ryan. Doug responded with words that made no sense and he watched my smiling, almost laughing face, while I processed the words that made no sense.
After a moment the words did, and the expression left my face, I could feel it go slack.
Doug had said, “Ryan drowned two weeks ago.”
When I finally understood what he told me, over the top of the beginning of his next few sentences, I said, “I’m so sorry,”
“We found his dog running loose, and then his overturned boat, but we haven’t found him.”
I told the only story I know about Ryan, about him flying a Grumman Goose into Klentu to bring me parts, and speaking with my father, and his unfinished quarter scale model airplane.
News like that doesn’t stop the conversation. It is news that we carry, and discuss afterwards and write about.
When I had come to fetch Gilbert to attach the second connector to the cable, the same time Doug had given me the lingcod, I asked Doug if there were someplace where I could get kerosene.
He asked me how much, and I told him twenty litres. He dialed the number of one of the fuel transfer stations in town and let me speak with Wendy.
Wendy told me they had some jugs of kerosene, and if I were to bring my own container they would transfer the kerosene from one of their Jerry cans to mine.
When I asked Doug if I could walk there, he said he would lent me a truck. In fact, he insisted he’d lend me his truck.
As we were finishing business, Doug told us that when he was a young man an older man had insisted that he use the older man’s Cadillac while Doug’s car was being repaired. And so he insisted that we use one of his vehicles, and we accepted.
Just before we walked out to the minivan that Doug arranged for us, he asked us if we had an extra ninety minutes or so to spare. If so, there was a museum in Coal Harbour that we should see.
It was a private museum owned by a man named Joel. It sounded like a great thing to go see.
Part Three will be available soon.
