Chapter 15

Since everyone was still looking at her questioningly, Linda explained herself. “I had to work out how to tie up my boat so I could ride out winter storms. Hell, I had her tied down so well that I seldom moved her off the dock in the winter months. It was too much work to untie her, then tie her down again after a cruise.”

“Then how did you get so much experience running a boat in storms?” Keri asked Linda.

“Oh, I didn’t have much experience away from the dock in rough weather,” Linda snorted. “We were out in a storm for longer on this rescue trip than I’ve ever been out on a boat before, at least one that wasn’t moored. I’ve spent a lot of time anchored out, but always in fair weather, so if I knew a storm was coming I headed for the dock.”

“What, and you brought us through that storm like you did?” Ely said in astonishment.

“Unh huh,” Linda blushed. “I knew I was in the best physical and mental shape of any of you. Once Karl found me, I ate well, and I was able to relax, so I slept solidly, but Karl was always worried, so he didn’t sleep much. I knew from what he’d said that he hadn’t really slept well in a week or more before we met. When we rescued you guys, you didn’t look in much better shape. Everyone on that boat was exhausted, but me. So with what little I knew, and having had Karl show me the essentials, I just did what I had to do. Knowing that I could call on help if I needed, it was an extra boost, but you can’t possibly have any idea how much relief I felt when we dropped anchor at the old dynamite plant.”

“Oh my God!” Ely leaned over and wrapped her in a tight hug.

Karl just stared at her for a moment. “But I thought you ... I mean, you just seemed to know exactly what questions to ask and what to expect to happen when you did anything.”

“Well, I did live on a boat so I did know some things,” Linda grinned through tears. “I knew you assumed that I knew more than I did, so I tried to ask intelligent questions and I made sure I remembered your answers. I knew damn well that you needed help and I was there, so I stepped into the lurch.”

Then she giggled. “Look, I don’t think nautically yet either. You say ‘topside’ and I have to mentally translate that to mean ‘upstairs’ or ‘out on deck’. I even have to remember that all the short words refer to left side of the boat and the longer ones refer to the right.”

“Pardon?” Ely pulled back and stared at her.

“Oh,” Linda giggled again. “Left, port, and red are short words, they’re used for the left side of the boat, right, starboard, and green are the right side of the boat.”

Karl just shook his head as he moved over and he held out his arms.

“I’m so sorry that I misjudged you and put you under that pressure,” he said quietly as he hugged her. “I thought you were a lot more experienced since you caught on so fast. I’d never have put you under that kind of pressure if I’d known.”

Linda leaned back in his arms and grinned at him. “You silly ass, I put myself under pressure by trying to be there when you needed me and it made me learn a lot. To be honest we all have to do that now, don’t you see? We have to be ready for anything and we have to do things right, without mistakes. If we see a mistake we have to correct it, and we need to do it right away, just as soon as we notice it.”

“Just to be clear, you mean you think we should move the boat tonight?” Keri asked.

“In case the weather breaks, yes, I agree. I think we should move the ‘Skolka’ tonight,” Karl said, making up his mind instantly. “Just in case the cloud cover breaks, we don’t want her to be out in the middle of the bay tomorrow morning. We’ve got about an hour and a half or two hours of daylight left, maybe less with the clouds and rain. Linda and Ely can come with me, if they will. I’ll get you and David to stay here. Then you two could go over to the other house and get what extra bedding we need for tonight or whatever. Talk to Trudy about all the sleeping arrangements. The three of us should be back by about ten and I imagine we’ll be tired, in fact we’ll probably be totally bushed.”

“Why will you guys be so tired?” Keri asked in surprise.

“Well, the ‘Skolka’ is pretty well mothballed. It would take almost two hours to bring her up to working steam pressure since she’s been completely shut down. I even shut off the pilot burner, so the boiler is cold and I don’t want to strain anything by heating it too fast. There’s plenty of power in her batteries to operate the fore and aft winches to bring in the anchors. Of course once she’s ashore, we have shore power, so we can put her batteries on recharge to let them recover, but we’ll have to move her to shore with the skiff and an outboard motor,” he sighed softly. “The whole operation is going to have to be hands on though. That’s going to mean that we’re all likely to have to work like Trojans at one point or another, especially when we get to the dock.”

“Could I come help, Dad?” David piped up.

Karl looked from him and up to Ely, who gave an almost imperceptible nod of her head.

“Okay, you can come,” Karl nodded. “But this might be a bit dangerous, so you have to obey any orders right away. No dawdling and no running around or playing games either. You have to be a helper, not a hindrance. All right?”

“Yes, Dad, I promise.”

“Now,” Karl looked at Ely and Linda. “When we get her to the dock, how do we make her look like she hasn’t moved in weeks? Do we need anything special from here at the house to help us?”

“Huh, with it raining like this? If she is tied to the dock under that old cedar tree for a few days there’ll soon be a whole lot of dead cedar needles on deck. If we had a bit of a wind it would only take about two hours and no one would know she’d been moved in months,” Ely offered.

“Well that’s a problem, because it’s calm,” Karl grinned, “But, if one of us were to climb into that cedar tree and shake the branches a bit, we’d have lots of falling twigs and needles. What do you think?”

“Sure, I guess,” Ely said, the frowned “I don’t really like the idea of any of us climbing a tree in the dark though. Couldn’t we manage to shake the whole tree from the ground somehow or other?”

“Maybe,” Karl grinned. “Any suggestions, Linda?”

“Well, I’m not sure about the tree. Instead I was thinking that after my boat was tied up on the dock for very long she’d be covered with salt spray on the outside and all the nice polish would disappear from everything, especially below decks. It just seemed that rust and corrosion would appear inside of a week or so. I was always cleaning, polishing and protecting things.”

“I take back every joke I ever said about dumb blondes,” Karl grinned at her. “You are one smart cookie. David, in the storage shed, next to where the goats are, you’ll fnd an old garden sprayer, you now, the pump kind?”

“The one you used to spray that soap stuff on your berry bushes to kill the aphids, Dad?” David asked.

“Unh huh, could you run and get that for me. We’ll need it. Oh, and Ely, in the kitchen, down in the bottom cupboard on the right, there’s a gallon of vinegar. Could you fill one of those hand pump spray bottles under the sink with a mix of half vinegar and half water, please? Come to think of it, maybe you’d better fill two spray bottles full, okay? And Keri, could you get one of the walkie talkies for us and ask your dad to turn the other one on and set it to standby?”

He and Linda were left alone for a second.

“I don’t understand,” she looked puzzled.

“Hmm,” Karl smurmured, his eyes returning to her and the frown of thought disappearing from his face.

“How are those sprayers and stuff going to make the boat look as if it hasn’t been moved lately?” she asked.

“Oh,” Karl grinned. “In the bilge I have several small drums full of brine from the desalination unit. We’re going to fill the garden sprayer with that and spray it all over above decks. Where the rain falls it will wash off just like it does regularly, but where it’s shielded from the rain, it will coat everything with a thick coating of what looks just like salt spray that builds up on a boat that’s been moored for a while.”

“Ahh, I gotcha,” she grinned. “But, what will you do with the vinegar and water?”

“Well, when we ran the boat, a lot of surfaces in the engines room were polished from wear and from handling. I always try to wipe them down with an oily rag after I’ve used her, but I always miss places. When I go to start up the next time there are always small patches and streaks of rust and corrosion. The vinegar is such a mild acid that it will hurry along the oxidation a little bit. While we’re moving her to shore, I’ll get David to run around below decks and spray all the steel and brass lightly. In a day or two there will be a light coating of rust and corrosion on those areas, but it’ll be so light that we can polish it off easily when we need to use the boat again.”

“Damn, I’m glad you’re on my side, but why were you frowning before?” Keri asked, having come back quickly.

“I was trying to think of a way to shake a tree without climbing it,” he grinned at her. “Any ideas?”

He took the walkie talkie from her hand, slipping it into an inside pocket, then gave her a hug in thanks.

“Well, if it was a small one, you could just bend it over, then let it snap back, but those trees are huge, so I don’t know how to do that to them.”

“Hmm, now that’s something we might be able to do. Linda, how would you like to ask Ely if she has any ideas about that while we’re on the way down to the dock.”

Just then both David and Ely came rushing back, so with a quick wave to Keri, the other four set out for the bay.

It was still raining lightly and they were in rain coats even though it was cool, but they hurried, so by the time they got to the dock they were all perspiring lightly. It didn’t take Karl long to dig out an outboard motor from the mess in the shed, which meant that in very little time they had it hung on the back of the skiff, then had the skiff in the water.

“Cross your fingers,” Karl grinned at the others, “This engine is burning old gas and it hasn’t run in weeks.”

“Oh Karl!” Ely shook her head. “You know damn well that...”

Whatever else she was going to say was drowned out by the sound of the little engine. Karl just grinned at her and headed for the boat in the middle of the bay at a good clip. Ely was ready when they slowed to a stop at the stern of the ‘Skolka.’ She stood in the dinghy to reach up and haul herself aboard the larger vessel. She used the rope left hanging off the stern for grip, but once she was aboard she flipped the boarding ladder down for the others to use. David was the next on deck, after handing her the bag that had been used to carry the spray bottles he was going to use below decks. Karl and Linda then turned the skiff to head out to the mooring buoy. By the time they got there Ely had released both anchor chains slightly and the large mooring rope was slack enough that they could undo the clevis. Then with Linda hauling the rope into the skiff, they slowly ran back toward the ‘Skolka’.

They could hear the electric winch as it hauled in the bow anchor and to Linda’s relief, it wasn’t long before Ely was hauling the rope toward her faster than they were moving. When Karl noticed that Ely was almost pulling them toward her, he sped up, then eased off and slid to a halt just below the bow while she got most of the heavy rope on deck.

“This rope is soggy Karl. What should I do with it? I don’t imagine you want it in the rope locker.”

“No, we’ll take it ashore later. For now just leave it coiled on deck. What’s left? I’ll need about fifty feet to tow her with.”

“You’re towing from the bow end?” she asked.

“Yeah, Just cleat the line off there. I’ll be going backward with the skiff so I’ll have steerage. Linda, can you get aboard from here? Once you’re aboard, throw the wheel of the ‘Skolka’ as far over to starboard as you can, then you and Ely can get the stern anchor up while I start to swing the bow. When you get the anchor up and come to the shore ropes, just undo the clevis and let them drop. They’ll sink and we can haul them ashore later. As soon as we’re swung around, one of you will have to handle the steering. Remember, we’re going to moor on the shore side of the dock, under the cedar trees, and with the bow pointing in toward the scrub willow. Okay?”

“Gotcha Captain,” Ely said as she was helping Linda aboard. “I’ll have a pair of lines rigged bow and stern for mooring by the time we get to the dock.”

“Great,” Karl answered, already tying his mooring line from the skiff to the larger line from the ‘Skolka’. In only a moment, he was easing the bow of the larger vessel around.

By running the skiff in reverse and towing backward, he was able to stay in control relatively well. Inside of a half hour from the start of his tow he was undoing his tow line and swinging the skiff to the other side of the dock to quickly tie it up. He scrambled onto the dock, then hurried back to take a lighter bow line from Ely as the big old wooden boat glided silently to her new moorage. Ely meanwhile, ran to the stern and tossed him a second rope. It would eventually be the stern-to-dock spring line, but for now it was going to be the braking line for several tons of wood and metal. Flipping the line over a heavy dock cleat, he began to slowly bring the boat to a halt, actually enjoying the feel of the rope and the sounds of the wooden hull rubbing against the old rubber tires he used as fenders on the dock.

At that moment he felt supremely happy. He decided there was just something about tying your boat up to your own dock that gave a seaman an immense feeling of satisfaction. There was no way to explain it. It just was a fact of life that when you were doing that you were safely home and so was your boat. As soon as he had both of the lines that he had on the dock tied off, Ely tossed him a third shorter line at the stern. He tied it temporarily as well, then undid the first line he had tied off and walked it forward to act as a spring line.

By then Linda was out of the wheelhouse and David was with her.

“I sprayed down everything inside that I could think of, Dad,” David crowed, waving the two spray bottles like a cowboy waving six-guns. “I still have lots left though. Should I do anything on deck?”

“He even sprayed the door handles,” Linda laughed.

“Sure, David, spray any metal that looks polished, especially the anchor winches,” Karl grinned. “And Linda, if you’ll get the boarding ladder hung over this side, I’ll go get the big sprayer, then I’ll go below to get some brine and I can start spraying that on things above deck. When you have time, you can take over, get the windows, walls, anywhere and everywhere that salt spray would settle in a storm. Ely, we’ll need a line from bow and stern strung over to tie points on shore in order to keep her tied away from the dock. Linda, should we spring those too?”

“I would,” she smiled, happy to be asked. “Then when we tighten them up, she’ll ride a few feet away from the dock, but still be able to shift with the tides and waves. I don’t suppose you have any sort of a boarding plank do you? Something that would hook over the ... what do you call this raised edge?”

“It’s a coaming, well actually in this case it’s the gunnel, but we won’t worry about names for now. I’ll teach you all that another day,” Karl grinned. “And we’ll worry about a boarding plank later too. For now, we’ll leave the ladder down and have a rope tied off loosely from midships to the dock. Then, if the spring lines are tied off the right way, we can spring the boat against their tension and pull it over to the dock to get aboard.”

“Oh, I never thought of using the ropes like that,” she said honestly as she hurried off to get the boarding ladder.

Half an hour later Karl had sprayed everything that he’d ever noticed develop a salt spray film and several things that he wasn’t sure about. The others had tied the spring lines to shore then Linda used his rope to pull the ‘Skolka’ close to the dock for him to slip off the boat. Just then Ely and David came hurrying out onto the dock from onshore, each carrying an armload of small twigs and branches from cedar trees.

“Wait, don’t let her go out again,” Ely called. “These branches are all dead and losing their needles. If we shake them around all over, it will look like the tree dropped them. We can even leave the smaller branches on deck.”

Karl had to laugh, but as he watched them Ely and David run around the deck, shaking the branches and dropping one every now and then, he saw that they were actually doing a pretty fair job of imitating what the wind and rain would do.

“Don’t forget the top of the wheelhouse,” he called as he walked toward shore.

“Where are you off to?” Ely called in return.

“I think I know how to shake the ‘sugar tree’ in order to help you out,” he laughingly called back. “And before you get upset, I don’t plan on doing any climbing. Can I borrow Linda though? I’ll need a second pair of hands.”

“Sure, we can use the rope from the boat to pull the boat over just as well from the deck as from the dock,” Ely called, sounding quite happy.

Linda ran after him and caught up to him as they entered the storage shed.

“We’ll need a long rope, a weight, that old coat, an axe, and a ‘come-along’,” Karl said, either pointing to an object or picking it up.

The ‘come-along’ was something Linda had never seen before. It looked like a lever-operated winch in a small frame with one hook attached to the frame and another to the end of the winch cable. What Karl didn’t pick up to carry, Linda did. Then the two of them went along the shore line to stand near the base of the huge old cedar that overhung the ‘Skolka’.

“You’d better stand well back,” he grinned at her, taking the weight and the rope in his hands before moving forward.

She watched as he tied the weight to the end of the rope and then slung it as hard as he could at a huge branch about twenty feet above their heads. It took several tries, but finally he got it to go over the branch, then the weight pulled the rope down the other side of the branch as he let it slide through his hands. Going to the weight, and getting Linda to feed the coils to him, he pulled several more feet of rope over the branch, then asked her to stand back again. He threw the weight over another branch on the opposite side of the tree and lower down than the first one. Then he asked Linda to bring the old coat to him as he moved to the base of a second, smaller tree. He wrapped the coat around the tree, then tied the rope over it, holding the coat in place.

“What in hell are you up to?” Ely said as she and David came up to them.

“I’m going to try to shake the tree like Keri suggested,” Karl grinned at her. “Now we need to string this line out to a nice solid tree, but if possible, we want one with a fallen log in front of it.”

Linda and Ely frowned, but helped him string the rope out to the base of a third tree, uphill from the first two. He tied one end to the tree and over a huge old log, then tied two loops in the rope after stretching it out quite tightly. The loops were about ten or twelve feet apart and between the log and the tree. He hooked the ‘come-along’ into the two loops so it was stretched between them and he could easily tighten the rope much more.

“Now, I need one person at each end of the dock and one person halfway from the dock to me. You guys can keep me posted on what the tree is doing, okay?”

“Oh, I get it,” Ely smiled. “The log and the axe are the quick release, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, I’m going to tighten the rope with the ‘come-along’ and when I get it really tight, I’m going to chop the rope off with the axe. I want you out there for safety and I want you watching to warn me, just in case something does go wrong, okay?”

“Okay, I guess but...” Ely started to protest.

“Look. This is high strength rope. It’s going to let go hard and I haven’t a clue where the end of it will finally land, or what it’s going to whip across as it lets go. I’ll call out a warning when I’m ready to cut it, so you guys be ready in case you have to duck any flying branches, whipping ropes or anything else, all right.”

“And when it whips, what’s it going to do to you?” Linda asked.

“I’m going to be standing in the middle. Since it will be under tension, it’s going to whip away from me in both directions. Being right here, I’m perfectly safe from those ends because they’ll both spring away from me, but I can’t say the same for any of you,” Karl smiled as he began to work the ‘come-along’ handle. “Don’t worry. I’m being bloody careful. Now, get out of here! All of you, I want to get this done and get back to the cabin before it gets too late.”

Ely decided that David should be at the far end of the dock, Linda at the shore end, and she should be halfway between the dock and Karl. By the time they were all in position the top of the old cedar tree was actually quivering each time Karl pulled back on the handle and tightened the rope. Linda could see that the tip of it was actually bent slightly toward shore when Karl finally called out that he was ready.

She watched the tip of the tree as the sound of the axe blow rang out. To her amazement, the old cedar whipped back and forth about six or eight feet at the top and a quiver seemed to run through the whole tree. Then a virtual snowstorm of old dead needles and small branches came cascading down onto the ‘Skolka, ‘ the dock and the water around the boat.

“Oh Wow, oh Wow!” David shouted. “Oh boy, did that ever work.”

Linda just stood there and watched as still more small branches and old needles rained down. Then she grinned at David as he came running up to her.

“Come on, let’s go see Mom and Dad,” he demanded, reaching for her hand.

“You go ahead, David. I’m going to go see if I can get the rope back out of the tree. Let them know where I am, okay?”

“Sure,” he ran off.

Ten minutes later she was joined by Ely, who got there just in time to help untangle one end from a bush so Linda could finish coiling the rope.

“Where’s Karl?” Linda asked.

“He’d better be sitting down resting,” Ely snapped, then she sighed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be grouchy or chew your ear off. Every once in a while he forgets that his health isn’t perfect. I never thought about it, but pumping the handle on the stupid ‘come-along’ bothered his lungs. You did know he was gassed by chlorine didn’t you?”

“No, I don’t think he ever told me that,” Linda stopped what she was doing and stared at Ely.

“Oh yeah, before we’d even met him. He was working at a paper mill and he was in the wrong place, actually down a trench, when some damn fool opened a valve that he shouldn’t have. Karl didn’t get much of a dose or he wouldn’t be alive, but it did damage his lungs. That’s why he was on a disability pension when we met him. If he gets really stressed, then tries to do much, it kicks up. Normally it only acts up for a few hours and a good sleep will put him to rights, but I don’t think he should climb the hill tonight. He’s arguing that we shouldn’t stay on the boat.”

“Well, if he can get rested up enough to make it up the hill, I agree with him. We shouldn’t stay on the boat unless we absolutely have to,” Linda said firmly.

“Yeah, I know, but I’d rather see him feeling a lot better than he was when I found him sitting there gasping for breath with a big grin on his face. The rest of us are going to have to take part of the physical load off of him for a while. I’ll be damned if I want to see both of our men in fucking wheelchairs.”

The two of them agreed on that, then finished wrapping the rope into a tight coil and picked up both the old coat and the weight Karl had used. With that as a load, they headed back to the shed where Karl and David were sitting. When they got there, Karl seemed to be breathing easier and his colour was good.

“Thank you, ladies,” he smiled. “I’m feeling better now, I think that was just a short spell, but I don’t think I should carry much of a load up the hill tonight.”

“Well! I bloody well guess not!” Ely said loudly. “What had you planned on doing? Were you going to try to be a pack horse tonight, on top of everything else?”

He grinned at her. “We have to get all this stuff that you folks brought up to the houses,” he pointed at the things Ely’s family had brought that were stacked in the shed. “If the military comes around, they’ll see this stuff. That’s as much of a give away as a clean and recently used steam boat would be.”

“Oh fuck!” Ely said sharply. “Well tonight you aren’t carrying anything. The rest of us can each take a small load and we can worry about the rest tomorrow. What else do we have to do to button up the ‘Skolka’?”

“Nothing much, other than flipping the skiff onto the end of the dock and tying it there, then bringing the outboard inside and putting it on the motor stand,” Karl sighed. “I’ll sit here and rest while you three do that, if you want.”

Linda hadn’t entered the discussion until then. “Excuse me, but do you really feel up to climbing the hill tonight? I want an honest answer, no bullshit.”

“I really would like to,” Karl said stubbornly. “Anything we do on board the ‘Skolka’ now is going to disturb what work we’ve already done. Besides, we have to get those two spray bottles and the garden sprayer out of here. Look, they’re empty, I can carry them and we can try the hill. I know damn well that if I make it up there without getting short of breath, then I can make it back to the cabin. What I was going to suggest is that we finish up here, each of you picks a light load of stuff and we try the hill. If I can’t make it up the hill, we can use the walkie talkie to let the folks at the cabin know we’re spending the night and we can stay on the boat. Okay?”

Ely frowned, but nodded, then she gestured with her head for the others to join her to take care of the skiff and the outboard while Karl waited behind. They were back in moments and everyone, except Karl made up a small pack of sorts, but they would only let him carry the empty garden sprayer. Even then, Ely insisted that since it had a carrying strap, he used that to sling the sprayer on his back for the walk. She saw a pair of her father’s canes and handed one to Karl wordlessly. For once he knew better than to argue with her; he simply used it, and they moved out of the old shack. After pausing long enough to lock the door, they set off uphill at a slow pace.

At the wye in the paths at the top of the hill, they paused for a rest at the shed. Ely checked Karl’s breathing and his pulse rate while Linda and David watched.

“I guess you’re okay, you old fart,” Ely finally smiled at him. “We were lucky this time, but damn it, from now on if you feel the start of one of these attacks, take a bloody break and ask for help, will you?”

“Yes boss,” Karl smiled and hugged her. “Now if we’d just thought to bring a wheel barrow, you wouldn’t have to carry those packs all the way back to the cabin.”

“Yeah, and if we’d have thought more clearly in the first place, instead of going off half cocked like we did, the boat would have been tied up where it is and we’d be at home already,” Ely threw back at him.

“Touché” Karl laughed softly. “I admit that was my fault. I have to say that earthquakes and tsunamis scare the hell out of me and I may get a bit rattled, so that I don’t think straight.”

“Oh shit!” Linda barked, breaking into laughter. “The guy brings a flipping boat through a tsunami and doesn’t even get fazed. He rescues all of the rest of us from our wrecked homes, then fights his way through a storm with half the fucking country chasing after us. Now he tries to snow us by saying he gets rattled. Ely, you can listen to his bullshit if you want, I’m going to go see Keri and Trudy, I know they don’t pretend to be supermen.”

Ely just broke into laughter. “Wait a few moments would you? I’d rather you were with us, just in case we have to help ol’ ‘Superman’ here to get home. Now where did you hide the flashlight, David? By the time we get home, it’s going to be dead dark.”

“You had it in your pack Mom,” David told her.

“I did? Well, just a minute, it’ll be down at the bottom.”She paused for a moment as she searched. “Damn, I must have left it down at the shed.”

Karl chuckled.

“Look up on wall. There’s a hook on the right-hand side of the entrance,” he pointed in the dim light, hanging there was a small coal-oil lantern. “There should be a can of coal-oil at the back of the top shelf, on the far right, and there should be a funnel and a tiny can of waterproof matches near it too.”

“Do you plan ahead for everything?” Linda asked, almost sounding exasperated.

“No, if I did that, you wouldn’t have had to point out that I was wrong and we wouldn’t all be tired and grouchy,” Karl laughed softly.

“Smart ass,” Linda snorted.

In only a few moments they had the lantern fuelled and lit, then were slowly walking along the trail toward the cabin. Since none of them was really heavily laden, they were making good time and had just crossed the big bridge over the gap, when Karl asked them to stop and be quiet for a moment. He turned slowly and everyone knew he was listening attentively, but none of them could be sure why.