Great tale!
"Lloyd Sumpter" wrote in message
news
My Lady wanted a nice piece of driftwood to put in the snake's new
habitat. We talked to a native in Lund who said there was lots of drift-
wood on Harwood Island (an Indian Reservation) and we could take whatever
we wanted. Only problem was, there's no real anchorage or shelter at the
island.

We found a likely-looking spit with lots of driftwood, and anchored
nearby.
(Flash Quiz: water was 24ft where I dropped anchor, I pulled back into
water that varied between 20ft and 40ft depending on how I swung, and had
16 fathoms of rode out. What was my scope?)

How high off the water is your bow roller?:-)

Wind was light at the time, but
forecast was increasing Westerlies until 30knots by evening. I told
Angelique that she had ONE HOUR to find something, then we had to leave if
we wanted to get to safe harbour by evening. She set off in Near Cove with
the electric motor.

Two hours later, wind was up to 15 knots or so, and waves were building
past a 1ft chop. She returned, and said she'd found the Perfect Burl, but
it was too heavy for her to handle. I decided to get the burl and worry
about
what harbour we went to later (There were two close by, but one was a
dirty
public dock next to a pulp mill, and the other was on a VERY windy point).
I hopped in the dinghy and headed out.

When I got to the beach, I discovoured that it was COVERED with oysters.
Not
a bad thing if I had shoes, which I didn't. Hot-footed it over the sharp
shells to the burl, and soon discovoured that it was going to take more
than
a few minutes: there was no way I could lift it! I slowly rolled it down
the
beach. At one point, I noticed that the tide seems to have changed (it was
still flowing like an ebb at the boat, but the water was rising!) and Near
Cove was in danger of floating away. I hot-footed back down the beach,
secured
the dinghy, and hot-footed back to the burl.

By now my feet were sore, cut and bleeding, but I continued rolling the
burl down the beach. It was personal now: There was no way the burl was
gonna get the better of me! Finally, with thoughts of "I REALLY hope this
is the right burl!" and "Gee, I hope this floats!", I got it into the
water.

Quickly, I got into the dinghy and tied a stern line to the burl. Full
throttle on the electric! Slowly the burl started following, and we made
our way back to the boat: an 80-lb dinghy with a 30-lb thrust Minn Kota
pulling a 200-lb burl in 20knot winds and a 2-ft chop (fortunately on the
stern!). Yes, I was wearing a PFD! I made it to Far Cove where Angelique
was
waiting. Under my instruction, she pulled down the main halyard so I could
hook it onto the burl. Once the burl was secure, I got Near Cove back to
the
Far Cove's stern and got aboard.

We pulled up the burl and secured it on deck, then Angelique had to "man"
the helm and give me some engine while I reeled in the anchor. The trusty
CQR had held fine, but I had to use the wave action to break it free from
the bottom. Finally free, we headed off downwind and away from the shoal.

We'd spent too much time there to make the quiet bay, so we settled for
Grief Point Marina - secure, but open to the wind. The night was bumpy and
windy, but safe.

Back at our marina, we again used the main halyard to get the burl off the
boat onto the handcart, and both of us together managed to lift it into
the
van. We rolled it out at home, and it's now sitting in the carport,
awaiting
Angelique's chainsaw surgery...

Lloyd Sumpter
"Far Cove" Catalina 36
"Near Cove" Walker Bay 8