The man smiled and said, “It’s so wonderful to see a young family enjoying the sunshine out here on the beach. You look like a picture right out of Life Magazine.”
Now his eyes scanned the distant horizon towards the ocean, as though looking for something. Then he looked at Natalie.
“My name is Saunders, or you can just call me captain…. that suits me just fine. And who might you be?”
“Natalie O’brien, and this is Annie and Logan.”
“O’brien? That’s a good Irish name,” he said. There was an uncomfortable pause in the conversation.
“So, you are a resident here?’ Natalie inquired.
“Oh, yes, I’ve been around here for a very long…yes, a long time. I used to sail ships up and down the coast. Not anymore, though. Now I just do whatever I want. Don’t have any family left around anymore.” He looked away towards the ocean once again.
He looked back at Natalie, saying, “It sure is a beautiful day…. you don’t see to many warm sunny days like this down here by the sea.”
Natalie began to warm up to him somewhat. “It sure is beautiful here,” she replied, looking up with a smile. “We hiked along the ocean trails this morning. There’s some breath taking views from the cliffs where we are camping.”
“Ah, you must be over by Ocean Cove then! Yes, you are quite right, that is a scenic place up there. A lot of tourists this time of year, though. Yep, they come here from all over, near and far.”
Annie suddenly looked over at the captain. “Well, we did see a strange looking man and a boy over there this morning. They were both dressed in clothes that were worn a long time ago!” she exclaimed, hoping that he might be able to shed some light about this.
Natalie laughed. “You know, she’s been thinking about that man and boy all morning. She claims that she saw them disappear, like they were two ghosts out for a morning stroll!”
“Well, how do you explain the way they were dressed?” Annie replied defensively. “They wore old fashioned clothing from another time! I think that they were ghosts, I know that I saw them disappear.”
“Ghosts!” Logan laughed. “Yea, right!”
Captain Saunders did not find Logan’s remark very amusing. In fact, he seemed to side with Annie.
“Young man,” he said. “The spirits of the departed may well indeed roam these shores. Why, did you know that there were many shipwrecks that happened long ago not far from here? They are all over these coasts between Bodega Bay and Crescent City. These are rugged coastlines, and many an ole’ sailing vessel went down in the bad storms that often hit with no warning.”
The captain thought for a moment, stroking his beard. “Yes,” he continued. “the wooden ships of those days were made to last, but they were especially vulnerable in bad storms in the open sea. They often ran off course in bad weather, and then crashed on the rocks and were torn to pieces.”
“Wow!” Logan yelled with a look of excitement. “Have you seen any of these shipwrecks?”
“Yes, indeed lad.”
Logan looked very curious now. “Oh, did you dive down to see the wrecks!”
“Well, not exactly….” laughed the captain. “However, I’ve seen divers going down to search them out, not too far from here. Most are only interested in sunken treasure and relics from the wrecked ships. Things are always washing up on the shore. Mostly just broken pieces of wood and the like. Nothing of any value. Most of the valuable items were taken away by fortune seekers years ago….”
Logan and Annie listened to the captain’s words intently. “I would like to explore a shipwreck someday.” Logan said. “Going down below the ocean would be a cool thing to do!”
Captain Saunders looked puzzled for a second, then he replied, “That would be quite an adventure, but always remember to respect the dead. Many a sailor lost their lives in these waters. It is like disturbing a grave site. There are stories told by the locals that sometimes the ghosts of the dead sailors can be seen walking along the shore not far from where a ship went down. It appears many of these spirits are restless and won’t leave this world. They’ve been seen up in Ocean Cove too, I’m sure of that!”
“Have you ever seen any of these ghosts, captain?” Annie asked, looking up into his piercing hazel eyes. He looked over and met her gaze.
“Once I was out for a stroll on a cold, blustery day, not too long ago. I was up on the cliffs, over by Ocean Cove. It was foggy that morning, as it often is near the ocean. I wasn’t too far from the trail-head when I saw a man and boy step out of a misty area. I only saw them for a moment before the mist thickened around them. Yes, that fog closed in so you could hardly see, and they just vanished then and there. Strange things can happen here at the coast, some say that there is some special power at work here, something that goes beyond our understanding.”
Annie’s eyes lit up. She was certain that what the captain was describing was exactly what she had experienced earlier that day at the cove. The trail and the location were identical. And he described a man and a boy. “Do you think that we saw the same ghosts?” She asked excitedly.
The Captain heaved a long hearty laugh. “Could be!” He grinned. “I know what I’ve experienced, and from what you’ve described, I believe that you saw something very unusual. Many people have seen strange things down here along these shores over the years, especially over there by Ocean Cove….”
Natalie began to feel a little uncomfortable with Captain Saunder’s tales of shipwrecks and ghosts. She cleared her throat and turned and gave him a long look and then said sharply, “Thanks for that interesting story, Mr. Saunders, but I don’t really think that there’s any real ghosts haunting these old shipwrecks. All of this kind of talk will only make it difficult for us to get to sleep tonight, though,” she added tersely.
“I must apologize, my dear lady! I should have been more thoughtful before I told my tales. I’m just a searching soul with a big heart and imagination, I suppose. Please forgive me if I have frightened any of you.”
“I liked your tales!” Annie quipped.
“Me, too!” Logan added. “Mom, we can handle it. We’re big kids now….”
Captain Saunders gave a little nod with a crooked smile. “I really must be off now. I need to finish my walk. I hope you enjoy your stay up there at Ocean Cove…. perhaps we’ll meet again. Have a good day.”
He waved at them as he walked away. Natalie and the kids waved back as he went towards the beach parking area, which was behind them. They turned around to wave at him one more time. “Bye, Captain!” Annie yelled as he left.
“Nice to have met you,” Natalie said.
After a few seconds, she turned and looked back again. Annie was saying how much she liked the captain when Natalie shouted in astonishment, “Where did he go?”
Annie and Logan turned around and looked where the Captain had been only moments earlier. He was not there….and nowhere to be seen. This was very odd, because he was not moving very fast when he left. There were some children playing with a ball in that general direction, and two women with a dog…. but Captain Saunder’s had simply disappeared!
“Where did he go?” Natalie cried in disbelief.
“He’s gone!” Logan exclaimed.
Annie looked puzzled as well. “Maybe Captain Saunder’s was a ghost, too!” she blurted. “I mean, where could he have gone so fast? It’s like he just vanished into thin air, mom!”
They asked the two women with the dog if they had seen an old man with a beard and white shirt. They had not.
“Well, that was very, very strange,” Natalie replied in dismay. She looked at her watch. “It’s time to go! Logan, look at your neck, it’s getting sunburned!”
Chapter 8
Pieces of a Mystery
They returned to their campsite to find a couple of squirrels and a big raccoon eating out of a bag of chips that had been left out on the picnic table. Annie thought that the animals were cute and she got her phone camera out and sn
apped some pictures before Logan chased the bandits off with a stick.
“For now on we’re going to have to store all of our food in the back of the SUV when we’re not here,” Natalie told the kids.
Logan picked up the potato chip bag and looked inside. “They ate almost all of our chips!” He moaned. “Find your own food next time,” he yelled towards the woods where the animals had run off into the foliage.
Annie looked over at her brother, saying, “Logan, you’re the one who left the chips out on the table. It says in the park brochure to secure all edibles in storage containers….”
“Throw the rest of those away, Logan,” Natalie said. “We are not going to eat the same food as the animals. Then both of you get washed up, we need to get dinner ready.”
Natalie cooked two cans of beef stew. She had to cook two big cans to satisfy their hunger from such an active day. The stew really tasted good poured over some slices of bread. Logan scrapped his plate with his spoon, relishing every drop of the thick beefy sauce.
After dinner, the evening air began to feel colder. They changed back into their long pants and sweatshirts, this time anticipating the onslaught of the cooler temperatures. The sun sank low on the western horizon.
The winds began to blow inland, gradually gaining in strength until it felt uncomfortable to be outside. Logan and Annie ran into the tent. Logan played his smart phone games, while Annie wrote in her diary. She wrote about the camping trip and what had happened so far in their adventures by the ocean.
Natalie came over to the tent with some hot chocolate. She was having trouble unzipping the flap to get inside. “Annie, please help me!” she yelled. “If you want some hot chocolate, help me open the door!”
Annie jumped to her feet and unzipped the tent door for her mom. Natalie handed her the hot chocolate, just as Logan looked over from his game. “Hey, don’t I get any?”
“Of course you do, Logan. I wouldn’t leave you out, just as long as you promise that you won’t throw any on your sister!” Natalie went back to the camp stove and poured hot water into a large Styrofoam cup, stirring in the instant hot chocolate mix. She brought the steaming cup over to the tent and handed it through the open flap. “Here you are Logan…. take it!” She said. “Now be careful with it.”
Natalie also made herself a cup. Then she joined the children inside the tent. It was too cold for her, too. The tent was nice and cozy, especially with a steaming cup of hot chocolate in hand. They enjoyed every sip.
Logan continued with his game while Natalie read a magazine. Annie wrote in her diary. She made the following entry:
July 19th, 2015
We are camping today at Ocean Cove. Yesterday when we first arrived we had trouble pitching our tent. A nice man helped us get it up. It almost blew away. The winds are very strong here and it’s very cold in the evenings. Then the camp stove did not work, so we had to go and get a bottle of whatever you call it - gas or something, to make it work. After dinner Logan threw his hot chocolate on me. He said that he burned his hand so that is why he threw the stuff. Last night was so funny, I wish that I got it all on a video, we could send it to YouTube.
July 20th, 2015
Last night I had a weird dream about a shipwreck. The dream was so real that I thought it was really happening. Then after breakfast we went for a walk on a trail by the ocean. About halfway through the walk we saw this man and a boy. They were wearing clothes from another time. The man had on something like a uniform that had these shiny buttons and stripes on the cuffs. Maybe he was a ship’s captain. The boy was dressed in a fancy white shirt with puffed sleeves and suspenders. He wore something like a bandanna on his head. After they had passed us I turned around and they were gone. They just disappeared into the mist like they were ghosts. My mom and Logan did not see them vanish and I don’t think that they believe me. Then when we went to the beach we met this man who called himself the captain. He told us about the many shipwrecks in this area, and he said that he also had seen ghosts near a shipwreck here at Ocean Cove. After we said goodbye to him, we turned around a couple of seconds later to wave bye to him, and he was gone. He just disappeared, and there was no way that he could have walked away that fast. This was so weird. I think that it even freaked out my mom and Logan, so maybe they will start believing me now….
Annie stopped writing and looked up at her mom. She was intently reading a magazine. Annie closed the diary app on her phone. She did not want Logan’s prying eyes to read what she had written.
“What time is it?” Annie asked.
Natalie glanced at her watch. “It’s almost 6 o ‘clock.”
Logan put his cell phone down. “I think the wind died down,” he said. “See, the sides of the tent aren’t shaking anymore. I’m tired of being in the tent…. let’s go outside.”
He unzipped the tent and went out. Annie and Natalie followed. The winds had died down. The sky was partly cloudy and the sun was towards the west, its rays penetrating the cloud layer over the ocean.
There still was a chill in the damp marine air. It was not at all like the windy chill that had drove them to cover the night before. But it was just cool enough that Logan decided to start a fire early.
He piled on the wood, using all that was left from the previous night. Then he poured on charcoal lighter fluid and lit a match. There was now a roaring fire with flames leaping high into the air.
They sat by the crackling fire and enjoyed smores. Logan’s marshmallows would usually catch on fire because he held them too close to the flames. But he decided that burned marshmallows between two gram crackers with a melted piece of chocolate was just great anyway.
“The fire feels good,” Annie said as she took a last bite of smores. “It’s almost getting to warm now!”
“Well, hello there campers!” Natalie and the kids wheeled around and looked behind them. It was Will Bates, the kind man who had helped them pitch their tent last night. “How’s everything going?” he asked.
“Much better than last night!” Natalie answered with a smile. “Our tent is still standing anyway…. thanks to you!”
“Well, I’m glad to see that it’s staying up in these winds. Pitching a tent out here is a real challenge with these strong winds. It’s best to put a tent up earlier in the day, before the winds get so strong, or later in the evening.”
Natalie nodded, saying, “Yes, we noticed that the winds calmed down later in the evening. I’m glad, because if they blew like that all of the time we probably wouldn’t have lasted more than one night out here.”
Mr. Bates smiled. “Well, I’m glad that you guys decided to stay and rough it out. How did you sleep last night? Did you feel the quake?”
“There was an earthquake?” Natalie asked, looking somewhat surprised and a little alarmed.
“Oh, it was just a little jolt. Happened around 5:30 this morning. I could feel the ground vibrate under me. Only lasted about ten seconds. Nothing to get to excited about. Small quakes like that happen a lot in this part of the country.”
“Oh, gee, you mean there was an earthquake and I missed it!” Logan said. “I wish that I had been awake. I always wanted to find out what an earthquake was like.”
“As long as it’s not the big one anyways,” Natalie added.
Will grinned. “That’s for sure! Small quakes are usually just minor shakers…. only enough to knock pictures off the wall or rearrange the stuff in your cabinets…. but a big quake, say larger than a 6 point O…. nobody wants to experience that more than once in a lifetime, believe me!”
Will glanced over at Natalie. “The reason why I stopped by was to see if you need anything. I’m headed up to the park station to pick up some supplies and to fill up our water containers before they close.”
Natalie though for a second. “Oh, thanks for asking, but I don’t think we need anything right now. We have plenty of bottled water and we’re pretty well stocked up with things to eat. We really appreciate all of your help, though!�
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“Okay, then. If there’s anything that I can do to help out, just holler. We’re right next door,” he smiled. “Well, I’ll see you later.”
“Thanks, Mr. Bates,” Annie said, waving goodbye.
The fire was beginning to burn out. Logan had used up all the wood that they had bought at the park store. Natalie did not want to buy more wood because it was expensive.
Logan and Annie decided to go and look for more wood. “Get back here before dark!” Natalie shouted after them.
“Okay, mom!” They promised.
They went to the ocean and walked down the same trail that they had explored in the morning. Logan gathered what wood he could find laying on the ground…. most of it under the scrub oak trees that grew along the rocky cliffs.
As they rounded a long bend in the trail, Annie spotted some wood that was scattered along a stretch of rocky beach below them. This area was a wide-open cove, a natural inlet shaped like a horseshoe.
“Logan!” Annie yelled. “I found more wood!”
Logan came over and stood next to his sister. He looked over the edge of the cliff tops. “There’s lots of wood down there!” he exclaimed. “But how are we going to get down there?”
Annie studied the cliffs below. She noticed a narrow path that meandered down the cliffs. “I know how to get the wood!” She said excitedly. “Just follow me!”
She walked over towards the lower end of the cove, where the cliffs turned and ran westwards towards the ocean. Here at the bend is where Annie found a steep trail that descended in a zig zag fashion down to the bottom of the cove. She slowly began to follow the trail down the sheer cliffs, with Logan close behind.
This trail was a little precarious, with loose sandy stretches and large boulders on each side. Annie and Logan held on to the rocky ledges as they progressed towards the rugged beach. The trail ended into a sandy rock-strewn shoreline. This small beach was only about 100 feet long and perhaps thirty feet wide. Jagged boulders rose up above the surface of the inlet waters. The waves crashed in an endless progression against these mighty towering rocks.
Ghost of Ocean Cove Page 7
