The Boat Who Wouldn't Float

by Farley Mowat

  “Faith and begorra! And wouldn’t that be a fine rig for swimmin’ in the rain?”

  The people of Spoon Cove took him to their hearts, and so did I.

  There was one distinct advantage to Mike’s ignorance of the sea and vessels. He did not know enough about them to be nervous. In his eyes Happy Adventure was the staunchest little vessel that had ever lived. He trusted her absolutely. He kept on trusting her, too, even when she did her best to disillusion him. Not, mind you, that he failed to take precautions. As he climbed into his bunk that first night he delayed a moment-to hammer a huge St. Christopher medal to the plank above his head.

  Although I am not a member of Mike’s faith that medal is still where he placed it. Somebody must have had an eye on us in the days that followed. Whether it was St. Christopher or the Old Man of the Sea remains a mystery. I suspect it took both of them, working as a team, to do the job.

  12. A basking shark and a Basque proposal

  TWO DAYS after Mike’s arrival we set sail for St. Pierre, which lay fifty miles to the westward around the tip of the projecting boot of the Burin Peninsula. I hopefully looked forward to an easy passage. Since it was to be a coastwise voyage within sight of land, I did not expect the eccentricities of the compass would be a problem. The engine was working better than it had ever worked before. The leaks seemed to have settled down or, at any rate, they were not beyond control of Mike’s muscular abilities. We were well stored with food and rum. Even the weather forecast was good.

  The forecast called for “southerly winds, light at dawn, increasing to southeast twenty; visibility four miles, except in fog.” The phrase, “except in fog,” occurred in every weather forecast during every voyage I ever made in six years’ residence on the south coast of Newfoundland. The fog itself also occurred on every voyage except one. Sometimes the fog was in patches only a few miles wide. Usually it was rather more impressive, extending over several hundred thousand square miles of ocean. Although the weather forecasts were quite often wrong about other things they were seldom wrong about the fog.

  In honour of this, his first sail, I served Mike a special breakfast. It began with oatmeal porridge and condensed milk in which several rashers of fat-back bacon bobbed. This was followed by boiled rounders. Rounders are another Newfoundland delicacy. They are very small cod that have been sun-dried “in the round,” rather than split, as are the larger fish. They have a flavour and aroma rather like old cheddar cheese. Mike, who was not a born Newfoundlander, had never tasted them before, but he was game and he ate two. He agreed about the aroma and the taste, only he said it was more like Gorgonzola.

  We got away from Spoon Cove at seven o’clock with just enough breeze to fill our sails and make for a brave departure. An hour later we rounded Little Burin Island into the open waters of Placentia Bay and began pitching into a big, slow, queasy swell running from the south. As Happy Adventure began to rise and sink with the rhythm of the swell I got out the bottle and made the customary offering to the Old Man of the Sea, then I passed a glass to Mike who was looking thoughtful.

  Mike raised the glass to his lips, abruptly turned aside, and made his own personal offering to the Old Man. I do not think it was made voluntarily because Mike did not hold with pagan superstitions; but voluntary or not it was made with energy and with abandon.

  When he was quite finished he turned palely to me and said he did not think he really cared for rounders-not twice on the same morning anyway.

  The breeze freshened until we were bowling down the desolate Burin coast at a good five knots. Mike began to get the feel of things and to enjoy himself. I showed him how to steer a compass course. He had no trouble with the compass but he had some difficulty steering. This was because steering a boat by means of a tiller, instead of a wheel, requires the helmsman to push the tiller in the opposite direction to the way he wants the boat to turn. It takes a little while to get accustomed to it.

  Before noon we rounded Lawn Head and altered course until we were running almost due west. The wind began to fall light and the sky grew increasingly hazy. I kept one anxious eye to seaward, watching for the black wall of fog to start advancing, and the other on the grim, reef-strewn coast that we were skirting.

  Mike, at his ease at the tiller, was more interested in the oceanic world and its inhabitants. He grew ecstatic when we passed through a pod of pothead whales, sleek black beasts fifteen feet or more in length, so busy pursuing schools of unseen squid that some of them surfaced and blew within a stone’s throw of us.

  Mike had recently re-read Moby Dick and he was fired by a desire to experience the passions of a whaler. I turned a deaf ear to his suggestion that he be allowed to put off in the dory, armed with our boat-hook, and harpoon a pothead for himself. Not that I was unsympathetic, but I was becoming increasingly worried about a spreading overcast and rapidly worsening visibility that was forcing us to hold ever closer to a most inhospitable coast.

  My problem was that I could not simply take a course off the chart and steer by the compass, keeping a good offing from the land. The compass would not let me. Although we were then steering just south of west the compass insisted we were actually steering north-northwest. There was only one way we could navigate and that was by making use of landmarks on the shore; and landmarks on the shore of the Burin Peninsula are ill-defined at best.

  About two o’clock I slung my binoculars around my neck and climbed to the foremast spreaders, hoping to pick up Lamaline Head, off which lies a formidable barrier of sunken rocks. Luck was with me and I was able to distinguish the distant Head. Feeling relatively secure for the moment I swung my binoculars in search of other vessels.

  A mile off the port bow I saw something which resolved itself into an immense, glistening black back. I took it to be one of the great whales, either a finner or a blue. Since I too have long been fascinated by the great creatures of the sea, I called down to Mike telling him what I had seen and ordering him to alter course toward the beast.

  As we ran down upon the animal Mike was as expectant as a child making his first visit to the zoo-and nearly as unmanageable. He kept letting go of the tiller in order to leap up on the cabin trunk for a better look, and it was only by bellowing like a Captain Queeg that I could keep him at his post at all. He grew even more excited when I called down to tell him it was not a whale-it was a shark; either a Greenland or a Basking shark, but in any event one of the largest true fishes in the sea.

  It was immense. Lazing slowly on the surface with its dorsal fin standing up like a tri-sail, it appeared to be quite unconscious of our approach. This is a characteristic of both species for both are sluggish giants with, apparently, not much intelligence. Perhaps they don’t need a great deal. This specimen was a good ten feet longer than our vessel and it was hard to imagine any natural antagonist that could threaten it.

  Certainly I had no intention of threatening it, let alone attacking it. However I did want a close look so I told Mike to run alongside, keeping about thirty yards away.

  Mike chose to interpret the distance as thirty feet and, as we drew abeam of it, the great fish, for some reason known only to itself, ponderously changed direction to cross our bows.

  “Hard-a-starboard, Mike!” I yelled. “Hard over!”

  In retrospect I can attach no blame to Mike. He had only just learned that starboard meant right. He had only just learned to steer a boat with a tiller. He did manage to remember which direction starboard was-and he hauled the tiller hard to starboard.

  We were then travelling at about four knots, which is no great speed, but that shark was very nearly an immovable object and when we hit him, just behind the dorsal fin, we did so with a rubbery jolt that almost catapulted me off the foremast. Happy Adventure’s curving cutwater slipped up over his broad back until her bowsprit pointed skyward, then the monster sounded and the little ship sailed on.

  Mike was all contrition but since as far as I could tell no harm had been done to anyone, I graciously
forgave him. We sat and talked about the encounter. We were both much affected, for it is not often given to modern men to meet such a colossus from the alien sea world. Eventually I decided to go below and brew a pot of coffee.

  When I stepped off the bottom of the companion ladder I stepped into several inches of cold water….

  Even in that first shocked moment I knew exactly what had happened. The collision with the shark had sprung a plank below the waterline. As I leapt for the pump I yelled at Mike to tell him we were holed; we were sinking! With vivid memories of the awful night spent outside Trepassey crowding in upon me I went at the pump with a sort of insane ferocity. Again! It had happened again! It was just too bloody much to bear!

  Oh, how I pumped. Sweat filled my eyes. The pump itself grew warm to the touch. But I saw nothing, felt nothing, except a foul and consuming rage. I had no breath for words, but the oaths I mentally lavished on Happy Adventure, on Mike, on the Old Man, and even on St. Christopher, should have doomed me forever, even if the leak did not.

  Then the pump sucked dry! The handle wobbled loosely in my hand.

  I looked into the bilge opening beside the engine. The bilge was dry except for its usual coating of oily siime. There was no flood of cold green water pouring aft along the keelson.

  I did not believe it. I stayed below watching the bilge for almost an hour and in that time the vessel took exactly as much water (it was quite enough, to be sure) as she usually took. There was no new leak.

  Baffled but infinitely relieved I went back on deck and took over the helm and we resumed our voyage toward St. Pierre. I pondered the mystery of the flooded engine room but could form no idea of what might have happened.

  After a time Mike went below to make the coffee. A few moments later he popped his head out through the companionway.

  “Farley,” he said, “there’s no water in the fresh water pump. Can’t get a drop.”

  Here was a new mystery. We had filled our fresh water tank before leaving Burin. It was an immense tank for so small a vessel, because Jack and I intended it to hold enough fresh water to last us clear across an ocean if need be. Now Mike insisted it was empty. Leaving Happy Adventure to look after herself I joined him down below, and in due course we found some answers.

  The jolt when we hit the shark had caused an already slack hose connection on the bottom of the tank to shake free-and our entire supply of fresh water had flowed out into the bilges.

  By the time we discovered what had happened we were well past Lamaline. Visibility had improved a little, and I was able to dimly distinguish a grey pimple on the far horizon and to recognize it for Colombier Island which lies close beside St. Pierre. I took the tiller again, having apologized to Mike, to Happy Adventure, to the shark, to St. Christopher, and to the Old Man of the Sea. Mike was discreetly busy down below. After a while he scrambled up on deck bearing two steaming mugs.

  “Here, Skipper,” he said. “Drink this. And begorra, I’ll bet you’ve never tasted Irish coffee like it!”

  In truth I never had. I probably never will again. But this I can confirm: black coffee made with rum as a substitute for water is a drink of exceptional authority.

  At about six-thirty the wind fell out completely. By then we were within a few miles of the North Channel entry into St. Pierre, so we downed sail and started the bullgine for the final run. We made a triumphant approach. With a bone in her teeth and a pennant of black smoke trailing from her exhaust, the little ship drove in toward the grey, treeless loom of the French islands.

  We passed a big rusty Portuguese freighter on her way out. Being full of the brotherhood of the sea we cheerfully saluted her with three feeble blasts on our hand fog-horn. After a short pause while her skipper tried to locate the source of the sound, for his vessel dwarfed us into insignificance, she responded with three mighty blasts. This was a proud moment-but it had repercussions.

  The freighter had dropped the St. Pierre Pilot only a few minutes earlier, and the Pilot was on his way back to harbour in his big motor launch when he heard the whistle blast. He assumed that another vessel was preparing to enter and would require his services. As we swung around Ile aux Vainqueurs to enter the North Channel, we met the pilot boat coming back out.

  She was twice our size and going twice as fast. Paying no attention to us she went racing past and then, seeing nothing on the horizon except the departing Portuguese freighter, began to circle in a puzzled sort of way. Finally she turned about and came foaming toward Happy Adventure.

  When she was a few yards off she slowed and the Pilot hailed us in French, which left me little the wiser because my knowledge of that language is fragmentary. Mike spoke fluent French. To the Pilot’s polite query as to whether we had seen another inbound vessel, Mike replied that indeed we had.

  “Where is she?” asked the Pilot.

  “Gone down!” Mike replied, pointing an expressive thumb towards the deeps.

  “Gone down? Mon Dieu! You mean she sank?”

  “Oui,” said Mike affably. “But maybe submerged would be a better word. It was a submarine, Monsieur. A very big one. With a very big gun on the bow. It had a hammer and sickle painted in bright red on the conning tower.”

  The Pilot’s face paled noticeably. His eyes rolled as he anxiously searched the horizon. I think he must have been about to flee for his life when some faint, lurking suspicion seemed to be aroused within him. His face began to redden. He turned back to us and saw the smirk upon Mike’s face.

  “By God, I think you are one big liar! Bien! The submarine is gone, but you remain. You wish to enter St. Pierre, eh? Then you will take a pilot. Stand by for me to come aboard.”

  This was the only part of the conversation Mike translated for me.

  “Nothing doing,” I said. “You tell him we don’t need any pilot, aren’t going to take one, and certainly aren’t going to pay for one.”

  Mike passed this on, and the Pilot shrugged, grinned without mirth, jammed his engine into gear, and without more ado began describing circles around Happy Adventure at high speed, putting up a huge wake, and passing so close under our bow and stern that I could see his jaw muscles working each time he went by.

  The little schooner was shocked by this behaviour and she showed it. She pranced; she leapt; she shook herself; she skated skittishly from side to side as each new wave hit her. As for me, I did not have a clue as to the cause of this outrageous behaviour on the part of the Pilot, and I was much annoyed by it. I was also still under the influence of the Irish coffee, which is a notably belligerent drink.

  It so happened that as part of our lifesaving gear we carried a flare pistol of wartime vintage. I jumped below and got the gun. At the next pass the Pilot made I fired a flare two feet above his cabin roof! He sheered off so violently that he heeled his port gunwales under water. He did not return but ran at full throttle toward the harbour entrance and disappeared behind the mole.

  That was undoubtedly one of the most satisfying exploits of my entire nautical career but, it has to be admitted, it was not necessarily the wisest. When, half an hour later, we puttered through the gap between the moles and opened the harbour itself, the first thing we saw was a platoon of gendarmes marshalling on the government wharf.

  Mike claimed to be of the opinion that they had been called out to give us an official welcome. But the effect of the Irish coffee was wearing off and I was plagued with doubts. So instead of steaming boldly in and putting our lines ashore I stayed a hundred yards off the dock, coyly circling, while the gendarmes, the douanes, the immigration men, and a growing number of other citizens urgently beckoned us to come ashore.

  At this point Mike drew my attention to two harbour launches, a small tug boat, and the pilot boat, all of which were busily embarking gendarmes. It appeared that if we were not anxious to go to them, they were anxious to come to us. I turned tail and Happy Adventure fled out through the gap. I do not feel that we fled with ignominy. Being so considerably outnumbered, I doubt
if even Nelson would have been willing to stand his ground.

  The aftermath of that imbroglio might have been unpleasant had not luck been with us. As we galumphed slowly down the channel we met a large, seagoing dory, inward bound. Her name, Oregon, was written large across her bows and I recognized both her and the skipper. He was Théophile Detcheverry, descendant of generations of Basque fishermen who have lived on the islands during the last three hundred years. Théo was a great, bull-voiced, vibrant man; a power on the islands and also, thank the Lord, a friend of mine from a previous visit to St. Pierre.

  Théo recognized me too. His bellow of welcome was perfectly audible above the roar of both our engines. He ran Oregon alongside of us with such abandon that Happy Adventure still bears the scars.

  “Farleee! By Christ! You come back to St. Pierre at last! C’est bon! C’est magnifique! And in your own bateau, you come…!”

  “Oui, Théophile,” I said when I could get a word in edgewise. “I’ve come; but je ne pense pas that I’ll be staying long. Regardez-vous astern!” With which I pointed to the pursuing flotilla rapidly closing in upon us.

  At this point Mike took a hand. He explained the whole situation and when Théo got through laughing like a mad walrus he leapt aboard and instructed me to stop my engine. We were soon surrounded by the St. Pierre Home Defence Squadron and for a while all was pure pandemonium.

  When things sorted themselves out we returned to the harbour with Théo at the tiller of Happy Adventure, with the rest of the fleet giving us a cheerful escort. It is a nice characteristic of the St. Pierrais that, although they are quick to flame, they are also quick to forgive.

  They were very good about some other small matters to which I had forgotten to attend before we left Muddy Hole. For one thing, I had not obtained official clearance for my vessel to sail to foreign ports. Also, I had not bothered to have her registered and so I had no papers. No papers. No flag. No port of registration, and not even a name painted on her stern or bow. It was a wonder that Mike and I were not immediately jailed and our ship interned.