Exploring the Westkeag Estuary With a White Owl
My neighbor Roy hadn’t spent much time on the water. Born, raised and still living on Vinalhaven as was I, he was, nonetheless, strictly a landlubber and made no bones about it. I, on the other hand, while actually having spent very little time on the water, was convinced I had Yamalube in my veins. When a friend for whom I was building a house left his 25 foot Mako Whaler in my ‘care’, I wasn’t long in finding an excuse to use it. I headed across the street to Roy’s and, feigning exquisite nonchalance, I offered him a boat ride.
“Where we goin?” he asked.
Where indeed!! What the hell difference does it make where we’re goin’. Did he want to go for a boat ride or not, I sputtered to myself.
“Thomaston,” I replied impatiently, indicating a coastal community fifteen miles distant.
“What for?” he queried, as if it were any of his business.
“I have to pick up something at Jeff’s Marine.”
“Why not have it sent over on the ferry?”
“Geez! ‘Cause I want to go for a boat ride; you wanna come or not?”
“How long’s it going to take?” he asked stuffing four or five packs of White Owls into his pocket.
“I figure about an hour, tops.”
“You know how to get there?” He raised an eyebrow as he filled a cooler from behind the counter in his workshop.
“Course I know how to get there,” I snorted contemptuously. “What can there be but to go to Rockland and take a left. After that the first right’s got to be the St. George River, upstream from which is Thomaston.”
We cast off around 9A.M. I noticed the tide was pretty near low. Roy stuck a White Owl in his teeth, filled a cup from his cooler and stood next to me at the center console. I pushed her in the corner and Roy reached for the windshield to support himself. By the time the twin 150 H.P. Mercs had us planed out, the fire that moments before had been just warming up the end of his cigar was working on Roy’s lips. Unable to get his teeth unclenched or loose his grip on the windshield, he flung the drink into his face, extinguishing the fire. The sodden stub and ash clung to the stubble on his chin.
In minutes we’d covered the eight miles to Owl’s Head Peninsula and I accordingly hung a left into Mussel Ridge. In no time at all an inlet opened up on our right. I eased up on the throttle and turned into it.
“Thribry diyja Sup Urg Rigit?” Roy sputtered as he tried to make himself understood through the remains of his White Owl. He stuck his finger in his mouth, gutted and discarded the remains and wiped his chin. “Think this is the St. George River?” he asked sardonically.
“What else could it be?” I responded in kind and turned upriver.
“Don’t look very big,” he observed after we’d navigated the critically narrowing waterway around a few more bends.
Getting no response from me he continued. “When I was a young fella we used to come to see the big seiners work the St. George for alewives. Don’t seem possible that even the fish could have got up this little trickle, let alone the boats.”
“Well, the tide is just about dead low,” I offered by way of explanation and jerked a thumb at the clamdiggers whose numbers and proximity were increasing as we crawled upstream.
“Tide’d hafta be bigger ‘n’ Fundy to make this little dribble the river I remember,” said Roy wryly as he lit up a fresh White Owl.
By the time we rounded the next bend the beam of the whaler occupied nearly the entire width of the Channel which, up ahead, disappeared completely under a little bridge set amidst a few houses and small buildings. I slowed to a crawl.
“I know Thomaston’s a small town,” said Roy, “but it must’ve suffered a wicked decline to have come to this.”
A clamdigger sloshed up to the side of the boat and, resting his arms on the gunwale, asked Roy for a light. The fact that he was able to accomplish this in spite of our boat still being in gear, was not lost on me. I discreetly slipped her into neutral. “Where you boys headed?” he asked, mating the end of Roy’s White Owl with his Camel.
“Thomaston,” I replied confidently in spite of my diminishing conviction. I reminded myself that this was but a lowly clamdigger and I, for the moment at least, had command of a trickle going vessel.
He gave the prospect the same thoughtful consideration that must have been elicited from a prospector in the Rockies when a family in a covered wagon responded to a similar inquiry, “Oregon.”
“Well let me and the boys step back outta the way ‘cause you’re going to need to get up a helluva head of steam to clear that bridge yonder.”
I wished that he would indeed step back, he and his companions, back to the shore, back to their pickup, back to their homes and out of my situation because I was certainly going to suffer further and more intense humiliation the longer I remained in their company. But Roy, untroubled, had by now poured our new acquaintance a drink and some of his friends had drawn closer. They were leaning on their forks and clearly enjoying this diversion.
“Well,” I said, summoning my remaining cockiness and yet desperate to extricate myself, “we might try going back down river now so if you boy’s just step back a little--”
“Oh sure, sorry. Didn’t mean to hold you up. Go right on ahead.” He removed himself from the gunwale and glanced over his shoulder to satisfy himself that his companions were paying attention.
Tentatively applying a little throttle only produced a muffled groan as the two Mercs screwed themselves into the mud bottom. The growing awareness that my suffering had not run its course consumed me.
I stepped close to Roy and spoke quietly to him. A moment later he gracefully eased his bulk over the side and into the water. The ballast thus jettisoned, a big sucking sound ensued as the muck belched and released its grip on the props.
The fact that the twenty or so clamdiggers were in stitches was making if difficult for me to retain my composure. One had fallen backward in hysterics and was pounding the mud around him with his fork. Standing next to the boat in a few inches of water, Roy was stoic in flip flops, a pair of large bovine print Bermudas, his old Boy Scout leader’s jacket complete with merit badges of every description, and a red baseball cap which read “Where the hell is Vinalhaven?” With one hand holding a new drink and the other folded behind his back he was a vision of dignity in the face of overwhelming odds.
I engaged the electric lift and raised the props out of the water. Offering a kind of closure, our new companion spoke up again. “Now, this here,” jerking his head around in a kind of sweeping introduction, “is the Westkeag River. You’re looking for the St. George. You turned to starboard one stream too soon. Matter fact, this time of year this really ain’t hardly no stream at all. Most of this water you’re navigating now is only the run-off from Gray Smith hosing down his tractor up there by the bridge which he does reg’lar on Mondays. Now I suggest you and Katherine Hepburn here,” flinging a thumb at Roy, “abandon the African Queen for a spell and go up to the ‘Gig’; that’s the little store yonder, and get you some lunch. For that matter you could get a room up to the Weskeag Inn and just live out the rest of your days if’n you never want your faces seen back home again. On the other hand, if you got no pride at all, you could wait here with me and the boys for the tide which, incidentally, is still goin’. Probably be three hours or so till the incomin’ reaches your boat and you get a chance to hightail it outta here.”
I couldn’t bear the thought of being the object of their amusement a moment longer than I had to. I humbly suggested an alternative. “It looks like this stream is nearly as wide as the boat is long. Maybe we could turn her around with the help of you and some of your friends and let it carry us back downstream.
Wordlessly Roy reached into the boat and pulled out a bag of plastic cups. He lined up a dozen or so on the gunwale and began filling them from his cooler.
A few minutes later we were facing downstream but not in enough water to lower the props. I stood in the mud on one side and Roy on the other and we walked the boat down river. Our newfound acquaintances remained behind basking in the wonderful sense of renewal that a good rollicking laugh provides. As we rounded the bend that put them out of view we could hear the dwindling strains of the old spiritual, ‘Wade in the Water’ being passably rendered by this good natured group. In an hour or so we reached the Bay and climbed back aboard. Roy sat on the gunwale and rinsed off his legs and flip flops and resumed his station to my left at the console. He looked exactly as he had when he’d first come aboard hours earlier. I was a mess. My sneakers and socks and my jeans to the thighs were covered with mud. Everywhere I stepped I oozed mud out onto the deck.
Roy lit up a fresh White Owl and poured a new drink. Exiting the mouth of the Estuary we took a right. Up ahead lay ledges, islands, nuns, cans, a lobster boat and no course obvious to us. We approached the lobster boat slowly so as not to create a wake. The sole occupant was bent over a trap. His long low wooden boat rode low as though water logged. The gunwales were covered with gull droppings, gurry and dried brown spots. The exhaust and muffler sticking up through the cabin roof were sufficiently rotten to emit a low rumble as the boat idled. The old lobsterman was bent over his work to starboard as we approached the aft port quarter, reversing to stop our forward progress. He caught sight of us in his peripheral vision. Startled, he jerked upright. I guess the thing that caught his attention above all else was Roy’s Boy Scout jacket with its badges and emblems. Must have looked like a warden’s jacket for a brief moment or so. With a younger man’s grace he reached beneath the gunwale, retrieved a scaling basket and flung it overboard. As it arched toward the surface the lobsters fell out spreading their short claws as if trying to gain some purchase.
In the moment that followed he realized Roy wasn’t a warden and his relief matched our chagrin. “Howdy,” I smiled, wanting to gain the advantage and conclude our business before the impact of his loss had its full effect.
He nodded acknowledgement.
“How do I get to the St. George River?”
He looked at me as if I had asked him which way was up and spat some residual tobacco juice on his gunwale. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, “See that smoke over’t Sou’west?”
We did
“Thomaston dump,” he declared. “Head straight for it till you get to the river. Can’t miss it.”
“Thank you kindly,” I offered.
“No problem. Say, how’s the taters this year?”
“Taters?”
“Yeah, you know, potatoes.”
“Potatoes?” I repeatedly stupidly.
“Christ yes, potatoes! You boys is from up in ‘Roostik’ ain’t ya?” (He referred to Maine’s northernmost county, famous for potatoes and farmers who’d never set foot in a boat. He had managed admirably to restrain himself up to this point but the genius he attributed to his own humor and the subtlety with which he perceived its deliverance overcame him and he doubled over in such laughter that it drowned out the sound of his idling and similarly unrestrained engine.
Humbled and unnoticed we took our leave. Roy lit a new White Owl and puffed leisurely as I pursued a moderate course toward the columns of smoke. The St. George River arrived on the heels of my relief after we passed though the straits at Port Clyde.
“Little bigger, ain’t it?” suggested Roy.
It could have been the Nile. I eased the throttle forward and we roared upstream, my confidence returning with a rush. In no time we were at the Thomaston waterfront where the river doglegs dramatically to the left. To our right and quite close to the far shore stood a formidable monument. The described channel beyond left pitiful little room for navigation. Between this marker and the shore to our left, however, lay a considerable expanse of water. Hardly throttling back at all I turned sharply to pursue this obviously preferable course. The force with which we struck soft bottom for the second time that day caused me to fly over the console, the windshield and the bow and land in a foot or so of water. Unhurt, I struggled to my feet. Roy remained at the console where he had been bracing himself with both hands as we had taken the speedy turn. The rooster tail we had moments before been displaying to such effect had followed up and over the suddenly motionless boat and had dampened his cigar but not his spirits. The engines were stalled. My feet were stuck and I was sinking in the mud. Work on the nearby shore had stopped and observers were gathering. A Thomaston lobsterboat cruised alongside casually and reversed to a stop not two feet from our boat. The Captain emptied his corn cob and refilled it from a pouch of Carter Hall drawn from his oil pants while he looked over us “Aground ain’t ya?,” he queried dryly.
Roy poured a drink and sauntered to the stern to offer it to the lobsterman. He took it and they talked in low tones broken by an occasional chuckle. Eventually they finished their drinks. The water was at my chest. The lobsterman tossed a coil of pot warp in my direction and wrapped the other end around the davie. “Hold on,” he instructed.
Some day a diver exploring the bottom there will wonder at the circumstances which came to result in a pair of size 13 Reeboks standing casually side by side as if awaiting the return of someone who didn’t want
to track mud into the house.