By Jim Farrell
Days on the Multnomah Channel during the dog days of summer can be lazy, relaxing, boring, exciting, or just plain retaliatory. That is, you can take a perfect day, a clear sky and all the intentions of good fellowship on a summer afternoon on the river, then at the drop of a great deal of water into your boat and upon yourself, a heinous plot of retaliation becomes hatched.
I guess I’ll go back to the beginning, no, maybe not the beginning, but the beginning of what I had hoped to be a peaceful Sunday afternoon. It was one of those fantastic days that only warm summer days offer. I didn’t have to go to work, the jobs I had lined out around the floating home for the weekend were finished, or I had said the heck with them and I felt like sailing downstream in my 9’ Ranger dingy and seeing my friends at Casselman’s Cove where I had lived on my 30’ Newport for two years and just recently moved my Newport 30 up the Multnomah Channel in front of my new ‘fixer upper’ floating home.
A great part about living at Casselman’s Cove is that all the boats there were all sailboats. The majority of which were live-a-boards. With that many people, all with like interests, makes for grand evenings and weekends. Everyone seems to be working on their boats, getting them ready for the next or even perhaps their first sailing adventures. Needless to say, good friends are made and relationships are made for life.
So what seemed to be a great idea at the time was about to go astray. There was a 10 to 15 knot wind blowing upstream, so I had a great time tacking back and forth across the channel with a foot or two of chop which made it a little exciting, hey, I’m in a little boat! Before long I was able to tact right into my friends, Pete and Toni Rathbun’s slip alongside of their Spencer 50. Pete was working, as Pete always was, “improving” the boat.
As I hung on the edge of the dock talking with Pete, I saw a bright-colored blur rushing from across the dock with a long blue tube only to have the blurriness suddenly become a wet, soaking, cold gush of water that completely, utterly soaked me, leaving, it seemed, a couple of gallons of water sloshing in the bottom of the Ranger.
As I looked up with water dripping off my mostly balding head, waterlogged beard and clothes clinging to my then somewhat manly late middle age body, I was treated with the smiling face of my soon to be late friend (if I could have caught him) Chris, from the S/V Jasmine. It seemed that I had sailed unwittingly into the middle of free-for-all or maybe it should be said water-for-all. The god fearing people at the dock had been engaged in this sport all Sunday morning and me, unwisely, completely surprised and unprepared had sailed right into the thick of it. Now you’d think that being Sunday and all, these people would be spending time in church instead of soaking peace loving sailors.
While I was sputtering and shaking water off my drenched body, I tied up the Ranger and accepted the towel that Toni offered me. After getting somewhat dry, Chris walked up to me with a beer, and we were all laughing about it, that was until a little bump, from Chris, (said to be an accident) propelled me into the folds of Multnomah Channel for a total immersion! A laughing, helping hand was stretched out for me to regain the dock when that damn little leprechaun that rides on my Irish shoulder, reached up and grabbed the proffered hand, and instead of me easing myself out of the water, the leprechaun jerked my good friend Pete into the drifting wetness to be with me. When Pete rose up out of the water, the look of surprise and revenge on his face said it all. Big mistake!
Keep in mind that Pete is somewhere around 6’ something and I’m only 5’7 something and of course there is a little 20 year difference in our ages, me being the older. When that damn leprechaun pulled Pete into the water, he gave little thought to the ultimate outcome, which I concluded would not be beneficial to me and I quickly swam for my boat, climbed in and got under way. As I set sail and hightailing toward my floating home behind me, I could see water flying everywhere, from hoses, buckets, bulge pump outs, and people landing into the water to join my, I hoped to remain friend, Pete.
Luck would have it that I had a good tailing wind that pushed me the ½ mile back to my house and safety, I hoped. While tying up the Ranger to my dock, a couple of my friends from the floating home community were putt-putting by in their little electric motor driven flat-bottomed dingy. Of course, the state of my apparent wetness imminently became the topic of discussion. Gary and Teta joined me on my deck to hear the whole story. As I recounted my misadventure to them, I could see a mischievous glint in Teta’s eye, only to come to full blossom when she, Gary and I conjured up an appropriate retaliation. Keep in mind that Teta and Gary didn’t know my former dock mates and their reasons for retaliation only went as far as they were bored, hot (temperature ) and just plain looking for a little Sunday afternoon action on the river.
As our plot progressed from our mind into a form of action, we all got a little more into it. Out came big squirt guns, soakers, balloons filled with water, all strategically placed around the boat. Dry clothes were packed in plastic bags, as we had no delusions that the outcome would not be favorable to us. Finally, when all was in readiness, a blanket was placed into the bottom of the boat for me to hide under when we got close to our intended target. Keep in mind that the plotters of this adventure were mostly over 50. OK, we all are entitled to a second childhood.
Back down stream we went, with Gary and Teta looking like any small boat traffic on the river. As we approached Casselman’s Cove, the blanket came over me and most of the weaponry. On each end of the flat-bottomed work skiff sat Gary and Teta, each with two water filled balloons each and a gigantic squirt gun close at hand.
Casselman’s Cove is designed as one long dock running parallel with Multnomah Channel and with slips on both sides perpendicular to the river. Smaller boats (under 37’) on the inside and larger are on the outside. Just upstream from Casselman’s are some floating homes and Big Oak Marina, providing covered moorage for power boats. To gain access to the inside of Casselman’s, we had to go under the ramp going to shore and depending upon the river height and tide, clearance could be a problem. Luck and an early spring runoff provided us with just enough clearance to go under from upstream instead of going all the way around to the downstream side and back to our intended target, S/V Jasmine and Chris.
Under the ramp we slightly drifted as Gary slowed the boat down and I in a muffled quite voice told him where Chris’s boat was. Coming from the dock sounds could be heard of people laughing and by the sounds just finishing up a potluck meal. Someone began to strum a guitar and someone else began to sing along with it. Unto that peaceful scene we drifted, with every intention of disrupting it with quick, decisive malice and forethought. Just as we were coming up behind Chris and Kim’s boat, the assembled group began to notice the quite boat with its two friendly looking river rats. Heads turned as asking who and what are those people doing on that little stretch of water?
Then with a Rambo like movement up from the bottom of the boat, I popped up with a water filled balloon in each hand and a big squirt gun strapped across my chest and as luck would have it, there was Chris, right in front of me with a complete look of horror on his face without a means to protect himself. Never minding the collateral damage to be inflicted on both food, and probably not so innocent bystanders, I let loose with one, then two balloons right at Chris and as I grabbed my squirt gun, Teta and Gary grabbed theirs also and into the crowd of merrymakers’ flew gallons of indiscriminately aimed water.
Dock chairs fell over, plates scattered, beer bottles clanged together, people bumped and fell into each other as they either tried to get out of the way or were trying to get some kind of weapon to repel the invaders from the river. Very quickly the defenders of Casselman’s Cove began to rally and water by any means available began to soak the three inhabitants of the little boat. There were bowls of water, squirt guns a many, water hoses and so many conveyances of water, it was impossible to remember them all. Then as I was running low on ammo, there came a hairy arm out of the water by our boat and grabbed me by the ankle, giving my leg a quick jerk which propelled me into the water, effectively ending my Rambo reenactment.
Somehow in the middle of the fight my “friend” Pete was able to grasp the situation and deducted that there was a way to “get back” at me for my invisible leprechaun’s earlier indiscretion. As I came back up to the surface sputtering and gasping for air, swimming pacify beside me was Pete with a self-satisfying smile spread across his face. My ‘dunking’ signaled the end of the fight and as Pete and I climbed out of the water we were met with a laughing group of friends.
Looking around the dock in front of Chris and Kim’s boat, it quickly became apparent that our little commando raid had sufficed to break up a Sunday evening lobster party. Dishes were scattered about. Pop and beer bottles were rolling around the dock. Everyone seemed to be heading for dry clothes but worse yet, Kim, Tony and Deede (from S/V Tigilly) were clustered around a table where three beautiful pans of peach cobbler were sitting. My squad of pirates had interrupted not only a lobster feed, but also one that had peach cobbler with ice cream slated for the desert!
Somehow something watches over fools, kids and Irishmen. Even though the little Leprechaun that rides on my shoulder didn’t let me down in my time of need. All three of the women were shaking their heads in utter amazement. Water was all around, the dock was a complete mess, people soaking wet, however sitting there in the middle of the table were three perfectly dry and edible pans of peach cobbler! Somehow much to everyone’s relief, the cobbler was saved from getting wet.
As almost all things on the river in the hot days of summer, a quiet evening progressed. Gary, Teta, and I were invited to enjoy the cobbler, after we had changed into our dry clothes retrieved from the almost swamped boat. The dock proceeded with an evening of laughter, music and just darn good fellowship. Everyone had a story to tell, and now even years later the story is told again whenever sailors who were there the night of the “Great Lobster and Peach Cobbler Raid” get together.