Kopecky - The Oil Man and the Sea: Navigating the Northern Gateway

O VER TWELVE hundred marine traffic incidents were reported off British Columbias coast in the decade leading up to our trip, but Foxy did not feature among them. The closest we came to an incident was on August , as we motored up the middle of mile-wide Seaforth Channel. Wed left Koeye and were heading north again; up Fitz Hugh, through Lama Pass, past Bella Bella and Shearwaterjust two hours past, in fact, when Suzy made a sound like her horses were beset by wolves. Ilja slammed a greasy fist into the kill switch and dove below decks, leaving me at the aluminum wheel. The sun was shining. To starboard, a tug was overtaking us with a football-field-sized barge in tow, laden with machinery and oblivious to our predicament, as were the three sportfishing boats bearing down off our port beam. Ilja, absorbing different information in the engine room below me, shouted up in expletive-laden terms that the impeller hose had burst.

Whats an impeller hose? I called back.

The Pacific fucking ocean is pouring into our engine room!

That I could picture. But Ilja swiftly resolved the crisis by turning a valve that stopped the water coming in. Never panic. No longer sinking, we unfurled the jenny and gybed downwind, sailing away from the rocks towards a narrow bay sheltered from the wind by a steep mountain. As we entered the mountains lee, our sail deflated and Foxy drifted to a halt in time for us to drop anchor in forty feet of hazel water, and we were safe.

We werent alone. Michael Reid and Sarah Stoner were right behind us in the Skomalt . They were headed to Hartley Bay, home of the Gitgaat Nation and our next stop, as well. There were a dozen routes we could have taken through the labyrinth to get there, but Michael said he knew of a good one, so wed arranged to meet up in Whiskey Cove and sail north together.

The Skomalt followed Foxy to safe harbour and rafted up as soon as wed anchored. Thanks guys, Sarah said as they tied on, Bowie was ready to go for a walk anyway.

Bowie was Sarahs enormous live-aboard mutt, who didnt have the best sea legs; she took him ashore for a beach walk while Michael and Ilja went below to look at Suzy.

Pretty grim, Michael said.

I think I can patch her up at least enough to get back to the mechanic at Shearwater, said Ilja. I was relieved to hear it. A tow would have cost over a thousand dollars.

I think you guys should have a beer with me, I said.

They did, and Sarah paddled back to join us too, which was a good thing because the smell of her dog had attracted company. A guttural howl arose from the woods and a pack of pale wolves trotted out onto the rocks where shed been five minutes earlier, sniffing intently. Ilja hustled down the hatch to retrieve his camera from the V-berth, but by the time he came back up the wolves had already flitted back into the trees.

Fuck, he muttered. Todays not our day, is it.

I dont know, said Michael. Doesnt seem so bad.

But Ilja was staring back into the bowels of the engine room now, and for the next two hours he abused Suzy with a stream of vitriol that had its intended effect, for at last he reemerged with a triumphant look on his face. Hed taken the impellor off and patched it up with a collection of parts cannibalized from non-essential items.

Fire her up, he said, I think were good.

Suzy started without a problem, her timbre was healthy, the engine coolant stayed cool, nothing leaked. No water flooded the engine room.

Unfortunately, shed lost her capacity to stay neutral.

Are you in drive? Michael asked. Hed looked up while we were all still looking down and noticed that Foxy and Skomalt , lashed tightly together, were spinning around inside the tight quarters of our rock-walled little cove.

What the fuck, said Ilja. He checked the gear shift. We should be in neutral.

Pretty sure youre in drive, Michael said. I think thats our cue. And he and Sarah and Bowie hopped back into the Skomalt , started her engine, and cast off at a strategic moment when the Skomalt s trajectory shot her out of Foxy s orbit into the safe, open waters of Seaforth Channel, making westerly into the setting sun, shouting back to us Good luck! See you in Hartley Bay!

We let Foxy keep turning while Ilja went back down to the dungeon and pulled experimentally on cables whose existence I could only imagine, calling up to me to put her in neutral, in drive, in reverse, until hed sleuthed out the cause of our problems and Foxy stopped spinning circles. Finally he told me to kill it. He came back up grimy and exhausted, and I did the only thing I knew how to do in these situations: I rolled a joint and poured two drinks.

What are the chances of our gears going bonkers at a time like that? he said as we leaned back into our seats.

Probably pretty good, I said. When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions. He gave me a look. That, I said, is Shakespeare.

You mean when it rains it pours.

Uh huh.

I think it has more to do with the butterfly effect, he said. In just about any system, from old sailboats to planetary climates alike, pressure applied to one point often manifests as trouble in another, seemingly unconnected, point. He was pensive now. Remember that engine-mount bolt that fell out? Who knows how long we ran Suzy before I noticed it. I think that might have been enough to shake Suzy just a pubic hair out of alignment, and now everythings a little out of whack.

Im sorry Im so useless to you when it comes to this stuff, I said. I know how stressful it is, you having to take every mechanical issue on by yourself.

Its all right, he said. You saying that helps.

Communication, I said. Thats one thing I can do.

It wasnt all bad. We had performed a flawless sail-to-anchor under some duress, a manoeuvre Zach surely would have been proud of. Wed seen our first wolf pack. That night after dinner, we watched a full moon rise over our port bow, close enough to touch. Ilja went to bed but I wasnt yet sleepy, so I stayed up watching the moon. I heard the psshh of a spouting whale, distant at first and then louder as it swam invisibly closer, the intermittent gasps amplified by the island amphitheatre flanking Foxy . And then it emerged from the glistening metallic water less than a kilometre away. Not one but two: two orcas. They breached beneath the moon, lunging towards it, their white bellies reflecting its light in tandem as they shot fin to fin into the sky and arched onto their backs, slapping the water over and over, just far enough away for there to be a lag between the sight striking my eyes and the sound reaching my ears. The disturbance travelled more slowly through the water, but no less surely; a few moments later, the miniature waves from their splash rippled under Foxy and ricocheted around in our cove, rocking us long after theyd dived deep and swum away.

In the morning, the world was a grey-white shroud. We couldnt see five metres or hear a thing. We made our coffee and let the fog burn off, luxuriating in the silent anonymity of our grey cloak.

Eventually the fog receded to the centre of Seaforth Channel and we fired Suzy up, limping back towards Shearwater at three knots, keeping close to the shoreline where tongues of mist licked the trees, peeling away one layer at a time, revealing patches of unadulterated sky that grew and coalesced until there was nothing left but clear bright blue, Foxy running hot but not exploding, all the way to Shearwater, where we docked without incident, half defeated, half triumphant.