We scurried back to the waterline, our shoulders hunched as if we expected the spectral shape to take on an even more menacing form and swoop down on us. What I could see of Dad’s face in the last dregs of twilight was tight and drawn. “I didn’t like that at all,” he said, his voice tense and shaking. I didn’t say anything. I was too scared.
Eventually, we thought we saw the spot in the dunes we had reconned earlier, so we trudged through the deep sand and over the dunes, making our way through thick patches of central California beach chaparral. The western side of the dunes was actually easier to navigate despite the thicker growth, because the light from the town on the other side of the bay illuminated our path. After a great deal of searching in the wrong little sandy inlet, we realized that the boat was about a hundred feet north, in another little sandy inlet. The pile of debris loomed darkly, and we quickly uncovered our find.
Although the tide was on the way in, at least according to the tide book, we didn’t count on the fact that it takes longer for the tide to make it the four or five miles down the bay from the breakwater, where the Pacific flows in. The tide would be rising as we paddled across the bay, and this would help us since the currents would be favorable, but at the moment, there was still about a fifty yards or more of thick, viscous black mud to traverse before we could get to an open channel. What to do?
Both of us knew from past experience that the mudflats are almost as good as quicksand–you would sink in eight or ten inches, and then the mud would suck at your feet and pull your shoes off as you tried to take a step. With the added burden of the boat and our gear, it would be very difficult to cross the mud to the water. Waiting until the tide reached us was not really an option, either, since Mom would be waiting at the town jetty. The back bay is a great place for scavengers, as our little treasure proclaimed, and among the flotsam and jetsam were dozens of boards. We carefully poked and prodded the edges of the dunes to find some long, wide boards that we could lay on the mud to form a temporary boardwalk.
Since we were on a commando mission, we had been very quiet the entire time, even when confronted with the Haunted Log back on the beach. So, as we dragged the boards out, we were still whispering and trying to move with as much stealth as possible. I showed my lack of commando skills, though, when I accidentally let one board go. The noise it made when it splatted on the mud awakened a flock of sleeping pelicans, who took flight, adding their terrified squawks to the echoing gunshot sound of the dropped board. I grinned at my dad in embarrassment, and we realized then just how silly our stealth was–no one knew or cared that we were out there. We were two miles as the pelican flies from the nearest human habitation, and at least four or five miles by land from anyone.
Soon we had the boat in hand and dragged it to the channel. As we were dragging, we could see the water getting closer with the incoming tide. We hopped in as soon as the boat started floating and unlashed our makeshift commando paddles. I briefly wondered what we were going to do if the boat turned out to be less that perfectly watertight, but I shoved that aside with a sweep of the awkward paddle.
The paddles. They were makeshift, for sure, and they were far from efficient. Dad had gone for quickness and not for perfect design when he cut them. They were shaped sort of like big, fat commas and paddled about as well as commas would. In spite of this, after about an hour of paddling, we could make out the line of lights at the jetty. Shortly thereafter, we completed our maiden voyage, bumping roughly against the boards of the jetty and smiling triumphantly at my mom.