Beachcombing
When you grow up so close to the sea that high tide in a storm means logs on the front lawn, beachcombing becomes a way of life long before the first bell rings for Grade One!
Nestled beneath the sheltering Island Range of mountains, Oyster Bay is 6 miles of sand, shale and barnacle crusted boulders, open and facing directly into Georgia Strait (as we knew it, Salish Sea now). And while most folks on the Island hunkered down with hurricane lanterns at the ready before a big southeaster, those of us smitten with the beachcombing bug rubbed our hands in glee at what the strait would bring us in the way of treasures. Not to mention the prospect of running the logs in the teeth of a howling gale and pounding surf. Sadly kids today would be more concerned with whether their iPhone was charged up, completely eschewing the idea of returning home soaking wet with stinging salt in your eyes.
As quickly as it pounced the storm would subside, scooting over the Coast Mountains to prey on places like Lytton and 100 Mile House in the Cariboo, leaving behind a thick salt seafoam along the high tide mark and multitude of opportunities to poke through with a long stick.
In Summer the beach would be strewn with acres of kelp, in the early Fall it would be miles and miles of dogfish (mud sharks) almost nose to tail from Bennett’s Point to Shelter Point. The kelp and dogfish would be scooped into a wheelbarrow to be rototilled into the garden as mulch and fertilizer after spending a month or two reeking to high heaven in the back corner of the garden. It was a job few of us liked, but a garden feeding eight hungry mouths requires every bit of help it can get.
Clay and I, or less often Martin and I, would be off as soon as the storm subsided, with five gallon pail or a gunny sack slung over our shoulders. It was the best of times, poking about in the piles of seaweed for lures, floats and lengths of rope to tie up some future raft. And of course there would be pop and beer bottles galore for Mojos and Export A at the store.
Sometimes the ‘finds’ would be surprising! My oldest brother once jumped off a log onto what he thought was a flat rock while beachcombing, only to have the rock give a low ‘Oof’ and give off the most putrid smell! It was a freshly deceased sea lion, half buried in the sand by the tide. Thankfully Jack Torrance appeared with his Bobcat and buried it deep in the sand where it wouldn’t offend his wife’s sense of smell or attract a large colony of seagulls!
Japanese fishing floats were the ultimate prize for beachcombing. Round glass spheres in amber, green, blue and clear shades they could range in size from that of a 5 pin bowling ball to basketball size and beyond. It always amazed me to think that they had travelled halfway around the world from the fishing fleets in Okinawa! Never more than one at a time they would be caught deep in a mass of kelp and easy to miss! Like fishing, some years you might find a half dozen, then next nary a one.
Plugs were another valuable find. From four to eight inches in length they would be shaped like a fish to attract large salmon, with nasty snelled triple hooks. Plugs were easier to find than fishing floats, usually because they were white or opalescent and shone brightly in the dark green and brown kelp.
Other more utilitarian finds would end up in the gunny sack; 20 feet of coiled half inch painter line, cork floats from a gillnet or perhaps a broken fishing rod or two. Clay once scored a brand new Mitchell reel and eight foot fibreglass rod – intact – obviously washed over the side of a cabin cruiser in the marina at Big Rock.
The biggest find ever beachcombing didn’t come from after a storm. At Shelter Point there is a nasty reef. At high tide it is many fathoms under the surface, but at low tide, especially a minus tide, the reef would lurk just under the surface and extend halfway from Shelter Point to Quadra Island! It was onto this reef that a passing super-yacht, the Solus Sobreus, foundered. In an attempt to refloat the ship, all manner of heavy and not so heavy object were tossed over the side. Needless to say beachcombing for the next few days was pure heaven; suitcases, shoes, boots, even a tall backed black mallacca chair that sat on our front veranda for many years afterwards. If you were to walk along the beach after that foundering you would see a number of similar chairs sitting on front porches or under a spreading cedar tree in the shade.
Beachcombing is a lifelong habit. Just the locale, shoes on or off, bucket, gunny sack exchanged for the hatchback of the Rogue change as we move through life. When I lived in Lytton my wife had only one rule ‘More junk had to go to the dump than came back’. In Fort Nelson I scrounged computers and parts from businesses I helped upgrade. Ditto in Teeswater. Here in Ottawa the scrounging is much more refined but quite available. Online I belong to several ‘Freecycle’ type Facebook groups sharing items they no longer need with those in need. Everything from televisions (I have scrounged two 40 inch flat panels so far) to computer parts have come in the front door, with a few bookcases thrown in for good measure. In return I have shared record players, audio mixers and a hockey sock full of computer parts. It is beachcombing all over again, just on a cyber-beach instead of on the shale and sand of Oyster Bay.