By: William Wandke
If you spend enough time on the ocean you are going to get caught in a bad spot sooner or later. It finally happened to me and my youngest son Mike in late April of 1987.
I had been going out of LaPush for eighteen years up to that point, fishing for salmon and bottom fish, and had developed a respect for the conditions that could and would come up. I had been out in questionable situations before but nothing like we were about to experience! One of the things that I always kept an eye on was the south wind. A strong south wind combined with the right current flow and an ebbing tide could cause the swells to break across the bar at the entrance to the Quileyute River. This makes it nearly impossible for a small boat to get into the river safely.
My son and I normally worked in shingle and shake mills in the Forks area but at the moment we were both out of work. His job had petered out and I had just been released to go back to work from an industrial accident. Since I was released from my doctor I was working on a commercial dive boat but the season for harvesting sea urchins was over so I was waiting for a job to happen.
Mike came to me one day and suggested we license my 21 foot sports fishing boat and try bottom fishing and try and make a few bucks. I agreed but warned him that going fishing for money was going to be different and that it wouldn't be the same as going out for a few hours of fun fishing. This meant we would go out every day that we could and fish until we had a days wages. It would be work not play! This became apparent by the time the first week was over but we were catching enough fish to pay the expenses and a modest wage for the both of us.
We had been real lucky as far as weather was concerned. For three weeks the water was generally good and the skies were clear, a fisherman's dream. There was no reason to believe that this day would be any different, the water was calm, no swell and the sky was clear.
We headed north from LaPush to our favorite spots, Jagged Island, Carroll Island, and Hand Rock. Jagged Island was about seven miles from LaPush and Carroll about eight miles and Hand Rock about ten miles. Where we went depended on how good the fishing was in the previous spot. Generally we started at Jagged and worked north if it was necessary. Usually it was!
This morning when we started fishing at Jagged Island there wasn't any reason to move, the fish were coming fast and furious. In the first hour we had filled our first 33 gallon garbage can with sea bass. That would be nearly 200 pounds. The fish were nice sized and we could see our day being short if the good fishing kept up. We only take four garbage cans to hold the fish because that is a lot of fish and that would be all I would want to put into the boat.
As we started to fill the next garbage can I noticed a slight breeze coming from the south. I mentioned to Mike that we needed to keep an eye on it because anything could happen considering the time of year. I hadn't really fished that much out here this early in the year so in the back of my mind I was kind of leery.
We kept on fishing and we had the second garbage can nearly full when I realized we were surrounded by white water. We both had gotten so engrossed in the fast fishing that we hadn't noticed the water was now capping! I told Mike to put his pole away because we were heading in. I think he thought I was over reacting but I had a gut feeling that this was going to get bad. I had Mike drag the two garbage cans of fish to just ahead of mid ship for the trip in. There were about 400 pounds there and that seemed to be a good balance point for them.
We had about 7 miles to get back to the mouth of the river and I was very concerned about the condition of the bar when we got there. I didn't expect the water conditions to get real bad on the ocean, but boy was I was wrong! When we started out we could run about 13 miles an hour but the waves kept getting bigger and I kept pulling back on the throttle. By the time we had covered the first couple of miles we had slowed to 6 miles an hour and by the time we approached Cake Rock we were down to 3 miles an hour. At the very worse place near Cake Rock our forward progress was nearly zero, by now things had become critical, I wasn't sure we would even get to the mouth of the river let alone cross the bar!
I told Mike to get into his life jacket and to hang mine on the back of my seat. I couldn't take my hands off the throttle or wheel in order to put mine on. You may be wondering why we didnÂt already have them on, well, I can only say that things happened so fast that we didn't think about it.
By the time we were half way back to LaPush we were barely moving forward, the waves were about 15 feet deep and no more than 3 boat lengths apart and to be honest ,I was scared to death. The wind was blowing about 30-35 miles an hour. I really didn't think we would make it back in one piece. I had Mike call the Coast Guard several times and we got no response. (I discovered later that we were on the wrong channel.) We really felt alone and very vulnerable.
We would climb a big wave and I would back off on the throttle and we would surf down the other side only to repeat the process over and over again! I had to be a little aggressive because we had to try and make forward progress. I had a few things in my favor, one, the boat is light and it responds quickly and I had been running it for 11 years and we were like one unit. I had a feel of the boat and that helped a lot! Also, the waves were uniform, as long as a rogue wave didn't hit us and roll us we were able to inch ahead and should be okay, at least until we got to the rivers entrance, then we would have to deal with crossing the bar!
By the time we reached Cake Rock we had our situation down to 3 miles and at this time I had to make a slight course change. I was concerned about that too, but fortunately the wind seemed to switch to the southeast so the waves were still coming straight at us. I told Mike that it looked like we may make it and that the bar may be our big problem now. It also seemed like the waves were getting a little smaller because we started to make a little better time. We both relaxed a little, at least if we rolled the boat we were closer to shore and someone may see us!
We had been bouncing around in this bad water for over an hour and now we were approaching the mouth of the river. I was very surprised and pleased to see that there were no waves breaking across the bar. Just the opposite, the bay was seemingly calm. We were very relieved as I hit the throttle to start over the bar.(What I'm going to describe next a lot of boaters have seen but it is hard to relate to non boaters.) You 't see it at first but instead of the water being choppy or breaking, the waves were inverted. The surface water looked smooth but when you got there the bottom fell out of the ocean and there were deep troughs. When I hit that first one we dropped into about a 10 foot hole. The boat dug into the other side and it threw the boat sideways and she was laying on her starboard side. She just laid there, the ocean was pushing against the rivers force and we were in the hole while the two pushed against each other. Not knowing what to do I hit the throttle full out and the boat popped out of that hole and we were heading once again, out to sea!
Mike yelled, "We are trying to go in not out!" I told him that it wasn't by design, I was just trying to get the hell out of there. I ran back out a ways and thought the situation over. It was then I remembered the two garbage cans full of fish up forward. I had Mike drag them to the stern of the boat. Now our bow would be higher and this time I knew what was ahead of us! I hit that first hole fairly fast and this time we dropped into the hole and came out the other side in fine shape. After a dozen of these we were safely inside the mouth of the Quilleyute River.
We sold our fish and put the boat on the trailer for the trip back home. We had one more surprise! When the boat was on the trailer we found a 4 foot spilt in the chine on the port side. If we would have had to endure a whole lot more the boat probably would have broken up or filled up with water and sank!
We could have gave up boating after that experience, but we didn't! I found a fellow who does aluminum welding and had her fixed up and we continued to fish commercially for a couple more weeks. We then both got mill jobs and gave up the 'fishing for money' idea!
I still have the ESSO B and we still fish her out in the ocean, just not a much as we once did. The fishing seasons are now short, they are now only days long, instead of weeks or months like they use to be.
NOTE: You may be wondering why the bay appeared calm when the ocean was so rough. One reason is, as we got closer to shore the wind had shifted some and was coming out of the south east. This allowed the bay some protection. I don't know, but it is very possible that before we got there and the wind switched that the bay may have been choppy and the bar could have been breaking!
This storm had no warning, we were one of two boats that I know of, that came in to LaPush. One fellow rode the storm north to Neah Bay and a couple hid behind small islands that dot the shoreline. No boats were lost!
I talked later to the fellow in the other boat. He was alone in his 25 foot Bayliner, and came in shortly before us. He said he was having a struggle himself but thought that we were riding the water well. Even if we needed help he couldn't have done much alone. It took all of a persons concentration and skill just to keep yourself going let alone help someone else!
Written on 4/14/99
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