Salt Marsh Scrapbook
GIMME GRASSY SOUND SHELTER
My Father Babe Van Blunk is out on Grassy Sound at about 7a.m. It is one of many crabbing trips in a clunky wooden skiff rented out of Otto’s in the Wildwood Yacht Basin. Also in the boat are my Grandfather Ed Whalin and my oldest cousin Jim Anderson who was an adolescent at the time. The trip was going well from the first anchor drop. They had over a dozen big “Jimmys” scratching away in the wooden peach basket in the middle of the skiff. My Father, an irrepressible Crab-Hawk, intended to fill it to the brim and cook them that afternoon. Then out of the void the sky turned grey then dark then black. The wind picked-up, revved-up then started blowing in long full-throttle gusts. After cousin Jimmy was told to sit low in the middle of the skiff my Grandfather pulled the anchor while my Father yanked the cord on the outboard. He put it in gear just as the powerfull squall was upon them.
The downpour came at them in whip-cracking sheets. Visibility was near zero; rain was filling the boat. The crabs were rattling in the basket like a crazy bunch of shadow-boxers. My Father tried to get his bearings so he could head for the dock. It was at least two miles away. As he gripped the steering handle my Father watched the normally placid surface begin to boil, froth and undulate. The skiff began to pitch and roll. The traps, bunker heads and assorted gear began to shift and slide in the deepening bilge water. They would not make it back to the dock.
Waiting to make his next move my Father recalled an old house on one of the marsh banks on the way out. It was a very faded pastel and it had been out there, with several others, for as long as he could remember. These weren’t duck blinds or hunting shacks but actual homes where people spent the summer. But he hadn’t seen people in them for years. Maybe since the summer of World War II or the early fifties. If he could back-track to this house it would be their last best hope. Otherwise they were going to run aground or be swamped. He did not want to go into the water shallow or deep.
After bumping around the big brown edges of the marsh bank as my Grandfather took soundings with an oar my Father finally sighted the old house behind a thick grey curtain of wind-driven rain. They secured the skiff near a long rickety stilted dock that led to the house. My cousin Jimmy went up the makeshift Jacob’s ladder first and waited for the men. They climbed up the old 2by4 rungs and made their way unsteadily up the slightly swaying dock to the house. There was a rusty slapping screen door. It was open and they went in. Inside it was leaking, musty and full of shadows. There was some old broken furniture and a wooden table with a pile of moldy magazines on it. There was cooing in the dark rafters and the plank floor was spattered with white guano. On top of the guano were the dry husks of many dead wasps. A few minutes after taking it all in they broke out the box -lunches and cold drinks a little earlier than usual and waited for the storm to pass.
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