The daily Astorian., July 16, 2020, Page 4, Image 4

Continued from Page 2
When we reached the Whistler, we discov-
ered we were not alone, there was a Coast
Guard 44 and six more all circling and lis-
tening to the horrible groan.
The motor lifeboat went fi rst, made it
across.
She then turned and faced the bar, her crew
prepared for a loss, then one by one the lit-
tle fl eet slipped on in.
Every captain knows when crossing the
bar, a place where there is no turning back
You line up on the ranges, the adrenaline
starts to fl ow, and your only thought is to
hold a strait tack.
The six boats before us caught the right
sets,
But like the eye of a hurricane, it wasn’t
meant to last,
The waves stacking up behind us, towered
over our mast.
The bow dropped and the stern began to
rise,
Nothing to do but grab on for the ride of
our lives!
First, she tried to roll, then she tried to
pitchpole,
At one point I could almost see straight
down into the hole!
Her heavy wood-spoked wheel could no
longer be held tight,
She spun wildly to the left and back to the
right.
When we fi nally hit bottom,
There was a tremendous roar,
The 50-year-old boat couldn’t handle much
more.
Water shot into the wheelhouse, seeped
through
every crack and I’m sure the deck was
buried,
If I’d been able to look back.
Then in a defi ant tribute to the long-gone
boat- wrights,
who built her “Hell for Stout” in 1923, she
twisted and turned,
And fi nally, broke free of the wave that
held her.
She launched out of the foam and was
pointed straight,
For home, and nothing was going to stop
her.
The 44 came alongside and the coxswain
said we’ve never seen anything like that,
almost impossible to survive
Photos by Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
ABOVE: A beachgoer walks his dog toward the water at Sunset Beach. BELOW: A child fl ies a
small kite during the International Kite Festival in Long Beach last year.
Thoughts on Beach and Bay
BY LEE THOMPSON
You men are lucky to be alive
As we continued in, I turned back with a
grin and thought to my 20-year-old self.
Nice swing, and that’s a miss Satan,
The one you just took at me,
But I made no deals with you and I draw
My power from the Sea!
July 2020. Summer
in the Plasticine
Ode to the Killer Hornet
BY SUE SKINNER
Lush shades of all kinds of different green.
Plumes cups bells of
Download The App
They say wait 30 minutes
If you want a change in weather
In Surfside, Ocean Park
There is daytime weather
And there is weather after dark
You walk the beach against the breeze
You watch it pushing beach grass
See it bending little beach pine trees
In the dark you smell a passing ship’s gas
A freighter diesel moving south with cargo
Hoping the pilot knows the river’s bar
Knows where the ship must go
To not run aground after coming this far
Walking along the daytime beach
Marveling at the giant cedar stump
Getting closer it’s now within reach
Oh! It’s not cedar but a huge sea lion lump
Nighttime lanterns far out with low tide
Shovels and clam guns and pockmarked
sand
Yellow lights winking far and wide
Social distancing and clamming go hand in
hand
Lost along the daytime stretch of beach on
a hike
Am I north or south of Oysterville Access
Road
No landmarks or signs and this I do not
See Page 5
music first
iPhone
4 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
painted fl owers. Berries blushing color ...
Deer eat (some of) the
strawberries, clipping them clean and
straight, leaving the stem.
Lettuce grows so fast you can barely keep
up with it. And basil!
So quiet without birdsong in the garden.
Lawnmowers, weed eaters, leaf
blowers bellow, usually morning to late in
the day. Even in the rain
An occasional collared dove coos on the
telephone wire. Our scrub jay
family in the rhododendron tree did not
return this year. Every once in
a while, you can hear a hummingbird’s
remarkable energy, by the feeder
over in the huckleberry bush, sprung up on
an ancient spruce nurse stump
in our backyard
I scan the blooming thyme and hyssop and
sage eagerly, watching for
fl ying insects, hoping for gentle pollinators.
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