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So Captain Billy Bob wants me to call a tug to move it, because he is concerned it will foul the boat's prop when they leave. While I understand his concern (I once got a sheet raveled around my sailboat prop - what a fucking pain that was!) I have neither the equipment, people or authority to deal with this problem. This piece of flotsam was not there when the boat landed last night, it must have floated there on a waning tide.
Here's an aside, even though we are 14 kilometers from the ocean, we still have a substantial tide (about 10 to 12 feet) and when the tide is going out (down the river to the ocean) it's like a rocket ship ride. I have taken Duncan's boat from Shelter Island (about 1/2 kilometre from here) out to the mouth of the river in about 25 minutes on a running tide.
When the tide is going out, all kinds of flotsam (like this big chunk of pier) and jetsam (I've seen a bath tub float by) rockets down the river. This is a huge boat, that juts out into the river and it is only natural that this kind of crap will pile up behind it. However, it does not fall into the domain of stuff that I can do anything about. His crew managed to secure it to our berth with a little rope, and my suggestion to him was that when the tugs arrive to nose him out into the river, he should ask them to latch onto, move it either out into the river to float out to the ocean (tide has just about turned) or to move it further back to our breakwater and secure it there.
He asked if the tugboats would charge him for doing this and I said, maybe, but it would be cheaper than running it into your prop. Problem solved. - Ok I came back later to add this in.... After the boat successfully pulled away from the berth, I called security to come and release the flotsam from the pier, it was only attached by a rope. At the time I call, I am in the far yard, almost a kilometer away, so I tell the guy to release the rope. He asks me how he is going to untie the rope at water level. This puzzles me for a bit, and then I think "oh, okay the tug crew has tied it to our pier at water level" instead of the top of the berth. So I drive out onto the berth and the security gaurd is there and we walk to the edge and look in the water. He says "I can't figure out how I'm expected to untie that" and points to the flotsam. There is one end of the rope actually tied to the flotsam, but the other end is tied to the top of the berth. I'm thinking, he's kidding right? I look at him, but he's not kidding. So, I said, watch this, and I untied the rope at berth and threw it down on top of the fotsam, and of course, the flotsam immediately took off (upriver, the tide was almost full, but still coming in so the water was flowing up the river). He looked absolutely stunned. I didn't say anything, because Don the security gaurd is not the type you can tease, he cries. I'm serious, he cries, (but that's a whole other story for another time). Jesus on a stick, why do I continually end up working with the handicapped?
This river is amazing, it really is. I know Monty Python calls it "the mighty Fraser River" in the lumberjack song and it's true. I have no idea where it starts out, but by the time it hits the lower mainland it is huge. The ocean of course adds to the mix with the tides rushing in and rushing out. Our part of the river is called Fraser Port, and more specifically my part of the port is called the Annacis Island Terminal, and both are part of the Greater Vancouver Port Authority (which is why I have the high security port pass I have to wear).
When I look across the river, I see Fraser Port proper, which is a high and heavy and bulk break port.
I love working here, on a sunny day like today it's spectacular, and even on a rainy day, it's not so bad. This river plays a major part in how and why people settled here. The Fraser Valley was traditionally a gathering place for first nations people. The Solh Temexw (or Sto:lo as we call them) are the owners of this land, although the Musqueum, Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish), Chehalis and Kwantlen people all lived here as well. It's an abundantly rich area, the salmon run thick in the Fraser, the land is extremely fertile and I suppose that there was an abundance of wild life as well. It's actually pretty funny, because the first nations peoples own some of the MOST expensive land here, and they lease it to the rest of us at exhorbitant rates (what price is priceless??).
Rivers and thinking about them always remind me of that poem by Al Purdy, called "Say the names", it has a wonderful natural rhythm to it and the powerful language of the first nations comes through loud and clear.
SAY THE NAMES
--say the names say the names
and listen to yourself
an echo in the mountains
Tulameen Tulameen
say them like your soul
was listening and overhearing
and you dreamed you dreamed
you were a river
and you were a river
Tulameen Tulameen
--not the flat borrowed imitations
of foreign names
not Briton Windsor Trenton
but names that ride the wind
Spillimacheen and Nahanni
Kleena Kleene and Horsefly
Illecillewaet and Whachamacallit
Lillooet and Kluane
Head-Smashed in Buffalo Jump
and the whole sky falling
when the buffalo went down
Similkameen and Nahanni
say them say them remember
if you ever wander elsewhere
"the North as a deed and forever"
Kleena Kleene Nahanni
Osoyoos and Similkameen
say the names
as if they were your soul
lost among the mountains
a soul you mislaid
and found again rejoicing
Tulameen Tulameen
till the heart stops beating
say the names
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