Early Morning Shoreline Activity

The sun had just crept up over the Willapa Hills this morning as Nyel and I were drinking our second cup of coffee when I noticed some activity down by the bay. A white van (or pickup with camper top) had driven to the end of the lane and a man off-loaded what looked like big bag of ‘stuff.’ He then walked from one tall post to another (four-by-fours?) that I’d not noticed before and seemed to be attaching something. (Some kind of netting?) The posts ran parallel to the shoreline from the lane and right along our property.

Curious, I pulled on my boots and walked down. The man was backlit and it wasn’t until he walked toward me and identified himself that I recognized our neighbor Dave. He was putting up a duck blind. “Come see,” he said, but I declined. We had given him our blessing to hunt out there some weeks ago and, even though the morning was gorgeous, I really had no big desire to prolong my stay in the frosty out-of-doors.

Papa at the Bay

As I walked homeward, I couldn’t help but think of Papa, my grandfather. He, too, kept binoculars in the Nursery, as they called the East Room in those days. He would watch any unexpected activity on his oyster beds but, being more conversant than I with what should and shouldn’t be happening out there, he seldom walked out to check.

I remember once when I was a little girl he was watching a man way out on the tide flats loading a gunnysack with oysters. Someone (my dad, I think) asked if Papa wasn’t going to go out and confront this cheeky oyster poacher. Papa just chuckled. “Watch,” he said.

When his gunnysack was full, the man began walking shoreward… slowly. After a few dozen steps, he lowered his sack and lightened the load by a half dozen or so oysters. His journey back continued much the same way with frequent stops to remove oysters from the sack.

Dave’s Dinner (with a little bit of luck)?

“By the time he gets back to dry land,” Papa laughed, “he’ll have just about enough for his dinner. He will have worked hard for it.” Papa didn’t begrudge a hungry man food for his table and, as far as I know, that didn’t happen very often.

I hoped Dave would have good luck with his duck hunting. I haven’t heard any reassuring “pop pop pops,” though, so I don’t know if he’ll succeed in getting his dinner or not. But, as he told me, it’s a beautiful day to be down at the bay, ducks or no ducks.