![[Photo: kayaks on Doe Island]](kayaks.jpg)
In which Lea and Scarlet engage in a futile search... Larry slumps into exhaustion... Piaw storms off... Marshmallows...
Doe Island Off Orcas Island 1998 Aug 07 Friday
Lea made a couple of phone calls: to her boyfriend, to see if he could help in any way. No, he was coming up to Orcas on Sunday, but that would be too late. If he was there he would dive for them. Oh, by the way Scarlet says she'll marry the person who finds her glasses. Lea looks at me. Piaw, I think you should dive for the glasses. Then you'll have the option to marry Scarlet. No, declares Scarlet. Leave them there! Hmm, I think I just made sure that he wasn't going to dive for them. A family on a motor boat comes by. "Hey, that's our buoy. We're going ashore to drop stuff off, but then we're going to need this." Great. Disaster on top of disaster.
Piaw and I hopped into the dinghy to row over and return Tor's wetsuit (the wetsuit owner's name was Tor) to his moored boat. I wrapped a bag of Jolly Ranchers in the wetsuit along with a thank-you note. I wasn't exactly sure what the protocol was for this kind of situation.
We tie the dinghy up and I start up the motor. Larry starts to untie our hard-won mooring buoy. The man comes back with his motor boat. All these mooring buoys are private. Great, where can we go. Hey, is that dock on the island public? Yes, it's a marine park. Awesome. We're going to dock against it. We cast off and maneuver in and dock cleanly against the wooden dock. Should have done this in the first place. Well, there was someone else here at the time. Oh, ok, I don't feel like a complete dick, then.
We meet the other couple at the docks. Kate and Stuart. They were friendly and chatted with us. I registered, came ashore, and looked at a campsite. Hey Larry, you want to camp out tonight? Oh yes! Solid ground. And to think I was unhappy about giving up the buoy. All these boats have marine park stickers, so the mooring and camping is free. We move camping equipment ashore, and set up the tent. Larry's not used to the new style camping equipment and is quite impressed by shock-corded tent poles and other new-fangled gear.
Glad to be on solid ground, I ran across the island, then back to the dock. I hadn't run in a long, long time. Now I was moving swiftly amongst trees, stepping around roots. I was running across land which rose and fell, yet remained stationary. Heaven.
I wandered back down to the dock and the Healer. Lea and Scarlet were getting into the dinghy. They were going to go back to the spot, look through the water, see if they could spot the glasses. This struck me as hopeless, but I kept my mouth shut. I didn't have a better idea; I wished them luck. I futzed around the Healer for a bit, tidying up, covering the sail, looking for things to do, trying to replace my futility with utility. Still the sun beat down. Finally, I halted this flurry of useless activity.
I sat on the back of the Healer, dangling my burned legs in the cool water of the bay, watching the women drifting in the dinghy. They were hanging over the sides, scanning the water, looking for the glint of metal. Come back, I thought. Come back, come for a walk on the island.
Piaw came to the boat. He looked out at the women. He snorted. "That is just so like Scarlet. Why can't she just give that up? It's a lost cause." I shrugged. "I mean," he continued, "they're replaceable. It's not like it's the boat key..." "...or a passport?" I offerred. "Yeah!" He seemed pretty upset. I shrugged. I, too, get angry when I can't figure out how to help my friends. Piaw said, "I'm going to go walk around the island. You coming with me?" "Naw. I told 'em I'd wait here for them." Piaw said he'd see me later, hunched his shoulders, stomped onto land.
Larry's being too generous [about why I stomped off]. I was simply pissed off because it seemed like a waste of a lovely afternoon to be peering into the water. Especially when the water's so murky you can't actually see the bottom unless you dive.
Lea and Scarlet rowed to the beach, walked along it for a while, looking down. I guess they were checking to see if the glasses had washed up. Why was I so quick to despair? Why was I so sure we'd never see the glasses again? Why, for that matter, was Piaw? Was it worthwhile to check the beach? Maybe. Checking the beach seemed easier than diving under water, certainly. After a while, they got back in the dinghy, rowed back to the Healer. I hoisted my legs out of the water, caught the dinghy's tow-rope, pulled them in.
Soon we were puttering around in the kitchen. Lea asked what we figured the chances were of finding the glasses if she tried another round of diving. Scarlet said that she figured it was only one in twenty. I must have looked startled then. Scarlet asked, "What, you think I'm being pessimistic?" I shook my head, "I'm thinking somewhere less than one in a thousand," I blurted. They stared at me. Well, they'd asked, right? Lea said, "I want to dive again, but I figure I really only should if the chances are 50 percent or greater." I goggled at her. If sheer will could have fetched her friend's glasses, I was certain that Lea would have found them twenty times over. I shook my head, found something vaguely culinary to do by way of a distraction. Scarlet convinced Lea not to go back in the water. Tomorrow, we'd be done with our voyage. Tomorrow, Scarlet could go to some one-hour glasses place. Everything would be fine. In the meantime, break open the wine.
I made my way around the island, looking at photo opportunities. Kate and Stuart invited us to a marshmallows BBQ with them when we were done with dinner. When I got back to the boat, I saw the Lea and Scarlet had broken out the bottle of wine and were enjoying themselves. What a good idea. I didn't drink, nor did Larry, so the girls enjoyed themselves. I told Scarlet about the kayakers. They all have wet-suits, Scarlet. Maybe you can convince them to dive for your glasses, especially for your hand in marriage. That's right, this is a good way to get the smartest and strongest. Lea pours cold water on that idea. Scarlet, you're just weeding out the smart ones. The smart ones won't do it. I giggle and silently thank Lea for saying that before I did. Scarlet practices her doleful eyes look on Larry. This isn't serious, I don't think, but maybe she's going to get herself drunk enough to do it. We're all laughing. Dinner is being made even without me noticing. Water is boiling, apparently spaghetti. Pasta is made. Larry passes up the pasta and opts for a sandwich instead. I enjoy the beautiful sun while eating dinner, and then proceed to run around for more pictures after washing up.
I take pictures of the scenery. I ask for permission to take pictures of the kayaks. Scarlet and Lea are sitting with Kate and Stuart. The light's pretty flat. I make conversation too, and then see the moon rise over the islands. Excuse me, and I leapt into action, juxtaposing the moon with every object I could think of. I hope some of these turn out. I return to the fire and make some marshmallows, and take some more pictures. Coming back to the boat I find the kayakers missing. Oh, I know where they are, says Lea. Doe Bay, finishes Scarlet. Ah, that makes sense.
I eventually stagger back to camp, where Larry is already half asleep. I roll into my sleeping bag, and chat with Larry. He thinks getting up at 5 to catch the sunrise is a pretty good idea. I set my alarm and we fall asleep.
We stayed up for a while, laying back in the tent, talking gossip and relationships. No, really, two men talking about relationships. Piaw talked about how he and Scarlet always seem to end up at loggerheads on these trips. Piaw talked about other women, women he was dating. Then back to how he couldn't seem to figure out Scarlet. Was Piaw saying that he didn't want to date Scarlet? I felt a great sense of relief. I imagined Piaw as Scarlet's boyfriend. The phrase "tempestuous romance" sprang to mind. The darkness concealed my grin. Jeez, he was still talking. He seemed to be genuinely upset.
Somewhere between between pop-psych and dreamland, a stumbling monologue took shape, and crawled forth from my larynx into the night: "Uhm, I think that you're, like, the skipper on this journey. And that means that sometimes you have to boss Scarlet around. I mean, you just gotta. Me, I get along with Scarlet, but you know? I never have to tell her to do anything. I'm always asking her what to do, how to do things. 'Hey, Scarlet, show me how to tie a bowline,' you know? Like, doesn't it sound like this on-again, off-again boyfriend of hers--I mean, she gets along better with him when she can help him out, right? Like, maybe she likes more control, right? I mean, who doesn't right?"
It was hard to argue with logic like that, and Piaw didn't try. We talked a bit longer, and then drifted off.
![[Photo: Piaw, self-portrait, Doe Island]](doepiaw.jpg)
Oops, there goes Piaw's reputation as a person who's perpetually unable to get dates. Why was I upset and puzzled? Here's the story: of all my good friends, male or female, Scarlet is the one who shares the most in common with me. And I don't just mean that we're both cyclists (and had approved of each other's taste in bikes even before we met), sailors, hikers, consumers of fiction, and Chinese. We have relatively similar outlooks on life---for instance, we both enjoy teaching, like the same kinds of people, have a bit of a gregarious loner in each of us, and are "academic athletes." In fact, one reason why we get so irritated at each other is because we recognize the traits we hate most in ourselves in the other. Scarlet thinks that we have conflicts because we're both take-charge control freaks who're used to leadership positions. But that doesn't explain everything either, because I've spent time with others who are control freaks without a single tense moment. And certainly, when we were cycling down the Pacific Coast, neither of us was in charge, but we managed to get annoyed at each other anyway. None of my other friends come even close to having this kind of relationship with me. I don't usually have severe conflicts with others, and when I do, I make sure we don't get together very often, if at all. But Scarlet and I like each other to continue to plan stuff together despite our problems. I mean, if you were barely talking to the other person at the end of your last trip would you think about spending another 7 days in a confined space with them a year later? When I look back at this trip, I think to myself, hey, we seem to be mellowing out. So future trips would be easier. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking. Anyway, I don't have any trouble spending 24x7 with any of my other good friends, so the fact that this one very dear friend, who should be the closest of all (because of our similarities) and I don't get along on long trips really disturbs me. I guess the lesson here is that having lots of things in common does not necessarily mean you're going to get along.
There was one point a couple of years ago when Scarlet and I actually brought the idea of dating. Even then we knew that it would be a bad idea, and so we left it at that. It shows too. When Christina and I spend time together, we look like a couple to other people. When Scarlet and I spend time together, nobody would mistake us for a couple. And to top it off (assuming you're the kind of person who believes in these things), her Chinese name would fit right in my family as one of my brothers or sisters (same generation name).
Next time we go sailing, the Reverend Totoro is going to be in charge.
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