Rocky Bay Part IV: Despair

I woke at 2 AM, tossing and turning - too hot in my sleeping bag, and too cold without it. It was raining, and the roof of the camp was leaking. I got some buckets to catch the drips, started a fire in the kitchen stove, and made some coffee. Then I carried an armload of wet firewood inside and stacked it in the oven to dry.

For some reason, I started thinking about the bad things in this place - the outboard motors that wouldn't start, the radio that didn't work, the realization that there was no way to contact anyone, or summon help in case of emergency. I was covered with insect bites, bruised and sore all over from my fall in the river, from carrying the 40 HP motor through the woods, from criss-crossing the lake with those heavy oars in a massive wooden boat with no oarlocks, on an empty stomach.

I was thinking... I'm not used to this. I've done my share of boating. And one thing I've learned from it is that I do not like having to spend my precious fishing time wrestling with outboards. I like a motor that starts every time. If it doesn't, I take it in for service before I'll use it again. I don't know how to repair an outboard motor, but there are people who do - I'm just not one of them, and neither is my brother, Steve.

When Steve got up, we talked it over. With the rain drumming on the roof and a cozy fire in the woodstove, we decided to stay in camp that morning. We hoped that one of the Bilodeau brothers would arrive with a battery for the radio, and would fix the outboards for us.

Good Luck and Good Fishin'

RP

Photo by Steve Dobson: First Pool, Old Fort River, Quebec