Today Bob relates the first of a two-part account of the stranding of a New Bedford fishing boat on the Outer Beach last month.
Sunday, February 4, was a blustery, chilly day and I had planned to spend a quiet afternoon sitting before an open fire, reading one of a half-dozen books I had started. Kathy had taken our dog Sam out for a short walk. When she came in, her brown eyes were large with excitement and anticipation.
“Do you want to go and see the clam boat?” she asked.
“The what?
“The clam boat. I just found it on Google. It stranded on the beach about four o’clock this morning about a half-mile north of Newcomb Hollow. There’s a tugboat offshore waiting for the next high tide to try to pull her off.”
“Was anyone hurt or drowned?”
“I don’t think so.”
I asked her a few more perfunctory questions, hoping to find a good reason not to go. The next high tide would be about 5 p.m. The chances were good that either they would have gotten the boat off the beach before we got there; or, more likely, that it would be too dark to see anything.
Truthfully, the prospect of trudging a half-mile into gale-force winds under lowering skies was not what I had in mind for the rest of the afternoon. Besides, over the years I had witnessed a number of shipwrecks and
strandings on the Cape and doubted this one would show me anything new. But I could see she was eager to go, and in the end, it was simple question I asked myself that decided the issue: “Am I a Cape Cod writer or not?”
When we arrived at Newcomb Hollow, there were close to a hundred people on the beach, half of them trekking north towards the stranded boat, the other half returning. From the parking lot bluff we could make out the form of the stranded fishing boat obscured and engulfed by the shadow of the cliffs and the surf-spawned mist. But the powerful work lights on its superstructure lent its outline a surreal intensity.
We started walking north, but the relentless wind forced me to look down most of the time. The strong winds of the past few days had thrown dozens of large, blackened pine trunks high up on the beach, where they cradled nests of salt hay as if they were consciously building bulwarks against the next onslaught of the ocean.
A large tugboat was prowling about a half-mile offshore, also brightly lit with headlights and work lights, occasionally blasting its horn, perhaps to reassure the crew that someone was watching over them.
I had been told there were no injuries or fatalities from the stranding, a statement borne out by the presence of three crewmen still on the boat. We could see their figures through the frosted windows of the cabin. They moved about the cabin without haste or desperation, as if making a pot of tea, which perhaps they were. The whole scene had the feel of a drawing room drama being played out on a stage of unimaginable chaos.
