The sky in La Push and much of the Washington coast is a bright white. The sun seems to shine even brighter through the haze. Large sea stacks of dark rock dot the coast and are dominated by James Island, a fortress like formation of dark rock toped in trees that protects the entrance to the La Push boat haven. The pace of life here is easygoing. A man sells excellent smoked salmon out of an ice cooler outside of his house and the fireworks stands are open. The ambient white noise of crashing waves has a soporific effect, or we could still be recovering from the race the day before. We ballast the boat by placing 400lbs in sandbags along the keel and tie it down to keep it low. Four days of food is packed with the various other equipment and personal gear, at this point fairly disorganized affair as Greg and I struggle to remember where all this gear needs to be stowed in the cabin to keep it organized and useful.
The boat ramp into the marina is overlooked by a Coast Guard sign that flashes yellow when the bar conditions are too rough. A bar is the built up sediment from a river that flows out into the ocean and something quite common here on the west coast. This inflow and outflow of the tide and flowing water can create dangerous conditions that make a Coast Guard station a necessity in this little town. We tie up across from the Marina office, surrounded by fishing vessels of various sizes and names like Clarissa, Hunter and Sleipnir. Our photographer Joel Rogers shows up. We offer him a beer and he accepts, we chat with him and finish organizing the rest of the equipment.
The sky is still a bright white but the clouds have now descended to become fog and visibility has shrunk to less than a half mile. It feels strange to still be squinting in weather like this. Dinner at the only restaurant in town is good and we split two meals to augment the s’mores and hotdogs we will eater later around our fire on the beach. Sticks are carved to roast the dogs and marshmallows. I am delighted to finally figure out how to pre melt the chocolate on the graham cracker. This matter has eluded me since childhood and was solved simply by laying the cracker with the chocolate on a rock close to the embers until the marshmallow was ready. We eat our fill and talk anything but ocean rowing. Today is the solstice and in the fog the sun does not sink but fades until all that’s left is the dull yellow light of our fire and mist settled on our clothing. I hope there is no fog the next morning. We sleep on the boat. Rick in the bow. Adam and Greg in the stern and I settle myself between the rowing slides. It is more comfortable than expected.