Sept. 9, 1995 - Byran's Memoirs - Dock fire

Chapter One .

FISHING TRIP

On September 9, 1995, me, my dad, Albert, my older son, Vellen, and younger daughter, Zida, went salmon fishing out of the Columbia to buoy 2, which is about four miles out in the Pacific. It was a cloudy day but visibility was good. Salmon fishing was real slow, but we were able to catch 6 Silvers out of 8. The ocean was real smooth with very little chop.

We cleaned the fish and went in without problems of any kind, being able to see the shore at all times. The drive down and back was without incident at all. It was what you might call "the perfect fishing trip." At that time, I did not realize what a "perfect fishing trip" it really was.

Now, the next week is an all-together new ball game. I bought this pick-up truck, which had about 350,000 miles, and I thought it ran good. So, we went toward the beach. It has a big 402 motor, so it does not lack for power, but you could not excelerate on the hills because it would die. This made it slow down to about 50 MPH. I was thinking, "this is no problem."

We went to a little store to buy fresh bait. Someone had broken in and stole all their fresh bait; so we bought frozen bait. The river looked a little foggy so we went on down to Hammond. There they had fresh bait, so we bought another dozen herring. My dad proceeded to back the boat down the ramp. This was his first time in a long time to back a trailer. He put the trailer in the center of the ramp which normally would not be a problem because we are so fast to unload. but nearly all the way down the truck died. There were other people waiting to use the ramp. So, I raised the hood -- no gas in the carburetor. We disconnected the gas line -- no gas came out. I went to the store to see if they had some gas. They told me to go to the gas station. There was a commercial fisherman there and he drove me two blocks to the gas station where I was able to get five gallons of gas, and then he drove me back.

The guy waiting to get on the ramp snuck down one side of us and unloaded his boat. We went ahead and unloaded our boat too. Then we set about getting the truck and trailer up the ramp. We found a plastic pop container and filled it with gas with the idea of pouring the gas in the carburetor. My dad poured the gas and I turned the starter on. The truck fired, then it back fired and the plastic container caught on fire. My dad through the container over against the dock, putting out his shirt and burning his hands in the process. I took my shirt off and beat the fire out that was under the hood of the truck. The fuel pump worked and pumped gasoline on the firewall which. I was able to beat out. After getting the fire put out in the truck, I had to beat the fire out under the dock where the plastic container landed. It was burning quite well.

We decided getting it to run that way wouldn't work, so we put a board in front of the fan so it would not blow the gas all over and hooked up the gas hose. We then got a metal can for the gas. My dad thought a hole in the bottom of the can would drain into the carburetor slow enough so he would not have to pour it. We tried it again.

It started and then it backfired again, and the bottom of the can caught fire. Then the top of the can caught fire and my dad threw it to the other side of the ramp. This time the engine compartment caught fire on the other side and I was able to get out and beat it out, except the grill was on fire and it was harder to get out. Grills burn well. The dock on the other side caught fire which I was able to beat out.

The third try is always a charm, or it was this time anyway. We threw the board away. We took the hose off the carburetor; poured gas down the hose; filled the carburetor, then poured gas down the carburetor; stood back, and started it. It ran. I revved it up to about 3 or 4 thousand RPM's and let the clutch out in low range. It screamed to the top of the ramp and down the other side. There we poured in the rest of the gas and I took it over to the gas station and asked the mechanic to fix it and walked back to the boat.

THIS seemed to be the last of our problems. 'Wrong.' The bay at Hammond was calm and no fog; it was perfect. Now the end of it was a different story. It was a little foggy but we could see the line of buoys. This is good but this didn't last long. The tide was running out at a good speed and we were going out; this was good.

We were going down the string of buoys right past Peacock Spit. The fog was so thick by now that most boaters found a buoy and stayed there. Not us. We wanted buoy two, out four miles, and we were going to get it or try hard at it. Well we passed 14 and I set the GPS and looked at the chart for the next compass reading. It was there on the Columbia Bar that they lose an average of six boats a year. Shall I say the swells are steep or a lot of up and down, like about 40 feet, give or take a little? You have to be there to believe it. They were not sharp so it was just up and down in the fog. Oh, and the other thriller is this ship blowing his fog horn. Yes, we were hoping that we were not in the shipping lanes.

Then there it was--Buoy 8. Where were the other ones? I pushed the GPS so we could get back. The time from 14 to 8 was about 20 minutes at a guess. This makes amusement park rides seem calm and not long at all and they are over -- not this one! The ocean is a little choppy but not bad. Still cannot see, so back to the chart and set the compass where it should be. Off we go.

We did not see Buoy 6 or 4 or 2 but one was what we found. It was time to rest so we fished there. After about another hour or two, I looked on the chart and said 2 is two miles over there. So we looked at the compass and off we went. After a little while we did not find it so we went back to fishing. We caught one right away so we thought we were in the right spot. I guess there were only three fish there to get. We started back.

The trip back was a lot better because we had the compass and the GPS to get us back. Well let's say buoy 8 was no problem. That put us at the end of the South Jetty so go North and then East. Well there was this ship that was blowing it's fog horn. One of us looked out the front and the other looked everywhere else for this ghost ship that is still a ghost as far as we are concerned, and darn glad of it! We went North and there was the North Jetty. Wrong. It was the A Jetty. They don't look alike. There were a lot of boats there. The Coast Guard was there with their fog horn going. It was not very noisy compared to that ghost ship. I thought this was enough fun so I pulled up buoy 14 and started for it. Lo and behold it cleared up and off we went back to the dock.

I walked over to the gas station to get the truck and pay for the repairs. When I got there, the mechanic was not there. There was this young man pumping gas. He said there was nothing wrong with it. So I pulled it up to the pump and finished filling it up. They didn't charge me for looking at it and it ran good. So back to the boat ramp and load the boat. We are off and doing well.

Well our day was not through. The truck started acting up again and would not go up the hills without slowing down; but I kept it going. It was hot. We got on I-5 out of Longview. It was flat freeway all the way home. This is good, I thought. Our day is not through and we go for awhile.

Then there is this big noise under the truck, like something coming off and banging hard. I couldn't stop because of the construction on the freeway. So it banged on. Then it cleared and went into two lanes again. I was able to pull over and stop. Yes, the motor died. I got out and looked everything over-- shook, pulled, and yes, kicked. Nothing moved. [Later I found out that it was broken teeth in the transmission and the hot weather heated up the oil and let them move around and bind up with the good ones, making the noise we were hearing.] We got back in the truck. It would not start and we had no extra gas. I looked under the truck. There was no good way to get gas there because all the fittings were put on with pliers and the plastic lines were not any too long if you broke one. So, off to the boat with an old beer can. We took of the line to the motor and filled the can we found on the side of the road. Now this is where we started to get smart. We undid the gas line to the carburetor and filled it with gas. This filled the carburetor and the line. Then we put it together, closed the hood, got in and hit the starter. At this time there was about a hundred trucks going by. You couldn't hear a thing so I looked at the tack to see if the motor was running. It started, but soon died. So we went through the same thing all over again. This time it started. So I popped the clutch and off we went. It still was not working well and there was a truck on my tail. The road went back to one lane. The truck kept going well enough to get back to two lanes and go 55 miles per hour. The noise went away and I told my dad if the noise came back, it was just going to have to fall off. I am not going to stop for anything.

It was harder and harder to keep the truck running. The little hills on the freeway were getting hard to get up. You could only push about a quarter of the throttle or it would quit running. You would have to back off and hope it kept going.

We arrived at Johnson Creek Road and made the turn. Yes, the light was red so I kept it at about 4000 RPM until it turned green, turned the corner just in time to see the light a block away turn red. I did the same thing again. It worked. I was happy. Eighty-second Street was another story. As usual, the light was red. The motor was running fast and I was thinking there was only one more light. The light turned green and I let the clutch out. Off we went-- right to the middle of the street where the motor quit. It would not run so I pushed in the clutch, and we coasted across. There was a turn off into Fred Meyers [no power steering]. I turned too sharp. The trailer tire hit the curb. I knew we could not push it over so I put it in low gear, hit the starter, and pulled it over. You would think I would learn. No, there was another one. I pulled the other tire over it. It coasted out of the way of everybody, taking up about five parking spaces. I didn't care at this time.

I went inside the store and called Myran. He brought the van and we put the boat on it and took it the last two miles. We washed the boat. Myran said he and Vellen would go get the truck. In a few minutes they were back. The truck started right up and they drove it home. The next day I checked all the lines and replaced some of them, but they didn't need it. What was wrong was the fuel pump. It was a new one and it was bad. The truck now has another new fuel pump and a rebuilt transmission.

The trip is one that I talk about very often, but I am not sorry we took it. We never got mad during any part of it. It was fun having this adventure with my dad, and I would gladly do it all over again. Boy, did I ever sleep well that night after I had some fresh fried salmon!