Knowing when to abandon Ship.

I looked out across at Morro Bay, and jutting out on a peninsula past the Harbor was “Morro Rock.”

It was a large round dome sticking up out of the shore. Several hundred feet high, it Looked like a half-submerged giant turtle. It was a strange and abrupt rock formation.

The smallish Harbor was dotted with Fishing Boats, restaurants, and touristy junk shops.

With my last few bucks, I allowed myself to get a hot meal. I would have to find work soon. In the town center a few blocks east from the Harbor, I came to a little cubby hole of a diner. I went inside and ordered a bowl of chili. I filled the bowl with crackers to thicken and fatten it. I wasn’t sure how soon I’d eat again.

As I sat at the counter. A few stools away, a chatty fellow struck up a conversation with me. He could see by my backpack that I was traveling. He asked where I was coming from. I gave him my story with my New York accent. He listened intently and didn’t judge me for it. He seemed a decent fellow and meant me no harm.

He told me all I needed to know about Morro Bay. I mentioned to him that I was on my way to Big Sur. He gave me the scoop on that area as well.

His name was Danny. He was originally from San Francisco. I asked him how he ended up in Morro Bay, and he explained that he was there to get work on Fishing Boats. Morro Bay had a small fleet of commercial fishing vessels.

He then asked me where I would stay that night, and I told him I would probably head over to the campground on the edge of town. I wanted to get an early start on the road for Big Sur.

Danny said that he was living on a boat in the Harbor. He offered that I could “crash” on the boat if I liked. That sounded cool to me.

He was living on an old 46-foot wooden fishing vessel in the Harbor. It was a classic old fishing tub from the thirties. It looked pretty shabby and smelled of leaky oil. The guy who owned the boat told Danny that he could live on the boat as long as he pumped out the bilge water every morning. That was necessary to keep it from sinking. The boat had been sitting in the Harbor for so long that the wood had suffered rot and worm damage.

The owner didn’t have the money to dry dock it and make the repairs it needed and hadn’t paid his docking fees in a long time.

The Coast Guard harbor patrol was looking to hit him up for past due bills.

Danny was happy to have me help pump the bilge out the following day.

It was a hand-cranked pump and was pretty arduous work. I could tell Danny was pretty tired of doing it.

So after showing me how to prime the pump with seawater and pumping it out awhile, we kicked back and smoked some pot and drank some beer.

Friends of Danny would appear with more beer and come aboard the leaky ship. It became a full-blown merry scene.

I explained my desire to get going to Big Sur to Danny but, I could tell he didn’t think there was any big hurry or pressure for me to go.

We talked about getting work on a commercial fishing vessel. Danny explained the intricacies of working on a drag boat, which uses nets for catching “Rock Fish” like Red Snapper instead of Trollers that would fish for King salmon. Salmon season was about to begin, and it was possible to get a job on a troller as a deckhand.

Pretty soon, I was “Hooked” on the idea of working as a fisherman. He explained all the apparatus as we walked around the dock. Little sea otters would swim around playfully, eyeing us and hoping for a cast-off French fry.

Morro Bay was really an Idyllic fishing village. It wasn’t overrun with tourists like Carmel or Monterey. It was a working-class town and was considered the beginning of “Northern California.”

Morro Bay is about 160 miles south of Big Sur.

Later that day, Danny told me that he had to go to San Francisco. It was for emergency family reasons.

It was never clear to me what the emergency was, but he asked if I could stay with the boat for a few days to pump out the bilge and prevent it from sinking.

“Of course,”

I said.

He had been so generous and decent fellow to me. How could I refuse? I could delay my trip north for a few days until his return.

He assured me that he wouldn’t be long. He packed up his army duffel bag and caught a ride north to SF.

He left very little instruction beyond pumping out the bilge and to caution me to stay out of sight of the Harbor patrol. There was no number for me to contact the mysterious owner of the boat.

This was about three days after I arrived in Morro Bay. When I look at it from Danny’s perspective, it takes on a “Tom Sawyer” like situation “Hey kid, I’ll Let you whitewash this fence.”

Danny had been strapped to pumping out that bilge water for who knows how long.

Maybe he inherited the bilge pumping gig from some other character who maybe tricked HIM into doing it?

Hard to say. The boat was basically a “floating Squat” and a squat on the verge of sinking. It was pleasant enough to be there in the charming little fishing village and feel part of it all somehow.

But, when a week went by, and there was there still no sign of Danny, I was beginning to get really antsy and anxious to get going to Big Sur.

I had had no luck in finding work on a boat or work as even a dishwasher. But I sure was tied to that bilge pump. Most of my time was spent dodging the Harbor police.

One day they finally caught up to me. I explained my own situation to them, and it appeared to amuse them that I had been left holding the bag.

To Danny, I must have seemed like the perfect solution or “patsy.” I needed a place to stay, the boat needed someone to pump it out, and he didn’t want to do it anymore. It was a little bit of a con job, but I do believe, though, that he honestly didn’t want to let that boat sink.

When I came along, he finally had his out. He did a great job charming me into delaying my trip. I didn’t resent him for it too much as I did really love the little town. But the thing was, I was itching to do some rambling in California.

Who knows what happened when he went to SF or if he even went there. There was no way of knowing.

But then, my decision was made for me.

I ran into some mechanical trouble. The bilge pump became clogged. I repeatedly tried to prime the pump, but it would just produce a weak rusty, sandy stream. There was not nearly enough outgoing water to keep the boat afloat. Every day I would check to see if the boat was listing lower. Was it beginning to sink?

It was! My nights became a bit more anxious because I wasn’t sure if I would wake underwater.

It was clear to me that Danny wasn’t coming back.

I kept having these visions of Danny coming back to the dock and horrified.

I imagined him saying

“That fucking hitchhiker let the boat sink!”

I had, for the most part, kept my end of the bargain till the pump malfunctioned.

I might still be there today pumping away had the mechanics of the universe not intervened.

I stuck my thumb out on the PCH and headed north to Big Sur.