Off The Nova Scotia Coast (A short story)

When I glanced over toward the wall the clock had stopped. I realized It was time to wake up and begin traveling to where I needed to visit. I began fidgeting in the dark room eventually finding my watch and discovered it was 4:11 AM.   

I quickly got ready and left the house, stepping out the front door, and looking up where below Heaven, gazing down upon the Earth, I admired the prehistoric bright crescent moon in the sky. Seemingly lonely up there among the stars in her desolation, seemingly companionless but for God, she was the only light in the dark summer evening sky but for the dots of distant alien known stars beyond her.

Soon I was backing out of the driveway on our small dead end street in my small hometown of Brookfield. I spotted a skunk dead on the edge of the lane. I stopped and stepped out and with the glow of the cars tail lights I looked checking now as I wasn't sure what I saw in the dark. The exhaust pipe behind the car was beside me as I turned and walked toward the front of the vehicle where beneath the hood sounded the steady purr of the engine.

Staring around in the darkness I noted that accept for the light of a nearby Church parking lot  and the beams of headlights lighting up the lane ahead that I was among darkness as I felt now a peace here in the night time. Everything was calm at this hour I marveled standing there. I should be afraid, I thought, where I’m going now, but nothing, I feel nothing, no fear. I simply have to do this I thought.

With the window open and driving down the road now I can feel the wind against my arm and face and hair. I marvel driving through the intersection how when I see a bug fly into the windshield it just turns into a splatter of blood. I  heard somewhere it was more likely you'd get more splats at night when moths flew toward headlights. The person I listened to who told me this said that insects fly four to five feet off the ground which is perfect striking distance for passing cars.

I left my small rural town of Brookfield driving past a local cemetery where the gravestones stand quietly there row after row of them. I am on my way east and am heading to the south shore of the province to the the village of Chester. Chester is situated on a peninsula halfway along the coast of Mahone Bay. I knew the town and thought it to be one of the most picturesque communities on earth.

Chester overlooks island filled Mahone Bay, a sailor's paradise, with inscrutable weather patterns, high winds, fog and seasonal tides, making yacht racing competitive and enjoyable there. Boats come from all over the continent to compete in mid-August Race week.

As I drive along on rout an hour passes and I find myself on the Hammonds Plains road which is a short cut on rout to the Saint Margret Bay road.

The reason I was going to Chester was deeply hidden secret that started as an obsession I had.  For a long time I had thought with deep reflection and obsessive wonderment about how three quarters of the earth's surface is covered by water. I was compulsively fascinated how the ocean itself conceals billions of creatures interacting in ways that we will never fully understand. Much of the ocean, I marvel about very frequently, is mysterious like the infinity beyond our planet out there in that great unknown.

I was out of psychiatric medication now for my schizophrenia but I thought to myself I don’t really need it for this journey anyway. I am in control and not the medication I think brazenly even though great danger may accompany this journey.

After twenty minutes I reach Saint Margret's Bay as I come to bends in the road where the craggy twisty formations of the sea came graduating inland. The land formations made for views in the daylight of quiet sheltered coves.

It was approaching dawn after more time had past as I now see a mist rising slowly before me. The windswept coast is met with a coastal wind that comes breezing through my windshield with the gradual lifting of the fog while my nostrils breath in the sea air.

I had made a very secretive purchase two weeks earlier with some savings by buying an old dory boat, an outboard motor, and an old rusting deep sea cable that was 13,000 meters long and rolled up on a crank. I had also purchased a dragging rake with several hooks, four large gasoline jugs full of gasoline, two ores, a canopy to shield the sun above me with, as well as enough water, diet Pepsi, and plenty of food for the journey.

I knew a vague history of what my boat was used for originally before I bought it. Sailing crews on fishing schooners sailed out of the ports of Newfoundland, the Maritime provinces of Canada, and the New England States of America. The ports which claimed most of these crews were Lunenburg, in Nova Scotia, which was near Chester, and Gloucester and Boston, in Massachusetts. 

The sailing crews sailed on fishing-schooners but these schooners also held a number of flat bottomed, high-sided boats, called dories, that were carried for the actual fishing. These dories, like the one I purchased from a man in Lunenburg, originally were from 18 to 22 feet over all.  My dory that I purchased was 18 feet long with an outboard motor attached which was very unusual for these type of boats.

As I neared Chester now the sun had risen in the eastern sky. The revealed fresh colors before me seemed realistically like they had been prepared on a  geniuses artistic canvas. That canvas I beheld was this life revealed in all its indifference, brutality, and grotesqueness, as well as its astounding beauty, possibility, and mind-boggling creativity. It all made for a great wonder at this seismic curiosity as we the conscious beings who love and share in its mystery are left to ask great soul searching questions.

It was hard for me to describe how I felt now looking at this morning light while looking out toward Mahone bays dotted Islands as I parked there on the shoulder of the road. The open waters held a feeling in me deeply captured within the soul. The orange and gold and blue stretched one way as far as I could look and then again in the other direction. As I watched now, it being just past dawn in the morning, everything seemed to change again with rich hues of orange, purple and crimsons.  The rising sun soon then magnificently lit everything up completely just as I came into the village of Chester.

I stopped the car when I reached the wharf beside the front harbor of the town. I had limited permission to keep my newly purchased boat there for a period of time. The weather worn wharf I walked unto now had a few missing planks and might easily have been two hundred or more years old. A rope tied to the pier secured the dory which was twisted and tied in weathered knots. That fraying rope fought with me as I began untying it. The old rope was frayed with knots and resisted my efforts stubbornly in untying it.

I carried my food and supply's to the dory and then sat at the back of the boat. I looked around a few minutes looking up the front harbor and past the harbor front restaurant named The Rope and Loft. After a brief hesitation I then pushed off the wharf and began drifting in the stagnant front harbor.

I hesitated a moment longer, drew in a deep breath, and then started the outboard motor and began cutting a wake through the tranquil morning ocean. I passed the The Rope and Loft restaurant, and then the docked yachts, looking beyond to old architecture there in the harbor, then I scanned in all direction viewing incredible scenic mansions lining the lush green lawns up on surrounding coastal elevations. Hillsides on these peninsulas held immaculately kept estates with panoramic views of both harbors with the views looking unto Mahone Bay itself to its many offshore islands.

Sailboats dotted Chester's waters that I passed by now. I had brought on my trip a handcrafted walking stick. The walking stick had a built in compass at its tip. I needed the compass as I had plans on heading far into open water. I was hoping to head far out to sea at least 32 miles or more off the coast. 

Soon I cut a wake through the sea and land was left behind me as I went into the open ocean. I had to do a lot of research in preparation for this trip in advance. I learned what topographical features were which included mountains, hills, valleys, lakes, oceans, rivers, cities, dams, and roads. The elevation, or height, of mountains, and other objects, was recorded as part of topography. I was interested in how it was recorded in reference to the sea level and the depths of the ocean.

I knew I was currently traveling over a continental shelf less than 250 meters deep while the vast deep ocean plains were between 4,000 and 6,000 meters deep. I wasn’t interested in these petty shallow waters at all but instead I was interested in heading out into the truly deep ocean. I was headed toward a trench offshore which was 32 miles out to sea with the ocean depth there being a mysterious and unfathomable 11,000 meters deep.

The floor of the Atlantic, like those of other oceans, was actually very flat, even in this area of the deep trench. These vast sediment covered abyssal plains of the ocean fascinated me while learning about them in my research. What strange beings might inhabit these undiscovered depths lead me to a profound fascination of this unknown.

The sun met my face as I cut through the waves rolling across the choppy Atlantic. I'd left sight of  land and could look to the horizon in all directions around me. I looked downward to my left looking down into the blue murky endless enormous puddle lying around me as a gentle breeze brought in more salt air and sea smell.

So soft and familiar is this scent that I relax a bit with tears forming in my eyes.

I began thinking back to being on a wharf that overlooked Lunenburg and looking across the harbor four years earlier. I recalled a brief romance there shared over several bottles of wine. I could still picture the Lunenburg shore indented with inlets and coves where we had been.

I recalled a boat trip earlier that day in the afternoon four years ago and the isolated peninsulas seen approaching them from the sea. I pictured the steep hills rising up those shores while looking at Lunenburg on the innermost extremity on her own fabulous peninsula. A town of colorful waterfront, narrow streets, and captivating architecture, full of seafaring heritage.

I remembered how we’d sat drinking the wine on an outward jutting wharf where local fishermen sank their expectant fishing hooks. Gulls had gone flying past white feathers tucked in. There were also the ghosts of those who remained from before. They were there in the luminous silence all around us. Their silent conversations and friendly shouts were all around. They were the spirits of ghosts that haunted the shadows of the wharf as they picnicked there and swam in Mahone Bay hardly casting us a nod where we drank guiltlessly looking lustfully on at one other.

"I'm sorry if my body fat triggers feelings of disgust in you, but I hope you're ready. I'm going to take off my clothes and go for a swim!" I remember her saying as what met my eyes next was her slender waist and navel, sumptuous buttocks, flaring hips, and a convex belly. I recalled what a lovely woman she was to know now sighing in reflection.

Then my thoughts return to my objective as I realize I’ve been traveling for several hours in daydream. This isn't the kind of weather to cause shipwrecks, I think, like the kind of weather where storms rage I try and reassure myself looking around me. The sea is not roaring today but is only swaying back and forth with the tides rising and falling.

Then several more hours pass away nervously as I move deeper out into the Atlantic where all sight of land was gone. I have a lot of time to think now as I bob across the white cresting waves.

One knot was equivalent to one nautical mile and I had been doing a speed of four nautical miles per hour. I had been on the sea for seven and a half hours on a direct course. 

 

As I looked around me now I suddenly realized, and was convinced, that this was truly a hallowed place. As I calculated my speed and then looked at the compass I finally sighed again as I swallowed feeling a lump in my throat.

 

I knew now suddenly that I had reached the deepest trench in the sea. Below me now the sea level was 11,000 meters deep. I shut off the gas to the outboard motor and began drifting silently moving quietly up and down with the current and waves. Around me now where I sat 32 miles at sea there was total silence. Waves crested with gentle splashes and there was also the hull of the boat that now rocked with the rising of a wave and then it fell down again beyond with a splash, and there was the breeze, with the wind whispering, but besides these sounds there was absolute silence around me.

 

I could easily have been in a cold grave underneath me now in the watery depth of the deep ocean. Knowing loneliness I looked around me there on the sea. I realized with melancholy that compared to anything I knew, that this here, where I was, was the loneliest place in the world.

 

Maybe out in the far off depth of interstellar space, if it was ever neared, to drift there among eons of century's of traveling light, maybe, maybe there, absent sound, ones thoughts might know a greater solitude then here, but here on this planet, this was it, this was the most desolate place of them all I thought scanning the open ocean around me.

 

I rocked in the dory in the current. Here now where I am, I realize, no mermaids are emerging out of the 11,000 meters of deep ocean depths beneath me. From distant shores now no sea faring vassals are anywhere in sight either. As I think this to myself suddenly there emerges from the depth strangely and bafflingly, and also very eerily, a series of bubbles rising up to the oceans surface.

 

I look at the bubbles now with great curiosity and fascination, with my jaw dropping open, followed almost instantly then by a raw determination rising in me. I feel a desperate needfulness to know what made those strange deep sea bubbles. I had came here specifically and secretively to discover what lay at the bottom of that 11,000 meter trench in the ocean floor. I knew I couldn’t meet aliens or travel between galaxies but I knew I had to try and know what was down there beneath those waters.

 

I quickly reached and grabbed the jagged hooks and netting used for snagging objects and dragging the ocean floor. I then quickly wasted no time in then attaching the long 12 hundred meter thin almost weightless wire cable end fastening it to the dragging hooks. I then without hesitation tossed the heavy hooks into the water which immediately began to sink slowly toward the bottom as I started unrolling the cable by turning the wheel to allow it to submerge.

 

With the sun flickering on the water the bright blue of air and sky were perfectly visible around me. I worked feverishly lowering the cable, turning the crank, while great globs of sweat dripped from my forehead. I was utterly obsessed with reaching the ocean floor while counting on the cable measurement system the meters of cable now used.

 

I worked tireless for an hour and thirty minutes to near collapse and when just about drained physically, suddenly, with great wonderment, I hit the sea floor.

 

I sat there stunned with a dumbfounded look regaining my wind slowly. After a minute of feeling an awe inspired fascination sitting there an insane look came to my face as I then quickly turned on the outboard motor. Giving the throttle gas quickly I then began maneuvering the steering of the dory moving in the water while dragging the cable behind the boat. The boat proceeded to drag the hooks back and forth as the boat zigzagged over several square kilometers across the ocean floor. I continued to weave back and forth and cut a coordinated path through the deep sea.

 

Then suddenly and very unexpectedly I seemed to hook something. I panicked immediately realizing this as whatever it was suddenly pulled the boat sideways more then eleven feet. I realized desperately that there was something big and scary underneath in the seas unknown depth below me.

 

I now began cranking the wheel in a state of Insanity pulling up the cable by turning the wheel. I was obsessed, straining my muscles with each rotation, knowing something really big was on the line.

 

I fought the resistance below for over an hour screaming at the top of my lungs as I struggled.

 

“COME ON YOU BIG BASTARD! YOU SON OF A ^&(*%!”

 

I swore mercilessly, cranking furiously, until eventually I slowed in vigor facing a gradual windedness. I continued at a slow almost beaten pace then panting for breath.

 

Then surprisingly after forty minutes whatever it was that was on the hook I realized was now nearing the surface. I peered over the side of the dory into the choppy waters waiting to see what it was I’d snagged with a loss of breath.

 

With wispy clouds coming now out of nowhere in the sky, on that blue clear day, I sat there on that ocean on my dory as the familiar yellow ball of fire sent its light on my exposed skin from above. I watched obsessively looking into the ocean while wondering what unique species, so foreign to me, might now come out from the depths of the sea. Was it an alien being or a hideous mutation from some lightless deep mysterious depth I wondered eerily.

 

Suddenly then, to my ghastly surprise, without any warning at all, coming right out of the ocean at me, God forbid I thought franticly, there suddenly came the most hideous and terrifying creature I've ever laid eyes on. The grotesque beast emerged unexpectedly and had to my horror eight arms and two large tentacles. The tentacles surged forth from the water and reached forward into my boat with these two tentacles fiercely encircling my neck and my leg.

 

The son creature must have been 43 feet long from tentacle tip to tentacle tip I estimated quickly terrified by what I saw. I screamed out in ghastly fear horrified and in a state of terror.

 

“GET AWAY! GET AWAY YOU BIG BEAST! YOU SON OF %^**! YOU KNOW GOOD A %$#@! HELLLLLLLLLLLLP! SOMEONE HELP ME!!!”

 

I was trying to fight off the suction cups now that were sucking on my leg and neck. As I fought the Giant Squid it began crawling forward until half its body mass made it unto my boat nearly capsizing us in the surf. The beast clearly must have weighed over 600 pounds or far more.

 

In the boat with me now the enormous squid moved now, to my revulsion, its hidden jaws moving toward me. Then abruptly, and for some unknown unexplained reason, the Giant Squid stopped in motion and relaxed. With its mighty face a foot from mine I hollered in exhilaration.

 

“WHO ARE YOU GREAT SQUID???? WHERE DO YOU COME FROM?????”

 

Then looking me right in my eyes through its own obviously intelligent eyes, an intelligence that I’ve never seen in any human being, he stared at me for thirty uninterrupted seconds and studied me there.

 

Then for whatever reason, after seemingly finding his answer, he did the strangest thing, the great squid winked at me.

 

I was utterly amazed at this display. Immediately I lost all fear staring at this deep ocean alien like intelligent creature. I released my grip on its tentacles at the same time it too released its grip on my body. The great squid quickly then slid from the dory into the ocean and quietly disappeared into the depth leaving me open jawed there in utter amazement. I hollered out now in exhilaration.

 

“I MET THE GREAT SQUID! I MET THE GREAT SQUID! I MET THE GREAT SEA CREATURE THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL!”

 

I looked around me in all directions and then stood up in the dory and began dancing around in a crazed delirium.

 

“WOO HOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

 

After some time feeling this amazement, and still delirious, I lifted the walking stick. I checked the compass, and found the direction west, and then started the outboard motor, and setting my course, I headed off toward land  smiling ear to ear.