Excerpt five (somewhat revised) from the book Wait.. WHAT?, by Elly Mossman
Before Bill assumed ownership of the Zapora, the boat was berthed at Comox Harbour, so, because he served as skipper, it seemed expedient for us to live there too. When Bill bought the Zapora from Loman’s widow, the reason to live in Courtenay was moot.
We began looking for a home further south on the Island. We found a house in Chemainus, right next door to the parents of Bill’s sister-in-law. We
were visiting them one day, and noticed the cute little house for sale next door. An offer was put in immediately, and our mobile home in Courtenay found a new owner.
Everything was going as planned, fools that we were for thinking it.
Bill and I were scheduled to leave on a halibut trip, and we made sure all the papers wer signed at the lawyer’s. Bill gave him temporary power of attorney to finalize the sale of the Courtenay house, and put all our worldly belongings into storage.
With all t’s crossed and i’s dotted, believing that everything was properly in place, we took off on the Zap for the top end of the Charlottes (Haida Gwaii).
On April the first, as Michelle and I were setting out gear off Langara, (the upper end of Haida Gwaii) Bill came out to the stern and pronounced solemnly, I just got a message via the Coast Guard. The sale of the house in Courtenay fell through!”
I am impervious to April Fool jokes, having been on the receiving end of a few too many from Bill. “Yeah, right!” I said back at him. I kept setting gear. Bill insisted, “I’m not joking, it fell through! The guy never showed up to sign the final papers!”
“Sure, sure!”
He went back into the wheelhouse. Leo looked after him. “I don’t think he’s kidding.” He said to me. I stared at Michelle, who stood across from me at her station. She shrugged. “It’s April first. Who knows?”
We finished setting that string, and I confronted Bill on the bridge. “You were kidding, right? It’s April first and this is one of your jokes! Tell me this is one of your jokes!”
There was no mistaking or denying the meaning of that stare.
So there we were, out in the middle of the Pacific, and helpless to do anything about it. We moved to Chemainus anyway, and put the mobile home back on the market, renting it out until it sold two years later.
In the meantime we were subjected to a motley parade of renters who proceeded to trash the place.
By the time 1995 rolled around, the combination of convoluted fishing regulations, sky-high prices of anything with the word “marine” attached to it, and the appearance of declining salmon stock, spelled the end of Bill’s fishing career. And by association, so was mine. But that was OK.
Changes were in the wind. We got married that year, right after we got home from our last season, and Bill started a whole new career as boat hauler. He like to say that now his boats had wheels under them instead of water. Would my life become a little calmer? Not on your life.
Zapora is still a working boat. She is now geared up with freezers, painted a menacing black, and fishes offshore tuna. At nearly 100 years old she can still be seen in the off-season, at her berth at the Fishermen’s Wharves in Victoria, BC.
Elly Mossman
Illustrator
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