Clam Digs & Martinis in Morro Bay

Part VIII - Don Laing 1952 - 1985     

Yvette & I took up residence on Marty's musty motor yacht for the month of September while he was away on business.  We knew that this was our last free home and we had a lot of work to do to get the yacht presentable for charter.  It was moored in Morro Bay about fifty yards offshore from the Inn at Morro Bay.  The yacht was a definite work in progress -- it had no functional galley, weak DC batteries and a noisy AC diesel generator. 

The "head", fortunately, was functional and we had a thousand gallons of fresh water on board for showers, although we brought on bottled water for drinking.

Transportation to-and-fro the dock at the Inn was via a 10' dingy with a very temperamental 5 hp outboard.  The narrow bay was protected by a long sandbar to the west and was subject to very strong and perpetual in-and-out tidal currents.  We could always tell if we were approaching high or low tide by the position of the bows of each boat relative to their moorings -- bows faced north when high tide was approaching and south when low tide was coming.

I had no idea how strong the current was until one night the outboard sputtered to a halt half way to shore.  I immediately understood why Marty kept oars in the dingy, for without them, we surely would have been swept out to sea.  I gave those oars a robust workout to get ashore, but for every twenty five yards I rowed east, the current took us a hundred yards south.

Before Marty left on his trip, he introduced us to the manager at the Inn and to a marvelous ritual that Vette & I continued during our stay.  The Inn had the best happy hour on the bay -- drinks at half price and free hors d'oeuvres that were out-of-this-world -- fruit & veggie trays, cheeses, fresh rolls, Swedish meatballs, hot wings and on the weekends, fresh shrimp & oysters.

Guests, of course, nibbled a bit before being seated for dinner.  Vette & I discretely stuffed ourselves over three rather large martinis each!  And we were welcomed guests thanks mostly to Marty's introduction and the fact that it was approaching off season  -- never a crowd to speak of.  Someone had to eat all that food.

So nightly, while taking for granted the gigantic red sun setting over the sandbar across the glistening bay, we'd feast in a very comfortable setting for about nine dollars plus tip.

Back on board, we'd sit on the deck, still warm from the sun, and watch the stars, so bright we'd joke that they weren't real -- just a big starry dome encasing us.  By ten in the evening, we'd be snug in our stateroom, the gentle bay rocking us to sleep.

Mornings were a bit more of a challenge.  As it was early fall, it was crisp and cool to say the least.  And that salt air always left one feeling a bit clammy in the morning.

Fortunately my first task was to get a new water heater installed under the head in the engine room.  Of course it wouldn't work without the generator running.  So first thing when I got up I'd start the generator to heat the water.  I improvised a heater in the head by using Yvette's hair dryer.  Then I crawl back in with Vette until the water was piping hot.

Within fifteen minutes we'd scurry to the pre-warmed head and hop in the shower.  It was glorious but short as the tank was only five gallons.  We'd dress, brew some coffee and begin our day of work (with the noisy generator finally turned off).  By ten the clouds would burn off and the warm sun would break through to create another perfect day.

When it was time to work, we both worked extremely hard.  Marty got his money's worth from us and there seemed to be an endless list of things to do.  But by five, we were ready again to head ashore, run what errands we needed to and still make it to our happy feast for the sunset.  One might think that we'd get bored from that routine, but it all seemed just wonderful.

If a low tide coincided with the sunset we'd alter our plans a bit.  I'd head ashore and pick up some fresh corn and potatoes from the farmers stand down the road from the Inn.  Then I'd have the bartender mix us a pitcher-to-go of our martinis (he wasn't suppose to do that but did so anyway).

Then I'd pick Yvette up from the boat and we'd putter to the large exposed sandbar.  We'd make quite an event of low tide at sunset.  I'd load up an ice chest, some small deck chairs, a Weber kettle that Marty kept onboard and of course a pair of shovels which I had bought at Ace Hardware in the city.

I'd immediately started the fire and then buried the bakers in the coals when they were red hot.  Then we'd dig away for the clams.  With fifteen minutes, I'd throw the corn and clams on the grill.  All it took was a little Chinese soy sauce and lemon, butter, salt and pepper, and we had our feast for the setting sun with a view of the bay, the rock and the mighty Pacific.  It was truly awesome.

The locals had been digging for clams here for decades, but the clams always seemed to be in great abundance.  Eventually a few other live-aboard neighbors would join us for a party on the coarse brown wet sand -- sand that would be fully submerged in fresh tidal seawater a few hours later.

Donny would drive up from Santa Barbara once a week to check up on us.  He was, after all,  our matchmaker and still felt bad about Jules kicking us out of his bungalow to make room for her brother.  He'd park his red Audi where he knew we could see it and shout at the top of his lungs: "MIKE, YVETTE."  No cell phones back then.

Finally one of us would see him and hop in the dingy to pick him up.  He enjoyed our established happy hour but insisted on drinking only single malt whiskey.  "Martinis were for pussys," after all.

Don would reassure us that he was working on the next big project and do a lot of name dropping during his pep rallies.  Peter Frampton was buying a large sloop that needed a complete restoration.

Indeed, we all partied with Peter on a few occasions -- at a time before he checked himself into Betty Ford.  He was a short, snotty, stinky, obnoxious alcoholic.  Of course he was fun to be with anyway, simply because he was Peter Frampton.

Vette and I took Donny's reassurances as supportive but unlikely. The big storm of last winter was our cash cow and there were many experienced shipwrights now looking for work.  We were mere amateurs, although gaining skills as we went along.

We both knew, or at least sensed, that after Marty returned, this would be the end of our adventure.  At first we avoided even talking about it -- we simply did not want to deal with what would come next.

I had, at least, been saving my money for the return to LA.  The aerospace market was improving with the B2 scaling up for full production.  Every Sunday I would scan the LA Times for new hope.  All the Primes had been running full pages ads.  It seems like thousands of new jobs were now available.

And as a backup, LA would host the summer Olympics in 1984 -- something we all had spent time planning and discussing -- how to really cash in on that event.

Amazingly, about a week before Marty's return we finished all the work that needed to be done.  I picked what I thought was the perfect moment and gently blurted out: "Vette, I want you to come back to LA with me."  Why had that been so hard to say?

Silently she turned a bit pale and seemed to be lost for words -- an unheard of event for this rock star wanabee.  She finally told me that she had a "real bad" experience in Hollywood and swore she would never go back to LA.  If it was "really bad" in her mind, I knew it was absolutely horrific in reality.  I didn't care to hurt her by asking for the details, but I knew from a past discussion that she was only fifteen when she lived there -- on her own, of course.

I countered with the fact the Palos Verdes was a world away from Hollywood and "if you just come to visit, you'd love the place," full well knowing that, in itself, was a weak argument.  "We'd still have the ocean view and once I started working again we'd have a normal life."

"I hate normal," she yelled back.

All I could get out of her was that she'd think about it. She admitted that I was the kindest, gentlest man she had ever met.  With that, we went to bed and she fell asleep immediately.

I managed to fall asleep just before sunrise.  When I awoke at noon, Vette was gone.  I showered alone for the first time since we had been onboard.

Leaving me stranded onboard, I first thought the worst:  she wasn't coming back.  But her all her stuff was still here thank God and, of course, Marty had yet to pay us.  I panicked over nothing.

I still considered swimming ashore to retrieve the dingy, which I could clearly see docked at the Inn's pier.  But I figured I best wait until the outgoing current subsided.

I pulled out my binoculars and scanned the coast, from Morro Bay Rock to the marshlands in the south.  I remember thinking that there was no more perfect place than this.  Why did this have to end?

I was angered and frustrated that I was a mere guest here when simple folks, of all walks of life, had their own boats and were living this life as a real life.  I thought that these lucky fools were not nearly as smart as me, yet they were smart enough to pull it off.  I was just a castaway, a vagrant from LA.

Marty came back the precise day that he said he would and was beaming when he saw his old hulk all spit and polish.  He paid us in cash, a whopping two grand each.  We headed back to the Inn as his guest for the last time.  We skipped the hors d'oeuvres and went into the dining room for a real meal in the resort for the first time.  Marty ordered Dom Perignon and we all ate from a real menu, sparing no expense.

No matter.  The room at the Inn had a perfect view of Marty's yacht as the warm red sun set for the last time for me in Morro Bay.  It was odd to see the bay and all moored vessels from that vantage point.

As I drove South on 101, I detoured to Fredrick Street in SLO, slowly driving past the old bungalow.  I see familiar faces, but do not stop.  I should have stopped -- I should have said goodbye to all my friends, but more goodbyes on that day were more than I could take.

I got home to Palos Verdes about ten that evening.  Bills were stacked in the mailbox and the answering machine was littered with messages from those that sent the bills.  There was one message from Naomi however, chastising me for not calling her or my parents for the last month.  She was right, I selfishly forgot everyone else on the planet existed.  I'll call them all tomorrow, surprised that the phone was even still working.

Yvette and I talked only a few more times.  She said she liked her job and made a few friends with the girls she worked with.  She seemed a bit too tame to me.  No, she was not doing any drugs.  I was glad to hear that she told Marty to buzz off the night I left.  He was not a problem since.

Late November, I had called her and a stranger answered in her room.  A new boyfriend?  No, a new guest of the Inn.  I called the bartender and ask what had happened.  He said sadly that she was fired a week before for intentionally dumping a bowl of hot chowder in a rude guest's lap!  No one at the Inn knew where she had gone.

That was twenty years ago.  It seems, at least in those semi-conscious dreams, one has just before sleep, like yesterday.

I hope that you are well, my wild young sweetheart.  I hope that you had a good life, and still do. 

I hope that you still think about our wondrous wild time together -- low tide, red sun and the brief comfort we gave each other while recklessly adrift off the California Coast.

"amantes sunt amentes" - lovers are lunatics

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact.

-Shakespeare