Chapter 13 recap: Linda Syms found herself stranded on a remote oyster-picking beach in the middle of the night. She tried to walk home by the light of the moon but came to a shoreline cliff that she had to climb up and overtop of. It was along the top of the cliff when she took a step in the dark and felt nothing but air.
It was a surreal and frightening feeling. Before gravity could take over, Linda was able to grab hold of a tree branch and pivot backward, shifting her weight and saving herself from falling to the rocks and shoreline below. She edged herself a few feet further into the bush, away from the edge, felt her way across the bluff and soon emerged from the trees.
Linda had navigated the cliff, but now she had to climb back down to the beach. Fewer trees left the steep slope fairly open, which was good, since she slipped down the slippery moss. After navigating around a few huge shoreline boulders, she stepped back out onto the beach relatively unscathed. Compared to the dark forest, the beach seemed almost as bright as day in the moonlight.
With adrenaline pumping, Linda tried to keep pace with her dog Laz. She crossed rocks and slippery wet logs in a crouch, with her arms spread wide, hoping the thick treads on her rubber boots wouldn’t betray her.
After about 20 minutes of walking, she paused, thinking again of Wayne, and looked out at the moonlit ocean. There was still not a sight or sound from him or their boat. Where the hell was he? This wasn’t like him.
Her frustration had now turned to worry. This was the age before cell phones. When they were separated like this with no communication between them, anything could happen in the dark.
Side by side with her faithful Labrador, the pair of night hikers turned into Roger’s Bay, getting ever closer to her cabin. As Linda crunched her way across the beach of the deep bay, she finally heard Wayne’s outboard motor over the ridge from whence she came.
At first it was faint, then suddenly grew much louder as the Ambush 1 made the turn around Edith Island. The boat’s light flickered across the mouth of Roger’s Bay. Linda fumbled for her pocket flashlight, the one with the battery that was almost dead. Standing on the beach, she flicked the feeble beam on, off, on, off, on, off, but the boat didn’t slow down.
Frustrated and flummoxed
Linda yelled and screamed and jumped up and down. Laz started barking, but Wayne couldn’t hear them over the roar of the outboard. The boat sped past the mouth of the bay, leaving Linda standing there in frustrated, flummoxed silence.
Linda can remember that precise moment; it had never felt so dark, so cold, or so quiet. A wave of despondency passed over her as she stood there, muddy, scratched up and exhausted in her rain gear. It was almost 4 am. She was fed up.
Why couldn’t she have just stuck to the plan and sat there on the oyster lease and waited for Wayne to pick her up? But waiting for someone else to solve her problems was never part of Linda’s solution to life. She quit feeling sorry for herself, stomped her boots a few times on the beach, stormed up and over the final ridge, following closely behind Laz.
Within minutes, they were both clambering down into Salubrious Bay, where Wayne was still unloading the boat on the beach under the comforting glow of a gas lantern.
Wayne happily greeted Laz as the dog bounded across the beach. Standing on the cliff and looking down at them, Linda let fly with a string of expletives that we simply cannot print in the Peak.
It turned out that while Wayne had been scouting for a new wild oyster picking location, he got caught on the sand flats of nearby Theodosia Inlet on the outgoing tide. With no way to move the boat wedged in the muck, and no way to contact Linda, he had to sit there and wait for the tide to return in order to float the Ambush 1.
Linda was done with the night picks. There had to be a better way. And so, she began to concentrate on ways to harvest oysters that didn’t involve moonlight. She began leaving oyster seeds in submerged pouches that could be hauled up and sold directly once the oysters had grown to size, the same situation with pulling up underwater plastic tubes with oysters growing on them, then breaking apart the clusters with a hatchet, all work that could be done on a boat, and in broad daylight.
In an effort to diversify their income in the off months, Linda and Wayne started up all sorts of side businesses. Wayne turned the Ambush 1 into a water taxi service and used their large herring skiff as a kayak shuttle for the booming summer tourist trade, while Linda did custom sewing, crafts, clothing and oyster booths at various festivals.
She also began to write what would eventually become the two books this series is based upon. But no matter what they tried, nothing beat the $100 an hour that oyster farming made them on average, so Linda would always return to the oysters.
Radical change
Wayne’s bad back that had forced him to retire from active farming continued to plague him, and Linda began to notice a distinct difference in the man she had been with almost 24/7 for more than 30 years of adventure.
“He changed pretty radically from when I first knew him, when he was outgoing and fun-loving, the life of the party,” Linda reminisced. “Because of the back pain, he started taking more and more Demerol and then harder drugs, and so he didn’t want to associate with anybody. Probably about the mid-90s was when he started to retreat.”
With Wayne becoming more and more reclusive, Linda remained as loyal as ever, but began to socialize more on her own. She also took time off in the winter to travel to Mexico without Wayne.
Then, in 2006, Linda and Wayne would receive the news that would change their lives forever. You’ll read that story in the upcoming final chapters of Wild Pick, the life and adventures of Linda Syms, oyster farmer of Desolation Sound.
Grant Lawrence is the author of the new book Return to Solitude; he considers Powell River and Desolation Sound his second home. His book and Linda’s two books: Salt Water Rain and Shell Games, are for sale at Pollen Sweaters in Lund, and Pocket Books and Marine Traders in Powell River.
