Fish Boxes as Boats?????

It’s surprising that my Friend Ray and I managed to live to see our 20th birthday. Our first 20 years living on Sterling creek were hectic to say the least this story or stories Takes place in Greenport if we were cats our nine lives would have both used up by the time I got my first boat (the first one I paid for anyway)

After a storm some rowboats get washed up in the reeds on the other side of the crick others end up behind Rays house or along the shore line if.. They were still there after 2 weeks they were fair game usually they stayed ware they were. Ray and I kept 2 for a while we had 3 but usually we kept the two best ones and let the others go. If the boat was there too long we would drag it back into the creek and wish it farewell. Sometimes some rowboats did not want to leave, we would go down to the crick the next day and lo and behold here it comes back to the same spot we pushed it off. Some of them are tired and don’t want to leave. We put a rope on this one and towed it nearly a mile and gave it a good shove near Sandy Beach there is a outlet to the bay at the end of Sandy Beach and when the tide is running good it pushes anything through the outlet. If you are going out it is call and outlet but it’s called the inlet if you are going in the outlet but if you are actually in the outlet but going in?????? Anyway we were in the outlet when we pushed the boat out of the inlet…..am I going
crazy or what?

At that time I lived across the street from him, so it was a rare day when we didn’t run into each other. There was a well beating path between our houses. There were a few other kids that used his yard as a path to get to the creek.

Actually the first boat we never had, could have been the end of one of us at that time, neither one me new knew to swim. I was about 8 and Ray 6 ½, where were our parents? We were right next door to Pell’s fish store our play area was within 50 ft from Pell’s Docks.
Pell’s kept their supply of fish boxes right were we played. Times were sure different no one paid much attention to what ever we did. Well World War 2 was still raging. Rays Grandfather made rowboats & sailboats. He was also a builder of life saving boats that operated in the sound from the 1920’s. I will have to Research that story.

Pell’s wood fish boxes to Ray at least seemed like a good place to start a boat. We dragged a couple of boxes over to Rays dock. Ray new a lot about how boats floated but we realized that with all the boards about a half-inch apart it would never float. Ray asked his father for something to put in the cracks. It’s funny his father didn’t ask how big this boat was. Rays dad said to go over to the boat yard they have what ever we needed. Ray’s grandfather still ran Bishops boatyard at that time so we got the caulking over there. Do you have any idea what a fish box looks like? It’s made out of real 1/8-inch flimsy crap. When Pell’s sent fish to New York City it was shipped in these boxes they pack the fish boxes with about 20 lbs of ice and 25 lbs of fish in each box. If you tie two them together you have a boat about 30 inches by 30-inch by10 inch high. The box will float. Sure will if you put 4 cats in it. I’m glad we didn’t try that. Ray was excited and said, “lets go!”

“NO WAY” I said, “that thing was going one way and that was down to the bottom.”

Ray pulled the box boat to the middle of the dock (so it would not hit the bottom) fat chance I was not about to step in that flighty box bouncing up and down this was definitely over my head and not being able to swim a stroke at that time (Ray couldn’t either}. It was plain to see it was going to tip over.

“You first.” I said.

Ray tentatively tried stepping in the middle of the box (that might be a good idea in a canoe but not in a fish box. The fish box did everything but float, it wobbled and jiggled. It did every thing a boat should do but float. It was more than 3/4 sunk before he was in the box. Nobody could stand in that thing. It flipped over and the box was on top of him. He was thrashing around not going up or down, I had no idea what to do. The only thing I could think of for him to do was to hold on to hold on to the fish box it was still floating upright. Next to him the rope that was tied to the box was under the dock. I had to lie on my stomach on the dock and I could just touch the string……string? I thought we had 20 ft of rope not a 20 ft piece of string. Don’t struggle the string might break and it just did OH NO… Now what do I do? Ray gave a halfhearted yell for help. I yelled not much louder, after all someone might hear us. I had to think of something else real fast. I remember the big sloop on the next dock had a crab net on the deck in front of the cabin maybe that would reach him! The sloop rented a space on Bishops dock it was a 42 ft 2 mast sloop (Ray’s dad bought it the next year.) The dilemma I had was that the tide was going out so the lines were taught and it was difficult to pull any boat up to the dock and hold it there to get on. I probably weighed 75 lbs at that time….I tried pulling it but the tide was to strong and it was at least 8 ft from the dock to the boat. I had to take a chance and tight walk the rope across to the boat I made it in about 4 steps. I grabbed the crab net and figured I’d go back the same way. But no such luck! (By the way the name of the boat was the Good Luck.) By tight rope walking across the rope the first time it let some slack out of the rope just enough so I just made 2 steps and then fell between the boat and the dock.

Ray yelled, “Bill what are you doing!”

I said, “I am getting a crab net.

“What!!” said Ray “get me out of here this aint no time to be crabbing.”
I quick found out how deep it was in that spot it was 4 feet of water and over a foot of mud.

“Hay what are you doing?” Ray yelled (now there were two of us drowning)

I managed to keep a hold on the net, but at least I was between the boat and the dock and there were 2 or 3 ropes I could climb.

Just then my younger sister Nancy came running down the dock….”watcha doing?” she said…

“Leave us alone were drowning …Go and see if you can
reach Ray with the net..”

As I climbed up one of the dock spills. When I got up on the dock Nancy came back without the net.

“Were is the net?” I yelled

“Don’t yell at me.” she quipt “I threw the crab net at Ray and he did not want it.”

Lucky for us the wood handle of the net let it float strait up about 2 inches was above the water.

“Grab the handle,” I yelled

It took him 3 or 4 tires to get a hold of the handle, each time he pushed the handle out towards the dock he would nearly sink the box. But, when I got a hold of the net and pulled him to the dock Ray said “I’m never going to drown again.”

I’ll always remember Nancy saying, “Raymond your pants are all wet your mother will be real mad.”

I never heard what his mom said about that day come to think of it I don’t remember my mother saying anything about it either.

(Just a note at this time Nancy always tested all the cats on the dock to see if they could swim by throwing them in the water. Sometimes there were 3 or 4 trying to climb the post at the same time trying to get out. They always did climb out.)

Ray and I were on the water all the time spring and summer.