PELTIER CREEK -- The omens weren't good. The barometer was falling fast, the sky was dark all afternoon, weather forecasters were predicting heavy rain and strong winds for the next few days - the Carteret County Wildlife Club's annual Thanksgiving oyster roast was scheduled for 1830 hours (that's 6:30 p.m. to you landlubbers).
Sundown is coming much earlier these days, so we strung a couple of overhead lanterns to provide light for the serious work of feasting. A tarp strung from the branches of the big oak tree by some of the more agile club members provided a little preparation for warding off the worst of the predicted downpours.
Meanwhile, we had been splitting firewood and had a fire started. It was just coming to a nice bed of coals when I overheard the two newly arrived club leaders conferring: "I thought you were going to pick the oysters up!" followed by "I thought you said that you would!"
It was getting late, the oyster-hungry crowd was fast gathering. There were no oysters, and it's a fur piece, meaning near-'bout a half-hour's drive from the seafood dealer's warehouse back to our place.
After a quick confirming phone call, a volunteer headed into the gloom while the rest of us began praying that the highway patrol and local law enforcement were busy tending duties elsewhere.
I sort of figured that if worst came to worst I could have suggested to the membership they take their oyster knives and step into the creek, which lies just beyond the shoreline, a few feet in front of my front lawn and there they could collect all the oysters they wanted. However, I doubt, even if we considered the water clean enough, that there would be many volunteers.
Something about unknown deep waters, on such dark and gloomy nights, doesn't seem too inviting. It reminded me of a time on Oregon's Hama-Hama River when I was invited to join an oyster harvesting crew. In that part of the world, tides run a bit different. Here we have a high tide followed about 6 1/4 hours later by a low, another 6 1/2 brings us back to another high and so on. However, there on the Hama-Hama (translated from Indian meaning "stinky-stinky"), their bewitching hour of oyster harvesting comes at low-low tide, which on that day I found myself mucking about in a misty rain enclosed in a tiny pool of lantern light with all the rest of the world swallowed into a gullet of inky blackness.
Without the least sense of direction, nor was there anything that I could take a bearing on, all I could do was stumble along, dragging my oyster basket, following the dots of lights marking the locations of the other members of our crew, while hoping to stay in somewhat shoal waters as the crew meanwhile loaded the oyster barge. The next challenge was to be able to locate our boat and escape when tide turned.
Oystering, or commercial fishing, has never been an easy way to make a living.
Oh, yes, the storm held off, the oysters finally arrived, everyone gorged and went home happy, bellies full of deliciously salty fresh and famous Mill Creek oysters.
