Ocean Falls

Ocean Falls was a highlight of the cruise.  We arrived in fog and light rain.  Sally, the harbormaster, checked us in and invited us to make use of The Shack.  For lunch ashore, she recommended Eva’s Holy Grill.  We closed the boat and headed for the Grill.  It would take a while to get there.

Penny, Casey and I were standing outside the large Marine Ways building when a side door opened and a man emerged.  I asked if we could look around.  Herb Carpenter introduced himself and invited us inside.  He, his partner and volunteers have spent years working to keep the building intact.  They had done a good job of preserving much of the old machinery.  His tour outranked those in many a museum.  Along the way, he posed in the kitchen of an apartment he built in the structure.  One corner of the building houses the Ocean Belles gift store.  Sally, one of the Belles, showed us some of her work.  I was taken by her rendering of a scene from “Lonesome Dove”. 

Crumbling buildings, weeds pushing through empty asphalt parking lots, broken-out windows in high-rise apartment testified to a more prosperous past.  Now, a quiet melancholy pervades the once thrumming industrial complex.  However, a small and spirited group still inhabits the place.  We were about to meet another member – Eva.  Her grill is in an old church.  We so enjoyed lunch we wanted to know when she opened in the morning.  We told her all five of us would see her then.  That evening we had crabs in The Shack, thanks to a local resident.  We met a several crews that we would see a few more times during our travels.