Chapter 51 - The Salt-Worn Harbor
Port Isaac was everything a northern coastal outpost should be: stubborn, weathered, and smelling intensely of creosote, diesel fuel, and boiling crustaceans.
We brought the Vagrant Spirit alongside the communal wooden pier late in the afternoon, sliding her fenders into place just as a grizzled harbor master with a yellow oilskin cap and a short-stemmed pipe walked down to catch our bowline. He didn't say a word as I tossed him the line; he simply wrapped it around a massive iron bollard with practiced efficiency, spit a stream of dark tobacco into the harbor water, and looked us over with sharp, assessing eyes.
"You're sitting low in the water," he observed, his voice like grinding stones. "Must be carrying a heavy auxiliary tank or a lot of ballast."
"Fresh water and books," Fay answered cheerfully from the cockpit, leaning against the shroud with a notebook in hand. "Both tend to weigh a vessel down."
The old man grunted, a sound that might have been amusement or mild disgust. "Water's free at the town pump up by the cooperative. Fuel's five dollars a gallon at the fuel dock around the point. Don't leave your garbage on the pier—the gulls here are big enough to carry off a small child."
"Appreciate the warning," I said, stepping ashore onto the splintered wood of the dock. "Is the bakery still operating down by the cannery?"
"Old man Henderson passed two winters ago, but his daughter took over," the harbor master replied, pointing a weathered thumb toward a low-slung shingle building with peeling white paint. "Bread's still heavy as lead, but it keeps for a week."
Port Isaac was a single winding street of weathered gray clapboard houses clinging precariously to the rocky hillside above the harbor. Cod racks stood empty in the yards, and lobster traps were stacked in neat, colorful pyramids against the sides of weathered sheds. The air hummed with the low, throaty purr of diesel engines idling at the processing plant and the shrill, demanding cries of herring gulls wheeling overhead.
We walked up the gravel road together, our boots crunching against crushed cockle shells. It felt strange to be walking on solid earth after weeks of the perpetual, gentle roll of the sea; my legs felt heavy and uncoordinated, as if the ground were trying to buck me off like a green horse.
The bakery was warm and smelled overwhelmingly of molasses, caraway seeds, and yeast. A brass bell jangled overhead as we pushed open the screen door, drawing the attention of a tired-looking woman in a flour-dusted apron who was pulling a massive tray of cinnamon rolls from a scarred brick oven.
"Two loaves of the rye, please," Fay requested, leaning over the glass counter to inspect a tray of heavy, dark pastries. "And whatever those sticky things are in the corner."
"Sourdough cinnamon knots," the baker said, wiping her hands on a rag. "My father invented them when the flour shipment got delayed by the blizzard of seventy-four. They're basically edible bricks, but they stick to your ribs when the wind comes off the water."
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"We'll take four of the bricks," I said, pulling a worn leather wallet from my back pocket.
As we walked back down to the harbor with a brown paper bag smelling of warm yeast and spices tucked under my arm, the sun dipped below the jagged silhouette of the coastal pines, turning the harbor into a pool of molten bronze. The Vagrant Spirit bobbed gently at the pier, her teak decks glowing warmly in the fading twilight, waiting for us to cast off and vanish back into the dark, welcoming expanse of the sea.
