The Narrative Image

My brother Fred, Lance the authentic outdoorsman, Eric (expert at interpreting Boston accents), and I stood in the sand at the edge of Netarts Bay. Across the bay, the Netarts peninsula gleamed enticingly through the cool, hazy exhalation of the ocean. We had heard that the peninsula (a spit really) was a promised land of clams and crabs and we all carried shell fish licenses, shovels, rakes and collectively, a crab pot. Standing on the shore, we could feel the ocean in the act of respiration, breathing in and out with great twelve hour breaths. It had been breathing in all morning, filling its great watery lung to capacity, and now at last the ebbing tide slackened, was quiet and still, and began changing direction. We set out into the rising tide having deduced a statistically improved chance of not being swept out to sea by doing so. Well…we almost all set out. The inflatable raft which was meant to carry supplies that wouldn’t ordinarily fit into a kayak turned out to have a