A Rising Tide by David Hagerty

Dillon awoke in the dark of night to a wet back and the sound of water. Which made no sense. Had he pissed himself? No, he still felt the pressure of a full bladder. Yet it smelled of damp down and damp wool and damp seaweed. Then he recalled where he was and understood why (in a tent, on a beach).

When he peered out the flap, Dillon saw the waves of Tomales Bay lapping just below where he’d camped. The water had crept up the beach overnight, advancing to reclaim fifteen feet of what had been dry sand when he’d staked the tent. He turned on his headlamp and shook his wife to wake her.

“Amy,” he said. “We need to move.”

In the harsh light of his beam, she looked startled and pale, her face creased by the fleece coat she used as a pillow, her hair twisted by a wool hat she’d worn to bed. So different from how she appeared during the day: alert, coifed, composed.

“What happened?” she said.

“The tide’s coming in. We need to move to higher ground.”

“Wait, what?”

Rather than answer, Dillon stepped into the cold night wearing only his long underwear. He waited for his wife to struggle out of the tent, then pulled up the stakes and moved it farther up the beach to a mossy area just below the steep cliff that marked its perimeter. Last, he dragged their kayak and other gear beside it.

Meanwhile, Amy watched with groggy perplexity. He’d promised this would be an easy paddle, a pleasure trip on a sheltered bay. She’d trusted him to plan the details unquestioned, but now she looked doubtful.

By the time they lay down again, he felt too stimulated to sleep. His skin still prickled from the cold, and his long johns felt twisted around his limbs. Plus, in his rush to relocate, he’d forgotten to pee. If only there were some sound other than the wind whipping against the tent flap and the waves lapping at the beach. Yet all he could hear were water and wind, wind and water, the two reinforcing each other. What soothed him hours ago when he’d fallen asleep now churned menacingly.

They’d paddled in the day before under clear, calm skies, with a gentle tide behind them. He’d anticipated a romantic weekend getaway at Point Reyes National Seashore, only an hour’s drive from the crowded Bay Area but removed enough to feel like an exotic escape. He’d craved a reprieve from the hectic city life of job and home and children, so they’d found a small, empty beach where they’d camped alone, toasting bread and cheese over an open fire and drinking directly from a bottle of pinot noir. Later, for the first time in months, they’d made love on their sleeping bags with only the stars as distractions.

Now, hours later, he heard Amy rolling around discontentedly. He’d talked her into the trip, convinced her that sleeping on the beach wouldn’t be like sleeping on dirt, which she’d sworn off after her second pregnancy. “Why spend the night filthy and cold,” she had said, “when we earned enough to pay for a warm bath and blanket?”

Despite an air mattress and soft sand under him, he couldn’t get comfortable either. Instead of lying on level ground, his head pointed downhill, the slope off camber. Plus, his back hurt from the exertion of paddling and sleeping without a mattress for the first time in months. Compared to his single days, when he’d played half a dozen sports, he felt unfit and soft. Still, he didn’t want to clamber out again in the dark and the cold to reposition the tent. Instead, he inhaled the cool decay of dead crabs and kelp that gathered along the beach.

They’d be fine. He’d suffered far worse than this on camping trips in his youth—the Boy Scout outings in the rain, the hike when he’d gotten lost in Yosemite’s backcountry, the trip to Mount Lassen when it had snowed on his family’s tent. They just needed to endure the next few hours. By morning, they could laugh about their predicament and paddle home with the tide at their backs.

Except he heard the surf clawing at the shoreline and imagined it advancing ever closer to the tent, like a tractor eating into topsoil. Several times, he peered out the rain flap to gauge if the waves were retreating yet, but in the dark, he couldn’t tell. Their irregular rocking made it even harder to judge. The wind, though, sounded louder and more piercing, whistling through the trees on the hillside and penetrating even the nylon shell that protected them. The ocean lay only a few miles up the bay, its rough and wild gales unchecked.

He’d timed their departure to take advantage of the weather and the tide. He knew the water would rise after they’d landed and bedded down, but the tables online said it would change by only a few vertical feet. He’d studied the charts, which showed gentle sign waves. When, precisely, did it peak? He couldn’t recall. If he’d brought the tide tables, he would have assured himself that they’d passed high water.

More time passed. He couldn’t judge how much since he’d left his watch and phone at home to escape the constant intrusions of civilization. Outside, a bird screeched, and a boat clanged, a reminder that they hadn’t traveled so far from society.

Finally, a loud wave crashed into the beach, and something bumped against the tent. Beneath his sleeping pad, Dillon felt the water pooling, then draining away, leaving a wet froth that bubbled up through the nylon. The bay was still advancing, coming ever closer to wiping out their entire landing.

He nudged Amy awake again and told her to gather her things quickly.

“To do what?” she said.

He didn’t answer, instead struggling into his wind pants and jacket despite the cramped space of the tent. He couldn’t find his wool hat or gloves, which he’d stashed at the bottom of his sleeping bag, so he rolled up everything into a ball. He emerged to see a border of mung and driftwood that the tide had carried to the edge of their tent. Only a few feet of beach remained, and that lay only six inches higher than where they’d slept.

“What do we do when this beach disappears?” she said, her tone rising with anxiety.

“It won’t.”

“It’s almost gone now.”

“I think we’re at high tide.”

“What time is high tide?”

“Four?”

She withdrew a cell phone from the pocket of her coat and checked the time. “It’s two.”

“It won’t rise much more.”

“But how much more?”

Rather than answer, he studied the clear skies as though they could foretell the weather.

“Can’t we climb out?” she said.

Behind them, a slope rose steeply at least thirty feet to a bluff. It was crowded with ferns and evergreens and dogwood, fragrant even at night. Mixed in with that were manzanita and moss and poison oak so thick they made the undergrowth almost impassible.

“We’d have to leave our gear,” he said.

“We can buy more.”

He watched the waves to judge if they’d begun to retreat yet. Instead, they nudged the line of ocean debris ever closer. Unable to hold out any longer, he peed into the surf, which pushed the urine right back at him.

High above, a jet rumbled past, far distant, but it reminded him that motorboats might travel along the water, too. They could signal one for help using their headlamps. Two short bursts, followed by a long one, then two short for SOS. Or was it three and two? He couldn’t recall.

Anyway, no boats appeared in either direction, and hadn’t he commented to his wife the day before how peaceful the bay was without the constant roar of engines and people. He didn’t recall hearing a single vessel, although he’d seen some tied up at private docks along the way. What were the chances they’d be traveling at night if they didn’t during daylight?

A gust of wind sent a shiver through him, bringing him back to that moment and that place.

“Let’s wait it out,” he said.

She started tapping against her phone with loud nails. “I’m calling for help.”

“We’ll be fine. We can rescue ourselves.”

“By waiting for the tide to swamp us?”

“The rangers aren’t outfitted for a rescue.”

“Isn’t that what rangers do?”

“Only if they have boats.”

He recalled seeing a Coast Guard station along the bay as they paddled in. Its dock contained a motorized, inflatable raft. Would it be staffed at night?

“We need help,” his wife said to some invisible operator. “We’re stranded on a beach and about to be washed away.”

After a pause, she asked him, “Where are we?”

He looked to the stars for some guidance but saw only the deep black of night. “Tomales Bay.”

“I know that. What’s the name of this beach?”

“It doesn’t have a name.”

She conveyed all this to the operator, then listened with a face strained by fear or frustration. It was hard to tell in the dim light of the phone. “They need to know where we are exactly.”

“About four miles west of the marina.”

She listened again, then pointed to a small cluster of houses across the bay, where several lights shone on back porches. “What town is that?”

“It’s not a town.”

“It must have a name.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Can’t some app on this phone tell us where we are?”

“We agreed: no phones. Smartphones make us all less smart.”

“A GPS could help them locate us.”

Reluctantly, he accepted the phone from her and searched online, but the signal was so weak that he couldn’t access any website. Then he looked for apps but couldn’t download anything. Even their mapping software showed only blue water and green land without markers. That was the problem with national parks: they disdained modern technologies, refusing to erect even one cell tower disguised as a tree. After studying the real water once more for signs of retreat—and seeing none—he handed the phone back to her.

Following more futile questions to pin down their location, she hung up and stared at him balefully. “You’re worse than the kids at my school, never admitting when you’re in trouble.”

“It’ll take them an hour to mobilize, and by then, the tide will have peaked.”

“It would be much quicker if they knew where to search.”

“We can fend for ourselves.”

“How?”

On the bay, whitecaps shone in the dim light. Could they make it across the channel to the houses opposite, in the dark, in rough seas? Maybe. But it would be tough paddling with the chop hitting them broadside. And who knew if the village had docks or landings.

Overhead, a seagull fought its way into the wind, then turned back and rode the gales quickly away. Their open-top kayak was meant for recreation, not ocean adventures. Really, it was little more than a pontoon, a small pocket of air wrapped in plastic.

“Let’s pack the rest of our things, just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“In case we decide to row back.”

“But how will the Rangers find us?”

“We don’t need their help.”

“Don’t they always tell people to stay put if they get in trouble and wait for help?”

He didn’t answer, just starting packing. While Amy stood with her back against the cliff, holding onto their kayak, he knelt to deflate their air mattresses and collapse their tent, even as the damp sand soaked his pants and the waves strove to steal their possessions. He tried to restuff everything into dry bags, but the gear was too sodden, so she lashed it to the boat with bungee cords. Then he gathered a few stray items of clothing they’d left out to dry on a fallen log, but which felt just as damp as when they’d stripped them off. The volume seemed less than when they’d disrobed. Had the tide carried away some of their things? He couldn’t think what.

Nonetheless, he tied everything across the deck of the kayak. That wouldn’t protect it once they hit the wind and open water, but there wasn’t time for obsessing, not with the surf now frothing at his toes. Once more, he watched the waves for signs of retreat, but instead, they reached ever closer, the larger ones moving up his calves, tugging at the boat to drag it out to sea. The bay felt as cold as an ice pack.

Finally, when it overtopped even the last crescent of sand, he knew they needed to abandon their safety zone.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Where?”

“The nearest dry land.”

“Is there any left?”

“Plenty.”

“But how far is it?”

“Not far.”

“I thought you mapped out this whole trip.”

“I did.”

“You never said we’d be stranded.”

“I didn’t know.”

“What do you know?”

That they’d passed half a dozen other small beaches on the way to their own. Would those be any less flooded than this one?

“That a rising tide lifts all boats.”

He forced a placating smile, but she replied with an anxious frown.

Like a gentleman, he held the boat steady while she climbed in. Then he waded in up to his knees so they wouldn’t bottom out as they launched. His bare feet stayed numb from the cold even after he’d climbed in.

In the cove by the beach, they paddled easy and slow, but as soon as they left its shelter, the wind pushed and twisted their small shell while the chop tossed it on every crest, tugged it back at every valley. He tried to time his strokes to the waves, but they hit so erratically he couldn’t without clattering oars against his wife’s. Quickly, his damp clothes grew wet and then soaked by the spray and the swells sloshing over the gunwales. A large wave snatched his spare shirt overboard before he could grab it.

“We’re going to drown,” she said.

“Not with lifejackets,” he said, then realized that he’d forgotten his—or maybe the tide had carried it away before he’d gathered up their things.

“What do we do if we can’t find another beach?”

“Keep going.”

Still, the farther they paddled, the more he doubted that any dry land remained. Maybe the water had risen so high it covered all the small refuges they’d seen on their way in. Or maybe he couldn’t see them in the black shadows along shore. They’d passed, what, a dozen or more sandy coves, some barely large enough to stand on? At that moment, he didn’t care how small they were as long as they contained some dry ground.

“I knew this was foolish,” she said.

“Not foolish,” he said, “just miscalculated.”

But how had he? Before they’d left, he’d checked the tide tables and the permit instructions, none of which warned that the land might be reclaimed by the sea. He shouldn’t need to talk to a ranger or hire a guide. His own logic and experience should have sufficed.

Instead, he felt the grit of sand under his clothes and tasted the salt spray mixing with the sunblock he couldn’t wash off the night before. In truth, making love on the beach wasn’t as sexy as it sounded, more dirty and damp than romantic. And the food they’d eaten the night before, the expensive cheese and fresh bread and French wine, which tasted so good in the wild, now upset his stomach, forcing him to hold back from barfing. Plus, he had to pee again.

All unpleasant, sure, but he couldn’t avoid discomfort.

“You act like we’re still teenagers,” she said, “without jobs or children to look after. What happens to them if we don’t make it back?”

“We’ll make it.”

“Why do you always have to test yourself?”

He kept silent, unwilling to answer that. Unlike him, she preferred to exercise indoors, at a gym, where she didn’t have to contend with cold wind and rain. He’d persuaded her this would be different, not some primitive outdoor misadventure.

But he’d seen no level ground since they’d embarked, nor even a house on their side of the bay, just an endless wall of steep cliffs. As they paddled ever farther from their beach, with the waves and the wind frustrating their every movement, he realized that they’d need to depend only on themselves. They had to prove themselves stronger than the irrational fortunes of nature.