Since the day after Thanksgiving, 2001, I have earned a living, or at least paid the bills, by digging clams in Little Skookum  and Totten Inlets at the south end of Puget Sound.  That means I have been living by a little book called the Tide Guide.  There is trouble in that because the Tide Guide says a day is about 24 hours and 45 minutes long.  That puts those of us who live by the moon, way out of sync with those who live by the sun.  

    It gets worse.  A clam digger’s week is about ten days long and all the solar people think a week is seven days long.  Oh, you think that’s funny?  Add this to the mix: Clam diggers suffer semi-diurnal tides in Puget Sound.  That means two low tides and two high tides per day; well most days.  Remember, a clam digger’s day is about 45 minutes too long so it doesn’t always line up with the other people’s days.  

    The moon and sun play cat and mouse, too  When the sun, moon, and earth line up, we have spring tides.  That’s when clam diggers work.  When the moon is off to the side, it’s neap tide time and clam diggers are off.  But there are two kinds of spring tides: The new moon spring tides when the sun, moon, and earth line up with the moon between the sun and earth.  And there are the full moon spring tides when the sun, moon, and earth line up with the earth between the sun and the moon.  The new moon tides are bigger.  That means the high tides are higher and the low tides are lower.  Around the winter solstice and the summer solstice, the spring tides are bigger and around the equinoxes, they are smaller because the moon is closer to the earth in the winter and summer.  

    Try this one for size: On June 15 this year, low tide, at 12:30 PM, was -4.2 feet below mean lower low tide and high tide, at 8:11 PM, was 15.8 feet above mean higher high tide.  That’s twenty vertical feet between low and high tide!  

    The Seattle Randonneurs started a 600K brevet that day, but I was digging clams.  The next day, I missed our local club ride because I was digging clams.  For two of the brevets this past season, I missed work because of the confusion between seven and ten day weeks.  Bummer.

    But it is over.  I am no longer a clam digger.  I am now a full time bicycle frame builder.  Well, there are some other constraints on my time.   I’m still married and I still have sons; even if they are pretty well grown now.  For my job, though, I am a full time bicycle frame builder.  That’s very exciting.

    That means I have left the lunar society and rejoined the solar society.  Seven day weeks and only 24 hours in a day.  And months are no longer 28 days long.  Oh, sure, one of them still is, but the rest are longer.  And no more night tides.  I didn’t say so earlier, but in the winter, the low, low tides happen at night so clam diggers work in the cold, dark rain all winter.

    I wrote a poem about that.

    

Little Skookum

    This is the time of year when it rains.

    Day after day, it rains.

    Week after week, it rains.

    And at night, when the tide is low, we dig clams.

    In the rain.

 

    I also wrote a poem about clam digger foremen.

 

Foreman

    This is the time of year when it rains.

    Day after day, it rains.

    Week after week, it rains.

    And at night, while my television glows, my crew digs clams.

    In the rain.

 

    I’ll miss some of being a clam digger.  I’ll miss the birds.  They come in season.  Great flocks of them come, stay, and leave again.  The seagulls, herons, crows, eagles, and kingfishers stay, but most of the others come and go.  The seagulls are my favorites and the only sociable company I had most days.

    I’ll miss the first time we get to work before dark in the spring and the first warm wind that comes not so many weeks later.  I’ll miss the sun coming up on clear, fall mornings after starting work in the night.  I’ll miss the moon and stars coming out in the wee hours of the morning after weeks of dark rain.  I’ll miss the raccoons, the foxes, the otters, the deer, the coyotes, the mink, and the little furry animals I never identified.  I’ll miss the seals, and the salmon, and the cut throat trout.  I’ll miss hearing the grunt fish grunt, the herons scream, the hoot owls hoot, and the seals cough.  I’ll miss the days and nights when I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else in the world.

    And I’ll remember.  I’ll remember seeing the Northern Lights one lonesome night.  I’ll remember the whale coming up Little Skookum as I came down.  The whale I tried to turn around.  The whale that beached herself and committed suicide a couple of hours later.  

    I’ll remember the two summers I had my schooner in Totten Inlet and lived a life to myself most of the time.  

    I’ll remember when I came out of Little Skookum and found Totten Inlet frozen over.  I never believed the old timers who told me it happened every twenty years or so; until my boat stalled out trying to push through the ice.

    There are things I won’t miss.  I won’t miss the winter nights when my cold hands became useless claws and I peed on them to warm them up so I could dig more clams.  I won’t miss getting lost in the fog and hitting unseen things in the dark.  I won’t miss the nights when I just couldn’t find clams and wondered how I would keep the family housed and fed.

    There is something I know, though.  I know it from past experience with other tough jobs.  As time passes, I’ll forget how cold it was.  I’ll forget how it rained for weeks at a time.  I’ll forget how it was all I could do to get the boat off the beach when the wind was blowing 30 knots.  I’ll only remember the seagulls I fed broken clams to and life flowing like thousands and thousands of gallons of milk poured into the bay when the clams spawn.  

    And I’ll have something to talk about because most people don’t know much about clam digging and they think it’s kind of romantic for someone to cross the bay in a boat, in all kinds of weather, to dig clams.  And they’re right.  It is romantic.