His Wonders In The Deep: Harbor of Refuge

Psalms 9:9

The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed,

a refuge in times of trouble.

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Recently, I was remembering an incident that happened to me during a typhoon on Guam. I made a drawing of the experience from my minds eye. Although it is not the most artistic drawing, it will serve as a representation of the geographic set-up of the incident.

The center structure in the drawing is a rock wall jetty that went along the channel out to the harbor. The foliage along the right edge of the drawing were mangrove swamps that went all the way to the Cabras highway out to the Glass Breakwater. It was probably a couple of hundred feet wide. Up in the left corner was jungle growth that paralleled the jetty. The lagoon between the jetty and the jungle was probably the width of a football field and very shallow.

As a typhoon neared landfall, close to dusk I got a phone call from one of the owners of the company that I worked for. He asked me to go down to the harbor where the companies two dive boats were and put more bumpers between the concrete dock and the boat as the storm was going to be stronger than we had originally thought. He lived a lot further away from the harbor than I did and the full force of the typhoon was just hours away. The bigger of the two boats was tied up securely at the harbor of refuge. It took me about 5 minutes to drive down to Cabras Lagoon where the smaller of the two dive boats was tied up. The wind was howling and the boat was already bouncing around against the concrete sea wall. At that point I realized that the extra bumpers were on the big boat that was out at the harbor of refuge so I jumped into the companies skiff and saw that the fuel tank was close to empty. It was stormy, wet, and uncomfortable and I should have fueled but I wanted to get back to the safety of our apartment with the rest of the family and took off full speed for the refuge. Palm trees were already swaying wildly in the wind. At the mouth of the harbor of refuge the wind was really strong because it was more exposed to the open. I quickly grabbed the extra bumpers and threw them into the skiff. I looked around to make sure all lines were tight and then untied the skiff and headed back towards the dock. To get back to the dock where my vehicle was I had to exit the large harbor of refuge where a hundred or so boats of all types were tied to the bottom to huge concrete blocks that were in rows. There were rows and rows of boats and it looked like a big car lot with sailboats and powerboats instead of cars.

This is a photo of me in the actual skiff that this incident occurred in.

As I left the refuge and headed into the screaming wind of the main channel the outboard sputtered and my heart skipped a beat. For a split second I thought maybe I would get back to the dock on fumes but then.....the engine killed. A few quick pulls on the starter cord and I realized that it was useless. A jolt of panic hit my heart as I could see that the wind was blowing off shore and would blow me right down the channel and out into the harbor if I didn't think fast. I grabbed for the oars and was shocked when there was only one. As I coasted to a stop the wind overpowered my momentum and down the channel I went. I knew that I would need to use the oar like a paddle but the length made it really awkward. I quickly went up and sat down with my legs hanging out over the bow and started paddling with the oar, first on one side of the boat and then the other. I was paddling like crazy

and was just barely able to overpower the wind. The problem was my stamina. How long could I keep this up? I only had about 60 feet until I was in the wind shadow of tall jungle growth at the mouth of the refuge. As my muscle started to tire, I slowed my paddling and realized that immediately I started losing ground. At that point a prayer entered my heart. Father in Heaven, please help me! Over the next three minutes, I lost consciousness of my surroundings. I just paddled like a wild man. When the wind would start to overpower me, a shot of panic and adrenaline would course through me. Quick glimpses of me blowing down the channel and then jumping out of the boat with the painter in my hand and holding on to the mangroves in mud up to my waist went through my mind. My mind refused to even ponder on the scenario of blowing out into the harbor with the mouth opening up to the open ocean.

Suddenly I popped back into awareness. I am close. Am I going to make it? Just a little further. Push yourself, push yourself. Burning muscles. Father in Heaven, just a little further.

Finally, with one big burst of paddling, I made it into the refuge. As I paddled up to our double-decker catamaran dive boat, sweat was dripping off of my chin and into my eyes. As I tied the skiff up to the catamaran, I realized that I had no way back to my vehicle. I sat down on the boat and caught my breath. I chuckled as I wondered if anyone saw me in my crisis. And then in my heart, "Father in Heaven, Thank you!" After a moment my strength returned and I directed my thoughts at fulfilling my task.

As the typhoon hadn't reached land yet, there were still people tying up there boats. Maybe one could give me a ride to the dock? I looked around but couldn't see anyone close by. I realized that I would have to swim back to the dock but could stay out of the major wind by swimming down through all of the boats in the refuge. I put on a life jacket for safety, grabbed the lines attached to the bumpers, jumped in the water and started towing the bumpers behind me as I made my way down through all of the sail and powerboats. By now it was dark. I didn't have a light with me so I stayed out of the channels to avoid getting hit by boats. It is a good thing that tropical water is warm. Even so, after the sun goes down it can get a little chilly. I slowly made my way down through the vessels, ducking under and around mooring lines and dock lines. At one point I was spotted by some boaters that lived on their sailboat and were making last minute adjustments on their mooring lines. I'm sure they were thinking, "what is that crazy fool doing?" By and by I made it through all of the vessels and then climbed out onto the dock at a submarine tour's facility. As I walked back to my vehicle my shoes were squirting water and making a squeaking sound. When I got to the smaller vessel I tied the extra bumpers between the boat and the concrete sea wall and then headed home. Denalee laughed as I told her the story, standing there in my soaked clothes.

The very worst case scenario could have been pretty bad but I don't think it would have gotten that far. But I do think that if I wouldn't have been able to paddle my way back to the catamaran in the refuge that the whole episode would have turned out to take several hours more and would have been very traumatic as I would have had to tie the skiff off in the mangroves and sloshed through thick mangrove swamps to a highway and then would have had an hour walk back to my vehicle carrying the bulky and heavy bumpers in the midst of a typhoon.

Prayer and scripture knowledge is an interesting thing. Prayers don't mean much without experiences to go with them and back them up. I believe in the power of prayer and the value of scripture knowledge. Scripture had shown me that prayers can be answered. The following is a poem that I wrote after delivering one of the 150 passenger catamarans that Allen Marine built for New York Waterway back in 2003. I got caught in heavy fog in Millbank Sound which is about half way from Sitka to Vancouver, BC. The fog was so thick that I had to navigate using only radar. One of my crewman came up to the bridge and asked, "can you see where you're going?'

That sentence was the spark for the following poem. All I could see on the radar was a blip on the screen where the channel buoys were. My eyes where riveted to the screen to also watch for other vessels that might have been in the sound hidden in the fog like us. Of course I was going very slow in order to have reaction time in case something popped up in front of me that I didn't detect on the radar. It was intense. Prayers and faith that I would be guided were in my heart.

Right click on the poem for easier reading.