The Thing I Do For Science: The Creek House

by Sonja Huč

            In 95 degree weather, I found myself sandwiched between a few duffel bags and an unfamiliar teenage boy, covered with a windbreaker to shield myself from the blasting airconditioning. We were driving down to Beaufort, South Carolina, where my mother’s best friend from the states owns a house by the coast, known as the Creek House.

The unfamiliar teenage boy was a good friend of her son, who was sleeping in the very back seat and would sometimes groan in discomfort, as their family dog would step on one body part or other. This is a 56-pound german short hair pointer, who was terribly excited to get to where we were going. I knew this because the closer we got the more restless he became, and as we pulled into the dirt road that leads to their property, he propped his paws up onto the back of my seat and started to whine. Now, I say whine, but what I really mean is squaking like an alarmed bird. As we pulled up to the gate, he clambered over me and got out of the car behind his owner to, at least we thought, run free to the house. To my and my mother’s surprise, he waited patiently for her friend to unlock and open the gate before running off, despite the fence having adequately sized holes to fit at least three of him.

As soon as we drove into the yard of the Creek House, I understood the dog’s excitement. It was breathtakingly beautiful; old live oak trees lined the road and a few hickory trees were scattered here and there. The “small” house, and I write that in quotations, because that is how it was always described to me, and I had imagined it as some sort of a gray-brown wooden hut that barely had electricity and running water, turned out to be a gorgeous southern-style cottage painted white with red accents. The interior decorating was beautifully vintage beachy-chic and had everything you would ever need and more at a southern coast getaway like this.

The most eye-catching, prevalent, and captivating thing of all, though, was the marsh. The vast, never-ending green marsh that stretched as far as the eye could see. It was made to seem even bigger since it was dead-low tide. Of course their 1000-foot dock caught my attention and I was very quick to go on it. The fascinating thing was this strange, relatively loud, popping sound you could hear stretch across the landscape, which was supposedly the sound of periwinkles (Littorina irrorata ~ Say) opening and closing their operculums. Although more likely, it was crackling shrimp. Who would have thought!
            Most importantly, though, my mother spotted a channeled whelk (Busycotypus canaliculatus ~ Linnaeus) about ten feet off of the side of the dock. Being the malacologist I am, I naturally wanted to collect it, especially because it seemed to definitely be empty. We walked to the end of the dock, where I took a kayaking paddle and a fishing net (the one on a handle) in the hopes of successfully reaching the whelk without actually having to step foot in the marsh mud. It almost immediately became evident that that was not going to work. Despite my mother’s pleas and her friend’s amused warnings, I ran to the house to get my water sandals and jumped off of the dock. I will add that at the time of jumping off I was alone, as they had gone to look at the rest of the property and the boys had continued down the dock. Which, in retrospect, was perhaps not the brigtest of ideas.
            Upon carefully, though really not quite gracefully, lowering myself into the marsh, I was initially surprised at how little I sank in. Only a few inches! I had thought of taking the net, and I had had it within reach, to catch the whelk, but because of my assessment of sinkage, I had decided it would be much easier to just walk on over to it and collect it myself, no equiptment needed.
            Boy, was I wrong. On my very next step I had managed to lose one of my shoes, despite diligently tightening it. While I was retrieving it, I had sunk knee-deep with my other leg, and as soon as I got my foot back into the sandal and put it down again, that one sank even deeper than the first. I managed to only have to take one more step before I could reach the whelk if I stretched far enough. A beautiful, though oyster-covered, find! I attempted to pull up my most forward leg, and almost lost the shoe again. The worst part of walking thigh-deep in marsh mud, is that while you try to pull out one leg, instead of freeing it, you manage to push the other deeper into the lustful mud.

A few almost-lost-shoes later, I was back at the dock and able to place the whelk to safety. This was the easier part of the task, as next up I had to figure out a way to get myself to safety. The wooden planks were around the height of my nose, so simply jumping up would not be possible. Nevermind the fact that had I tried to jump, not only would I not become airborne at all, I would only sink in deeper into the sulfury mud. Thankfully, I figured out that I sink the least if I step onto marshgrass, but was then effectively stuck on this tiny bit of grassy marsh flat. I tried holding on to the dock with my forearms and swinging over my left leg onto the dock, which in itself worked, but that was all that I had managed to do. I held on for perhaps a minute or so, before reluctantly falling back off into the marsh, realizing that with no one to help, there was absolutely no way for me to pull myself completely onto the walkway without falling off onto my side into the mud, and risking getting stuck from multiple failed tries.

Maybe four feet to my left was a wooden piling that had two planks perpendicular to the ground which were about a foot lower than the dock, so I felt I had much more of a chance to get onto the dock if I was able to get to there. On the mud flat, however, there was a patch of extremely sinkage-prone mud, which I did not wish to set foot in, and could only look at from the relative safety of my tiny marsh grass island. So, in reality, about five plants, but I was pretty happy about them, nevertheless.
            Around this time my mother and her friend returned to the dock to check if I had really jumped off, shocked, yet amused, to find me covered in mud and deserted by the guys. I personally didn’t even mind it that much, though I’ll admit, I was slightly relieved to see somebody else come by. Just in case I was really stuck. I mean, worst case scenario I would have waited for the tide to come in and attempted to swim to shore, but I was hoping I would manage in some other way. After unsuccessfully trying to find footing on the piling closest to me, I figured I would try swinging my leg over the dock again and having them pull me up.

That’s when they saw the perpedicular planks and suggested I try those. Mid explanation of how there was no way I could ever get to them and how it would never work, I had an idea. Finally, a good idea. I realized I could use the plank on the piling closest to me, which was sticking out about eight inches. I held on to that and lifted my legs, then swung around to the piling with the perpendicular planks. I expected this to be the end of my troubles, and would signify my freedom, but I was wrong. I didn’t dare try and jump up on my arms to avoid either sinking deeper or impaling myself on the boards, so there I was, once again stuck.
            Then it hit me. I awkwardly went back to my original spot, held on the the outcropping, and, almost rather gracefully (perhaps…), swung my legs onto the wooden planks and shuffled a bit, so that I was sitting on them in a lying position. With a forceful twist of my torso, I managed to sit upright and quickly pull myself up on to the dock. Free at last! I quickly grabbed my whelk, as there was no way I would allow photos to be taken of my thigh-high muddied legs and evenly muddied shorts (and arms, from when I occasionally lost my balance or retrieved a stray shoe…), without the prize I had fought so hard for.
            All smiles and full of pride and happiness over my new-found whelk species, the first of its kind in my collection, I carefully walked back to the house on completely muddy legs, trying to avoid falling. It wasn’t the wood that was slippery, it was me! And I’m not even going to get started on the cleaning process… all I can say is thank god they have an outdoor shower, too. The things I do for science…