The Sea Island was a Canadian rumrunner out of Vancouver, B.C. It was February 8, 1932; Prohibition, as everyone by then knew, was an utter failure, but it still had another year to go before it would be officially repealed. Until it was, there was still big money to be made running boats and ships like the Sea Island down from Vancouver to meet up with waiting trucks at remote locations on the West Coast of the U.S., smuggling in tons and tons of bonded Canadian liquor.

One such remote location was Whale Cove, a mile or so north of Depoe Bay — which is where the crew of the Sea Island now found themselves. And they were in some trouble. The engine had started missing badly just at the moment it was most needed. It was now firing on only one cylinder, and barely making any power, as the crew struggled to guide their boat through the mouth of the cove. (Whale Cove, Lincoln County; 1932) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1809c.whale-cove-rumrunners-shipwreck-513.html)