Friday 12 December 2014

An Odd Place for a Nap

As it’s coming up to Christmas, thought I’d repeat a feel-good tale I wrote about a couple of years ago.

It was the middle of winter. John, Nigel and I had been in Brest, France for over a month waiting for the weather to give us the two day window of relative calm we required for crossing  the dreaded Bay of Biscay.
Toekomst in Brest

We were aboard the Toekomst, a sixty-five foot shrimp boat John had bought in Holland and our destination was Haiti, where he planned to start a fishing business.

For many years mariners have rated Biscay as being second only to Cape Horn so far as general nastiness is concerned. Huge swells roll in from North Atlantic storms and rise to massive heights when they arrive at Biscay’s shelving sea bed. Many a vessel has gone to the bottom of the dreaded Bay.

Whilst waiting for our window of calm in Brest, we were invited aboard a freighter which had arrived at the tail end of a severe storm. Some of the inch-thick glass of the bridge had been smashed by ferocious seas, and the entire bow of the vessel had been bent to one side by the impact of an enormous wave. The captain appeared a little surprised that his vessel had made it to port.

Nigel, Me, John
We were actually featured in a local newspaper when it was discovered we planned to cross the Bay in the middle of winter. Fishermen shook their heads at the stupidity of the English.

As it turned out though, the Bay was docile as a duck pond for our crossing to La Coruña in Northern Spain.
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It must have been around three in the morning when Nigel shook me awake. John and I had consumed a few beers at a local bar to celebrate our successful voyage and I was well out to it. “I think someone’s fallen in the water,” Nigel announced. He’d apparently been up in the wheelhouse having a smoke when he’d heard a splash, turned around and saw ripples in the water.

Rather than deal with the matter himself (typical of Nigel), he’d come below to rouse John and me and was convincing enough to lure the two of us topsides into the freezing night. Leading us aft, he pointed to the spot where he thought someone had fallen in. I peered over the stern into the cold, inky water with dread.

After a few moments though, I managed to dredge up sufficient courage to dive in and head for the bottom—some fifteen feet down.

I lucked out on my first dive: Feeling my way along the muddy sea-bed I came upon a lump that felt like a body—which I dragged to the surface.

The head of my limp, supposedly drowned victim had no sooner cleared the water than it began jabbering away in Spanish. Frightened the life out of me!

Despite my lack of knowledge of the foreign tongue it was apparent that the words were not the product of a coherent mind. My new bottom-dwelling friend was obviously drunk as a lord.

And as is the way of drunks, he was not at all co-operative in my attempt to rescue him. With some difficulty, I managed to get the rope John had thrown me around his chest, disengage myself and kick to a ladder set into the stone dock.

It took all three of us to drag the cheerfully babbling Spaniard up the ten-foot dock wall. He was wearing a heavy coat and didn’t appear to be suffering unduly from cold so we simply pointed him toward town, gave him a shove and watched him toddle off up the road.

In Antigua
The whole episode still baffles me. According to Nigel, when he heard the splash he turned around instantly and all he saw were ripples on the calm water, which meant that our friend must have gone down like a rock.

Nigel then ran forward along the deck, descended the companionway and shook John and me awake. So it had to have been three or four minutes before I dove in and found the body resting peacefully on the bottom.

Why wasn’t he thrashing around trying to get to the surface? Why hadn’t he gulped down a lungful of water?

I have no idea.

Somehow though, our young friend managed to tuck away somewhere in the recess of his inebriated mind, an accurate memory of the entire episode. Later that day he and his mother arrived at the boat to thank us. He even remembered me as the one who had pulled him up from the bottom.

A rather rotund Mom gave me a tearful bone-crushing hug and a lengthy emotional speech, consisting mostly of, gracias, muchos gracias and mil gracias.


Peter’s such a scavenger, you never know what he’ll pick up!  Merry Christmas to all!. ~ Davina

 PS: If you’ve any young adults in your family (or are one yourself at heart), you might like to have a squizz at www.pblawson.com





1 comment:

  1. Dearest Peticles,
    You will forever be remembered as the pirate with the most witt & charm. The only treasure of any ship you boarded. I will remember you fondly.
    Love Mandicles

    ReplyDelete

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