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.

.

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

A Rather Damp Christmas

It was dusk on Christmas Eve when we set out from La Coruña, Spain and headed north across the dreaded Bay of Biscay toward Brest, France. Bob and I were aboard my 39ft Alan Buchanan designed sloop, Mary Poppins.

After a number of years living in the Dominican Republic, I’d decided to head for the south of England. Why I chose this particular time to make the change escapes me now. What I do know is that the time of year was a factor in my ending up with Bob as crew—he’d never sailed before and consequently had no idea of how bad the North Atlantic could be when the winter storms came howling across it.

The Bay of Biscay has the reputation of being second only to Cape Horn in its ability to send ships and their crew to Davy Jones’ Locker. The reason being that during winter especially, the westerly gales build huge masses of water and send them surging right across the Atlantic. Off France, they get funneled into the shoaling waters of ‘The Bay’ where they build to terrifying and destructive heights.

The Dreaded Bay

Bob and I had been sheltering in La Coruña for over a week, waiting for a break in the weather. Finally, a local forecast gave us the all clear—winds from the south, fifteen to twenty knots for the next forty-eight hours. Perfect.

Off we went.

Well, the forecast proved to be spot-on—for about the first two hours. Then the wind piped up to a full gale. We’d been running under headsail only so it was no trouble to furl it in to a manageable size. As the wind continued to strengthen, I cranked it in yet more until all we had was a small corner of the sail showing. But this was enough to scoot us along at around six knots.

With the heavy following sea, the Aries self-steering gear was having a hard time keeping us on a straight course, so I disconnected it. A little later, I gave Bob the tiller while I went below to examine the chart.

We stood no chance of returning to La Coruña against the gale but I figured we might be able to head off on a close reach to one of the ports in the south-east corner of the Bay. But then who knows how long we’d be stuck there. In the end I decided we might as well keep going….perhaps the storm would blow itself out.

Normally I don’t favour safety harnesses—having once almost drowned by wearing one of the wretched things—but on this night I made sure that whoever was topside was wearing one.

The hatch boards were in place so the waves that came crashing over the stern stayed for the most part in the cockpit. From below I could feel when the big ones hit—a shuddering of the vessel followed by a muffled string of expletives as a fresh load of frigid water found the gaps in Bob’s foul-weather gear.

I’d been below for perhaps ten minutes when from the bow came a brief whirring sound followed by a loud WHUMP. Then Mary lurched onto her beam ends. I opened the hatch and poked my head out. A glance aft showed Bob up to his waist in water wrestling with the tiller. Up forward, we now had a full number-one headsail thrashing in the howling wind. The reefing line had broken and the whole thing was out there threatening to pull down the mast.

I jumped into the cockpit, released the sheet and made my way forward. By this time the sail had begun to thrash itself to pieces, shaking poor Mary like a rat in the jaws of a dog.

At times the boat found herself on an even keel as she surfed down a wave. On one of these occasions, with halyard in hand, I made a dash across the foredeck toward the bow. But my feet had no sooner touched the deck than they went shooting into the air and I found myself on my back. The bottom part of the roller-furling gear had literally exploded and there were about ten thousand ball-bearings turning the foredeck into a skating rink.

After a half-hour struggle, I’d managed to haul and cut the sail away from the forestay and consigned it to the sea. By the time I’d cleaned up the mess of lines it was time for Bob to go below. This was no great privilege as gallons of water from breaking waves had found their way past the hatch and hatch-boards to the bunks. Once again, I heard Bob’s muffled shriek of displeasure as he settled into the sodden bedding.

We had not a shred of sail up but according to the log we were doing close to four knots!

The night was pitch black. The only time you could see the foaming waves charging up behind was when the feeble glow of the stern light caught them. By this time it was too late to duck if they were planning on breaking into the cockpit—which a good many of them did.

Despite the south wind, it was bitterly cold on deck—too cold to stand longer than a one-hour watch. And so we went, running blindly through the night, alternating between the flooded cockpit and a sodden bunk.

It was closing in on two in the morning and I was nearing the end of my stint on deck. If anything, the wind was increasing rather than easing off. And as we got further out into the Bay, the seas grew bigger. I sat in the cockpit with my back to the west so I could divide my time between the compass and the waves rushing up astern.

 I didn’t see the sneaky bastard coming. It hit me from behind—from the west. I have no idea as to the size of it but it must have been huge. All I know is that it drove me down hard into the bottom of the cockpit. Then I was swimming. The boat had gone from under me.

I remember that moment clearly. My first thought; “The boat’s gone.” Second thought: “I’m tethered to it by my safety harness.” I fumbled desperately for the knife at my waist.

Just as I got it out, good old Mary popped up under me. I hate to admit it but I hadn’t given a thought to Bob, snoring away below—not that I could have done anything for him if the vessel had continued her plunge.

That monster wave flattened the seas completely when it came charging through. For a couple of minutes after it had passed, the surface was all foamy like shaving cream. Difficult to imagine the volume of water that came crashing down on us, but it must have been substantial in order to drive a forty-foot boat that far under the water—at least six feet because when I was swimming I felt nothing beneath me.

Bob managed to sleep through the whole episode. He had no idea he’d been submerged until I told him when he came on deck.

It took us another seventy odd hours to make Brest. And that wretched wind didn’t ease up for a moment.

Got to give credit to Bob here—a first time sailor. He never got seasick during the entire voyage. And surprisingly, neither of us caught even a sniffle despite being soaking wet for three days. It’s as if the body knows it won’t be in its best interest to get sick at times like this.

Peter states that he can’t recall why he chose the middle of winter to head over to England. I’d lay odds that it had to do with either:

  a) Some floozie;

            or

  b) An altercation with Dominican officialdom.

                                                                      Davina