You can always count on your Friends

My friend Rob and I were living aboard a 26 ft. Westerly sailboat in Puerto Banús, a marina situated near Marbella, on the south coast of Spain. It’s rather an up-market place and our vessel must have been about the smallest there.

The Westerly Centaur

One evening, we were sitting in the saloon having a quiet couple of beers when the vessel gave a sudden lurch, the bow dipping down and the stern thrusting skyward.

“Someone’s come aboard,” I announced, somewhat superfluously.

“I think they’ve broken the bow off,” says Rob.

“Oh my God. Must be the Scottish girl,” I said.

The ‘Scottish Girl’ was someone I’d chatted to a couple of times at one of the local bars. She was a lovely girl with a good sense of humour. Unfortunately, she must have also had a raging appetite for food because her figure was one that might charitably be termed generous.

Being male and what some females might term ‘shallow’, my taste in women tended toward the slim-ish. But I had the impression that the ‘Scottish Girl’ had developed a not so platonic interest in me—hence my decision to stay clear of the bar that night.

I quickly slipped into the quarter berth thinking, ‘If she gets her claws on me I’m finished.’



My supposed friend Rob with dinner

(For those not-so-nautical readers, a quarter berth on a small boat is usually a single bunk situated beneath the cockpit, enclosed on the sides by the hull of the vessel and the engine bulkhead. It’s a small space about the size of a coffin. When sleeping there, one’s head is the only part sticking out into the saloon).


I’d no sooner crammed myself into the end of the quarter berth and pulled in a couple of bagged sails to stopper the entrance when I heard a Scottish voice asking Rob where I was.

“He’s just stepped out to get milk,” the bastard replied. “He’ll be back any minute. Come on down and have a cup of tea.”

I was squished into the tiniest space and extremely uncomfortable, but I couldn’t move a muscle.

The tea took fifteen minutes to prepare and drink, and when the girl expressed a desire to leave, my friend Rob talked her out of it with the offer of a beer.

I ended up being kept prisoner for half an hour. When I finally emerged, Rob had a grin from ear to ear.

Willy's Unfortunate Condition

Another Kalinka* story.

Willy and I had just returned to Gibraltar from a voyage along the coast of Spain. No need for details here—suffice to say that the trip had not gone well.

Kalinka in front of The Rock

By the time we dropped the hook in the anchorage, Willy and I had ceased to be on speaking terms due to some disagreement we’d had along the way. I was, however, civil enough to serve him a plate of the stew I’d prepared that evening.

Three things must be explained at this point:

1) The toilet on the Kalinka was situated in a corner of the saloon. It had its own enclosure, but it was right there—the door opening directly into what was basically our living room.

I had plans to move it and I think the previous owner of the vessel had the same idea because, attached to the outlet valve was a rather long length of flexible tubing. This was not marine grade reinforced rubber but more like the suction tube you’d find on a household vacuum cleaner.

2) During our little jaunt, Willy had managed to pick up some kind of stomach bug that had cleaned him out completely and left him thin as a pencil.

3) At sea, I always turn off all outlet valves.

So, Willy and I sat across the table from each other eating our meal in silence. Shortly afterwards however, that silence was broken by the gurgle and rumble of Willy’s tortured stomach.

A couple of minutes later, he made a desperate dash for the toilet.

After a rather protracted session on the throne, I heard him begin to operate the pump—a long lever situated beside the toilet bowl. It made a kind of vwooping sound. But as Willy pumped, the vwooping got higher and higher in pitch.

You stupid bastard, I thought. You’ve forgotten to open the sea cock.

I was tempted to tell him, but resisted the urge.

Willy and me in a more amicable moment

Instead, I allowed the vwooping to build to an impossible high.

Then there was a bang, like the crash of a drum at the finale of a symphony.

I pictured the scene. The hose coming off the seacock and thrashing around the small enclosure like a demented snake. As it turned out, that is exactly what happened.

A moment of silence, then the door slowly opened.

Willy looked like he’d been plucked from the Okefenokee Swamp.

Without a word he strode across the salon, climbed the companionway and I heard the splash as he went over the side.

He’d left the door to the toilet open though. And there on the back of it was a perfect silhouette of Willy.

My punishment for my lack of sympathy was that I had to do the cleaning myself as Willy’s delicate constitution was not up to the task.

*See blog dated 3-11-‘12

Clam & Eel (or Lawson's Revenge)

Captain Clam* and I were continually playing stupid pranks on each other. Usually dangerous pranks. It's sort of surprising that both of us are still around.

One time we were on a sailing boat anchored somewhere close to Nassau in the Bahamas. I was snorkelling some hundred yards or so off to the side of the vessel when Clam, having quaffed far too many ales, conceived the playful idea of pinging a few bullets from his .44 magnum Smith & Wesson around me.

As soon as the first bullet went zipping through the water in front of me, I headed for the bottom. I then made my way back to the other side of the boat without surfacing.

Had Clam been aiming to hit me I would have been fairly confident of my safety because his eyesight was not the best. The fact that he’d been trying to go close but miss me was terrifying.

“Almost got you,” he brayed gleefully as I climbed the boarding ladder.

I had my revenge a couple of weeks later though when the two of us were snorkelling for lobster at Porpoise Rocks off the north end of Bimini.

I was at the base of one of the rocks—a depth of maybe twelve feet—when I looked into what I’d first thought to be a small cave. But in fact it was the entrance to a tunnel going all the way through to the other side of the rock--a distance of perhaps fifty yards.

This was too tempting to resist. I took a good lungful of air and swam into it. Once inside, I was committed—it was too narrow for me to turn around.

Half way through, the tunnel opened up into a small chamber about five feet around and four high.

To my horror, residing in a crevice on one side, was the biggest moray eel I’d ever seen. The thing had a head the size of a football.

Well, like most creatures, morays don’t like intruders coming into their territory. Get too close and it kind of snaps and snarls like an angry dog. It makes no noise—just opens and closes its mouth baring wicked-looking fangs.

I’ve never been bitten by a moray, but I’ve been told that if one does get its teeth into you, the only way to get free of it is to cut its head off. Otherwise, it will wrap its tail around a rock and drown you.

I put myself as far from those horrible fangs as I could and ever so gently finned by. Once past, I shot through the remaining part of the tunnel and out the other side.

I caught up with Clam and told him of this fabulous tunnel. He couldn’t resist being foolish either.

As he headed for the entrance, I thrashed around to the other side to greet him as he came out.

Well, his exit was quite spectacular. He shot out of the water like a breaching dolphin. “You bastard,” he yelled on seeing my grinning face.

I’ve heard him tell this tale on a number of occasions. In his version, I prod the eel with my pole spear in order to stir it up for when he makes his appearance. Not true. I went by it as meekly as a little lamb.

*See blog dated 29-10-12
 

 

Bondy's Brief Foray into Dominican Society

This story falls under the category of ‘Other Scoundrels’, one of them being Alan Bond, the other, I guess, me. Because I wasn’t actually living on a vessel at the time, I can’t claim the moniker of ‘sailor’.

I was living in a house in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, having arrived there on a Dutch fishing boat a friend and I sailed from Holland.

Anyway, I went down to Santo Domingo to catch up with my mate Bond, an Englishman who was living there.

Bond

Well, Bondy’s wife was off somewhere with her girlfriends so the two of us did our catching up on the balcony of his apartment over a few glasses of rum. Well…maybe a few more than a few.

At some point in the evening, Bond mentioned that he’d been admitted that very day as a member of the prestigious Arroyo Hondo Country Club. He boasted of its wonderful facilities and mentioned the exorbitant membership fee*. But, he reasoned, the business and social connections would be well worth the cost. And how convenient it was—almost directly across the road from his apartment.

And in this fact lay his downfall.

It must have been around three in the morning when Bondy suggested a dip in the Club pool.

We made our way to the pillared portal of the exclusive Arroyo Hondo only to find that some idiot had inconsiderately closed the place up.

By this time however, our hearts were set on a swim and we were not to be thwarted, so we scaled the fence. Bondy, after all, was a paid up member—who could possibly begrudge him and a guest making use of the facilities?

We’d neglected to bring swimming gear with us, but there were no other members around to object to the exposure of our personal members. And besides, the pool was in relative darkness.

No sooner had the two of us plunged into the water from the high board when night turned to day. The pool lights came on and two guards with automatic weapons rushed to the poolside.

Despite Bondy’s protestations that he was a member, we were marched at gunpoint to the dressing room and told to put on our clothes.

While Bondy was arguing with the guards over his rights as a member, I slipped out the door and made a dash for the diving board. My entry into the water brought the guards racing out to nab me. But while their attention was thus diverted, Bondy made his break for freedom.

This back and forth escape and recapture went on for two or three episodes but the guards eventually managed to collar the two of us and eject us from the Club grounds.

The next evening a chastened Bond called to tell me his membership had been revoked and the Club was not not refunding his money.

*In today’s currency around $25,000.

 

 



Sharing a Good Story

I found this on a sailing blog and couldn't resist sharing.
http://saltysailors.com/articles-cruising/a_brilliantly_dumb_idea.html#

Message from a Dolphin

My buddy Rob and I were en-route from the Caribbean to Halifax, Nova Scotia in a twenty-six foot twin keel Westerly. Hardly a breath of wind as we crossed from the blue water of the Gulf Stream into the green of the Labrador Current.

Other sailors had told me about the clarity of the demarcation between the two currents but I didn’t quite believe it until I actually saw it with my own eyes. It’s a line. Not just a merging of colours, but a clearly defined line—blue one side; pale green the other.

Perhaps when the wind’s howling the line might blur a little, but on this day there was little more than a breath.

Just into the green side, four dolphins joined us, languidly flopping around the bow as we edged through the water. We were moving so slowly I decided to join them. I donned my wet suit, mask, fins and weight-belt then slipped over the side.

Upon my entry into their realm, the dolphins descended to around thirty feet and hovered there in a row, observing this odd new creature floating on the surface peering down at them. For the first time I noticed that one of the dolphins was considerably larger than the other three.

I took a lungful of air and headed towards them. As I descended, the larger one detached itself from the others and came slowly up to greet me. How wonderful, I thought—this wordless communication between us. This meeting of human and marine mammal.

What would we do when we came together I wondered? Would we shake hand and fin? I was unsure as to the correct protocol for this particular situation.

The dolphin enlightened me.

We were almost nose to nose when it slowly turned around and fired off a great squirt of feces—right in my face. The water around me turned a muddy brown.

Apparently I wasn’t welcome. As I headed for the surface the reason dawned on me. The big guy was a male. He had his harem of three ladies and was not about to welcome an interloper.

What male could fault him?

 

 

Stupidity, Me and the Sea

Sometimes I amaze myself at just how idiotic I can be.


Kalinka in front of the Rock of Gibraltar

The particular madness I’m about to relate took place around 1972 when I purchased a 52 ft. ex British Navy harbour launch in Gibraltar.  I’d set out to buy a sailboat, but due to some  brain damage I must have suffered as a child (perhaps I was dropped on my head), ended up with this thing.

Her name was Kalinka. She had a hull of diagonal double planked teak along with teak decks. Her engine was a five cylinder Rustin diesel that was started by a burst of compressed air.

Bringing the engine to life made the most delightful sound—a great whooosh of air then the steady thump, thump, thump of the big slow-revving diesel.

My shipmate Willy (who became the designated engineer) and I chuffed around the ports of Spain and Morocco in the old Kalinka and had a fine time of it.

Beneath the engine room floor snaked an absolute labyrinth of copper pipes, the workings of which the previous owner—a burly Irishman by the name of Patrick Rafferty—took pains to explain. I dutifully made a detailed diagram of said pipes but did not, however, trace them to check the veracity of what the Irishman had told me.  Being double planked, the hull took on so little water during our coastal jaunts that it was easier to use the hand pump than deal with a daunting number of valves.

These short coastal voyages gave me confidence. Way too much confidence—and this is where the really dumb part comes in.

Me and Willy

I decided to sail the Kalinka back to Canada.

One would think, after all the ocean sailing I’d done, that I’d be a trifle leery of taking a vessel specifically designed for harbour service across the North Atlantic.  But no—when you’re young, anything seems possible.  Besides, it was summer so how bad could the seas get?

Willy and I loaded the aft cabin with drums of diesel and, one fine morning after Rob, our third crew member had arrived, we set out—spirits high with the promise of adventure.

A hundred miles or so out to sea, with night closing in, our adventure arrived. The headwind and waves began to pick up disturbingly.

As darkness fell we commenced our staggered watch system which would have two of us in the wheelhouse at all times. Willy was to have the first couple of hours below.

Kalinka had a fine bow suited to cutting through calm harbour waters…which meant that she also cut through, rather than rose above, the rising Atlantic seas. Waves crashed over the bow and slammed into the wheelhouse.

After a few minutes, Willy came back up to the wheelhouse attired in—believe it or not—a pair of green monogrammed pyjamas, carrying a wormed toothbrush and glass of water in his hand. The moment he stepped out on deck to attend to his fangs, the Kalinka buried her nose into a wave, soaking Willy to the skin. Inside the wheelhouse, Rob and I roared with laughter.





An hour or so after a drenched Willy had gone below I opened the engine room hatch to check on the old Rustin.

Willy and me pretending we know what we're doing.

To my horror, the floor boards were submerged and the flywheel was sending oily bilge-water all over the place. Engineer Willy had to be roused from his bunk to deal with the situation. Again he ascended to the wheelhouse in monogrammed pyjamas—this time of a burgundy shade. But after a few minutes in the engine room they were blackened by the oily bilge water being liberally distributed by the flywheel. After activating the mechanical bilge pump, he returned to his bunk.

Fifteen minutes later I checked to see how the pump was faring. I was aghast to see that the water had now risen to more than half way up the flywheel—the lower portion of the engine was completly submerged.

So there we were, over a hundred miles from land, with the wind beginning to howl, the seas rising and the vessel taking on water at an alarming rate. The captain (me) assembled the crew (Willy and Rob) and—according to Willy—uttered the words that to this day he has never allowed me to forget: “We’re in a serious situation lads.”

So what was my crew’s reaction to these captainly words of wisdom? The two clowns doubled over with laughter!

Well, to lop a bit off an overly long story, there was no sleep for any of us that night. We exhausted ourselves taking turns at the manual pump and slumping over the wheel.

Around midnight, having discovered that our dinghy/lifeboat had been carried away, discretion overcame valour—we did a one-eighty and headed back toward land. Thrashing away at the hand pump with the wind and seas behind us, we almost managed to keep pace with the incoming water. We only began to gain when Willy turned off the mechanical pump.

We later discovered that the wretched Irishman had given us totally incorrect directions. In following them we’d activated the fire fighting equipment and, with no hose attached, were pumping vast quantities of the North Atlantic into our bilge.

This is a shorter version of an article that appeared in Better Boating in 1975.