Metamorphosing Yacht and Rob gets Hammered

A couple of weeks ago I told the tale of Harold’s metamorphosing suit—which went from a size 44 to 40 during a rainstorm.

Well, not to be outdone, let me tell you about my metamorphosing sailing vessel—the ‘Bevan’. According to her certificate of registry she had an overall length of fifty-six feet. But this length proved in fact, to be rather elastic.

The Elastic 'Bevan'

Allow me to explain: When it came to dealing with a boatyard for haulage or slippage (they charge by the foot and most don’t look at papers), the ‘Bevan’ would shrink to around fifty feet. But for a girl in a bar the vessel would miraculously extend to around sixty feet. An exceptionally pretty girl might get it up to sixty-five!

However this week’s blog is not about my metamorphosing yacht, it involves my two great pals Rob and Willie when we were living in Gibraltar.

Rob was always the steadying influence. While Willie and I tended to become somewhat ‘rollicky’ at whatever bar we happened to be slurping at, Rob would exhibit extraordinary restraint.

But on this one particular occasion he threw caution to the wind.

We were at the Black Swan. And for whatever reason—somebody’s birthday perhaps—John Holland, our landlord and friend, did an after-hours thing for us regulars. The end result was that Rob managed to get hammered.

He had recently purchased a motor-scooter. It was kind of beaten up but for some reason, he was extremely proud of it. He wouldn’t even allow me to ride the damn thing because I was considered ‘too irresponsible’.

Fair enough.

When we left the trough at around three in the morning, ‘Rob the Righteous’ heaved responsibility out the door. The three of us piled onto the scooter—Rob, Willie sandwiched in the middle, and me at the rear (with the family jewels perilously close to the spinning back wheel).

I don’t recall the exact circumstance as to why I had taken a bugle to the bar, but I had—and as we roared down the main street at three in the morning, I blew on it with gusto.

Surprise, surprise! The police were roused from their slumber by my brilliant rendition of ‘Abdul The Wanker’ and a roadblock was hastily assembled on the main street. This our fearless commander Rob deftly avoided by ducking up a cobbled lane.

In those days, the police communicated with each other by blowing on whistles. From all around us now came the shrill piping of these instruments.

But they didn’t really need them to telegraph our position because between our uproarious laughter and my strangling of the bugle there could be no doubt as to our location.

Me, Rob, Willie

Gibraltar is a maze of tangled alleyways and passages and Rob swooped through these without a care in the world. At one point we went flying down a set of shallow steps and somehow managed to remain upright.

Eventually though, we were cornered and our romp was curtailed.

At the police station, the sergeant asked us, “What on earth did you think you were doing?” I don’t believe it was a rhetorical question, I think our actions were simply beyond the scope of his understanding. He probably had a very orderly mind.

The three of us were a trifle bewildered by the question. Do you have to have a reason for doing something stupid? After a long moment‘s silence Rob summed it up with, “I’m not sure.”

“Just get out of here!” said the sergeant. Cops in those days were neat guys.

Edited by Davina

To Pee or not to Pee, that is the question…

My other half has insisted that this particular story be told. Needless to say it is at my expense. I didn’t find it particularly humorous, but Davina did, so I hand the keyboard over to her:

At the time of this incident we were living in Kitchener, Ontario. Peter’s pal Rob had invited us over to his place to watch an important football game. Although Peter has little interest in football, the event provided a wonderful opportunity for the boys to consume vast amounts of beer.

Playing the role of dutiful ‘wife’ I endured the afternoon whilst the two members of the opposite sex cheered, groaned and guffawed depending upon what was occurring on the screen.

Davina--my saviour

When it came time to leave, I paid a visit to the washroom. I’d had two beers myself. Peter must have sloshed down around ten or twelve, but when I suggested he might care to visit the can, would he listen? Of course not. He’s a bloke. And an Australian to boot. Why would he heed the advice of a mere Sheila? He’d be fine until we got home—about a twenty minute walk.

Well, off we go. Ten minutes into the walk, our hero begins anxiously looking around for somewhere to sneak behind to relieve himself. But there’s nowhere. We’re on a main street with nothing but stores. “Why didn’t you go back at Rob’s?” I inquire.

“I didn’t need to then,” he says.

Duh! Why anyone who’d just knocked back almost a gallon of beer wouldn’t realize it would have to come out—quite soon—is beyond me. I can only assume that the alcohol had dulled his reasoning—or, more likely, removed it entirely.

Anyway, my lord then informs me that we might have to pick up our pace a little. So now a pleasant afternoon stroll turns into something just short of an Olympic event.

But after a couple of minutes Peter makes another proclamation. Looking a trifle desperate now and not a little green around the gills, he announces. “I’ll have to run”.

So off he goes…..full tilt up the street and around the distant corner.

A few minutes later I round the corner – no sign of our desperado. I’m walking past a park that’s fringed with bushes when I hear a hissed, “Dee”. I look around. I see nothing but shrubbery. Then again, more urgently, “Dee!”

Finally I spot a rather sheepish-looking face all but invisible within the foliage. A hand issues forth holding the house key. “I’ve had a bit of an accident,” he announces. “Can you bring me back some pants?”

At this point I catch a glimpse of his two-tone Levis and double up with laughter.

“Dee, this is not funny,” he rebukes me sternly.

Au contraire, I think. Anyway, off I go—grinning from ear to ear. I return shortly to our stricken hero with trousers, a towel and a plastic bag.

I no longer have to remind him of the incident—a knowing look is all it takes to prompt an après beer drinking visit to the washroom.

Harold’s Amazing Metamorphosing Suit

Harold’s suit was tailored in the Dominican Republic where I lived for a number of years.

But before I relate the saga of this amazing garment, I must mention something concerning De Toekomst, the Dutch fishing boat. It was this vessel that took John Morris and me to the Dominican Republic in the first place.

If you happened to read last week’s blog, you might recall that I devoted most of it to lambasting Nigel, our supposed engineer aboard Toekomst. He remained with us for only a short portion of the voyage from Holland to the D.R.

Well, I received an e-mail (not from Nigel) reminding me of something rather stupid that I perpetrated after Nigel had been given the boot and when we were out in the middle of the Atlantic.

It was a hot day so I figured it would be rather nice to take a dip. But rather than pause our voyage, I came up with what I considered to be a brilliant idea. I rigged up a boom that stuck out over the side, attached a rope to its outboard point and tied a loop at the end of the rope.

Big game fishing

Being the creator of the device, I tested it out by slipping into the loop and leaping over the side.

It worked beautifully!

When I'd finished my little splash, John had a go. As I watched him cavorting around at the end of the rope, four points flashed through my mind:

(1) This is a fishing boat.

(2) We appear to be fishing.

(3) The only creatures out here are likely to be rather large and toothy.

(4) We could easily lose the bait without the slightest chance of catching anything.    
     Idiot here had completely forgotten to include a hook.

Anyway, as it turned out, they weren't biting that day and the mighty Toekomst took us safely to the D.R. And it was there that I witnessed, in person, the wonders of Harold’s amazing suit:

I was living in Puerto Plata. A couple of British Navy ships were in the area and scheduled to dock there in a few days. The British consulate thought it would be a grand idea to round up a few expats for cocktails aboard one of these vessels. At the time there was only a handful of Brits around so I was invited as well. Harold, who was British and about sixty at the time, was also one of the invitees.

The ‘do’ was to be semi-formal and Harold was not in possession of suitable threads. So with only a couple of days to go before the ships arrived, he took himself into Santiago where there were a bunch of inexpensive tailors. He selected one, chose his cloth and a day later he had his suit.

A few of us—including Harold in his new suit—went for a pre-party drink at a local bar. Harold regaled us with the virtues of his garment. “Perfect fit,” he announced proudly, turning this way and that to allow us to admire it. “And only forty dollars!” We were all suitably (pardon the pun) impressed. After a couple of drinks we headed to the docks, a ten minute walk away.

Well, about half way there it began to rain, and that’s when Harold’s suit became ‘an amazing suit’. In no time at all it had transformed itself from a size 44 to a 40. The retreat of the cuffs up his legs could actually be observed.

By the time we arrived at the ship Harold had to fight to keep his arms at his sides. Robin Hood in tights had nothing on him. But the tailor had obviously not skimped on the thread for, much to our astonishment and against all odds, the seams held.

Edited by Davina Chapman

An Insufferable Clown and Smudged Lipstick

I felt lazy last week so didn’t do a blog. Only two people complained!

Like it or not, here’s another tale of De Toekomst, the Dutch shrimper that John Morris and I sailed from Holland to the Dominican Republic.

I can’t recall how or where John managed to come up with Nigel—our supposed engineer—but we would have been better off if he hadn't bothered. Nigel was from England and modeled himself on John Lennon—long hair and wire rimmed glasses (which I suspect had plain lenses). He also used the term 'Brahma' to express approval of something.

   

It wasn’t long before both John and I were thoroughly fed up with the clown. The thought of his long hair becoming entangled in the moving parts of the engine didn’t unduly perturb either of us.

   

One of Nigel’s pet themes was the importance of being able to adapt readily to adversity and hardship. But when our cooking gas ran out, he fell short of the mark.

While John and I contented ourselves with cold food and drink, Nigel became desperate--he had to have his hot food and cups of tea. I suspect he would have held matches under a saucepan or kettle had the vessel not been equipped with a diesel heater in the galley.

De Toekomst

John and I were in the wheelhouse quaffing a couple of beers as we steamed down the coast of Portugal on a calm sunny morning. We could see the top of Nigel’s head through the forward hatch as he held a pot of baked beans on top of the heater—a device obviously designed to warm a room rather than cook food. You could rest your hand on top of the thing for a few seconds without being burned, so the process was destined to be a time-consuming.

The temptation was too great for me to resist: I padded forward on bare feet, stuffed a rag into the belching chimney then snuck back to the wheelhouse to observe the results.

It was not long before black smoke began billowing from the hatchway. I’ve got to hand it to Nigel though, he was no quitter. Every few seconds his head would come thrusting out through the smoke, eyes watering as he gulped air like a beached fish. It obviously never occurred to him that something might be amiss with the chimney. Perhaps he’d been emulating his hero a trifle over-zealously in terms of hallucinogenic substances and damaged his brain.

Oh…I almost forgot. Another Nigel story. One that almost ended in disaster. This could be the only recorded incident of lives being saved due to someone having to take a leak.

We were heading down the English Channel, pounding into a head-sea on a black night with the wind approaching gale force. Our hero was at the wheel while John slept below and I was curled up on the small wheelhouse bunk. I awoke around three in the morning and went aft for a pee.

From day one, Nigel had been obsessed with the radar—drawn to it like a moth to flame. On a number of occasions I’d cautioned him not to use the device as a substitute for a proper visual lookout, but he remained unconvinced.

Upon finishing my business, I returned to the wheelhouse where Nigel had his eyes glued to the radar. “There’s something funny going on,” he announced. There was a solid line bisecting the screen.

Shoving him aside, I spun the wheel hard. His ‘something funny’ was the towering side of an oil tanker. We missed it by no more than a hundred feet. I was tempted to throw the idiot over the side that night, but managed to restrain myself.

John gave Nigel the boot when we reached Gibraltar.

We remained at the ‘Rock’ for a month or so, painting the boat and installing an automatic pilot for the Atlantic crossing. Because of a previous run-in with certain Gibraltarian authorities, I was not permitted ashore. As long as I stayed aboard the vessel I was okay—it was considered to be Dutch territory. But if I set foot on the dock I’d be arrested and thrown in the clink for three months. The authorities stationed a twenty-four hour guard by the boat.

But I had a bunch of friends in Gibraltar and some of them would drop around for a drink of an evening. Hidden below decks, the girls would dress me as one of them—with wig, lipstick and mascara—and we’d toddle off to the Black Swan pub.

All went well until one night when a brawl broke out and five coppers came swarming into the ‘Swan’. I must have been spotted darting out the back door without my wig because when I attempted to sneak back aboard the boat, there were two officers waiting on the dock beside it.

I was forced to backtrack around to another pier and swim to the vessel. At that time, the water by the docks was a cesspool—choked with oil and all kinds of horrible stuff. I emerged from the water on the far side of the boat like the creature from the swamp.

   

Worst of all though, my lippy was smudged.

Edited by Davina Chapman

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Konrad's Final Run

I met John Morris in Gibraltar. He’d flown there intending to buy my friend Konrad’s seventy-foot steel fishing boat which he’d found advertised in a magazine.

Well, almost everyone with a boat in Gibraltar at that time was involved in some sort of mischief and Konrad was no exception. He’d spoken to John on the phone and the latter had agreed to purchase the vessel if all was as advertised (which, knowing Konrad, was highly unlikely).

Anyway, my Dutch friend figured that since his boat was probably about to go chugging off into the sunset, he would make a last run to Tangier in order to sell a couple of pallets of cameras that had ‘fallen off’ a freighter and found their way into his hold.

The final run was not a roaring success however. I heard the full story much later after Konrad had been released from a Spanish jail. Apparently he’d had a disagreement with his Moroccan ‘agent’ over the price of the goods, and their parting was far from amicable. The ‘agent’ put a call through to someone in Spain.

As Konrad approached the Spanish coast (where he had arranged to meet another ‘agent’), a patrol boat loomed up and ordered him to heave-to. He then made a rather foolish decision. Being close to Gibraltar, he attempted to make a run for it.

But his vessel was way under-powered. The maximum speed he could hope to eke out of her was around seven knots—the patrol boat was capable of around thirty-five. Konrad was forced to hit the floor when a burst of machine-gun fire shattered his wheelhouse windows.

Kalinka in Gibraltar

The Spanish seized the vessel and Konrad was thrown into the clink.

John—a Kiwi living in Haiti—somehow discovered that I was a friend of Konrad’s and sought me out. I was at the dock aboard my old tub ‘Kalinka’. I advised him that from what I’d heard, he’d better start looking for another vessel.

He then asked me if I was capable of navigating a boat across the Atlantic to the Caribbean. My eyes lit up with pictures of clear waters, white sand, palm trees and bikini-clad damsels. Having recently had a bit of a run-in with the Gibraltar authorities, I’d been planning to leave for the Caribbean anyway.

“No problem,” I lied. This was before electronic navigation devices, but I felt I could learn how to use a sextant along the way. So I left the ‘Kalinka’ in the care of a friend while John and I headed for Holland in search of another fishing boat. We flew to London, then on to Paris where we were to catch a train to Amsterdam.

Our search for a boat almost fizzled out there and then: Just as the train was about to depart the station, a startled look came over John’s face. “Where’s the money?” he blurted. The money was in an overnight bag—thirty-five thousand US dollars in cash.

“I thought you had it!” I said, frantically looking around. The bag was nowhere to be seen.

Shrimping off Holland

Against the wall in Brest, France

We darted off the train literally as the doors were closing, caught a taxi back to the airport where, by some miracle, we located the bus that had taken us to the train station. Again, by some miracle, we found the bag of money under a seat!

A couple of weeks later John was the owner of the sixty-five foot shrimper De Toekomst.

After he’d bought the boat, he informed the previous owner, Gerard, of our plan to sail her to the Caribbean. With no prompting from us Gerard had his crew strip the engine down completely and replace any worn parts—all at his own expense.

They did a fine job as the engine—a thumping old Deutz diesel with a maximum RPM of 800—didn’t miss a beat all the way across the Atlantic.

Edited by Davina Chapman

Move over Richard Branson

Richard Branson’s got nothing on me when it comes to losing bets. The Virgin Group founder recently lost a wager to Tony Fernandes, CEO of Air Asia. Branson’s penalty was to don red lipstick and a skirt and serve drinks to passengers on a flight from Perth, Australia to Kuala Lumpur.

When I was married to my last wife, Kathy, we would embark on an annual winter sailing vacation somewhere in the Caribbean with our friends Rob and Yolanda. For the trip I'm writing about, we chose the British Virgin Island of Tortola as our starting point.

A couple of weeks prior to our departure, Rob and I were playing pool. He was normally a far better player than me but on this particular evening I managed to get the better of him. As I was closing in on my third straight win, Rob said, “I feel my luck changing. Why don’t we put twenty dollars on the game?”

Flushed with my success I ignored the danger signals and upped the ante, “Let’s make it more interesting," says I confidently. "How about the loser has to order a round of drinks stark naked at the Pusser’s Landing bar* during happy hour?”

Kathy, Me, Rob, Yolanda

Rob furrowed his brow in thought before agreeing with apparent reluctance. The bastard then proceeded to turn the tables and thrash me.

Two weeks later our boat is moored in Soper’s Hole and we're seated on the deck at Pusser's Landing. It’s happy hour and the place is packed. “’Bout time you got us a round of drinks,” says Rob with a wicked smirk.

My plan was to get close to the bar, whip my swim togs off, order the round and have my shorts back on before anyone spied my naked butt. But I hadn’t counted on Rob.

As soon as I got my gear off he stands up from our table and points at me. “Hey, that guy’s got no clothes on,” he yells. I hadn't even finished giving my order.

“I lost a bet,” I explained lamely to the bemused barmaid. By this time, all eyes were upon me. I finished giving my order then went to put my swimsuit back on. But in my haste, I managed to get a foot tangled in the fabric and had to dance around on one leg with the dangly bits flopping about while the crowd roared with laughter.

The only positive note was that the girls at the bar thought the floor-show warranted a free round of drinks.

*A wonderful waterfront watering hole in West End, Tortola.

Edited by Davina Chapman

More Bureaucratic Brilliance

After reading my last blog, my friend Willie reminded me of an instance of bureaucratic bull that ended rather badly for one of the bureaucrats. This in turn reminded me of another equally absurd encounter.

My kids—aged around ten and twelve—were flying down to the Dominican Republic to spend time with relatives. At the security check my son’s suitcase was opened and two plastic water pistols were discovered—one pink, one green. “I’ll have to confiscate these,” said the inspector.

“Plastic water pistols?” I asked incredulously.

He thought for a long moment. “They’re potential weapons. They could have acid in them,” says the genius.

“Acid melts plastic,” I informed him. “Besides, they’ll be in the baggage compartment. My children would have to cut through the floor to get to them should they intend taking over the plane with water pistols.”

Obviously confused by this simple logic, the inspector intrepidly confiscated the children’s toys. A man in a uniform was not about to be swayed by a mere member of the public.

The second incident didn’t end quite so blandly.

I’d been staying down in Florida for a few months and was returning to Toronto. In my luggage was a ‘bang stick’, a device that attaches to the end of an underwater spear. Should a diver be threatened by a shark he fires the spear which, upon impact with the shark, shoots a bullet into it.

I’d been travelling back and forth with this thing for years. It had been examined and passed on many occasions. This particular time, when a young customs officer spied it his eyes lit up. “We’ve been looking for one of these,” he announced gleefully. “They’ve been re-classified as a concealed weapon.”

“But that’s ridiculous,” I explained. “To fire this thing it needs to be on the end of a spear gun. That’s not something you can put in a pocket.”

The young man was quite polite. He produced a book from somewhere and pointed out a section which said something like: A concealed firearm is one which could reasonably fit into a pocket or handbag, is capable of being loaded with a round of ammunition and is capable of firing said round. “You could get up to twelve years for this.” He said it as if a reasonable individual might hardly expect anything less.

“But that’s ludicrous,” I protested. “This thing is like a bullet without a gun. It can’t be fired without other equipment.”

He shrugged. “The wording of the law makes no allowance for that.”

I asked to see a supervisor, who turned out to be angry before even meeting me. Perhaps he’d been having a nap. Again I pointed out the ineffectiveness of the offending item as a concealed weapon but, as with his younger co-worker, any form of logic only served to agitate the supervisor further. Before long we were exchanging un-pleasantries.

The police had been called and were on their way to arrest me. Just as they walked through the door the supervisor’s rage reached a crescendo and his face reddened to the shade of a plum. Suddenly he clutched his chest, let out a howl of pain and crumpled to the floor.

One of the cops tried to revive him with mouth-to-mouth, but to no avail. 

The young inspector was in tears. “He was due to retire in a month,” he said forlornly. “I wish I’d never arrested you.”

Finally we agreed on something. “So do I.”

I was taken to a police station, booked, fingerprinted, photographed and a preliminary hearing was set for some two months hence. I later phoned the police ballistics department and told them of my situation. “Totally ridiculous,” said the cop.

The charges were dropped two days before the hearing.

Some time later I told this story to an acquaintance and she said, “Oh my God. You must have felt terrible.”

I was taken aback by the remark: Here was a man in a uniform, knowing I’d done nothing wrong, who was willing to send me away for twelve years - for what? So he could get a gold star in his retirement book?

No, I didn’t feel terrible. In fact, it’s probably the closest I’ve ever come to believing in a benevolent God.

(Edited by Davina Chapman)