Thursday, January 26, 2012
By 10:30 we were sitting in Long Island Breeze Resort at a talk given by Monty and Sara From s/v “Saranade”. I love to hear them talk about charting. It’s hard to take in at one time but I am learning charting language bit by bit. Sara and I talked about the Trimarand “Angel” that ran aground yesterday and she wanted to copy my pictures of it to her computer. I gave her my disk and Fred and I stayed behind to try to get on the computer. Something seems to be wrong with the connection so we still don’t know if the SPOT actually sent out our location. Maybe we will find out at our next stop which we think is Cape Santa Maria on the North side of Long Island. Fred decided to go to Rum Cay and we are traveling with Ronnie and Monica from s/v “EOS”. We picked up a few things from the market, and that was an experience in itself. The Mail Boat had arrived this morning and we were after fruit and lime juice for the lobsters the guy left for us at the Long Island Breeze since we didn’t connect yesterday. Lobsters need lemon or lime juice and capers to sauté them in. They didn’t have capers nor the lime juice so I asked the owner. “Come on” he said, motioning for me to follow. Back we went into his warehouse. “We have it but the boat just got here and “we” need to find it. We went through boxes and boxes until we found the lime juice. “Here it is” I said. “No, that’s not the one, that’s the gallon size...you want a gallon?” “no,” I replied and he said “then we keep looking, I know it is here” and we continued to move boxes. “I found it sir” I said. “That’s the one, he opened it and forgot the price so said, “$2.45 for the whole big bottle” I said I would take it. He gave me the grand tour of the back of his grocery store. I saw the freezer, the produce counter, the cooler, the shelving area where back room stock is stored and, I saw the room where they cut their meat. “We have fresh meat also” he boasted with pride. He was about 85 or so, sweet little man. He said he had never heard of capers but he promised me they would be on the next Mailboat that came in. We dinked our way back and as I was putting things away Fred was in the dink, which was attached to the davits but still floating in the water. He asked me to help, the “go-fer” they call it on land, perhaps the same at sea but that’s the hat I was wearing at that time anyway. He needed some sand paper and as I got to the bottom of the companion way, I heard a splash. I looked up into the cockpit and saw the port side of the dinghy over the stern of Casa Mare’. “Fred” I yelled and ran up the steps into the cockpit and still didn’t see him. I climbed back at the helm and there he was, still under water, eyes opened wide opened, mouth shut tight, holding his breath until he reached the surface. Scared me to death (almost) for a second or two and then my mind went into the life saving mode. I was going to launch him the lifesaving sling but hesitated, after all, his right hand was clinging to the dinghy and up comes his left hand, clinging tightly to his “brand new” scrapper he just bought. A huge sigh of relief exhaled out of my mouth. “Oh thank goodness, he saved the scraper”. I started laughing. It was funny then I wasn’t sure if that was the reason he was in the water but he sure did have that scraper back in the boat in a hurry. I asked “what do want me to do?” (trying not to laugh although I did burst out loud out of control and tried to hide it the best I could. But...since he is the captain and I was absolutely positive he had more experience saving people than I did. Ask Rapid Roy from s/v Gideon. I knew Roy was going to love this story already. Fred didn’t answer. I asked if he wanted me to throw him the life sling he said no, throw me a rope. I did, the one hanging from the davits, but it was the wrong end. Didn’t work any way. He said “stand on the dinghy”, (because when he tried to crawl in, the dink kept wanting to flip over). I looked at him and thought ‘are you kidding?’. I knew this was going to be disastrous and I would end up in the water with him. But...as any Admiral would do, I obeyed orders, for about 2 seconds. I could see he was having a hard time getting back into the dink no matter what I did, so I suggested clipping some straps we use when we go snorkeling to climb back in but it still wanted to tip. I was laughing so hard silently I peed my pants, really! I wanted to run for my camera so bad but something told me that was not the smart thing to do when someone goes overboard, even from a dinghy. It was kind of low on air on the starboard side since he was patching up so it wouldn’t sink and I knew this was my problem by then too. I stood back a few inches, saw Monty from s/v “Saranade” in his dink and knew rescue was on the way. Wrong...he was just getting back to his boat and the next time I looked up, he was in his boat. ‘I could radio for help’ I thought. Surely Monty would hear me then it dawned on me. “Hey Fred”, I said. “How about me letting down the steps at the stern of the boat.” ‘Brilliant’, I thought and...I saved his life. Had I not been there, he would not have been able to get back on the boat and spent the night hanging onto the dink till morning. He finally got back on board, refusing to take my extended hand to help him up and I was certain he was furious. But...I laughed. He didn’t. He came down below, dripping wet and looked at me and smiled, then I lost it. It was hilarious! He was wet. I was happy my Captain was back on board. He started emptying his pockets, Out comes one of our new walkie talkies, his camera, his wallet his coins and various other sea things I could not describe. Neither could he. He had just got back from hitch hiking to the bank before we came back to the boat so there was plenty bills to dry out too.
I rinsed the walkie talkie, his camera, the batteries and the disk in fresh water, dried them the best I could and sealed everything in a zip lock bag filled with rice, hoping it would suck the moisture out of them. I figured we lost them anyway to salt water so what the heck, lets try. Dinner was good. We celebrated the fact that Fred didn’t drown with surf and turf and rice. Simple dinner, and we chuckled through the meal. So ended our adventure of the day. Now I have to go wrap all those lobster tails in foil and squeeeeeeeze them into the freezer. What a treat! PS...the dink is still not patched but we are heading to Cape Santa Maria anyway, tomorrow morning with EOS!
Note: Fred does know how to swim! I loved this day and so grateful Fred is back onboard.
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