LIFE SAVING 101 OR THE DANGERS OF DRINK
Much is written about the joy of a simple libation with friends and much more is written about the oft times deadly evils of alcohol. Speaking as one, alcohol is easy to give up when it brings with it back pains from the halls of Satin. And so this writer has, for no other reason than simple lack of pain, left the use of fermented carbohydrates to the younger, the stronger, and the less inflammed.
On St. John, the discontinued personal use of alcohol does not necessarily prevent one's coming into intimate contact with it, its effects on others and sometimes, inevitably, their effect on you. Call it an occupational hazard.
On the night in question, I had just returned by dinghy row to the mother shilp after a rather long week of both all day villa repair and managing "CAFE ROMA", an older established restaurant in Cruz Bay, St John. I climbed aboard as usual about 11:00 p.m. and pretty quickly put in the screens to keep out unwanted midnight mosquito dive bombers. (I can't see them anymore and I look forward to the day when I will not hear them anymore.)
Anchored at the time next to another Cruz bay boat of long duration, I had gotten used to the occasional rantings and ravings of its occupant. He would, at times, row around his boat before boarding and yell at, what I always supposed to be, evil spirits. I guess he wanted to scare off as many as possible before he committed his body to the confines of his hull. At any rate, there had been lots of yelling in the past and I had gotten about as used to it as the loose wire inside his mast which bangs when his boat rolls. I pretty much ignore them both as much as possible.
On that night I heard him yelling and paid exactly no attention to it as I had long ago learned to do. I lay down and began to read for the 30 minutes it usually took me to fall asleep. The yelling continued and the only thing that struck me was that, for the very first time, he was repeating himself. At first, I could not tell what he was saying, but after I heard it three times in that next 30 minutes, it seemed to end with "help me". Well, it was close! Really close! Way less than fifty/fifty.
I was tired was inclined to ignore it anyway. I had to get up to shut down everything anyway and on a hunch, I looked out. I guess if the my boat had not been swung so I could see his boat through my screened companionway, this story might have a different ending.
But, I looked out and saw his boat, his dinghy and something else. I put on my glasses and could make out his boat, his dinghy and what looked like a basket ball. I finally yelled out, " Hey, (name withheld to protect me), are you in the water?"
The answer from him was not garbled nor confusing; it was an unmitigated "YES!".
And I spoke to myself, "(another word for excrement)!”
To him again, "Hang on, I'll be there in a minute."
So out with the screen, get the oars in the locks, untie the dink and row over. All my years of teaching lifesaving were coming back to me now and I knew he had been in the water for 35 minutes at least by that time. I had no intention of letting him get even one hand my very tippy dinghy so that we would both wind up in the drink together. Nothing like a clinging drunk to negatively affect your swimming skills.
At first I talked to him from a distance about not grabbing my dink. Receiving responses of complete incoherance, I then quickly decided that the best course of action was not to talk him out of grabbing the dink as much as to simply not to give him a chance. He was clinging to his ladder amidships so I rowed to the very bow of his boat and tied on well out of his reach.
I climbed out on his foredeck (no easy task) and walked back to where he was hanging on his ladder.
"(name withheld to protect me)!, grab my wristand let's pull you up on deck. It took a while to get the meaning across that I would grab his wrist and he would grab mine. That way if he let go, I would still have a grip and not spring my back out allthe way to the moon. He had gotten his leg through a rung of his boarding ladder and was a while getting it undone. It was clear that he was exhausted from hanging on and at least 35 minutes of fright. I have never seen the guy swim and I do not think he knows how.
Talking with him steadily to calm him down, I still did a number on my back before realizing that he did not have the strength to get up his own boarding ladder from the water.
His dinghy was right behind him so my Plan "B." was to get him into his dink first, then onto his boat. Not casting any aspersions, drinking all day at a bar and not lifting anything heavier than a beer glass does little to prepare one for pulling oneself from the water soaking wet into a dinghy after dark. Plan "B." was not going to work and he kept letting go of his dinghy and I would have to pull it back near him for another grab.
A word about his dinghy; It had started out as a Tortola dinghy and below the waterline i guess it still was. Above the water line it had been losing its clear definition a few fiberglass fibers at a time from rubbing up against docks, boats and stone walls for years. It was ragged and lethal. The word "fishhooks" comes to mind.
No way was he going to get into his dink either. He had been in the water at least 45 minutes by this time plus however long he had fallen in before I started counting upon returning to my boat.
Thankfully, it was not far to shore or shallow water so I got in his Tortola
"slice-mobile" and carefully got his oars placed. Getting him to let go of the ladder was an argument worthy of great solicitors but he finally let it go and hung onto the back of his dinghy. Steadily talking to him, I rowed backwards with his feet and legs drifting back up under the stern of his dinghy. As I said, it was not far to shallow water and I got there gently without losing him. As soon as it was three feet deep, I told him it was shallow water and to put his feet down. He repeatedly insisted he could not touch and there was no arguing with him. I finally rowed into 18 inches of water near the beach and got out of his dinghy. I got him to let go of the dinghy and pulled him up on his back into a foot of water and then pulled his dinghy up on the beach.
I told him to stand up and walk into shore. He lay in the water on his butt and could not get turned over. After two attempts, I got him turned over and he fell back over on his butt. I got him over again and by cheering him on the whole way, I got him going towards shore in a slow crawl. He was wearing knee length shorts that got caught on his knees and were sliding down his butt. (Fight crack in any form.) Now this is a guy who does not like to be personally touched. One had to wonder whether he may have decided he was hitting his "A.A. 12 Step Low" by having someone else pulling his pants back up his hairy butt while cheering his drunken ass up a beach like a pregnant turtle. Alas, I guess it did not stick.
Push come to shove and I got his head above the high tide line on the beach, told him to lay down and go to sleep till he was strong enough to get into his dink and row back to his boat. He rolled over on his stomach and for the first time, I saw the big gash on the back of his head where he had hit it on something, probably his ragged dinghy gunnels. Visions of calling the ambulance and further lack of sleep went running through my head as I stood there and watched to see how badly he was bleeding. I guess his time in the water and his crawl out had been sufficient to congeal most of the blood as it was not running in a life threatening way. O.K., so no ambulance but he was going to have a double headache in the morning. It was nasty and not made any less septic by the waters of Cruz Bay.
I had to then get in his dink, which had already tried to drift off twice, row back to his boat, get my dink, row back to the beach towing my dink with his dink, drop his dink off and tie it up to shore near him, and then row back to my boat in my dink.
I guess the whole thing took a little over an hour start to finish. I got back on my boat, rinsed off and lay down once again behind screens to try to relax again. I was more than a little torqued and no longer instantly ready to fall asleep.
I guess it was about 40 minutes later that I heard the guy trying to get onto his big boat from his dink again. I was amazed that he was up and moving so soon. Any thoughts I had about whether I would once again come to his rescue if he once again fell in were put to rest when I stood up , looked out again and watched him get successfully into his boat cockpit.
I finally fell asleep.
I heard him again in the morning getting into his dink. He spent some time re-tying his ladder which may have fallen some with him on it the night before and might have caused his problems to begin with.
That was weeks ago and to this day he has not said the first word to me of thanks or even acknowledged that the event took place. I wonder if he even remembers it. I doubt it. after passing the story around the local watering holes, i heard that the same guy had fallen asleep rowing in his dinghy out to his boat and drifted all the way to Redhook, Sr. Thomas. I believe it!
I have seen him in the bars since, almost every night, with no apparent slowdown on his intake.
They say God helps those who help themselves. That conversely means that, if God can not help someone who is not helping themselves, what makes us think we can?
I will bet that many readers who are boaters can remember at least one time (I'll bet even more) when they miscalculated a step from the dock or dinghy to the boat and (I'll also bet) it was often times alcohol related.
So what is the point here? Simple. If you are going to drink and boat, be careful! If you are going to drink beyond the ability to help yourself, for God's sake, stay on the beach. God might not help and worse, his helpers might just go on and fall asleep thinking that your frantic calls for help were just more ravings from that drunk anchored in the next boat.
JOHN ST JOHN
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Ten Tough Miles
Diamond Rock to St. Anne, Martinique
Using the North East off-shore katabatic night wind to ease your pain.
This article is slanted towards sailboat navigation but can also be used for a less torturous power boat trips.
If attempted in the daylight, the ten mile sail (i.e., smash) East from Diamond Rock to St. Anne beach, Martinique (or on into protected harbor of Marin) can be a captain's worst nightmare. You will be met with adverse wind, waves and current on the nose.
Chris Doyle has called this trip "usually a brisk beat to windward in protected waters". Well friends, that would be more like "always" and not so protected. Don Street recommends you should "set aside the better part of a day for the trip" and advises that you should "try to stay as close to the (Northern) shore as shoals will permit". Don is clearly implying a daytime passage.
So here is the tip, if you want to have a nice, mostly close to rum line sail, wait for dark plus at least four hours. Your destination will be the gradually sloaping, unobstructed, easy to approach beach of St. Anne. Make your way on into Marin the next day when you can see the racks of reefs and mud banks around the entrance.
Bruce's Van Sant's "Passages South" sections on katabatic night winds falling off mountainous areas are to be taken to heart and relied upon. There are some pretty good size mountains (hills) just north of St. Lucie and the night wind does fall down them from the Northeast after radiational cooling of the island.
So, here is the plan. Coming from Fort Du France or St. Pierre, stop and anchor at either Grand Anse D'Arlet or Petite Anse D'arlet in the afternoon. Both anchorages have easy exits. Relax for a while and then while all is still calm, enter the St. Anne beach waypoint in your GPS. Chris Doyle has a useful waypoint in his guide of 14-26-20, 60-53-20 which is far enough off the beach of St. Anne to be west of most of the unlighted boats that anchor there. DON'T COUNT ON IT! Start looking for unlighted anchored boats before you get to your waypoint. They are made more easily seen by the back lighting of St. Anne. Do your own navigating and always check against a chart for mistakes in data entry and printing. If you do not have a reliable GPS and a reliable depth sounder then do not attempt this night passage.
Some time after 22:00 up anchor heading south for Diamond Rock. First-timers should plan their trip allowing them to arrive at St. Anne at dawn light. You have the charts, you know your boat speed, figure it out. Chances are some off-shore wind will already be blowing but motoring will usually be called for in the lee of the island.
The island is steep-to and there is deep water up close just as Chris Doyle says.
Diamond Rock will slowly appear from around the headland and is easy to see, even in the dark. There is plenty of deep water inside between Diamond Rock and the mainshore of Martinique. Go inside Diamond Rock as close to the main shore as you dare and while between the two make a note of the "course to steer" on your GPS to your St. Anne waypoint. It will be around 112 degrees magnetic depending on how brave you are at approaching the main island coast in the dark. Do not go north of this line as there are shoals that come quickly from deep water.
The Northeast katabatic wind will blow on this approximately 112 degree rum line. OK, some nights you are going to have to tack, maybe a few times, but you will get a slant.
Stay close to the course line you determined to the St. Anne waypoint as you rounded inside Diamond Rock. As soon as your "couse to steer" to the waypoint starts to creep down a few degrees, tack back North out of the current to regain the off-shore katabatic wind. Go north of this line to find shoals, go south of this line to find headwinds and more adverse current.
St. Anne shoals up gradually with a sand bottom. Remember about the unlighted anchored boats in St. Anne. PAY ATTENTION. There is also the possibility of fish bouys so if your boat is a magnet for them time your trip to arrive at first light.
If night sailing is just not your bag then leave the D'Arlets at first light and your will at least avoid the afternoon heightened trades.
I wish you fair winds and good passages. - JOHN ST.JOHN
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THE CARIBBEAN CON
Cruisers are a type of loosely knit tribe and they even come with a very loose set of social morays. One of the more reliable morays is the “Help The Other Guy (P.C.- Person)” rule based mostly on the idea that it could be our butt in the crack or on the reef next.
This almost reflexive reaction to help fellow cruisers and boaters is somehow inbred into us and a good thing, too!
Enter now, Stage Left, the Caribbean Cons who either instinctively or intentionally take advantage of this almost natural instinct to help and the results can be less than contented.
Having been an attorney in my past life, con artists who blow smoke and crab sideways are nothing new. In my later “cruising” life, I have found then more difficult to spot and I must admit I have been taken in more than once.
Actually it starter beforei could get to the real Caribbean. First was a girl in Miami, on Virginia Key to whom I offered help to repair her mast. Not only did she (we will call her Sandy) push for more than I agreed to do, but when I told her she owed me lunch, we went to a restaurant where after finishing the meal she told me she did not have any money. I had to buy her lunch. She got no further help from this sailing fool.
Later, while hanging in the Carbide, I chanced upon an apparently luckless character we will call “Shimmer” (it only rhymes with his real name). He needed help doing everything. I am always glad to help and especially to teach what I know about boats, engines and sailing. I learned to sail when I was ten years old so that is now well over 40 year’s of experience. Working on his exhaust system one day, I found myself doing most of the grunt work myself while the “student” sat back watching. Picking up on it pretty quickly, I carefully explained that he best remember everything I did as, from that moment on, I had no intention of re-assembling what I was taking apart. (I did not tell him that last part about my intentions).
And here is the secret; they never say the actual words, “thank you.” They will say maybe everything else, maybe, “Hey, this is great!”, or “This makes me so happy!” If you listen closely, every statement with have either an implied (1st quote) or a spoken (2d quote) “me” in it. That is it, it is all about them, their “me”. No thank “YOU”. And they will try to return the favor with a very tentative invite to dinner and never say another word about it until they ask why you did not show up.
Later the guy shows up all in a huff. He needs a big battery lug for his inverter, do I have one? Of course I do. Well, he promises to get me another one tomorrow. Well, he has never to this day returned the battery lug nor have I reminded him. I have never felt like it was a good idea to remind someone that I did them a favor which they promised to return. It takes the good karma out of it but he was definitely off my list of people to help.
This guy Shimmer went on down the islands one summer with the rest of us seeking to avoid hurricanes. He broke his rudder bearings in the Saints and had the audacity to ask me if I had a credit card. What I had at that point was enough of him. He kept pushing the question so I finally said, “Well, Shimmer, yes I do have a credit card but the answer to every question after this will be NO!” I think he finally got the message.
The “coconut telegraph” is quick and accurate and so is V.H.F. channel 16. It was one story after the next about him begging stuff off one boater after the next. He gets in a hurricane scare in Carricou and fouls everybody’s anchor lines up in Tyrell Bay. Then goes right on and promises to get a guy's scuba tank refilled if he will help undo the mess. Do you really have to guess that he never did get the tank refilled? And then he has the audacity to offer the guy some “grog” yet he can not find the guys boat in Spice Island Marina to drop it off. (There can only be 14 on the tiny dock). Word finally got out and most people keyed him when he got on the V.H.F. looking for help.
Most cruisers will do anything they can for you but here is another real big hint. The next time you see them in a bar, buy them a beer. It is just a nice thing to do. I will help and teach you to do anything I know on a boat but if I see you in a bar and you do not offer to buy me a beer, then I will never help you again. I will help someone else. Believe that word gets out!
And that brings us to the reason I decided to write this epiphany.
I sail into Culebra last week and anchor in Dakity harbor. An hour later, in sails my cruising buddies, Jo and Lauren, who charter their 64 foot ketch, “Ragamuffin” out of St Thomas. We go into town Friday night for B.S. at the Dinghy Dock and then onto the local pizza place for dinner. Something told me to get a medium. There was a bit of a wait and just before we sat down to eat, a friend of Lauren’s walks up and introduces “Valerie” (only rhymes with her real name) who needs a boat ride to St. Thomas. Lauren, always the helpful cruiser, said “sure, we are going either Sunday or Monday. Here is our card, call me tomorrow by 7:30 A.M.” I am sitting beside Jo, Lauren’s wife and she bristles up immediately on this girl and says there is something not right. I am thinking paranoia and maybe just a little jealousy. Well, I had my mouth shut before the night was through.
Valerie told us a lot of things. Valerie told us that she had been robbed in Old San Juan. She said she had to get out of town because the marine patrol was going to hold her responsible for some sunken boats previously owned by a famous sailor’s son. She said she was from St. Croix and had lots of friend there.
Our pizza arrives and the waitress asks how many plates and out of generosity, Lauren says four. Valerie sits down and gulps down a big slice of our pizza, and guess what? She never said thank you. Then she says she was diving on these sunken boats to get sails for a friend and that she signed a card with the marine police making her the official salver. Well---, she thinks that is what she signed. She said she had never met the famous sailor’s son herself although he used to be her friend’s boyfriend.
She says she has to go get some clothes she is washing for her friend at an apartment and please do not say anything to her friend as she wants to remain friends. We are not too sure what she means about what we are not supposed to say but it becomes clear when her friend shows up a few moments after Valerie takes off.
Her friend tells us how the girl shows up on Culebra claiming she was a friend of this girl from St. Croix and got lots of favors done for her in her friend’s name. This girl even let Valerie stay on her boat for a while. This girl said she flat told Valerie that it would cost $100.00 bucks to take her to St. Thomas and that ever since, Valerie had been looking for alternative means to get there. For someone out of money, Valerie was never short of cigarettes, which says something about her priorities.
By the time we had finished talking with Valerie’s “friend” the girl behind the counter volunteered to Jo that Valerie had been hanging around for a few weeks, bumming pizza and drinks off people.
We decide to leave.
We go back to the Dinghy Dock for one last drink and ask the bartender there if he knows Valerie. He give us a look and says she was in another bar where he worked the night before. That she ran up a tab and then told him she did not have any money. He also said she had taken for two cases of Heineken off a friend of his and that she had talked some doctor out of thirty Zanex. He said he had heard that she was not welcome on local flights to St. Croix. We all had to wonder how you earn that distinction if it was true.
In walks the girl who runs the gift store upstairs and we ask her if she knows Valerie. She says she saw Valerie work the Dinghy Dock bar a few weeks before, getting drinks from all the guys. This girl was onto Valerie’s act in less than ten minutes.
I turned immediately to Jo and apologized and said I would never again question her instincts.
As it turned out, everybody we asked had a Valerie story and they did not mesh. We asked the bartender if Valerie had ever met the famous sailor’s son and he said he had seen them hanging around together last week.
Saturday night we go to Bahia Marina bar to hear Amy Jo sing her country western tunes. She is the daughter of one of the Sons of the Pioneers of Roy Rodgers fame and a great musician. There were tourists there who had even Valerie stories.
Valerie called Jo and Loren that Sunday not at 7:30 a.m. as asked but at noon and intimated that she was ready to “come out to the boat” so she could be there when they left the next day. Jo told her gently that maybe she should find another way to St. Thomas.
So, these Caribbean Cons are out here, they are not necessarily evil, but they are insistent, manipulative and clever. And, they never say Thank you.
Good luck Valerie, I hope someday somebody believes you and I really hope on that day you just decided to tell the truth.
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FURTHER INTERESTING ADVENTURES IN PARADISE
OR
HOW TO MAKE $265.00 PLAYING GUITAR AND SINGING AT FOXY’S
It all started with a friend as most stories do. A good friend, you might say intimate. As I came to know the person better, It became clear that a certain set of their friends were users of the worst sort. I had my suspicions from the beginning and in finally advised them which certainly did not bring shinning accolades for my honest and confidence. What did I know about people? A lot. Successfully practicing law in south Mississippi for 17 years with out one bar complaint certainly qualified me at least for and “Also Ran” opinion.
The male of this couple was a very semi-famous author and totally subservient to his also cleaver but basically paranoid wife and mother of their darling child who still talks baby talk while approaching the age seven which is so slurred most people do not understand her.
My greatest compliment in their regard matched the one for the guy who ran the first bar where I ever played. He also was a conniver of the highest caliber. What I had to say good about them was that “they would never steal as it would be nothing if they could not con you out of it. Not evil, just not nice.
So this pseudo author, as many do, decided he would love to run a small newspaper and write in his spare time. Always trying to put my best foot forward, I confided with him that I could not see a lot of spare time in running a small local newspaper, especially in the Caribbean. Users rarely take advice and these guys were bloody.
Did they have the money to buy the small Caribbean paper? No way, Jose.
What did they do? This is where it gets nasty. They conned an intimate friend into helping them get a certain person with money to put up the money for them. It was a nice thing to do by the conee’s and it was done in the interest of keeping a true community paper on a small Caribbean island.
A great deal of money was put up. What did the users put up? Well ---------, nothing really unless you place a value on bullshit although it was some of the best.
The using continued; borrowing trucks to make deliveries and then returning them with no gas, getting people to help them move and then never doing a thing to repay the favor, considering it more of a victory than an obligation. It was not long before they realized that they really did not want to run a local newspaper but not because they had tired of using people. So, they hired a young attractive person straight out of journalism school to do the work for them, spent very little time preparing this new person while they spent most of their time continuing to use friends and mostly being gone.
A word about their daughter; It is quite possible that attention deficit disorder can easily be cultivated by lack of discipline. Discipline, you know, what it takes to finish that term paper, studying hard so you wind up being fifth in your class at law school, something that never develops if one does not correct a child’s aberrant behavior. Enough said.
Another plus in their favor, wait, maybe this is the only plus, they did pay off 1/3 of the money their backer/partner put up originally.
They finally decide to sell the paper while still owing 2/3’s of the money and they advertise for a buyer without notifying the nice person who put up the purchase money for them. After they got a solid offer for the whole paper (which they did not at that time fully own), I repeat, “after”, they then came forward and made their own offer to buy out the nice guy who put up the money.
Did they mention the pending offer? Well -----, no they did not. Did they feel any obligation to the nice person who put up the money. Well ------, no they did not.
Getting away from the rhetorical, they got the entire remaining 2/3 interest on a note, turned around and sold the paper for almost twice the amount for which it was purchased.
Did they have any qualms or compunctions about doing this? Did they feel any obligation to the nice financial backer to share the profit? Well, ------- noooo they did not.
I decide to look into the possibility of fraud. Maybe not legal fraud but emotional fraud extraordinaire.
Now to the music. While playing beautiful music at a local high class trellised restaurant where I had successfully played for three weeks, I watch these two emotional frauds waltz in and start talking to the owner. There were interesting glances cast my way during the conversation.
Within ten minutes of their leaving, the owner shuts down the live music after only an hour of a contracted three and a half hour gig.
Co-incidences? Both incidences took place in a co-existing period of time -- hence the term.
Feeling way less than good about any of this behavior I decided to get out of town for a while and sailed to Jost Van Dyke for a much needed rest.
My spirits were way less than ebullient to say the least. Best to get some work done on the boat and not think about people so paranoid in life that they feel it is a personal contest to screw everyone they can. I mean, you better do it to them before they do it to you, right?
I knew I needed three days before deciding my next move and laid low in great harbor enjoying the view and peace.
Charter friends show up who are good friends with Foxy and even greater friends with is musical assistant. Turns out they had no music for the night and I was invited to play for tips and supper. Seeing as how supper at Foxy’s can be $30.00 plus I decided it was a good deal ( I have played for less).
I got my guitar and while figuring out the P.a. system, foxy walks up and asks if I needed help. I told him the truth, I needed all the help I could get. (we all do). He laughed and said only a real man would admit they
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