A knock on the Hull

 

There is a boat in the marina from Hamilton.  We met him last night and we have some mutual acquaintances.  We invited him aboard and offered him a margarita.  He is quite a character.  He has had more calamities than our good friend JB.  I didn't think that was possible.  Last year he was sailing in the Bahamas and was dismasted when his 30 year old rigging let go. Stranded, at anchor on the Bahamas bank,  he waited for the US Coast Guard to contact Tow Boat US…it took them many hours to get to him, meantime he received several strange calls from others who offered to come get him if he would only tell them his exact location.   Feeling they were possibly pirates or salvagers (similar thing down here), he maintained radio silence until Tow Boat showed up.  They towed him to Bimini and offered to leave him there, but he opted to get them to tow him back to the US for repairs.  Winds came up out of the Northeast and they had a horrific crossing of the Gulf Stream.  His dingy  came loose and had to be rescued by Tow Boat which meant they had to abandon him for a while as they did that, then the deck cleat he was being towed from pulled right out of the deck, requiring more dangerous manoeuvres, in the dark,large, stormy seas and he started to ship a lot more water.    He did make it back, only to discover his insurance policy would not payout and he was on the hook for all the damage and repairs. Also, his good friend who was with him, essentially was in shock with PTSD and their friendship hasn’t been  quite the same since.  

This year, on the way down here, with a totally refit boat, a  great white shark attacked his boat,  bit  and strongly shook the keel of his boat in Georgia a couple of weeks ago and tried to sink his boat. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/8238651/Great-white-shark-attacks-fishing-boat.html 

Now, this next bit is true also, as Chris assures me there is  documented evidence of similar experiences or very real hallucinations at least  from extreme adventurers.  He had an exchange with a talking dolphin - twice – once the dolphin rose on it’s tail and asked him telepathically “what are you doing here? ”  I forgot his response, but then the dolphin looked him right in the eye (I have seen them do this) and said “you are not alone”.   S turned out to be a good friend, gave Chris a spare little bit rusty machete to fight pirates and loaned us a spare motor key on xmas day when Chris dropped his in the drink.

 Whew!  You've got to love boaters for stories – JB and Chris can tell some wild but true tales – can we mix you another margarita?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028115.400-talk-with-a-dolphin-via-underwater-translation-machine.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2UlxJB3tH0&feature=related