When Paul & I Saved a Life
“We can be heroes – if just for one day” David Bowie. Well let me tell you that it did not feel like the sentiments of that song.
Karen and I visited Paul and Barb - our new Australian friends on Queimarla at anchor just outside the marina – so we fired up the dinghy (get it down, move it into the water, get the motor down, put on the motor, figure out how to start the dinghy, etc) and headed out to their boat. This was only the second time that we visited our new friends and last time their boat was hit by a wayard sailing dinghy – not an uneventful visit and we were hoping for a quiet night in. Paul had promised some good home-cooked German food!
We settled into the saloon and started to chat when I noticed someone diving off a neighbouring boat – bit cold for my liking but thought nothing of it. What seemed like 20 minutes later we were interrupted by a knock on the hull – not something we expected at anchor at least 400m from shore.
Paul lead the way to see what was happening and found a teenage girl trying to climb aboard the port sugar scoop steps. He assisted the young girl aboard and tried to find out what was going on –we could see flashing lights on the shore.
“Maria” said she was swimming away from the police. Paul tried to ascertain why she was running away – but she was evasive and by the look in her eyes Paul thought that smoking or worse was involved.
Paul was comforting her as the flashing lights moved their way up the muelle -wall - of the marina. All of a sudden, Maria said she was leaving and dived off the boat and started swimming towards the shipping channel and all those ferries.
We stood a bit startled by the course of events but as she swam off we realised that we could not let her continue swimming into the channel as the pilots and tugs go by regularly and quickly. We pulled in the Zodiac, grabbed Paul’s oars (as of course I had left ours on the boat and was unsure of how much fuel we had on board) and headed out after Maria.
As we were getting closer, Paul guided me as to which side to approach, me being terrified of the “chop-chop” - as Karen calls it -doing more damage than Maria getting to the other side of the channel – not that this was likely as it was at least 1/2 km in cold water. Then Maria went under… and when she resurfaced she was not where planned.Then she went down a second time, to finally resurface close to the boat. We got her to the side of the dinghy and convinced her to come aboard.
We got her into the Zodiac and told her we were bringing her back to shore – expecting another jump but her protests waned and she lay down under the seat of the boat to get out of the wind. By this time there was a fair number of flashing lights on the muelle and what looked like fire trucks and ambulances. Given that the muelle is basically a rock wall we headed into the beach to the waiting flashing lights instead. By the time we reached shore, Maria was out to it…..
We were greeted by police and a swimmer who had tried to swim out to Maria but was outswum by her. The Ambulance came around to the beach and Maria was attended to. Apparently a bit of a troubled child that had done nothing wrong.
Paul and I headed back to the boat and after calming down we enjoyed a nice meal – wondering what would have happened if Maria had not knocked on the boat, and if we had not gone after her – whilst there was a large flashing light presence – there were no other boats in the water…….
Karen and I visited Paul and Barb - our new Australian friends on Queimarla at anchor just outside the marina – so we fired up the dinghy (get it down, move it into the water, get the motor down, put on the motor, figure out how to start the dinghy, etc) and headed out to their boat. This was only the second time that we visited our new friends and last time their boat was hit by a wayard sailing dinghy – not an uneventful visit and we were hoping for a quiet night in. Paul had promised some good home-cooked German food!
We settled into the saloon and started to chat when I noticed someone diving off a neighbouring boat – bit cold for my liking but thought nothing of it. What seemed like 20 minutes later we were interrupted by a knock on the hull – not something we expected at anchor at least 400m from shore.
Paul lead the way to see what was happening and found a teenage girl trying to climb aboard the port sugar scoop steps. He assisted the young girl aboard and tried to find out what was going on –we could see flashing lights on the shore.
“Maria” said she was swimming away from the police. Paul tried to ascertain why she was running away – but she was evasive and by the look in her eyes Paul thought that smoking or worse was involved.
Paul was comforting her as the flashing lights moved their way up the muelle -wall - of the marina. All of a sudden, Maria said she was leaving and dived off the boat and started swimming towards the shipping channel and all those ferries.
We stood a bit startled by the course of events but as she swam off we realised that we could not let her continue swimming into the channel as the pilots and tugs go by regularly and quickly. We pulled in the Zodiac, grabbed Paul’s oars (as of course I had left ours on the boat and was unsure of how much fuel we had on board) and headed out after Maria.
As we were getting closer, Paul guided me as to which side to approach, me being terrified of the “chop-chop” - as Karen calls it -doing more damage than Maria getting to the other side of the channel – not that this was likely as it was at least 1/2 km in cold water. Then Maria went under… and when she resurfaced she was not where planned.Then she went down a second time, to finally resurface close to the boat. We got her to the side of the dinghy and convinced her to come aboard.
We got her into the Zodiac and told her we were bringing her back to shore – expecting another jump but her protests waned and she lay down under the seat of the boat to get out of the wind. By this time there was a fair number of flashing lights on the muelle and what looked like fire trucks and ambulances. Given that the muelle is basically a rock wall we headed into the beach to the waiting flashing lights instead. By the time we reached shore, Maria was out to it…..
We were greeted by police and a swimmer who had tried to swim out to Maria but was outswum by her. The Ambulance came around to the beach and Maria was attended to. Apparently a bit of a troubled child that had done nothing wrong.
Paul and I headed back to the boat and after calming down we enjoyed a nice meal – wondering what would have happened if Maria had not knocked on the boat, and if we had not gone after her – whilst there was a large flashing light presence – there were no other boats in the water…….
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