Big Deal, Small World
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Bruce, at right, heading "to the rescue."
One of the biggest questions we’re often faced with is, "Just how small IS this world??" Miniscule? Petite? Tiny, for sure, especially if this mornings' adventure is any measure of size.
Sitting in Woodwind’s cockpit, sipping coffee, we admired our view of the Virgin Islands’ Coral Bay, St. John. On shore, church bells gonged and donkeys brayed. In the anchorage dinghies darted past signaling the start to a new day.
"That boat looks like it’s sinking," I commented to Bruce. The boat, a tidy little cruiser, was certainly heading ‘downhill,’ bow first.
Bruce grabbed the binoculars to take a closer look. "Someone’s swimming around it…must have a leak somewhere." Just then, a high speed dinghy raced toward the rapidly shrinking vessel; then another and another. A rescue effort was under weigh. People carefully clambered aboard setting up hoses and pumps to get the water moving back to the sea. "I better go," Bruce said as he threw three buckets in the dinghy. "It’s goin down!"
From Woodwind I could see that the pumps onboard weren’t big enough for the job. But those buckets, dipping in quick succession, quickly helped the craft crawl higher, inching up away from the bottom.
After an hour of bucket aerobics a woman on board thanked Bruce and introduced herself. "I’m Jan," she said. Pointing to a fellow in the cockpit she added, "and that’s Bruce."
As Bruce replied, "I’m Bruce, too. And my wife’s name is Jan," he remembered this couple, the other Jan and Bruce, also from the tiny town of Gig Harbor, Washington.
The first and last time our paths crossed, eighteen months ago, came about because of a mutual friend and our need to find a calmer home for Lars the Sailor Bird. We were hoping that St. John’s mobile veterinarian, Jan Fielding, could help us find a shore side Shangri-La for Lars. She wasn’t able to locate one but Lucky Lars now lives just a parrot’s squawk from them, the couple we call 'other Jan and Bruce.'
And the sinking boat??? The water was returned to the sea and the boat was towed to a dock where a wet mess is growing into a mountain.
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