North Sea Tales

“Right then, I am off, you happy?”

The Skipper returned the firm handshake, looking him straight in the eye.

“Aye, let’s get you off.”

Brief words, but they meant a lot.

“You happy” translated as meaning, “I am leaving you now, it’s all yours, you have all the responsibility.”

“Aye, let’s get you off.” Meant… The weather is awful, there is a large swell, I don’t want to endanger your little Pilot boat, and its crew in this foul weather. Let’s get this charade over with, as soon as possible and not kill anyone. It’s better to get you safely off while you are getting the maximum lee weather shelter benefit of the breakwater, here in the channel.

So, it was done, a handshake with the Skipper, a nod to the second Mate and the Mate, a multitude of thoughts and emotions transferred in these simple gestures.

We all knew this was a shitty situation, but mortgages had to be paid, kids put through private schools, careers kept etc etc by everyone on that bridge.

All the shit that everyone says isn’t important when compared with your safety fills your head, and conveniently drowns out the voice that is screaming “What are we doing!? This is Crazy!”

Conveniently your mind just shouts louder than your sensible misgivings about the situation with the easy old mantra of – “It won’t happen to Me” – whilst the situation is getting from mildly shit, to – “Full on shit!”

So the Pilot departed, escorted to the deck by the watchful second Mate, who observed some extreme high adrenaline sporting moves, accomplished by the Pilot, first swinging off the short rope ladder, and gracefully landing on the tiny walkway on the pilot boat, that by some miracle seemed to be in exactly the right spot for that fraction of a second, before cavorting off bucking, diving and corkscrewing away.

The pilot boat crewman, harnessed up, and securely wired to the pilot boat, was able to grab the pilot out of the air, and wrestle him to his landing, that would have scored at least a 9 in any olympic floor discipline.

The first and then the second cruel waves floored the pair of them, simply taking the legs from under the pair of them. But the crewman had a good grip, and they somehow managed to get up on their feet, and make their way to the safety of the pilothouse on the wee vessel, whilst being battered off of the railings and the doorway as they made their way in.

They would be black n blue and bruised and sore for days, but they didn’t care, they were safe.

They looked backwards as their little craft spun expertly up and along a breaking wave by the coxswain, like an old “Wall of Death” motorcycle stunt rider, smoothly transitioning the wall of water, until safely heading at full speed back into the welcoming confines of Aberdeen harbour.