Busy day out

Yesterday was a pretty busy day. Not just because we have family with us, but because I was all day out with the lifeboat. The morning was spent stocking supplies, water and fuel in anticipation of the silly season of 'shouts'. Then it was out to sea, taking water samples, doing a census of both marine mammals and jellyfish (we saw neither), and recording the nature and density of floating rubbish (mostly plastic, but a surprising amount of sodden baguettes). During this work, we were called up and sent to Villeneuve Loubet to rescue three people whose scooter had started sinking. We took the three people on board, our diver Guillaume secured flotation to the scooter, and we towed it into port.



Then an instruction trip to the Abeille Flandre, a hefty salvage tug. Lessons on towing, on emergency procedures, manoeuvres. Trips into the gigantic bowels of the winch compartments and the engine room. Finally we got up to the towering bridge. About five minutes into the spiel on the towing controls (think spacecraft, but all in massive steel), our emergency radio went off again.



Eight people on an inflatable, engine conked out, heading for the rocks. It was like one of those corny war films when action stations is sounded. A human avalanche slid down the companion-ways, seven stories down to the well deck and the access to our lifeboat.




Cast-off drill double quick, so quick that we nearly kidnapped the watch keeping officer of the tug, who happened to be on the boat looking around.

Off towards the islands, at 25kts, blue lights flashing, radio squawking, tow ropes being prepared, hats flying off astern in the wind. Pure adrenaline. Then lookout stations, trying to spot a brownish cream inflatable against brownish cream rocks.

Then we spotted it, in water too shallow to take the lifeboat. So it was launch stations for our inflatable, as our diver put on diving gear for the second time in three hours. By this time, luckily, I had been partially trained in towing, so I knew which bits to get out and tie on to which.

It turned out the people needing rescue were Italians. We were two Italian speakers on the lifeboat. Useful when you need to get legal acceptance for the tow, and when you need to explain to landlubbers that if they continue to put their hands between their boat and ours, there might be a shortfall of fingers by the time they landed. We towed them very slowly back to Mandelieu, where they were taken under the wing of the harbourmaster, but only after they had signed the form promising to pay us back for the fuel we had used (690 euros). Yours truly acted as the go-between, accepting an Italian cheque later that evening, in a large 4x4 with darkened windows.