Night thoughts

No pictures this time, because it was a night exercise with the French navy rescue helicopter service. We cast off at about nine o'clock and headed out to sea chased by a glorious sunset which lit up our wake in vibrant shades of orange and puce.

Rendez-vous was for ten o'clock off the Lérins islands. On board we had a guest, one of the navy controllers from the watch station at La Garoupe. It was funny talking to her in the flesh having heard her voice on the ship-to-shore VHF transmissions.

At the dropping zone, we waited around in the growing darkness, the boat wallowing wildly, despite the very little swell. Once in a while, both to get back in position after drifting, and to keep the batteries charged, we would circle back at low speed. On one of these manoeuvres, the cox saw some unusual splashes to port.

Yours truly was handed a pair of regulation binoculars. Very strange, we were surrounded by greyhounds, or so I thought. In fact it was a pod of dolphins, excited by our boat's way. Everybody except the cox and I crowded onto the foredeck and observed these streamlined, sleek animals weave elegantly and seemingly effortlessly in and out of our bow wave. Pretty impressive.

Then came two messages with opposite effect - first of all did we mind a trainee pilot? He would practice with sandbags before having a go at the real thing. Though terrified at the prospect, we said, not at all, no problem. Tension mounted visibly, helmet straps were tightened instinctively, and emergency cords felt... surreptitiously. A distinct smell of impending danger. And then another announcement! Exercise cancelled. Everybody breathed out for the first time in minutes, as if they had been underwater.

On the way back, with the tension broken, everybody started talking about their families for some reason.