A lot of lifeboat time

As the summer silly season is supposed to be winding up, the weekly routine of training exercises has just started again. Saturday mornings, with everybody at the station before nine. Yesterday was different, though, as there had been a defamatory article about the crew in Nice-Matin. Apparently there had been a clear out of old lags just before I joined, and they channeled their discontent into the form of an article claiming the present crew, Yours Truly included, were incapable of taking to sea in safety.

That may well still be the case for me, as I am still (and will be for quite a while yet) just a trainee deckhand, but it was not welcome for the others, who have risked their lives on quite a few occasions, and have saved five people from a certain death this year.

So we had one of the big shots of the lifeboat service, in full summer uniform, down to lecture us on how to take the insults with dignity, and how to deal with the factual inaccuracies when the only channel open is the very same newspaper which printed the porkies in the first place. A fascinating example of media studies, and very professionally done.

I went home for a much delayed, hurried lunch and a swim, then almost immediately got called out. The big shot wanted to see the crew in action, for his report to Paris, so off we sailed, out from Antibes, and the coxswain took us deliberately, hair-raisingly close to all the most terrifying rocks along the coast, commenting on the dangers, and enumerating how many boats, bods and bodies had been pulled off each one. I don't think it was by chance, either, that he sailed not so far from a large, wrecked sailing boat, perched on a reef at an angle of 45 degrees, muttering quietly "Saved that lot of Italians only last week".

Hardly had we docked again, and readied the boat for the next call out, but the beepers went off, and we had to leave the big shot on the quay and speed out of harbour once again. Somebody with engine trouble, perilously close to the rocks at La Garoupe bay.

We got back, stinking with sweat, after nine pm. Twelve hours of lifeboat service in one day, a lot of rope work, two complete washes of all the windows, and four engine room routines. Not bad for a trainee...