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Chapter Rescue

Jim

It was a bad day on the water. I was sailing my boat alone in the North Channel, which is part of the Great Lakes. It was early in the season so I had seen very few boats in June. The weather was the big surprise as it had been warm and calm with a bright sun. My morning weather update from Thunder Bay Coast Guard Radio had mentioned a chance for thunderstorms in our area but less than 30%. When the clouds began to build and the special marine warning came on the VHF radio I had about 20 minutes to get to a safe spot. I needed 30 minutes to cover three miles to safety.

Certain thunderstorms travel as a wave at over 60 miles an hour in the upper mid-west and this was one of those. When you know you are facing a storm you prepare the boat by taking in the larger jib and reefing the main. I would have liked to get the main down as well but I didn't have the time. The front hit and a second gust gave me a full knock down , the mast hit the water as the boat was blown onto its side, the first ever for my very stiff boat. I think it was in that blast that I lost the VHF antenna and wind sensors at the top of the mast.

The wind shrieked for a long time followed by hail and heavy rain. I was heaved too and hanging on as the waves built from nothing to 6 or 8 feet. It finally began to drop and I made my way slowly the last couple of miles to shelter. Only then did visibility improve to where I could see the second boat. She was lying ahull, that is parallel to the waves, and rolling through more than 90 degrees. I tried to call on the radio but didn't get through thanks to the lost antenna. Moving in close I looked for any sign of a person on board . I sounded my horn, and tried to raise their attention. There was no dinghy so there was a chance that they had left. I was about to move on when I saw a hand faintly wave from the bottom of the cockpit.

Now what to do? The boat was about 200 yards from some steep rock where these large waves were breaking with a furry. I yelled again and saw a head. I asked if they could take a tow and there was a shake of NO. I could not move along side as the rocking of the two boats would have damaged each. The person was wearing a rain jacket with hood. The only hope was for the person to jump over the side and grab a line that I would toss and be hauled aboard. I yelled and yelled and the face looked at the rocks and crawled over the side. I was able to throw the life sling, which was caught and put under the arms. I had no time to haul the person in as I had to begin to move my boat out of the danger zone. After 5 minutes of desperate work I was able to turn back to the swimmer and haul them to the side of the boat. The 40 degree water had turned the victim into an unconscious lump. Using the vang and a halyard I was able to lift the dead weight from the water and get it below. I then took ten minutes to get out of the waves completely at Bear Drop harbor and drop the anchor. With the boat safe I went below to help the victim.

It was a girl wearing jeans a shirt and a rain jacket. Her face was blue but she had a weak pulse and was breathing. She also went from violent shivers to still while I took her vitals – not a good sign. If you sail in cold water you should have read and understood the treatment for hypothermia. Hot liquids or a hot shower don't work. Close contact and body heat does. I stripped off her soaked cold clothes to find a bluewhite clammy body. I put her in my bunk, stripped off my clothes and pulled the quilt over us. I held her tightly to me first spooning her back. It was like clinging to a block of ice. After a time she began to shiver and I turned he back to the cabin wall and pressed my warm back against her front. Slowly over four hours she began to warm. She said something and I got up to make soup. She was able to eat some and I was able to eat a lot and then we got back to warming. She was now just clammy and white. I began to notice that she was young and there were definitely female features – In fact she had medium breast a thin waist and rounded thighs.

I fell asleep and I am sure she did too but not before I had noticed she had a firm object at the side of each nipple. I was awake first and up making coffee when she woke up and asked where she was. I explained about the boat and the storm and told her we were safe and told her that the wind, which was now howling through the rig, was not a danger to us. The thunderstorm had been followed by a strong cold front.

I brought her coffee and she asked about her clothes and I explained about using body heat to warm her. She also told me her tale of being on a charter boat with a female skipper. As the storm had come down on them the skipper could not get the engine started and had taken to the dinghy to try to pull the boat with it. The towline had broken and she had panicked and been blown off by the storm.

I gave her some of my clothes and she came out to the cabin and we had a nice hot breakfast. She asked about getting to a harbor and I explained about the weather. She asked about communications and by that time I had looked for and found the missing antenna. We were going to be together until the weather cleared. The low clouds would even prevent a coast guard search by air. I had tried my cell phone without getting a signal. I went on deck and tried again and was able to get through and report the rescue on a very bad connection.

It was a long slow morning with her asking lots of questions about me and the boat and I began to notice that she was a very posed and good-looking female of about 25. We even got to names and she told me hers was Ruth. I commented on the oddity of the name and told her that I had enjoyed Ruth Whiteapple's movies thinking the names was a coincident as she had brown hair. Her response left me gasping.

“I am happy you liked my work”.

My first startled response was “You're not a blond”.

She stated she really was but wore it brown when she wanted to get away from it all, her reason for the sailing trip. We talked about many things and she eventually asked for paper to write down her experiences and I offered her my laptop. She took it and was typing away while I took a nap before cooking dinner.

Ruth

I had been so scared and the water was so cold. I tried to swim but it just made me numb and soon my arms and legs didn't work. I just seemed tired. My last thought was that I was surely going to die. When I began to realize that I was not dead it took a long time to realize that there was someone holding me. When I was truly aware I could not understand why I wasn't in a proper hospital..

Jim was very good at explaining the circumstances and getting me back to functioning. The soup and rest made me feel like a person again but I think I will be cold forever. How to thank this man for saving me? A new boat, money, he was my dad's age, what to get dad?

I thought I would write down my experiences as I had heard that it helps you deal with post-traumatic stress and asked for paper. What I got was his laptop. I was typing away and he began to snore in the other cabin. Perhaps his laptop held clues to his interests.

I opened the files that he had recently used in Word. Well it was his interest all right but at a level I had not expected. The first was a letter to a Mistress Amanda Wildefyre. It was a review of a session in which the mistress had bound and controlled him using a variety of mild tortures. He told of loving it.

The second was a story about a man who is in a “switch” relationship with a woman. They go though four situations man in control - man's fantasy, women in control - man's fantasy, woman in control - woman's fantasy and finally man in control - woman's fantasy. It was thrilling and I began to realize that these things were turning me on and they were all centered on control or being controlled. I had known for some time that physical control and symbolic torture were very hot items on the play list of my libido. There were more but he woke up and I went back to typing.

Jim

The next day the weather allowed us to go to Blind River and a marina. The coast guard was glad we were safe and had found the skipper of Ruth's boat walking dazed along the Trans-Canada Highway.

Ruth asked for a picture, which we took with my digital camera. We transferred it to the laptop and Ruth asked for a CD so she could burn a copy of the picture and the things that she had been writing.

She took my sailing card. She said a quick goodbye and left wearing some of my clothes in a cab headed for the nearest airport. There she had arranged a plane to pick her up. I thought that would be our last meeting and that I would never be able to convince anyone that I had spent 12 hours; naked; in bed with a major star. It turned out she was a much bigger person than I thought and that we had more in common than I would have dreamed.

Ruth

I got the picture all right, my notes and his whole directory of writings and letters to Mistress Amanda. I had everything I needed for a grand gift.