Superheroes

Last night we were at Gators, a fine dining establishment with carpeting decorated like the astroturf on the University of Florida football field, an old fire engine on the street decorated with mascots of schools that UF has defeated, and a loud disco on the first floor. It is every bit as classy as its name implies.  I have been putting off going to eat here, but it is located directly across the street from the marina, and we gave back our rental car yesterday, so unless I wanted to cook steaks on the boat, Gators was our only option.

After we had eaten dinner, and were waiting on our Key Lime pie to arrive (delicious!), Mark stood up to look out the window.  The entire restaurant overlooks the water.  It is immediately inside the John's Pass Bridge.  We have been intrigued by the extremely strong current, and the current is enhanced by the bridge- the narrowest part of the waterway.

Mark was watching the current, and Robert asked what was he looking at.  So, Mark picked him up and started to point out the interesting parts of the bridge and how strong the current was, and... "Oh my gosh! There's a boat!"  Mark turned to me with the adrenaline-filled expression with which I am now quite familiar, and said again, "There's a boat!"  He put Robert down and ran out of the restaurant.

I knew where he was going, of course.  He was going to go help the boat.  I just had to hope he was going to the Coast Guard, and he wasn't going to try to help the boat by himself.

I looked out the window and saw the boat.  It was a small, 25 foot sailboat.  It was leaning over, but in the dark it was hard to tell what had happened. It still had its navigation lights on, and it appeared to be leaning against the vertical support of the bridge.  It may have also run aground onto some rocks, and it may have come to rest against a barge that was there because they are doing some kind of construction in the area of the bridge during the day.

It took me a very long time to process the situation- maybe an hour.  There is a boat with its lights on, possibly aground.  What is it doing there? Clearly if its lights are on, someone is on board.  What are they doing there? Why haven't they called for help?  Oh, no, maybe they got hurt.  Maybe when the boat hit the bridge, they got knocked out! Oh, no! Maybe they got knocked overboard and now they are in that freezing water in that terrible current! What took me 60 minutes to process, Mark figured out in a split second.

Mark ran out of the restaurant, down the street, and up the bridge to the drawbridge tower.  There he alerted the bridge personnel, who in turn alerted the Coast Guard. See, we didn't have our VHF with us in the restaurant. 

After the USCG was alerted, Mark went to the bank of the water and called to the man in the sailboat.  The sailor said he was fine except he hurt his hand, possibly broke it, and he said the boat was not taking on water.  Mark let him know the Coast Guard was on their way, and asked him what had happened.

The sailboat's outboard motor stopped working as he approached the bridge.  With a strong flood tide flowing under the bridge, the boat was quickly taken by the current and swept him into the construction area where they are placing new pilings for the bridge.  The current wrapped his boat up against a concrete wall and pinned his mast up in the bridge's trusses.  The Coast Guard showed up eventually and helped the man get off his boat.  Sea Tow came and tried to get the boat free, but couldn't do it.  They would have to wait until daylight and slack tide. The 3 knot current was pinning the boat against the wall so that the mast could not be freed from the bridge.

While Mark was gone, I explained to Robert that this was what his dad did: he always finds people who need help, and he goes to help them. Most readers here already know the story of Cowboy Hatt, and possibly the story of Tom from Volcano. And then there was the small speed boat with the Mexican family on board who we towed back into Zihuatenejo Bay at sunset as they were being swept out to sea without a VHF radio.

One of Mark's old friends used to call him Walter Mitty (as in, The Secret Life of W.M.), and my sister calls him Forrest Gump because he always seems to be in the right place at the right time. I don't know what it is, but I'm thankful I'm married to him. If there is ever an emergency,