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The Amazing Caine Story |
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The Sails Blew Out And We Stranded | ||||||||
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| X-FILES Under the name X-Files we write about the unexpected events that might change our lives. Feel free to comment and to send your own story to info@global-unlimited.com. |
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| The sailors’ adventures of the South African family Caine are as well as dramatic as full of charm. It is a heartbreaking story about the pensioned surgeon dr. Garron, his wife Robyn, the kids Lara and Robert and hand-for-a-bunk sailors Lionel, Nicki and Hanri. Leaving Cape Town, South Africa, on an early morning before six o’clock without a mile experience the Caines jumped in an all-time adventure. February 2001 It started with a tragedy. My Mother, Dodo, drowned in the family swimming pool. She was 98 years old. Her granny flat had been ransacked by ‘baddies’, as my 9 year old daughter would say. Hobbling forward on her walking frame to alert us of the burglary, she must have tripped, fallen into the swimming pool, and drowned in 3 feet of water. To think she had once won a medal for an ocean swim! I am a retired surgeon, aged 72. My wife, Robyn, will catch up to me in 28 years. Besides Lara, aged 9, we have another child, Robert aged 12. By another marriage, I have a daughter, Nicola, who is 34 years old. We live in Kommetjie, a seaside village on the Atlantic coast, 50km south of Cape Town. Neither Robyn nor I are yachties, and yet this is a story of a family at sea. Mostly, literally, but often figuratively. We would never have considered the adventure had Dodo’s death and my retirement not coincided. It was prompted by a serendipitous trip to Hout Bay Yacht Club, where my nephew, Nigel, had a yacht called Roly Poly. It was really no more than a Sunday afternoon outing on a warm winter’s day with a gentle breeze. Yachts, on a day like that, invite a suggestion like, “Let’s go sailing” from Robyn.,“Why not?” I replied, not for a moment thinking she was serious.  Six months later we set sail. What sort of yacht should we buy? How much could we afford?! How much sailing experience did we need? What about a navigation course? Children’s schooling? Letting the house? These were some of the many questions common, I’m sure, to all such adventures. In brief, the answers were: Garron – a 36 foot sloop. Robyn – it must look good, have 3 cabins with doors and have a nice name. In my first school report aged 6, I was described as impetuous. Nothing’s changed. Wendy, the yacht broker, was a delightful young lady. She introduced us to _ a dozen yachts over a two month period. We took the 7th one, a 36 ft sloop, 14 years old, with a nice name – Dream On. By the time our adventure ended, none of the doors had ever been closed except Robert’s. An 11 year old needs his privacy. What about price? We could afford R300,000.00 – it finally cost twice that. Experience? We decided we didn’t need too much. Robyn said none, because she didn’t want to be seasick more than once. Being a responsible father, I decided to learn the ropes, but ran out of time. The yacht was on the hard for 3 months after purchase and winter was approaching. When finally it was put in the water, we set ourselves a sailing date not later than the end of April. With two weeks to go I took her across Table Bay – the one and only shake down sail. We sailed across the bay with two newly acquired crew – more of them later. The anchor was dropped with 50m of chain which disappeared before my eyes. It had not been tied on. We motored back ‘with all dispatch’. The idea was to invite the University of Cape Town Scuba Club to rescue the treasure on the basis of “no find, no pay”. The anchor had disappeared in 16m of water. The Man Overboard button was pressed as an afterthought. A minute or two too late for an accurate GPS fix. Several rescue attempts were unsuccessful. |
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