by Ed Bethune
When Parker reached the life raft, he was all business. Dark haired and good-looking, Parker was in a black wetsuit and had an air of authority about him even though he was quite young. He quickly took charge, telling us we would need to get out of the raft, one at a time so that he could take us over to where the helicopter was hovering. He said, “Ladies first.” Lana did not hesitate; there was no time for idle chatter, no time to waste. I gave Lana a quick kiss, she slipped out of the raft and they were off, headed to the area about thirty yards away where the helicopter was waiting. The crew had lowered a rescue basket on a cable, and it was dangling just above the water. As Parker and Lana got close, the crew lowered the stainless steel basket, which is five feet long and two feet wide, into the water. Parker helped Lana into it, making sure she was secure. Then he signaled to the helicopter crew and the hoist started up. I waved to Lana but she did not see me, she was hanging on for dear life. It was 6:55 p.m. So far, the entire operation had taken fifteen minutes, which left twenty to thirty minutes for Parker to swim back to me, get me out of the life raft, and hoisted to safety. Things were looking good, but if equipment failed, or something went wrong, something that would use too much time, the Coast Guard might have to leave me and come back for me later. If that happened, I would need to pull the life raft back to Salute, climb on board the sailboat and wait for another opportunity to get off. I did not relish the idea of spending another night on Salute but at least Lana was safe.
Something did go wrong. It was not my fault; it was not the Coast Guard’s fault. It was the fault of Joyce’s “snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea.” During the time Parker was taking Lana to the rescue basket, Salute and the life raft, with me in it, had drifted almost the length of a football field from the rescue site. To reach me Parker would have to swim a long way through heavy, confused seas. He tried valiantly, but it was obvious that he was not making much progress in my direction. It was a strange sight. He was at least seventy-five yards away. At one moment, I, in a trough would be looking up the bank of a colossal wave where Parker, at the top, was swimming furiously in my direction but in a blink, we would change positions. I would be high on top of a wave looking down at Parker who, still seventy-five yards away, was now in the trough. This odd exchange, up and down, kept repeating itself, but Parker was getting no closer to me. There was little hope that he could reach me by swimming, so the helicopter crew decided to hoist Parker up and carry him to where I had drifted. Time was running out. The plan to hoist Parker, move him to my location, and then get both of us back into the helicopter would have to work perfectly or I was going to spend another night on Salute.
Miracles do happen. I know that to be true. As the helicopter neared Parker to lift and move him, he was on the crest of a wave looking way down to where I was at the bottom of a trough, now at least a hundred yards away. Suddenly, as if he were on a surfboard in Hawaii, Parker surfed down the wave. In seconds, he was with me, holding onto the life raft. He was coughing and spitting, choked with seawater and conspicuously fatigued. He had fought the unruly sea for almost half an hour. When he caught his breath, I said to him, “My son is a rescue swimmer in the United States Navy, and I love you both.” He smiled, just a little, and said, “Alright! Let me rest a minute then I will get you out of here.” The helicopter moved closer to where we were and in a few minutes, Parker took me to the rescue basket and got me settled into it.
Up. The hoist was lifting me up. Thank God! I was on my way to safety.
Then I was going down, down under the water, I opened my eyes, green water. What was happening? What was going on? I thought I was sinking, but then I was going up again.
I was out of the water and going up. Thank God, again. Wait, I was going down again, down under the water, green water again.
I held my breath until the basket got out of the water and this time, thank God, it kept going up. I looked down, saw Parker in the water, and looked up to see the crew getting ready to receive me. When they pulled me into the helicopter, I plunged into the seat next to Lana. We hugged and kissed each other, and thanked the crew for saving us, but they were busy lifting Parker out of the water and into the helicopter. When they got Parker inside the helicopter, he collapsed on the floor and scarcely moved for the next half hour.
It was 7:28 p.m.; the entire operation had taken forty-eight minutes, the outer limit for an HH-3F Helicopter that was still 210 miles from home. The pilots turned north, into the wind, heading for their home base, Air Station Cape Cod. The Falcon jet, Coast Guard 2121, escorted us back to base. The first search jet, Coast Guard 2116, had already gone home.
As we flew away, I saw Salute, with the life raft attached. She was still rolling violently with her mainsail collapsed over the side, hanging into the water. I felt sad that we were leaving her, but it was the right decision. We lost everything that was on the boat. Lana had tied a waterproof pouch around her waist that held our cash, our credit cards, and our driver’s licenses. That, and the clothes on our back were all we salvaged. Salute was now just another speck of white in a sea of large whitecaps; she blended in and soon was lost to sight. It was easy to see why it is so hard for search pilots to find a small sailing vessel in a stormy sea, even when they have exact coordinates fixing the position. Our dream of sailing across the Atlantic was also gone, but we took it in stride; after all, we were safe. We would live to see our children and loved ones once again.
As darkness engulfed us, the crew wired us up with earphones and microphones enabling us to talk to the pilots and crew on the long flight to land. We, of course, were effusive in our praise and thankful for what they had just done. I wasted no time telling them that I had served as a member of the United States House of Representatives, and that I intended to tell all my friends and former colleagues of my respect and admiration for the United States Coast Guard. It did not matter that I had served in Congress but it did matter that they had rescued us without regard to who we were, who we knew, or what we might do for them or the Coast Guard. That is how things ought to work.
It took almost two hours to fly to Air Station Cape Cod, and we saw the lights of Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and Cape Cod as we neared land. It was enchanting. We would live to get another sailboat and sail again in the blue water, but land and civilization looked good to us at that moment. When the HH-23 Helicopter landed, Coast Guard 1475 and crew had been in the air for four hours. The aircraft may have been able to fly for another half-hour, or forty-five minutes, but then it would have been running on fumes.
The commanding officer of Air Station Cape Cod met us as we got off the helicopter. We thanked him and praised the crew. He simply said, “It is our duty; it is what we do.” He turned us over to a medical officer who gave us a quick but thorough examination. He concluded we suffered from exhaustion but nothing more. Someone asked if we would be agreeable to a news conference about the rescue because there had been reports of it along with other local news about the storm, and the damage it had done ashore. I said I would be happy to tell about our rescue, so the news conference was set for 9:00 a.m. the next morning.
The pilots and crew invited us to spend the night on base, and as we were on our way to the officer’s quarters, the commanding officer whispered to me that the rescue crews love to visit with the survivors. It is good for their morale, but they also learn things that may help them in the future. We were dead tired, but nothing was going to keep us from visiting with our rescuers, for as long as they wanted.
First, we called our children and parents and gave a short version of our misadventure. We played it down as no big deal and told them we would give them the whole story soon enough. Then we plopped down in the officer’s lounge to sip coffee, eat snacks, and talk with our rescuers. Parker was too tired to do anything but go to bed, but the others were there. We talked about the entire operation, and they filled us in on how they planned and coordinated our rescue. We learned that most Coastguardsmen are in the service because it is a ca
lling to serve and protect the United States, and to help people in the process. It is different from conventional military service, and the difference is what attracts them to the Coast Guard. It was a fascinating visit but I was itching to ask the question that had been on my mind since they hoisted me from the water to the helicopter.
I directed my question to the pilot of the helicopter, Lieutenant Commander Robert Hughes. I said, “When I was being hoisted I was going up out of the water and then down underwater, over and over again.” All the rescuers started giggling, and Lana and I giggled too, because it was a funny sight to see. Finally, the pilot said, “We call that teabagging.” That broke up the room and we all had a good laugh. Lieutenant Commander Hughes then explained the challenge of getting a smooth lift in a helicopter when the sea is rising and falling and the winds are blowing hard. He explained the physics of it and it made sense, but I have long since forgotten the technical aspects of teabagging. My explanation is shorter. Getting teabagged may have an ugly connotation in today’s world, but getting teabagged by the Coast Guard in 1990 in the course of a difficult rescue mission beats perishing at sea.
We got to bed about 10:45 p.m. Lana, as usual, fell asleep right away. I expected to because I was tired, but I could not stop thinking about what we had just gone through. We lost our boat and we were not going to live out our dream to sail the routes of the Apostle Paul. Our dream was gone, but we were alive and safe, and it occurred to me that I had taken a step that I might not have taken otherwise. The hammering we took for thirty-six hours in the middle of a wild and stormy sea worked on me as a jackhammer works on solid concrete. The constant pounding shattered my rock-solid mindset, the one that had always told me that I—me, the big enchilada—could will my way out of any predicament. I was nearing fifty-five years of age but I finally “got it.” When I was at the mercy of the sea, I accepted, for the first time in my life that man is never in total control. There are times when no amount of logic, emotion or willpower can save you. All my life I have misunderstood, perhaps intentionally, the concept of Christian surrender. I saw it as an intellectual proposition. Surrender, I reckoned, was the ongoing business of obeying the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I figured, this being the modern world, that God would judge my obedience and my faith by reference to my behavior, my service, and my works. I thought that by believing in the Trinity and being good I was surrendering. I had accepted the wise teaching I learned at Potomac Chapel, that we must put God in the center of our lives, not man. Nevertheless, I saw the concepts of surrender, obedience, and faith as a complex business. That was a misunderstanding. Honest, total surrender is not complicated it is simple. Obedience is simple, and faith is simple. The parable of the fig tree teaches that we all need pruning from time to time. Pruning is good, and it works for most people but it takes a powerful force—a jackhammer—to bust up a mindset as tough as mine. The disaster on the high seas changed my life. The experience opened my mind. Now I had to figure out what I needed to do next. I began to ask myself questions, “If I scrub away the last vestiges of Vermilyeism, what then will I be? How then shall I live?” I fell asleep realizing that I had more to learn, more to understand, more to …
We got up early and went to the Coast Guard Exchange as soon as it opened. We needed to buy some clothes for the news conference but we also needed to get toiletries, shoes, socks, underwear, and other necessities. The list was long, and it got longer when we added brushes, lipstick, mascara, facial crème and other indispensable items for Lana’s new purse. We did not have much time because we needed to change clothes and get to the news conference at 9:00 a.m. We sped through the aisles grabbing one item after another. Our escapade reminded us of an old TV game show that let contestants keep whatever they could stuff into a grocery basket in fifteen minutes. At 8:50 a.m., we stopped shopping, put on our new duds, and headed to the site of the news conference. I was surprised to see the big turnout of media. The commanding officer and public relations people opened the conference by describing the rescue then they asked me to speak about our experience.
Wearing a brand-new Air Station Cape Cod ball cap, I said, “I have just three things to say. The Coast Guard is great! The Coast Guard is great! The Coast Guard is great!” There were other questions, but my opening lines became the lead in most of the stories. There is a small advantage to serving in high political office: You learn the art of coining irresistible sound bites. Our story was the top story locally and the wire services spread it all across the country.
As the news conference broke up, I asked the commanding officer if it would be appropriate for me to buy several cases of Moosehead beer for the men in his unit. He could not say yes officially, but I got the distinct impression that the beer would find its way to the right place if I had it delivered to the base. That afternoon a truck driver offloaded case after case of Moosehead beer, and it was gone the next day. It was our way of saying thanks for a job well done.
There was one more thing we had to do to wind up business with the Coast Guard. Tampa, the Coast Guard cutter steaming in the area near the site of our rescue had located Salute. She was foundering, a hazard to navigation. We authorized the captain of Tampa to sink her, and he did. It was a painful decision, but it was the only thing to do. It would have been irresponsible to leave a hazard that might put other sailors in harm’s way. We closed the book on Salute and our dream to sail the routes of the Apostle Paul. What should we do next? We had arranged our affairs so that we could be gone for a long time, but we had no boat. Should we go home and start over, or should we take time to think deeply, introspectively about our near-death experience? We needed a new plan.
49
OUR NEW PLAN,
BACKPACKING IN EUROPE
Be happy while y’er leevin’, For y’er a lang time dead.
Anonymous (Scotland)
Not everyone has looked death in the eye and lived to tell about it. If we returned to conventional life in the work-a-day world, there would be time for introspection, but we would have to squeeze it into a schedule dominated by the events and obligations that often cause us to say, “I wonder where the day went? I had the best plans but never got around to doing what I intended to do.” We wanted to cloister ourselves from such distractions to the extent we could. We knew how to find the right environment for good thinking. We learned that lesson when we sailed Salute to the Bahamas for a six-month sabbatical.
It was an easy decision. We would take another sabbatical. We had set aside the time, and while we did not have a lot of money, we had enough for a few months even though touring on land is more expensive than traveling and living on a sailboat. Our kids and parents were doing fine and we were still young. We decided to seize the moment and worry about the future later. If it meant starting over from scratch, we had no fear of that; we had done it many times and we could do it again.
The second decision we made was to stay away from Portugal, the Mediterranean, and countries we had intended to visit on Salute. Visiting those ports would remind us of our failure to sail across the Atlantic. Dwelling on the past, particularly adventures that did not work out as planned, is not our thing.
We took a room at The Falmouth Square Inn, a quaint Cape Cod inn near Air Station Cape Cod, to flesh out a new plan. We walked to the library and scoured the travel section. After hours and hours of reading, thinking, and talking we decided to go to England, Scotland, and the north of France. Our family roots reach deep into those places. A long visit would let us learn more about our European heritage, something we had talked about for years.
Having chosen our destination, we next agreed that we would travel unconventionally. Most people our age take too much baggage, rent too many cars, hire too many taxis, and eat in too many restaurants. We had prepared ourselves for a long, low budget sailing voyage on a small boat. Now we wanted to travel over land similar to the way sailors travel the seas. We decided to backpack and spend our nights in B&B’s, or gites when in France. We
made a commitment to hike when we could and take public busses and trains when we were going too far to walk. We vowed to stay out of restaurants except for an occasional lunch. Our rules would save money, force us to mix and mingle with the locals, better understand the culture, and give us plenty of exercise. That is how it is for sailors, and that is what we wanted.
Our plan was too austere and vigorous for most couples in their early fifties, but it was perfect for us. We have long admired G. K. Chesterton’s essay, “On Running after One’s Hat.” Chesterton compares the image of a man chasing a hat that has blown off his head and is tumbling down the street with the image of a man chasing a bouncing football. The man chasing the hat is grumbling and upset, but the man chasing the football is excited and happy. Chesterton wisely concludes, “An adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered; whereas an inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.”
We booked a flight to Glasgow, Scotland to leave on Monday, June 18, 1990 but we had much to do before taking off. First, we needed new passports. Ours had gone down with the ship. I called Newt Gingrich’s office in D.C. and got his staff to set up an expedited passport process with the Boston Passport Agency of the Department of State. I had done the same for many constituents when I was in Congress. Everything worked like clockwork and we picked up our new passports on Friday, June 15.
We found backpacks small enough to carry but big enough to hold our clothes and toiletries. We were ready to go.
When we were researching our travel plans at the Falmouth Library, Lana met a nice man who soon figured out that we were the couple he had just read about in the Falmouth newspaper. He invited us to attend his church on Sunday and then join him and his wife for lunch afterward. We did, and it was then that we told the fullness of our story for the first time. It was good to get it off our chests, but we could see from the way it affected our hosts that our tale had a meaning larger than the mechanics of the rescue. When we told our new friends that we were going to Glasgow, they said they had dear friends living there, Ian and Anne Grant. They called the Grants and Anne said she would pick us up at the Glasgow airport. She insisted that we stay a few nights with them. Our new adventure was off to a good start.