Spooky Sailing Stories: The St. Croix Swimmer

by Jonathan Lewis

It was a dark moonless night and the incessant rolling that the harbor in Christiansted, St. Croix is known for was omnipresent. It’s actually a roadstead, and offers minimal protection and in certain conditions is quite exposed, but my wife and I were working at St. Croix Marine. The ability to row to our jobs outweighed the seemingly constant motion of our vessel.

We were fast asleep in the aft cabin when a cry for help penetrated our sanctuary. We both bolted upright and questioned what we thought we heard drifting into our drowsy brains. There it was again. “Help.” We exited into the cockpit and peered through the darkness but we couldn’t see anything. It was strangely calm and our orange Metzeler inflatable that was tied to the stern—seemingly suspended in air—was the only thing visible. “Help.“ There it was again, spoken softly this time and barely discernible.  

“Where are you?” we responded in unison. No reply. We removed the spotlight from the lazarette and scanned the surface, populating our vision with the now illuminated white hulls of various boats anchored and moored in our proximity, but nothing of note was revealed.

“Help.” There it was again, almost a whisper but this time from a discernible direction.

I scrambled into the dinghy and began rowing towards the position I thought the voice was emanating from. The spotlight beam that Betsy was shining from the cockpit was now in my face and I had her extinguish it so my limited night vision might return. I steadied the oars and listened carefully but the only sounds were the droplets falling from the blades punctuating the surface. I sat there in complete darkness, not sure of what I had gotten myself into. “Help.” A barely audible plea now drifted across the water.

“I can’t see you,” I called out into the night. This time, a strong reply returned that sent shivers down my spine.

“But I can see you,” shot across the surface like a fish after prey.  I turned the Metzeler’s bow away from the husky voice so I was now peering into the blackness, scanning for its origin. Then I saw it, first a hand and then an outstretched arm glistening white across a varnished mahogany transom. I rowed closer. There was a body and a head attached in the water. When I reached him, I soon discovered a wet and drunken sailor who’d fallen off his now sunken pram trying to board his boat. He had been grasping a nearby unoccupied powerboat but didn’t have the strength to pull himself out of the water or the wherewithal to swim to a craft with less freeboard. As it turned out, he was close to drowning and I needed to summon help to get his sodden deadweight aboard.

Later that next day, a man came into the chandlery wearing the same but now dry Hawaiian shirt and a smile. I told him I was the guy who saved him in the predawn hours, thinking he might not recognize me considering his prior inebriated state. He inquired about a shackle, complained about the price and departed. Another day in paradise. •SCA•