A Short Story

On the last evening before we left St. Quay-Portrieux, I was walking back along the visitor’s pontoon and noticed a massive boat coming in to moor. I commented to some people sitting in a reasonably large yacht, fairly close to Jomima, that I hoped the boat was not about to moor between the two of us. We fell into a brief conversation and the lady sitting on the boat suddenly said, in a loud voice, “I know you. You rescued Sooty. Come and have a drink with us”. This took me a little by surprise but, needless to say, I accepted the invitation. The lady then explained. Last year Jomima had been moored next to their boat in Oban, Scotland. As I was leaving the finger pontoon between us their dog “Sooty” jumped off their boat, missed the pontoon, and ended up in the sea. The lady and her children panicked and all hell broke loose. Her husband was on a telephone conference call at the time so “Sooty” was left to swim for himself. Without thinking, I knelt down on the pontoon, grabbed “Sooty” by his harness, and hauled him out and then promptly forgot all about it. However, they had not.
It is amazing how you meet people, which you have met before in far flung places, when you lead a nomadic boating life style like ours.