My wife is an intrepid spirit who has been whistling to her own tune, her whole life. Rather than heading off to college after high school, she decided to move to the Caribbean with a girlfriend. They headed off to the BVI's, specifically Tortolla.
She worked in a dive shop and was working towards her Dive Master Certification. Turned out that her ears weren't up to going down to the lower depths necessary for qualification, but that's another story.
She also sang in one of the local bars at night for free drinks and food. The bar had a Parrot that could talk and it mostly just said "Schipperke, Schipperke, rah rah rah" Turns out that the bird used to live on a boat with a dog that was a schipperke, well known water dogs.
She was in the bar, early one evening, shooting the shit with employees and the regulars, when the marine radio cracked to life. The entire island revolved around sailing and diving. Everyone had a marine radio.
A large swell had developed and someone appeared to be in trouble.
Rental Boat: "Come in Saba Radio, Mayday Mayday."
Saba Radio: "Go ahead, what seems to be the problem?"
Rental Boat: "We are headed towards the rocks!"
Saba Radio: "Ok, lower your sails and drop anchor."
Rental Boat: "We don't have any more anchors, they didn't give us enough for the week."
Saba Radio: "What are you talking about?
Rental Boat: "We ran out of anchors this morning."
The coastal services were able to get to the foundering boat before it washed up on the rocks, nobody was injured. This dumbass couple had been on the water for three days, in their rental sailboat, and each morning would cut the line to the deployed anchor and start their day anew. After the third morning, they were out of anchors!
They say you can't measure stupid just by looking at someone, but I imagine you could've spotted some serious stupid, just by looking at this couple. I guess it shows the throw-away culture that we live in.
Having the confidence to captain your own boat, in the open Caribbean, and not know how or why you should recover your anchor each morning is truly frightening. There's a reason that my wife and her friends referred to the tourists as, Big Pink Babies.
Have you encountered such reckless behavior from novices?
Would you have allowed the boat to wash up on the rocks to teach these people a lesson?
Were you the one's that rented the boat? C'mon, you're out there somewhere.
