 |
| Where the fuck is that anchor? |
This small crumb was about to be blasted away by a megaton nuclear bomb.
As I have previously mentioned I am scared of boats, so Emma obviously thought that bullying me into hiring a speed boat would be a lovely way to reconcile our holiday. We walked along the sandy beach in glorious sunshine believing that today could really, finally be our day.
We found a generic boat hire place that we had scouted out a few days previously. €35 for one hour hire plus whatever petrol we used. A bit steep but how often do you get your own speed boat and as ever, I agreed to keep Emma happy.
So the guy from the hire company started to run through the basics of the boat, steering, power, stowing the steps, where to find snorkel gear, the stuff you need to know. Now let me just say he was directing all this nautical knowledge at me, not because he was sexist or anything but because Emma had a glazed look in her eyes. He must have taken it as her just being bored, I meanwhile knew she was just picturing herself like James Bond tearing through the bay.
Remember that. Remember that she wasn’t paying attention at all.
So, we set off towards two rocky islands which were about 15 minutes from the shoreline and apart from Emma stealing my baseball cap for a brief wonderful moment, all was well in my world; the sea was a mill pond of placidity with barely a rippling wave, the sun was hot, and I was actually starting to see the benefits of being out on the water.
We came to the second island and decided to stop and try some snorkelling. To do that we needed to anchor the boat. Emma was at the front of the boat, so naturally I asked Emma to drop anchor, Emma took this direction very literally and threw the damn thing overboard like she was releasing a bird to flight. I watched as the weighty bastard tore down to the depths and took with it it’s metal chain and the ten feet of orange rope it was attached to.
As the rope disappeared over the edge like a mouse down a hole, my first thought was that that shouldn’t happen; so naturally I went over to inspect the issue. I was just about to lift the hatch to inspect the rope that lead from it down into the sea when I was met by Emma saying AND I QUOTE:
“Why are you checking it? You don’t need to check everything, it’s fine”
So, rather than waste time squabbling in the middle of the sea. I slowly walked away from the hatch and let it be, which in hindsight, was a stupid thing to do.
I found the snorkelling gear and we dived in for a swim. With snorkelling goggles and mouth apparatus equipped I immediately swam to front of the boat to inspect the anchor and the first thing I noticed was the lack of a fucking anchor. I came up above the water and nope no chain or rope leading from the boat to the water and nope no anchor under the water either.
Shit
The Anchor is gone
SHIT
Me: “EMMA THE FUCKING ANCHOR IS GONE”
Emma: “What?”
Me: “THE FUCKING ANCHOR IS FUCKING GONE”
Emma: “Oh...fuck.”
Emma swam round to meet me and inspect the seabed for our stray anchor, but no, it was gone. It was then we realised that without an anchor our boat had drifted off and was heading steadily towards the rocky islands which we were strictly told to avoid due to the shallow waters surrounding them.
FUCCCKKKKK
Swimming like a demented seal I made it to the boat and pushed it into reverse to pick up Emma.
We sat in silence contemplating our options, our dire, dire options.
Option 1) We stay put on the boat and try to dive and retrieve the anchor ourselves and just apologise for being late back. But then what if we couldn't find it and we were late back and then got double the ass whooping?!
Option 2) We head back and say nothing and pray to God they don’t check to see if the anchor is still in the boat. Why would they? No one LOSES A FUCKING ANCHOR. However, what if they do check and then it’s pretty obvious we have deliberately not told them as no one JUST MISPLACES AN ANCHOR!
Option 3) We fess up instantly, say we’re sorry and get the hell out ASAP and hope to God they take it well.
After much debate we went for option 3, the least likely to get us beaten up or murdered. But now we needed to re-work our story slightly as saying that Emma shot putted it over the edge of the boat, failing to consider that you may need to tie the anchor to the boat wouldn’t really help us.
We changed the story to one where Emma wasn’t a complete tool and one in which she tied the end of the rope to the rail on the boat and it must have somehow come loose whilst we where swimming, after all we knew nothing about knots and the guy never showed us. A good story, a defendable story.
We sat in silence in our boat too scared to return back and face whatever drama may ensue. We wanted to laugh, it was ridiculous – this doesn’t happen to anyone else, but the fear of what was coming was all too real, so we sat in silence.
We made it back and our still happy rental guy was smiling and waving us in.
Deep breath. Here we go:
Rental Guy: “Did you go for a swim?”
Me: “
Rental Guy: “Did you see any sharks?”
Me”
Rental Guy: “Oh no but I always like to see what people say!”
Me: “
Rental: “So let me just see what petrol you’ve used-”
Me “We lost your anchor.”
Rental Guy “WAT?”
The next 10 – 15 minutes consisted of us telling our slightly made up story accurately enough to be believed but vaguely enough to avoid further questions.
What we soon learnt was that we could either pay a fine for the anchor or go back out, this time under the watchful gaze of rental guy, to look for it. By this point I had truly had enough of being on the water so I asked how much the fine would be.
It was €100.
We got back in the boat.
So we’re tearing towards the islands like we’re on a quest, if it had been a film then the ride of the valkyries would have been our backing music. It was somewhere fantastic between incredibly cool and incredibly awkward.
And then my baseball cap which Emma had stolen was blown off her head by the wind and hurled into the sea.
I could feel the rental guys scornful gaze. Of course we lost an anchor! We couldn’t even look after a hat. Rental guy begrudgingly rounded the boat to retrieve my sopping wet and now ruined hat and then, once again, we set back off towards the island.
What soon became painfully apparent was that we had no idea where we had stopped, and despite our direction, rental boat guy refused to listen to us and seemed to go the opposite way to where we said. For some reason I think he disliked us.
I mentioned to the rental guy that we had taken some pictures just before we jumped in, perfect. Maybe we could work out where we had been when Emma literally dropped anchor earlier.
One thing I didn’t think about was that these pictures were of Emma, in her best vogue pose at the hull of the boat. Possibly the cringiest thing to show anyone, let alone the seething rental boat guy.
But the icing on the cake came when he asked Emma to recreate the pose to help us try and work out the boat's position just an hour before. Now Emma, I can see, is in no mood. So with a face like thunder she slammed herself down at the hull and sat hunched over staring out to sea. Not quite the same as the original picture but even rental boat guy got her ever so subtle message ‘to shut the fuck up’.
We searched and we searched for over an hour. And as much as we prayed we would, we didn’t find the anchor.
The full impact of our Emma’s mistake was starting to hit.
We still had two full days left in Corfu, and if we had to pay €100 to this guy we would be living on a much tighter budget than we had been, not awful, but we couldn’t afford any more unnecessary expenditure.
But of course, fate was not so kind:
€100 for the anchor.
€35 for the boat hire
€20 for petrol (including the petrol we used in the additional hour searching)
€15 search and rescue fee
Search and rescue fee. Let that sink in. We did the searching ourselves and the lack of the rescue was the reason we had to pay another €100 for the sodding anchor.
But we paid, I mean I paid, you see Emma had run out of money by this point anyway as she had convinced herself, somehow, that €200 was enough spending money for a week's holiday.
Spoiler: it wasn't.
So with the rest of the rental boat company gathered around us like snickering hyenas, I coughed up the €100 for her mistake.
BUT WE WERE FREE! At least free enough to get the fuck off that beach and never return.
Despite the unmitigated disaster, we did actually gain something and we are now the proud owners of a rusting anchor laying somewhere just of the coast of south west Corfu.
How many people can say that?
Once off the beach we had to inspect our monetary situation. It was dire. We worked out if we budgeted we could make it stretch.
That budget included:
- Buying cereal to see us though lunch and breakfast
- Scrapping any further plans for going out on any day
- Spending our evenings playing along to Radio 1’s innuendo bingo
- Listening to Scott Mills’ Radio 1 podcast
- Drinking in our rooms and not in bars
- Not buying anyone ANY presents
- Sitting outside bars to steal Wi-Fi but never actually going in
- Playing a lot of card games
- Sitting by the pool at our hotel
The day after anchor gate, somewhere in-between finishing our small bowls of cereal and opening our 1.90 Euro wine we decided our story was so bad and hilarious that we should text in to the Scott Mills Radio show about how his show’s podcast was now saving our relationship.
What we didn’t expect was to be called back instantly and put on air, sharing our awful story with the millions of listener’s world wide.
I hope you all had a good laugh.
This story has already become a bit of a legend. It’s my go to talking point, a story that will NEVER EVER be one upped.
That said there are two camps this story splits people into:
Camp 1) That Emma should have checked that the anchor was in someway attached to the boat before hammer throwing it over the side.
Camp 2) That the anchor should either been attached or we should have SPECIFICALLY been told that it needed to be tied. (Which is utterly wrong and stupid.)
I know a lot went wrong on our holiday, but this ranks number one, the cherry on top, the crowing glory. But, it was by no means the end of our endless bad luck.....
No comments:
Post a Comment