The lure of sharks - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 121

said, “No good, too dark, too rough, we go look mañana, ” and then
went back to bed.
The o¤shore wind had picked up considerably by now, and we knew
the boat must have drifted a good distance from shore, on its way to-
ward the mainland of Mexico, seventy miles across the Gulf. We men-
tally reconstructed what had happened. Being unfamiliar with the ex-
treme tides in San Felipe, Murray had put out what he thought was
an ample length of anchor line. But it was low tide. When the tide
came back in, the rising boat simply lifted the anchor out of the sand,
and away it went with the o¤shore wind. It really wasn't Murray's fault,
but he felt terrible. I blamed myself for not warning him about the
Gulf 's tremendous tides.
Feeling totally helpless, we went back to the bar for some tequilas
and desperately tried to think of some way to find Sea World's boat.
There is a little dirt air strip in San Felipe; maybe if we could talk an
American pilot into flying out over the Gulf, he'd be able to spot the
little boat drifting along.
After a sleepless night we got up at dawn to drive to the airfield. By
now the wind was blowing about forty knots straight out to sea. But
luck seemed to be with us: a Cessna was just getting ready to leave. We
told the pilot of our predicament and asked if he would help us by tak-
ing a quick look for our missing boat. He said he was sorry but if he
didn't get out of there right now and head for the States he wouldn't
be able to take o¤ later if the wind got any worse. We watched him
taxi to the end of the strip, take o¤, and disappear. Our last hope of
getting the boat back was dashed.
Even though it was still early morning, we headed for the bar, where
we sat staring blankly out at the choppy sea, mentally preparing our
résumés for our next jobs. Three tequilas later Murray said, “Look!
What's that?” and pointed to two specks heading toward us from the
horizon. As they came closer we recognized the distinctive Sea World
Thunderbird and alongside it a panga, with one man in each boat.
Grabbing a large amount of cash from my room, we raced down to
the harbor to greet the two returning boats. I could have kissed the
two fishermen! What they were doing way out there in this awful wind
I never did find out, but they had spotted our boat sailing merrily along