I should know better

I suppose I will go ahead and confess to the sordid shipwreck story.

Palm trees shedding coconuts on desert island beaches are not involved here. Readjust your anticipation - we are on Loch Lomond in a rising force 5 on a chilly September day. I can hear the rushing noise as dozens (note the optimism) of you quit the blog at once. Sensible you - we should have done the same on that day. But we were trying a new boat, and sense was not on board.

Suffice it to say we tried a really hairy gybe and capsized. Right over. Keel in the air. Stuck there clinging to the hull, suddenly totally aware that the loch is a glaciated one and almost 700 feet deep in the middle.

Well, we floated in and at last came ashore on one of the larger islands as dusk was falling. I squelched out, very glad of dry land. The boat owner staggered out and sat down suddenly. I noticed that he had stopped shivering.

"How are you?" I asked.

"I can`t hear you," he replied.

Immediately the manual flashed before my eyes. The First Aid manual, that is. In eidetic clarity I saw the page on hypothermia. What was the stage after progressive loss of senses? Ah yes - coma and death. And what was the remedy? Of course - instant immersion in a hot bath.

I gazed around hopefully at the darkening island Under the scrubby bushes no steaming hot baths lurked. I realised that the manual expected you to suffer hypothermia in your own home, or at worst in a really good hotel.

But - I knew there were summer houses on the island. They would all be locked up and probably the power shut down, but they were the only thing on offer. I dragged the patient uphill through the brambles until we found one. It wasn`t too hard to break in.

I was lucky. It was damp and dismal, but I could switch the power on. We had heat and light. But it was going to take some time before anything approaching a hot bath materialised. Were there any other remedies.?

I racked my memory. Warm the patient by total body contact.........there must be another way.

Stimulate the circulation.

This is where it gets a bit like a Hammer film. Not for the faint hearted. Remember, I had to improvise. In a dismal damp room on a deserted island, lit by a 40 watt bulb, I stripped the lad and rubbed him vigorously all over with offcuts of coconut matting. It`s the scene they cut out of Treasure Island, I suppose, but it would fit in well with the old traditional seagoing punishments - the cat, the keelhauling and the coconut matting -" Oh please cap`n, not that! Not the coconut matting......!"

I often wonder how he explained the scars in later life......

Yes we survived, and at dawn righted the boat and got back to the mainland.

I phoned work, it now being Monday. I always remember that call.

"I won`t be in today. I`ve been shipwrecked."