BS: The Cruel Sea

Subject: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 26 Aug 16 - 05:35 AM

There has been a tragic number of drownings so far this year around the coastline of UK, from Aberdeen to Cornwall. I assume that sadly it's the same on the shores of the US. People underestimate the enormous power of the sea, and can't resist going in to swim or surf etc without regard to the dangers.

I'm just wondering why people can't realise how deadly the sea can be.
Here in Norfolk we have dangerous rip-tides and fast currents, swift incoming tides and steeply-shelving beaches. We have a number of Lifeboat Crews and Stations along our shore, and they're forever pulling someone out of the water in the nick of time.

What can be done? We have here a system of red flags to warn bathers not to venture in if the tides/weather conditions are adverse, but not everyone takes notice. In Norfolk, I've seen foolish parents let small tots go into the sea on inflatable airbeds without much supervision, which is dicing with death. I've seen children with those small boards trying to 'surf' with huge waves breaking around them. Also, folk stand on rocks and get swept off by the waves.
I suppose one could 'raise awareness' but in this hot weather people seem to lose all common sense and rush into the sea like lemmings.

I'm very sad, and worry about the forthcoming Bank Holiday. It seems to be a very bad year for these awful tragedies. Anyone feel the same?

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Joe Offer
Date: 26 Aug 16 - 05:48 AM

My youngest son is now almost 38 years old. When he was not quite a year old, I was carrying him in a baby backpack with my other two children beside me, wading across the river outlet at Santa Cruz, California. I had seen a number of people make the crossing, so I assumed it was save.
It wasn't. The strong current washed us out toward the ocean, dressed in winter clothing and unable to swim. I was lucky to grab the last rock out, the barnacles slicing into my skin. Some teenagers helped us out and we were OK, but we were very close to drowning - all four of us.
I was trained as a lifeguard and I'm a pretty good swimmer, but not in winter clothing with a baby strapped to my back. I'm glad we survived.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 26 Aug 16 - 05:59 AM

Oh Good Lord Joe, how terrifying! Thank God you all managed to survive that! Did it make you very wary afterwards of the power of the tides?

I took a class of 8yr olds out to Holkham Beach many years ago. It's a very large stretch of sand, and the sea was far, far in the distance. They had strict instructions NOT to go anywhere near the water but to sit on the sand and make sandcastles (prize for the best one!)
Suddenly (and I mean within a few short minutes) the tide positively swept up that beach and we were up to our knees in water. I and my assistant ushered the children back to the treeline, but we were overtaken in no time. I had four children clinging to me as we half-swam back to safety. Even our coach driver had come in to help, and he too grabbed several children and kept them afloat. We were all shaking with shock and fright. It was of course entirely my own fault. I hadn't realised just how far the tide comes in, and how quickly. I'm ashamed now to remember that event.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Will Fly
Date: 26 Aug 16 - 06:36 AM

My late parents' bungalow is in a village called Hest Bank - just north of Lancaster - on the shores of Morecambe Bay. Just of that stretch of coast is where the Chinese cockle pickers drowned some years ago.

Morecambe Bay and its sands and scenery (Langdale mountains in the background) is a beautiful place, but the sands are deadly dangerous. I've walked across it many times in years gone by - under the watchful eye of the official guide, of course - and noted the differences between solid sand and fatal quicksand. The other factor is the fast flowing tide, which can quickly surround you and prevent a return to the shore, and the "bore" which - like the Severn bore - sweeps in about a metre in height and around 30 mph. You can't stand up against that.

A lesser, and more amusing spectacle (at least to the cynical) is at Bosham village in Chichester harbour, not far from me. Visitors will park their car on the shore next to the road; they will ignore the tide warnings - and they will come back to their car to find it in 3 feet of water! Many's the time I've been walking back to the car park to see a rueful motorist with his car halfway up the slipway, doors open, and water pouring out.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 26 Aug 16 - 06:50 AM

People just don't read warning notices.(In my own defence, there wasn't one at Holkham)
At Wroxham on the Norfolk Broads, there are literally dozens of holiday boats rented out by families for a blissful week or two along the waterways, mooring at little village pubs by the river for the night. Despite so many warnings about children and life jackets, I've seen no end of little ones clambering about on board without any buoyancy aids at all. And groups of lads hire a boat together for a drunken few days (and why not, you're only young once!) but they fall in the water at night incapable of saving themselves and are fished out by the Police Patrol boat, sadly sometimes drowned.

On a lighter note, I'm rather naughty,as when I visit Wroxham in the summer (about once a week) I like to stand near Wroxham Bridge and watch the numpties steering their hired boats under it without reading the warning signs about height and width. They stand there on board, suddenly see the bridge looming and frantically duck just in time. Or they don't steer right in the middle, and crash the vessel against the bridge pillars. You can stand there feeding the swans and having a right laugh if you're a bit of a cow like me!
I'm frightened of the sea, and got seasick on a boat trip on the Thames two years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Will Fly
Date: 26 Aug 16 - 07:43 AM

I love the sea. If I'd had my time over again, I'd have acquired some sort of boat to sail in - either single-handed or with crew mates - but no time now.

My mother's dad (son of a blacksmith) was brought up in Beccles and started work at the age of 11, working on the ropewalk. He went to sea as soon as he could and, in 1901, was working "before the mast" on collier brigs playing between Great Yarmouth and Newcastle. As he got older, he spent half his working life on boats of one sort or another - even working as a steward on the yacht of a wealthy local (Lowestoft) vicar (!) - and packing fish in the Lowestoft herring market.

I remember as a child of about 5 walking with him, hand in hand, along the Lowestoft harbour boardwalk beside which, in those days, was trawler after trawler unloading with steam up so that they could get away quickly for the next trip. He knew all the crews and they knew him. He died in 1953 and, like him, that world has gone forever.

At the age of 36, he sailed as an RAMC orderly on the maiden voyage of HMHS (His Majesty's Hospital Ship) Britannic - sister ship to the Titanic and Olympic. She was intended as a passenger vessel, but became a hospital ship on the outbreak of war in 1914. She sailed to Mudros in the Aegean and ferried wounded soldiers from the Gallipoli beaches to Mudros and then home. Luckily for him, he left for North Africa and India before Britannic hit a mine in the Aegean and sank. Another example of the Cruel Sea (and cruel war). The ship is still down there - very visible - and a war grave.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Will Fly
Date: 26 Aug 16 - 07:44 AM

And, of course, the collier brigs "plied" rather than "played"...!

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 26 Aug 16 - 08:27 AM

Your post interests me a lot Will, because my father (a Scot) was brought up in North Shields and took me there when I was about 4 yrs old. I well remember the quayside, and watching the herring boats come in. ("Thou shalt have a fishy "etc!) He and his ancestors right back for centuries (my sister has researched this thoroughly) were master mariners, or North Sea fishermen, or port Customs/Excise officers. He himself swore he has Viking blood in him and his forbears roamed the seas in longships invading Scotland! He was in Air-Sea Rescue for part of the War. He could swim like a fish right up until his death.

I'm seasick if I even watch a film about the sea. I'm sick watching waves. I'm sick on a river. I've inherited this from my Irish mother who also loathed the water. But I can swim.
I do fear the sea, and I think most people should.
As a child I was once taken to the cinema to watch 'The Sea Shall Not Have Them' and felt very sick. I had to shut my eyes for most of it!

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 26 Aug 16 - 08:29 AM

'forebears' not 'forbears'. Honey is forbears.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: leeneia
Date: 26 Aug 16 - 10:56 AM

Comfort yourself, Will. You could buy a boat and discover, like me, that when all is going well, it's really boring. So not being able to have a boat may be all right for you.


I don't have a story of personal danger, but I would like to add that everyone should know not to walk or drive into running water. Here is the Midwest, people lose their lives to flood waters far too often.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: keberoxu
Date: 26 Aug 16 - 02:01 PM

You would not credit drownings in high-desert zones in the state of New Mexico, such as the biggest city of Albuquerque. However:

On a seasonal basis, New Mexico is prone to flash floods. This has to do with spring warmth, and the snowpack up in the New Mexico mountains, which keeps the rivers alive and flowing. Out in the country, natural ditches and dry streambeds can be found which are all about the flash-flood phenomenon.

In the highly built-up and spread-out river valley, near the Sandia Mountains, that is Albuquerque, there are concrete-lined run-off channels to keep the water away from all the blocks of buildings; there can be artificial waterways like this, large and broad, and dry for most of the year, right in the thick of urban development.

It is hard for people with skateboards to resist one of these big dry things. And it has happened too many times that somebody will be whooping it up on the concrete slopes while this huge wall of flash-flood water comes at them and sweeps them miles away.

Local law enforcement has crews with helicopters trained to rescue flash-flood victims, and everybody sees the film footage on the local news when it happens. The victims sometimes survive.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: EBarnacle
Date: 27 Aug 16 - 11:42 AM

Anyone who does not respect/fear the sea and ventures upon it is either ignorant or a fool. Mother Nature is stronger and more patient than we are. It only takes a moment of inattention or bad luck to sweep us away.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Aug 16 - 12:36 PM

Spare a thought for the French writer Isabelle Eberhardt, who managed to get herself drowned by a flash flood in the Sahara.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 Aug 16 - 02:34 PM

Aren't the dry river beds in deserts called wadis? They suddenly fill with flash floods and become raging torrents. (Dim memories of geography lessons!)

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Monique
Date: 27 Aug 16 - 03:04 PM

Yes indeed they're called wadis -we usually call them "oueds" in French. They can be really impressive.
Tens of people drown every year in the Mediterranean because "the ocean is a real sea, the Mediterranean is just some sort of puddle".

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 Aug 16 - 03:29 PM

Merci Monique!
I've seen tremendous storms in the Med, often in the month of October. In Tunisia one year, a huge gale blew massive quantities of debris onto the beach, and donkey carts were working all day to remove it.
I think people see that there appears to be no tide, and look on the Med as a lake of some sort; or as you say, a puddle!

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 27 Aug 16 - 09:39 PM

here in Australia we have lots of drownings in a water-loving population. Large numbers of Australians grow up swimming & love any water source - pools, ocean & river, but people still drown.

We read many stories of newcomers (migrants or tourists) who either swim in unsafe conditions or get swept off rocky coastlines when fishing & drown. Same happens to locals. 'Swim between the flags' is a well-known phrase - the lifesavers are in that part of the beach & there might be rips elsewhere - but some folks regard it as optional. Some folks also regard road rules & other safety advice   - don't cross flooded roads, don't cross train lines, don't play with electricity, don't get close to cliff edges - as optional which is why we have the Darwin Awards

On a more serious note, in the 70s 3 of Dad's friends went rock fishing & were swept off the rocks. The bachelor was the strongest swimmer among them & managed to keep afloat all night in rough seas & had massive guilt for surviving because he couldn't save his brother & friend.

Around the same time a friend's mum who lived in a popular coastal village spoke to a man who unloaded a car full of kids (no life jackets!) & pulled a tinny (a small rowing boat) from his car roof & asked where there ocean was as he wanted to try out their new boat. She told him off good & proper, probably shocked the kids by warning they could drown.

Black Sunday 1938: Hundreds washed out to sea on Bondi Beach as freak waves kill five, injure dozens

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Aug 16 - 10:17 PM

In 1965 I was walking the levees along the Mississippi River. It was floodtime and it was a righ ripsnorter!

In four hour shifts we walked, looking for places where the river had undercut the levee. Imagine doing this at night!

The current by the levee was at least thirty miles an hour and there were uprooted trees and even buildings barreling along on that current. Slip into it and if you or the buddy you were walking with weren't quick, well, you get the idea.

Fortunately there had been a collection of life jackets so that we wee walkers could have some hope of not being swept away If The Worst Happened.

The Worst didn't. I was quite glad, as my life jacket was rated for a child of no more than fifty pounds. (It did make a dandy pillow.)

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Aug 16 - 01:16 AM

And now, for a Cruel Sea Musical Interlude:The Ways of Man Are Passing Strange

There's something in this song that to me is very powerful.

Oh the tide, oh the tide
Oh you dark and you bitter tide
If I can't have him by my side
I guess I have to leave him

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Monique
Date: 28 Aug 16 - 08:10 AM

For another Cruel Sea musical interlude, when I was a child, my mother would sing "La légende des flots bleus" (Lyrics Raoul le Peltier -†1926, Music Henri Christiné -†1941 & Paul Dalbret -†1927) when doing the housework and I would cry my eyes out.
Here is a more or less literal translation for those who don't understand French...

On the shore where the light boat
Is resting,
The children play sailors far from
Their mother's eyes.
"Let's repeat Robinson's adventure -
Says one-
Let's hoist the sail at the top of the mast,
The wind is good!"
And the little children
Sail away singing,
"Let's pull the oars
And let's sneak away,
Let's pull on the oar,
Let not one stop,
Ahoy! Let's pull!"
But there, yonder, in the sighing wind,
The old steeple voice rings and seems to tell them,
"Little children, beware of the blue waves
That pretend to enjoy your games,
The cradling waves make many an eye weep,
Little children, beware of the blue waves."

They left on the light boat,
The three little boys,
They left thinking their mother
Wouldn't know.
But the blue waves that the breeze teases
Got angry,
The white sail and the lending mast
Are torn away.
And the little children,
Joining their trembling fingers,
With an imploring look
And their eyes full of tears,
Through the hurricane,
Let out this alarm cry,
"Mommy, Mommy!"
But there, yonder, in the raging wind,
The old steeple voice rings through the storm.
"Little children, in the furious waves,
Raise vainly your hands to the sky.
The cradling waves make many an eye weep,
Weep, children lost in the blue waves.

On the shore where the light wave
Seems to expire,
With dishevelled hair, since that, the sad mother
Has been coming to mourn.
Her poor head, alas, like the boat,
Capsized.
"The sky, she said through her delirium,
Got lit
And three white angels
Took my three children!
Listen to they sobs,
It's their voices calling me
As on the day when the waves
Engulfed their wherry,
'Mommy, Mommy'.
Listen, it's their voices! Alas, my God, I'm dreaming,
It's the wind, it's the tide that howls on the shore".
Little children, beware of the blue waves
That pretend to enjoy your games,
The cradling waves make many an eye weep,
Little children, sleep in the blue waves."

The song was sung by Berthe Sylva who sang many songs about drowning children, dying mothers, starving families...

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 28 Aug 16 - 10:20 AM

Monique, isn't her voice like Edith Piaf's? That's a haunting song, and made me a bit teary too!
I wonder why Berthe's taste was so mournful? Do you know if she had suffered a tragedy in her own life?

Joe, that verse also is very dark and touches one's heart.

Will, Morecambe Bay always conjures up that dreadful tragedy of the Chinese cockle gatherers.

So many tragic events...

Ooooh (shivers), I really don't like the blooming sea!

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Monique
Date: 28 Aug 16 - 10:57 AM

Senoufou, both were singing in the chanson réaliste style of that time and according to her bio on Wiki (no English entry), no tragedy of that type happened to her and she was an appalling mother.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 28 Aug 16 - 12:27 PM

I didn't realise there were other singers of that era who used this genre Monique. And how strange that she had a child at 16 and only saw him three times after that! And died of drink and in poverty, with only a few friends at her funeral. She sounds a very unusual woman. Thanks for the links, I find it all fascinating!

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: bubblyrat
Date: 28 Aug 16 - 12:47 PM

The problem is that,despite being an island and a sea-faring nation, many of us are woefully ignorant of the sea,ships,and all things nautical generally.
I spent 11 years in the Royal Navy,where despite erring on the Air Engineering side,I gained my Coxswains certificates for various Naval motor boats .Later, I worked on a tug on the lower Thames, and as a "yardhand" at Lymington Marina,Parkstone Yacht Club, and the Royal Motor Yacht Club in Poole. One day , out in the club launch,I saw a ferry from Cherbourg entering Poole at Sandbanks and about to run down an exhausted sailboarder ; I dashed in front of the ferry and got him out of harm's way ( very risky !).As he recovered his composure, he cried out "where has all the water gone ?" (the tide was ebbing,carrying him with it,and exposing Poole's many sands and mudflats ); it transpired that he had only ever "windsurfed/sailboarded" on a reservoir near London , and knew NOTHING about the sea, tides,etc !! This sort of ignorance is quite common in Britain today,sadly.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 28 Aug 16 - 02:15 PM

I imagine inner city families coming to the seaside for a holiday haven't had much experience of the sea and its dangers. It all looks so enchanting, with the sand, rocks and waves, completely alien to their usual environment. That's why I chose 'The Cruel Sea' as the title of this thread, as it has no pity for the vulnerable. I also feel so sad for those refugees on inadequate boats trying to cross the sea to a better life. So many have drowned, we shall probably never know the true figure.
I remember as a small child being taken to Westgate for a beach holiday, and running down to the edge of the sea, completely fascinated but slightly wary. My sensible sea-seasoned father was very careful to explain the dangers and keep a wary eye on me.
Considering my dislike of the water, it's a miracle I ever learned to swim, but I did, and enjoy it. But only in a pool. (and being fairly plump I float like a cork!)

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Amos
Date: 28 Aug 16 - 06:11 PM

Fine thread, and fine title. The Med does have tides, and ferocious storms on occasion, but the tides are very short in their rise or fall when compared to the Atlantic or even the Pacific. At Gib, right against the Atlantic, the tides are a meter, more or less.There are comparable tides at Venice and parts of Tunisia. Generally, across the Med., tides measure in centimeters.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Monique
Date: 29 Aug 16 - 02:49 AM

Indeed, the tides measure in cm and the waves go about 1 or 2 meters farther on the sand, but the Med is treacherous. When the North wind is/has been blowing even lightly (at least on this side of the Med) the sea is dark blue, colder and there's only a light swell. It looks really safe but the currents draw you to the open sea. We heard of people drowning, we heard of people the costguards had to rescue be they bad or good swimmers or people on air beds who couldn't go back, but we never heard of anyone the currents brought safely to Algeria...

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Aug 16 - 03:02 AM

Oh Amos, I well remember as a student I flew alone to Madrid (student fares were then very cheap indeed!) hitch-hiked down to Malaga, then (gulp!) took the 'Ibn Batouta' (a ferry) across to Tangier. I was as sick as a dog of course. But once back on land, I was so fascinated by the Moroccans in their traditional clothes, the markets, the mosque and so on, I quickly forgot my sickness. Where the Atlantic meets the Med, the currents and tides are very bizarre.
The Med is a funny old sea. Not as benign as it looks. I've chatted to fishermen in many countries (I must have a 'thing' about them) and those that fished the Med had many a tale to tell about storms and disasters.
Fishermen seem to enjoy talking to landlubbers like me. In Senegal in a village called Kafontine, I learned a lot from the pirogue crews. Those boats have been used recently, crammed to the limit, to transport illegal migrants up to Europe. Many have drowned, sadly. And about 20 yrs ago a ferry with 900 on board and dreadfully overloaded, sailed north up the coast of Senegal, sank and all lives were lost.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Aug 16 - 03:18 AM

I saw on the News last night that Nick Thomas, a Channel swimmer, got into difficulties and after 16 hours (!) in the water had to be pulled out one mile from the French shore. Sadly he died after attempts to resuscitate him failed. The Cruel Sea indeed.

I think we cross-posted Monique! Aren't airbeds lethal? They're fine for swimming pools, but not on the sea. I've seen sensible parents using a rope to secure them to their sunbeds, which is a good idea.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Monique
Date: 29 Aug 16 - 04:25 AM

Airbeds are fine on swimming pools as long as you can swim. On the sea it's quite another story as you can be driven to the open sea quite quickly and may not have the strength to swim back to the shore. The main problem is that when on vacation people tend to forget to be careful and not to follow the locals' pieces of advice.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Charmion
Date: 29 Aug 16 - 08:28 AM

Ontario is full of lakes and rivers, attracting people to hell around in motorboats and on jet-skis in summer, and in winter to venture onto the ice to fish, often using snowmobiles and even pickup trucks. Every winter, the Ottawa papers report incidents in which the ice gives way under these vehicles, dumping their occupants into the briskly running current under the surface. Every winter, I wonder what these folks use for brains. Sometimes they are rescued, but they usually drown.

Sea-sickness is interesting. My Dad, a Royal Navy veteran, was always miserably ill for the first 48 hours at sea; how he stuck it for six years of war I cannot imagine. Years later, when the film of "The Cruel Sea" came out, he learned that he could be seasick on dry land. The opening credits of that film roll over footage of the corvette's rail rising and falling against the horizon, as the waves heave in the background. After about ten seconds of watching this scene, he was overcome by nausea and had to bolt for the door. Mum found him vomiting into the gutter outside.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Aug 16 - 10:53 AM

My word Charmion, I should think the temperature of the water under the ice is probably at or very near freezing. You'd last about a minute then your heart would stop! I've swum in every one of the Great Lakes, in 1967. And visited Ottawa too. (In Canada for Expo '67 in Montreal) but only in the summertime.
My mother and I were both sick in the cinema toilets after watching the start of The Cruel Sea!! My father was thoroughly disgusted with us, but we just couldn't help it. I'm rather pleased (but sympathetic obviously) that I'm not the only one so sensitive to the motion of the sea.
Out of interest, did your father suffer from vertigo? I do quite often, and I have to go to bed for a day or two. I suspect it's all connected with the inner ear and balance mechanisms etc.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: gnu
Date: 29 Aug 16 - 06:12 PM

Senoufou... start here...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benign_paroxysmal_positional_vertigo

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Charmion
Date: 14 Sep 16 - 10:12 AM

Senoufou (Eliza) -- Sorry I didn't see your last post in this thread until today. As a matter of fact, my Dad did indeed suffer from vertigo; in fact, vertigo caused his premature death as a result of a fall.

When I was in my teens, both my mother and I sang in the Ottawa Choral Society, and Dad would loyally attend the concerts. During the 1970s, when the National Arts Centre opera house became a popular venue for major classical concerts, I first became aware of my father's vertigo problem when he would be obviously uncomfortable after a concert, and eventually he refused to go -- most unlike him. Though he was no musician, he was the soul of gentility and always supported our efforts. After Mum died, he stopped attending church services with organ music, opting for the 8:30 a.m. "said Eucharist".

In May of 1992, he attended a family wedding with all the Anglican bells and whistles, including a full choir and exuberant organ music. The next day, he was dizzy and sick, barely able to stand up; I remember him reeling around the kitchen. He felt better toward evening and decided to go to the pub for supper, a stroll of about three blocks. On the way home, the dizziness returned, causing him to keel over. He fell at full stretch onto a neighbour's lawn, striking his head on a water shut-off valve sticking up from the grass. He never regained consciousness and died that night.

The vertigo had been gradually getting worse, most often associated with exposure to loud, resonant sound -- such a church organ. In the last years of his life, he avoided all noisy places, including any restaurant or pub with a sound system and/or echoing acoustics. The only kind of music he really enjoyed was unaccompanied singing; even my guitar made him a bit uncomfortable.

At the time of his death, he had an appointment booked with a neurologist to investigate the possibility of an inner-ear problem.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Sep 16 - 12:11 PM

Charmion, I am so sorry to hear about your dad and the circumstances of his passing. It must have been a dreadful time for you and all his family.
I too find loud noise makes me ill. I have excellent hearing and can detect tiny noises in the countryside, especially at night. But very loud music and machinery make me cringe. Not necessarily dizzy, but nauseous and very distressed. I'd like to live up a silent mountain or in a deep, soundless cave!
I do wish restaurants and public places such as shops would desist from this awful practice of playing loud music for their customers. For a start, they can never please everyone, and the music chosen is bound to annoy somebody. And then, it's much nicer to eat or shop in peace! People seem unable to endure silence.
It's been extremely hot here in Norfolk lately; today it was 31 degrees in our village. And of course, people have no doubt headed for the coast and plunged into the sea to cool off. I just hope they've stayed safe.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Teribus
Date: 14 Sep 16 - 06:15 PM

" many of us are woefully ignorant of the sea, ships, and all things nautical"

Very true.

It takes a great deal for someone to drown - even a none swimmer - just take a deep breath and try it - you will find that without moving a muscle you will float in salt water - fresh water on the other hand is a killer because you won't if clothed.

Going back to the comment above - to survive the "Cruel Sea" - Go with the flow - especially if caught in a rip tide, do not swim against it, let it carry you out till it stops or swim at 90 degrees to it until you get out of it - all things I was told as a child.

Water is dangerous always remember that, forget it and you deserve to pay the price - same with roads, you wouldn't let your children paly on a motorway would you?

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Sep 16 - 03:36 AM

It's strange really that we in UK should be so unaware and, yes, ignorant, of the sea and all things nautical, since our country is fairly small, consists of many islands and the coastline if stretched out would be amazingly long. We're never very far from the sea.
I can swim well, but never go out of my depth, just up to my shoulders. That's quite deep enough to swim. Why go right out and far from the shore?
I've seen so many families on the beaches in Norfolk where the parents install themselves on sun-loungers and doze while their children are who knows where at the sea's edge, or worse still playing on inflatables.
You really need to be watching all the time, and can't afford to have a snooze while they drown themselves!

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Charmion
Date: 16 Sep 16 - 11:42 AM

In Ottawa, we are more than a thousand miles from the sea, and people who live here could be fairly described as "oblivious" of the hazards related to life on the coast. Recently, when the loss of a fishing boat and her crew in a typical early autumn storm off Newfoundland made national news, I was irked by the way the news readers kept yammering about the search-and-rescue team and the status of its mission -- "So, Peter, after 24 hours, are they still calling this a rescue, or is now more of a recovery effort?"

At the fishmonger's, lately, I've noticed that fish that doesn't come from a farm operation is labelled "wild caught", to appeal to those who disdain the products of aquaculture. But nothing comes without risk. Fish farming is an environmental threat, to be sure, but every fish taken at sea comes to table at some risk to the people who bring it to shore.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Sep 16 - 01:16 PM

I think I heard that sea-fishing is THE most dangerous job and I'm not surprised. There's a TV programme here called 'The Catch' and it follows crews of fishing boats as they battle through the weather (and at night) to bring home the fish. There's an American one too, about I think lobster fishing. I can't watch these much as I get sofa-sick, but I'm well aware of the dangerous life these men lead. Sometimes they catch nothing, and the boats work at a loss.
Just in our village we saw some children who were having a swim after school in the Wensum river. It's been very hot lately, 30 degrees. We saw them from the little bridge. No adults with them. That place has dangerous weeds under the water, and bits of metal on the river bottom. I was quite worried, but we'd probably have got a mouthful from Mum later if we'd remonstrated with them!

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Sep 16 - 02:02 PM

CLARENCE
Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower,
And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;
And, in my company, my brother Gloucester;
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches: thence we looked toward England,
And cited up a thousand fearful times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befall'n us. As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Gloucester stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.
Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea:
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
Which woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.

BRAKENBURY
Had you such leisure in the time of death
To gaze upon the secrets of the deep?

CLARENCE
Methought I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast and wandering air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

BRAKENBURY
Awaked you not with this sore agony?

CLARENCE
O, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life;
O, then began the tempest to my soul,
Who pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;
Who cried aloud, 'What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?'
And so he vanish'd: then came wandering by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood; and he squeak'd out aloud,
'Clarence is come; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,
That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury;
Seize on him, Furies, take him to your torments!'
With that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends
Environ'd me about, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that with the very noise
I trembling waked, and for a season after
Could not believe but that I was in hell,
Such terrible impression made the dream.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cruel Sea
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Sep 16 - 02:13 PM

Ha Big Al! Richard 111, Act 1. I'd forgotten that passage. Very appropriate. Thank you!