We often imagine our story from the eyes of our son “The adventures of Darshen.” He has seen things that few people have seen. Imagine being tied next to a ship on fire…
Almost a year ago when we arrived in Georgetown, Guyana, after a 35 day non-stop at sea voyage from NYC, we found a little safety and security from the raging river currents and pirates that everybody warned us about by tying up next a ship on the dock at the mouth of the river. The ship was named Miss Reanna from the island of Wakenaam in the delta of the biggest river in Guyana, the Essequibo. We made friends with the crew and exchanged visits and food. Miss Reanna is an old steel riveted cargo boat built in Denmark before WWII. When we arrived at Joe’s boatyard in Wakenaam imagine our surprise when we found our stern almost touching the stern of Miss Reanna!
We were having lunch when we heard a worker from one of the tugboats call out. At first we didn’t realize something was wrong and thought they were just calling out to each other as they always do. Then we saw a waft of smoke come out of a porthole of Miss Reanna and we thought they were welding inside. Within minutes smoke was puffing out all of portholes along the side and the workers started running. The crew then took off their shirts, dunk them in a bucket of water and tied them around their faces as masks and rushed into the smoke coming out of the pilothouse door. In two minutes they were back outside and leading a deck hose inside but were soon back out huffing and coughing.
The workers from the tugboat and barge nearby ran over to help. There is a long narrow dock to Miss Reanna and five men ran down the dock carrying a heavy long hose. Then four different strong men manhandled a gas powered pump down the dock and passed it on board. The back of the boat was burning so they had to set the pump on deck amidships. The wind blew the smoke on to about 20 men who arrived to help. Red flames danced out of the pilothouse and windows along the side. The deck became too hot to stand on, so they sprayed the deck as they pointed the hose in different windows.
In the meantime we sat in our cockpit thirty feet from their stern watching in awe and little bit fearfully as the fire raged bigger and the men salvaged what they could, emptying deck lockers of paint cans and flammables. As the drama continued, the weight of all the water that was being pumped into the boat made the stern sink lower and the bow rise out of the water. Luckily, within an hour less and less smoke came out of the portholes and it looked like the fire was doused. Many of the men went inside and soon pieces of burned wood were being thrown overboard into the river. They took a sledge hammer to the living quarters inside to make sure there were no smoldering fires left.
That evening the wind shifted and blew the smells of fire, charred wood and paint over to us. The women and children of the crew all showed up to see the damage. We found out that it was a welding fire that started in a hidden spot far from where the welder was working. They said they would have the ship in working order in less than a week.
Please go see my websites:
