RUB A DUB DUB, THREE MEN IN A TUB

A memorable fishing trip with Vic

 

A true story by Steve Andersen & Vic Brockenborough

 

I’m sharing the credit for this story with Vic for several reasons.  One , he reminded me of the incident.  Another, I didn’t want to take all the blame for my stupidity myself.   The third fellow in the boat with us that day,  was Wayne McCormick.  (Maybe we should just blame it all on him since he can’t defend himself here!!!!)……….Sure, why not?  All three of us were good air traffic controllers but none of us were great sailors! Neither Vic nor I were ever on a ship. As for Wayne, if he had been, he kept his seamanship skills secret.

 

Vic and I are great old friends from the Navy.  We both attended AC “A” School and “GCA” School at the same time.  Then we both were stationed on San Clemente Island together and we both went to NAS Pt. Mugu. I was best man at Vic and Kathy’s wedding and we played a lot of guitar together. We even became Lectures and Lay Eucharistic Ministers at the base chapel at Pt. Mugu. This was way back in the ‘70s and we still talk to each other on the phone as he lives  in New York and I live in Washington State (only 3000 miles apart.) A true “best friend”.

 

While Vic and I were stationed on San Clemente Island, fishing was one of Vic’s favorite past times.  He was a great fisherman.  I, on the other hand, couldn’t catch a fish with dynamite!

 

One summer weekend we decided to try our luck by fishing off a diving barge located on the leeward side (that’s the east side) of the island several miles south of Wilson Cove.   The three of us commandeered a small row boat from the pier where the diving barge was located. It had no oors or paddles so we grabbed a broom off the pier. It wasn’t that far from the pier to the barge and the wind was in our favor (we should have known better). The lack of seamanship is beginning to show it’s ugly head here.  We made it to the barge easy enough and fished for an hour or so.  I don’t remember any of us catching any fish though. Not even Vic. At this point, we decided enough was enough so we began to head back to the pier in the row boat. This is where the adventure really begins!

 

As we began paddling for shore, we soon discovered we weren’t making any progress. We seemed to be going backwards with the wind. We figured at the rate we were going, we’d be in San Diego in a few weeks. Of course we had no food or survival gear so we struggled back to the barge before we got too far away.  Back safely on the barge, we thought about swimming ashore but Vic said he swam like a rock so that option was skipped. We looked around on the barge for anything that might help.  All we found was a ball of twine, so we put it in the boat, tied one end to the barge and the spool in the boat, figuring we could pull ourselves back if we needed…..WRONG !!!

 

As we drifted farther and farther from the barge and shore, we figured we were doomed. Someone said he thought it was time to start praying.  It was probably Wayne and I think that was his only contribution to our dilemma all day.  As we continued drifting and giving up hope, a miracle appeared in the form of  a civilian  pleasure craft.  It even had a flying bridge.  We waved frantically at it and it came towards us. We were saved.  As the boat drew near, someone threw us a line (a real one, not twine) and they proceeded to tow us back to the pier.

The person driving the boat said he was a newspaper editor of a paper in Newport Beach. He took a few pictures and we parted ways.  I guess our prayers were answered.

 

No one ever told us they read anything about the incident in any paper so we were relieved of that embarrassment.  We couldn’t imagine what the Navy would do to us had they found out about our little adventure.  We imagined getting busted down to airman strikers or worse yet, busted to “snipes” ( enginemen ) we’d spend the rest of our enlistment deep in the bowels of some ship off Vietnam. Never  to see an airplane again (or daylight for that matter).

 

We were lucky they didn’t take our 13 button, bell bottoms away from us.

Yeah, We were sailors alright!!!!