Tragedy in Saint Pierre
…. Sat 10th March 2018
We first saw the man lying on the beach next to the dinghy
dock. He was half in and half out of the water, being lapped by the gentle
waves, and if he hadn’t moved you might have thought he was a body washed up on
shore. He was tall, dark skinned and wearing black swimming shorts and a vest.
A short while later we saw him launch himself back into the sea and splash
around close to the beach. He looked totally drunk, stoned or mentally ill, or
a combination of these. We had just arrived in Saint Pierre and were on the
hunt for fresh water to fill our jerry cans. The dock was busy with six or
eight dinghies already tied up, so we ended up closer to the end. Unfortunately
the water spigot at the end of the dock was switched off and the office was
closed for the day, but we did find a bathroom and were able to fill our four
containers. We carried these back along the dock in two loads and prepared to
lower them into the dinghy. Looking up to Gloria I saw the “crazy man” walking
along the dock towards us talking to himself and gesticulating, but he didn’t
stop, just continued to the end of the dock where he jumped in. Having stowed
our water jugs in the dinghy we walked back along the dock to explore town and
see if we could find any ice. We could see the man in the water swimming back
alongside the dock. We commented on a couple giving their dog some water in a
coconut shell, we were aware of the another, possibly homeless, guy sitting on
the dock. It was just a regular Saturday afternoon and we kept walking.
When we returned to the dock half an hour later with cold
drinks in hand there was some fluster going on around the dinghies. When we
wandered along to find out what was going on we could see a man giving CPR in
the bottom of a dinghy to the “crazy man” we had seen previously. Shortly
thereafter, an ambulance arrived with paramedics and they brought the man up
onto the dock and tried to take care of him, but it didn’t look good. We do not
know what happened but it appeared to us that the man had been pulled from the
water and had drowned. We have no idea how the situation deteriorated. Did he
have a heart attack, run out of energy or simply pass out? He did not look to
be in trouble when we last saw him and there are ladders at regular intervals
and dinghies to grab hold of all the way along the other side of the dock.
There were a number of other people around, but nonetheless we feel terrible
wondering what we could have or should have done to intervene. Were we correct
in assuming he wasn’t in trouble as we left the dock? Would we even recognize
someone who is drowning? It’s a sad reality that we try to avoid getting
involved with drunk, drugged-up or crazy people in the streets, and we’ve seen
more than a few on this trip. Language barriers don’t help either, but we can’t
help feeling that this was a tragedy that we might have been able to prevent.
Mike
Saint Pierre as seen from Cotinga at anchor
Saint Pierre
Cotinga at anchor off Saint Pierre - the anchoring shelf is relatively narrow and quickly drops from 20 feet to 60 feet and to 1000 feet in the space of a quarter mile
Cotinga at anchor off Saint Pierre - the foothills of Mount Pelee in the distance
Local fishing boat
The sun goes down and there's nothing on the horizon!
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