Mid-stream vertigo

By Alan Saldanha

I knew something was wrong. There was a malfunctioning of the ship's winches and a sudden “zap” heralded the event. I was left dangling in a sling over the side of a cargo ship. The height of the sling carrying me above the Gulf of Navalakhi waters was enough to induce vertigo. I summoned up the courage to peek down. I could see the barge that had transported me mid-stream. I was hoisted alongside the hold of a cargo ship that had discharged twenty one thousand tons of di ammonium phosphate. In the normal course the ships derricks would be driven by winches to drop me gently on deck. But the sound of the winches abruptly stopped. I was stuck in mid-air minutes after the sun set over the Little Rann of Kutch. In another hour dusk would fall and I would be left hanging indefinitely.

I was well over the side of the vessel and left swaying. The smell of DAP cargo added a putrid dimension to my predicament. With most of the cargo from the middle hold almost completely discharged I was to board the ship for a penultimate inspection. I was to meet the Master of the vessel and perhaps have a beer with him. Normally, when the ocean waters are calm it is customary to board the ship by the gangway. But I decided to venture being hauled by the ship's derrick. I thus added one more faux pas to the list of my lifetime screw-ups.

When a cargo vessel is in mid-stream and has off loaded 90 percent of its cargo it climbs up high because it is that much lighter. The net result was that I was peering down from a sling and it looked like peering down from a thirty storied building. If for some reason the winch and derrick malfunctioned I would fall down into the sea. The tide was still high and in an hour the last of the ferries would be tugged back to shore. That left me in the focus of a tracer light that made me feel like a reluctant trapeze artist waiting for a bad dream to begin.

After two hours or so I decided to raise an alarm and shouted “Help!” but I could only just croak. I was still swinging in mid-air in a flimsy sling with granular DAP which felt like loose grained sand. I resigned myself to my fate but the negativity had more to do with my inability to reach out. Neither was the tugboat operator able to hear me. The crew on deck were unresponsive. The situation was not unfamiliar for the ship's winches and derricks were subject to breakdown. I looked out into the Gulf of Navalakhi. There was another ship waiting in mid-stream. Little lights shone and a sound announced companionship.

A distressing thought came over me. I would continue to languish if the crew were engrossed in supper break in the mess. It felt as if there were no deck hands to fix the winch and neither was there anyone to placate me. I felt like a window cleaner sitting on a sling outside the topmost floor of a skyscraper when a mild earthquake strikes. There was little cause for hope and I felt abandoned. I was still quivering with moist palms and blood shot eyes 15 minutes after I was gently laid down on the deck. Mercifully my ordeal was over when the motor re-started.

“Have a Bud?” the captain asked in the security of his cabin.

I nodded. It was a refreshing lager and soon I put the incident behind me.

Alan Saldanha (

daywatchnewspaper@gmail.com

) is publisher of Daywatch newspaper in Surrey, British Columbia.