Behind the scenes, of course, a great deal of other activity was happening.
When I last saw EspŽrance, she was tracking perfectly on a 057 heading for the reef off Lily Point. However, while I was fighting for my life, another miracle was taking place. Unknown to me, in the middle of the Strait of Georgia, EspŽrance decided to play chicken with a 900-foot-long, deep-sea tanker, doing 25 knots. The captain and the pilot of the vessel were plotting EspŽrance’s track out of Active Pass. They watched closely as she continued on a collision course with them.
As I understand it, this huge ship took evasive action to miss colliding with EspŽrance. They called the VTS, Vancouver Traffic Services, a marine form of Air Traffic Control, if you will. Once they realized that the boat was not being piloted, they put out a Mayday on my behalf. They suspected I was either on board ill or dead or had fallen overboard. They continued to track EspŽrance’s course and gave the navigational data to the crew of the coast guard hovercraft. By the time the hovercraft found EspŽrance, she had motored right through the reef off Lily Point unscathed and was motoring into Boundary Bay.
The men boarded EspŽrance and dropped her anchor in sixty feet of water, calling upon the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary to motor her into the closest marina, which was, of course, Point Roberts. At anchor, EspŽrance was right in front of my home. When towed to Point Roberts, she ended up only feet from her slip.
Although a great deal of tension and stress coursed through my immediate family, the stress was shortlived. By the time the coast guard assessed the situation and all the necessary agencies had been notified, I was already on land. The first my family heard of the incident was when a police cruiser pulled up to my home and asked my daughter if she knew where I was. Rachel, home alone, responded with what she knew and then was informed that I was lost at sea.
A few quick telephone calls and the atmosphere of the anniversary dinner took a dramatic twist. These calls were being made just as I was knocking on Bob’s cabin door. Relief came for them quickly. For ten minutes the family assumed the worst, and then, miraculously, the dead called . . . by telephone, nonetheless.