A Sunday Night to Remember...

3:45 AM, and I am sawing logs contentedly aboard Jezebel, tied to the dock..   I am awakened by a woman hollering and hollering.. I could not make out her words, but I figured, sure, a domestic dispute with her man or friend up on shore.   I rolled over and tried to get back to sleep, and she kept hollering and hollering.  I figured I should get up and find out what is going on.   I jumped out of bed, buck naked, and stuck my head up into the cockpit.  I could see the woman standing on the dock hollering out over the water..  Then I heard a deep gasp from behind me.. I looked over the side of Jezebel, and there is a 300 lb man, struggling in the water.  He is conscious, head above the water, but moving very very slowly.. He just looked at me...  I ran out to the aft deck and grabbed my life ring, and immediately threw it towards him..  He managed to hold onto it, and I slowly towed the life ring and him, by the rope attached to the life ring, around to the back of the boat where I had a ladder.    The man grabbed the ladder but was so hypothermic, that he could not climb it.   He just looked up at me with these big puppy dog eyes, and said " I cannot do it"....  As I am standing there buck naked,  the Coast Guard inflatable pulls up.   Apparently he had fallen in the water somewhere along the shore of  English Bay.  The tide had swept him away and his partner had called 911, who dispatched the Fire Department.. When the Fire Department arrived, they could not do anything for him so the called up the Coast Guard Auxillary who mustered and came out.   The grabbed him off my ladder and the three coast guard officers (one woman, two men) had a lot of difficulty hoisting him into the inflatable.. I just stood by, helpless,and still buck naked and watched... As soon as they got him into the inflatable, they buzzed off to the Coast Guard station, only a half a mile away.  Moments later I heard the siren of an ambulance and he was obviously on his way over to a hospital for treatment of his hypothermia... Sheesh.. what a night!  And then.. try to get back to bed with all that adrenalin flowing through your body...I have no idea how he is doing, but I guess I am glad that I was able to offer what small assistance I could.