It's a small world

By Peter A. Morris

I was sitting on a bench on Dallas Road, holding my binoculars as usual.  A good spot to see things happening on and over the water.  There was very little wind, the seabirds looked as though they were on a pond, and seemed to be enjoying a lazy kind of day, leaving ripples as they moved about.

I was watching a sea otter, who had brought up some kind of shellfish from the bottom, had wrapped himself in a piece of kelp, and was on his back, busy hammering away at his catch with a rock.  Eventually it opened and he enjoyed his feast, then dived back in. It was only when I lowered my binoculars and sat back, that I noticed the gentleman sharing the bench with me. Startled, I said, "Hello."

He smiled and returned my greeting.  "You were so engrossed in your own space, I didn't want to disturb you," he said. We introduced ourselves; his name was Ben, and we talked about this and that. He told me he had recently moved to Victoria from Toronto, that this was the first time he had lived by the ocean, and that he knew nothing about birds or other wildlife. He had always been so tied up with business that he had not taken the time to observe before.

As we were talking, I noticed the otter back on the surface, wrapping itself up in kelp again. I pointed this out, explained what it was doing and handed him the binoculars to get a better view. After a while I managed to get him focused on the otter, who had just started hammering on his new catch. His reaction surprised me. Almost in tears, he said, "I'm 88 years old and have always been too busy for nature. I've only ever seen something like this on TV. As a child my father was always impressing on me the need to study and prepare to go into his engineering business. No camping with friends, study only. Then came the war and I was drafted into the Navy. I had a great and exciting time, but I was in engineering and spent most of the time below decks."

Further discussion revealed that we had lived not far from each other's home towns, on the south coast of England. It also turned out that we had served on motor torpedo boats, in particular the Fairmile brand, so this was something else we had in common. This really got the discussion going. Those who have read my book All at Sea will know about Monty, the engineer I hired quite by chance for the Mary Lou, of which I was she Skipper. Monty was a larger-than-life character, for whom I had tremendous respect, and we became great friends.

By this time Ben's mouth was hanging open. "He had big, black, bushy eyebrows and a moustache, and he spoke with a slow drawl?"  "That's him!" I replied.

It was time for tears on both sides now, as my new friend said "Monty was in the same flotilla as me; we went to Navy School together!"