Don't look now
When living in darkest Africa my mate and I spent the Easter holidays acting as a boat taxi for a large motor yacht that was stranded in the harbour - unfortunately 3 months before the skipper had taken too much Bolivian Dancing Dust and was found face down in his own head ... the authorities had decided there was no foul play but the wheels of justice were grinding slowly as the London based agents didn't have the sense to grease them, and the crew were enjoying the benefits of full pay without clients shitting all over them and didn't have the grease - a nice bunch of twenty going on forty somethings who were very generous with the tips and occasional beers.

After 3 weeks of bumming about in boats in the harbour David and I had hoarded something like KSH300, and with the holidays drawing to a close we decided to blow the lot on a night of beer fuelled fun at the Outrigger, the nearby hotel in the harbour were occasionally British tourists would stay and spend the entire time wondering where the palm fringed beaches and white sands of the brochures were ...

At 7:30 donned in our finest garb David, his mate James and I strolled into the bar and ordered our first round - 15 Tusker Export stubbies. The lovely bar staff were round us like flies on a shit, cracking jokes about how long it would be before the wazungu kijanas would be puking in the flower beds while they picked our pockets and sold our kidneys. The passage of years - there have been 25+ by my reckoning - has dimmed much of the rest of the evening but by 11:30 we were down to the last few bob and had made firm friends with the bar man who was taking the traditional cut of takings and slipping extra drinks on to the tab of the suspicious looking Russians in the corner. The decision to have a Scotch as the night cap was, on reflection, probably not wise. We downed that and leaving a less than generous tip staggered up the beach to the jetty where the dingy was moored. Once we were all in the boat and with the outboard lowered we cast off.

20 minutes later and some miles down tide we finally got the outboard started and puttered over to the boat we were staying on. Once on board and having ransacked the cupboards for booze - nothing as the normal night watchman was well known to be partial to anything over 0%ABV - we decided it was time to go skinny dipping. A few back flips over the stern later - ignoring that East Africa's over polluted harbours are brimming full of sharks looking for something more nutritious than the odd drowned goat - we decided that enough was enough and it was time to go to sleep. Besides the water seemed a bit ticker and more chemically smelling than normal. As it was a nice night and the stars where shining and spinning we slept on deck.

And that is how it came to be 9am when I was rudely woken by the hooter from the Pilot boat as it drew alongside the boat to see why their appeared to be several oil leaks running from the scuppers and 3 young naked black boys dead on the deck. I leapt to my feet only to be sent reeling about as my head exploded with the effects of my first massive hangover and then beer still swilling about my guts decided to reappear.

Fortunately the Pilot on duty knew us - unfortunately he was a family friend.

The last time I saw him when I was in my mid twenties he regaled my wife with the tale of how he woke us up and how he laughed as I proceeded to vomit down my belly and legs while smeared in thick back engine oil ... his thick SA accent did such justice to the final words

"end hiz lettle prick was washed clean and was steeking out like an asparagus spear"
(Biff..., Thu 8 Aug 2013, 13:38, 2 replies)

about in boats in the harbour
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 8 Aug 2013, 18:23, closed)