Wrong to be complacent when playing in the sea
SOMEONE who I’ve known since she was a baby and is now a happily married young mother has even more reason for happiness: her lottery numbers came up and she scooped a guaranteed million pounds, or “10 parcels of £100,000 each”. We’re all thrilled for her – but there’s rich and then there’s Hunger Games archer Jennifer Lawrence has been named this year’s highestearning actress after netting £34million. That’s 340 parcels of £100,000 each. Should keep her in arrows for a while. THIS has been a terrible summer for drownings. Twelve people have died on British beaches in the past week alone, including, tragically, two-year-old McKayla Bruynius, the little girl taken to hospital in Cornwall after she and her father were swept off rocks at Fistral Beach in Newquay. Her father Rudy was pronounced dead after he was pulled out of the water.
The RNLI has called for families on holiday to “respect the water” and avoid places where they could be dragged out to sea. And that’s the problem: most holidaymakers assume that our UK killer- shark-free waters are harmless playgrounds.
“Oh I do like to be beside the seaside, Oh I do like to be beside the sea” goes the jolly old holiday song. But those who live by the sea and, most of all, those who earn their living from it are only too aware of the ocean’s lethal potential. My novel I Do Not Sleep was inspired by a tragic incident that occurred soon after we bought our house in Cornwall.
The nearby fishing village of Polperro is delightfully pretty, a charming collection of white cottages, many built on stilts to hold them above the becks and rivers that swirl between them. Naturally this picturesque little place attracts many families on holiday but the fishing community is only too aware of the perils the sea holds deep.
A young, handsome fisherman called Daniel, only 20 or so, was totally at home on his boat in the late 1990s and loved his job. “My office,” he smilingly told a local TV documentary crew as they filmed him on his vessel surrounded by a flat-calm, idyllic sky-blue sea. And yet one day he went out alone on his boat – and never came back. The wreck was found in an inlet. Of Daniel there was no sign. Speculation was that he was knocked off his craft by the boom. The small boat was on automatic cruise. There was no way Daniel could swim fast enough to catch up with it. His body was never found.
Since that happened I have never looked at the sea with complacency. It’s beautiful but deadly.
Now five young men from London have been drowned off Camber Sands in East Sussex. Witnesses say that even in an area notorious for treacherous currents and riptides they have never seen the tide come in so fast as on that dreadful day. Those urban young lads were probably having the time of their lives beside the sea on the hottest day of the year.
Holidaymakers must listen to the RNLI. “Respect the water.” It’s not always a harmless holiday playground.