Pages

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Fire in the Hull!

"Fire!" My daughter yelled as we turned off the wooded path and onto the beach. Indeed, the grounded sailboat--illustration from my previous post, site of last week's beach breakfast, and topic of ongoing speculation--was ablaze.

Drawn to flame like campers brandishing marshmallows, the children--my two plus a friend--broke into a sprint, managing an on-scene response time we certainly don't see on routine calls.

By the time I arrived--I believe my response time officially classified me as a "secondary unit"--the blaze was what Peter, my firefighter friend, would refer to as "fully involved."

"You guys can't be serious," my husband said in disbelief as my daughter, her friend and I each plunged an oyster shell into the sea and ran toward the flaming craft.

Meanwhile, my son found an empty beer bottle and got to work--undaunted yet hindered by the lime wedged in the bottle's neck. In no time at all, the flames were tamed. The smoke dissipated. The air cleared. Miraculously, the vessel appeared untouched by flame.

The rest of us cheered, but my husband just shook his head, staring at the embattled and partially burried remains of the shipwrecked craft.

"He really salvanged it," my husband said. "He saved it from being a complete loss."

2 comments:

Catherine Wannabe said...

Looks like all that kitchen blaze experience came in handy!

Icon-1 said...

Not to mention: That boy and his bottle would have been an asset for the Chiminea/fuzzy-socks episode.

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin