In 1995 I married a tug captain, and was introduced to the sea-faring lifestyle of those who work on tugs and barges. Being a life-long land-lubber I never traveled with Nik (for which I am sure both captain and crew were grateful!), but I DID come to realize how very hard they worked. Transporting sand and gravel throughout the islands towing a 3,000 ton barge was nothing short of grueling; between the loading and off-loading of materials during the day and being at sea pretty well every night the work was non-stop, and a restful sleep was pretty much unheard of. Whenever Nik was able to spend time on Bequia he slept like the dead – he was always totally exhausted, and I’m sure his 6 crew members were exhausted too.
One year I flew to Martinique to join Nik; the barge was at dry-dock for maintenance and inspection, with tug America tied at the near-by wharf. Nik and I stayed at a small hotel in Fort-de-France within walking distance of the shipyard, and I spent pleasant days eating baguette and wandering through shops while Nik and the crew toiled in the heat. Near the end of the day I would walk over to where the tug was tied, happy and content, in order to join a very hot and VERY greasy tug-boat crew. Although not loading and off-loading building materials and handling a barge at sea, they still had to WORK at dry-dock, and they were tired, hungry and thirsty by late afternoon.
One day Nik encouraged me to go shopping with the tug’s cook for groceries at the large shop on the out-skirts of town, a chore I was more than happy to be a part of. The grocery store was HUGE, and so was the shopping list! My eyes got bigger and my jaw dropped as I watched the cook in action – he needed a freaking forklift to carry the supplies he was stocking up on – and I wondered if Nik realized just how much it was all going to cost! I expressed my amazement to the cook when I saw how many legs of New Zealand lamb and whole chickens he was collecting, and he simply looked at me and said,
“Judy, dem boys could eat!”
Dem boys could eat indeed. They consumed vast quantities of food, yet there wasn’t an ounce of fat on their lean, muscular bodies. As Nik later explained, a tug-boat can’t run without fuel and neither can its crew. His men worked hard and deserved good food, it was pretty much all they had to look forward to during their work-day, and Nik ensured that they were rewarded with decent food as well as decent wages. As he was fond of saying,
“A captain is only as good as his crew”.
Nik was a captain with a capital “C”, and his hard-working crews were (and many still ARE) definitely a reflection of his teaching skills and wise leadership. A captain wise enough to share his (or her) knowledge produces excellent crew, proving that a crew is only as good as its captain – it works both ways!
