Tor Helge

I think George Harris was one of the most charismatic people I have ever met.  He and his very beautiful German wife Vera owned and operated an old “stink pot” named Tor Helge, a vessel I am hard-pressed to even try to describe.  She wasn’t exactly a sailing vessel but had a couple of masts, wasn’t really big enough to be a cargo ship and certainly was not a luxury yacht!  Only someone as fun and energetic as George could fill that old boat to the brim with charter guests week after week and make them love it.

George’s mother Mildred organized the travel arrangements from Toronto for George’s guests, and did it so well she ended up becoming a travel agent.  Each week twelve new passengers would board Tor Helge and have a Caribbean cruise like no other. Crammed in like sardines, they would eat horrible food like soggy spaghetti with mashed eddoes on top and declare it delicious. Only George and his charisma could get away with not only charging people for such fare but making them enjoy it too!

George would bring his passengers to Lower Bay each week for lunch at De Reef, which meant he fed all twelve passengers for $12.00 EC!!  ($4.50 U.S.)  I was there the day he arrived with his guests to discover the price had gone up by 100%, and a fish lunch was now $2.00 EC per person.  He had not brought enough money and had to borrow some to pay the bill. We all laughed as he made jokes about De Reef making him lose money on the charter, we knew he was just kidding.

Vera got pregnant, and for the two weeks leading up to her due date she lived at our house above the Pizzeria.  Tor Helge had back-to-back charters, and it wouldn’t do if she were to go into labor in the Tobago Cays!  As Vera’s time drew near poor George was in a state, the only way he had to communicate with Vera was by VHF radio, and for that he had to be within range.  I felt sorry for that week’s group of passengers, George paced with the boat back and forth across the mouth of Bequia’s harbor, slipping ashore at night to be with Vera. The charter guests that week never got to see the Grenadines except of course Bequia, and I doubt they even complained about it, George was simply the kind of guy everyone loved.

Vera gave birth to a baby boy named Adam, and the couple asked Mac to be his God-father. My dad performed the baptismal ceremony on Tor Helge, using the ship’s bell to hold the baptismal water.  This would be the first of many such baptisms, it seemed that all of our friends were having babies simultaneously!

I will never forget the day George and Vera arrived at De Reef in their big dinghy, we could hear Vera screaming as they approached the shore. Everyone watched with shocked amazement as George threw little Adam overboard!  Adam was not yet three months old and Vera was absolutely frantic.  I learned something that day, babies can and DO swim instinctively if they are introduced to water at such an early age – that little baby swam like a fish.