The Tuesday Group Joins the Coast Guard 2/16/2016

Rain cancelled our plans for a hike at York River State Park today so we headed to the AMC 24 in Hampton to see "The Finest Hours". This was the retelling of a true story involving a daring sea rescue off the coast of New England in February 1952. The SS Pendleton, an oil tanker, has broken in half off the New England coast during a February nor'easter. All that stands between the tanker and total disaster (if you can believe something worse than breaking in half) is the skill and ingenuity of the introverted and mostly disliked engineer, Mr Siebert (dreamboat #1 Casey Affleck). While Mr. Siebert tries to devise a way to strand the tanker on a sandbar, the Chatham Massachusetts Coast Guard has dispatched CG36500, a small but capable craft to the rescue. Commanding CG 36500 is shy and humble (yet very capable and confident--but not overly so) Crewman Bernie Webber (dreamboat #2 Chris Pine). Bernie is in love with Miriam who desperately wants him to forsake his duty and stay with her ashore. But Bernie knows his duty and heads out into the storm with three other capable crewmen. This boat CG36500 is AMAZING! It handles 100 foot waves. It goes underwater and pops right up. And it never musses Bernie's hair! It powers through the titanic waves breaking over Chatham Harbor shoal with the skill and determination of Bernie at the helm and makes it into open water. However, their compass has been lost due to the furious sea waves. Meanwhile, back on the SS Pendleton, Mr. Siebert is fighting time, a sinking oil tanker and unsupportive crew members in his struggle to find a sandbar to beach the tanker. They manage to construct a makeshift tiller and maneuver it to and settle the tanker on a sandbar just as the engines fail. But is it too late? Will the Coasties find them in time?? Bernie knows those waters. He knows the seasonal currents and he finds the tanker!! Yes, he really does! But the weather is just awful, the seas are tossing the tanker, it's about to slip off the sandbar, the CG36500 is rocking like crazy. The tanker lets down a ladder and all the crew members (except the cook who falls and hits his head and drowns and we were all very sorry to see this because he was very nice) manage to make it to the CG36500. But it

only has room for 12! But Bernie says "We all go home or we all die" so they head back home with 32 crewmen from the tanker (plus the 4 coasties so I guess that's 36). They still have no compass but Bernie uses common sense and his wits to head them back to shore. "The wind was on my left going out so it should be on my right going in." Of course! They make it back over the deadly shoal but they cannot see the shore! Where are the lights of Chatham town?! Well wouldn't you know, they have had a power failure because of the storm. All the townsfolk are parked down at the pier anxiously awaiting CG36500's return. Then Miriam has a brilliant idea. She turns on the headlights of her car (which she almost wrecked because the Coast Guard Commander threw her out of the station when she made a scene about Bernie and she was so mad that she was driving too fast on the icy road and hit a snowbank--it really wasn't that bad) and everyone else does so too. It lights up the whole coast of Chatham town. And guess what? Bernie sees it and he manages to bring CG36500 and everyone aboard safely back to shore. And everyone lives happily ever after.

Then we had lunch at the Crab Shack. But that, is another story...

Phyllis