From: John Barbie [jbarbie11@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 11:49 AM
To: rutharras@yahoo.com
Subject: Handsome Frank

Hi all,

In the case that you have browsed over our lengthy
emails or skipped them in the past, I recommend you
give this one a quick read.  We left Barria Navidad
with our friends, the Irish,  (Barry and Keith on La
Vie En Rose) for a 2 day passage south to Zihuatenejo
in time for the Super Bowl. It was a sunny Saturday
and we were making good time staying about 8 miles off
shore.  La Vie En Rose was ahead of us about an hour. 
At about mid-day while John and I were eating BLTīs we
got a call on the radio from Keith. Instead of rubbing
in that they were beating us (only because they have a
bigger engine) Keith said ^"we think we've found a
body.  Either that or a blow-up dolls. No, we have
definitely found a dead human body.^"  We caught up
with their boat and sure enough, there was a dead
body.  It wasn't floating in the water, it was
floating on it from having being bloated for days. 
The corpse was what seemed to be a Caucasian male
about 40 years old.  He was wearing only boxer shorts
and his skin had peeled over his scalp. He lay face
down, arms and legs spread wide while fish pecked away
at his undersides. 

As you can imagine, we were all a little dumb-founded.
 None of our cruising books prepared us for this type
of situation.  Keith and I had been calling for help
in Spanish and English ever since we found the body
but no one responded.  Barry aptly named the body
handsome Frank.  Despite the gravity of the situation,
we managed to deal with it with a little humor. We
mulled over our options and decided that since we
couldn't hail anyone, we'd have to lift Frank into a
dinghy and take him to the nearest city.  We were as
close as preparing a tarp when I finally got a
response on the radio.  It took a good 30 minutes to communicate our situation over the static but we got across our position and awaited further instructions. 
We were told a navy or coast guard boat would arrive
in an hour.  In fact we were told that 6 times in a
row until dusk at which point we were tired,
frustrated and ready tie a glow stick to Frank and
leave a final position.    
Our next instructions were to somehow affix the body
to our boat before night fall.  It was an interesting
operation trying to get a rope around Frank's torso
and I ended up hooking his boxers with a gaff -- an
experience I will never forget.  Once we had the line
around frank we cleated him off to the back of La Vie
en Rose and decided that  since we had already waited
7 hours for the rescue boat, we would head in its
direction and also towards a town.  

Since we were going down wind, the smell from the
corpse was unbearable.  We sailed along slowly next to
La vie en Rose constantly checking for the status of
the Coast Guard.  Finally at midnight we saw the coast
guard boat on the horizon and guided them our
direction with a spot light.  Of course by the time
the coast guard was ready to approach La Vie en Rose,
the swells had picked up and we were rolling around on
the seas which made boarding our vessels from a dinghy difficult and risky.  Keith told me later that the officer had asked him to fill out a report and when Keith started filling it out, he realized it was a coast guard review form not a dead-persons report. 
Priorities?  John and I got a brief interview "yes we
have alcohol on board. Want a beer? no, we do not have
any drugs."  Finally at 1 am, we bid adieu to Handsome
Frank and the Mexican authorities.  We'll probably
never know who he was or how he died but we do have
extensive video footage courtesy of Keith who first
spotted the body from behind the video camera.  

We are now in the quaint town of Zihuatenjo, by far
the most beautiful place we have been.  We actually
made it to shore by half time so the dead body
incident wasn't a wash.  We are having movie night
tonight on our boat to review the absolutely
extraordinary circumstances that have just passed.  

Unfortunately all our future stories will pale by
comparison to Handsome Frank but so it goes...  

Regards,

Ruth, John and Spot (now trimmed of his winter hair)


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