Pearls of Perelle

THERE are, apparently, 1,800 named rocks around the Bailiwick of Guernsey. That is a lot of granite and a lot of danger to those who like to splosh about on the sea. Barry Paint - or should I say Captain Paint? - is sufficiently fascinated by our rocky outcrops that he is well into a project to ensure that the rocks keep the identity our forebears gave them.

As it happens, we are very good at changing the names intended and he can freely reel off a multitude of examples.

He is also fascinated with Perelle beach - and has been since the age of three, when he first stepped upon it.

To this eminent man of the sea, with probably unrivalled knowledge of the island's west coast, Perelle means beauty.

While at a low spring tide I see little else but ugly vraic - tons and tons of the stuff - the merchant seaman, skilled enough to be asked to steer the Vermontborg safely away from our coastline after it had run aground on the nearby La Capelle reef in early January 2003, is uplifted by its rugged beauty, quoting the Guernsey French names of rock after rock in the horseshoe-shaped bay, all with obvious love and enthusiasm.

'It's a wonderful beach,' he says. And the tales start flowing.

Looking out from our central vantage point close to the main slipway, his finger points right to the natural causeway linking the headland close to Fort Richmond and the Conchee reef on which the Prosperity crew, all 18 hands, perished in January 1974.

The reef is reachable by foot on a spring low and he knows it like the back of his hand.

'When I was 12 I went out there with my gaff and caught a big conger in a hole as well as seven dozen ormers.'

That was 1959 when the delicacy was so plentiful that he could afford to throw them away so he could carry the big eel home, a stone's throw away up the road.

'It was 30-and-three-quarter pounds gutted and I couldn't carry both.'

Perelle is in his blood, although he was born in the Grande Rue, St Saviour's.

'My father, grandfather and great uncle were all fishermen out of Perelle. As a boy I spent nearly every day of my life on this beach, fishing, swimming, rafting or just going out with the local fishermen.

It's a very good mooring bay after half-tide. You've got perfect shelter.'

As a young boy and now at 60, Perelle has offered much to him, just as it has to generations of seaweed gatherers.

Two stretches of cobbled road beneath the sea wall on the south side provide lasting evidence of an era when horses and carts were a common sight on the rocky beach.

'When I was a boy I remember periods when the whole beach was full of octopus - thousands upon thousands of them,' he said.

'I'd get them for the fishermen to use as bait and recall my best was 40 in one day.

'But the winter of 1962-63 slaughtered every single one of them. Today they would make a fortune out of them.'

When the tides were high, jumping off the sea wall that runs parallel with Rue du Catioroc, Barry and his mates had many a fun-filled hour.

And when the wind blows, Perelle is as spectacular a sight as most west-coast beaches.

At such times it is not best practice to be aboard a boat or ship of any size close to the mouth of the bay.

The Prosperity disaster is the obvious case in point.

Barry recalls the night very well, although he was many miles away aboard his own ship, doing his best to stay out of trouble at anchor.

'I was listening to it in the Bay of St Malo, just off Cancale, on the Commodore Trader.

'I heard the Greek captain of the ship, who kept saying: "We're going around, we're going around." But what he meant, of course, was "We're going aground." It was a hell of a storm.

'The crew should have stayed on the bridge, which didn't even get wet. But it's always easy to be wise after the event.'

The 2,000-ton Cypriot timber ship had lost power 20 miles west of the Hanois lighthouse in the worst weather for years.

The St Peter Port lifeboat was launched but was called back as it made slow progress in the terrible seas, which were being whipped up by force 11-12 hurricane winds.

The crew, including a woman and a 16-year-old boy, all drowned after abandoning the ship.TWENTY-NINE years after the Prosperity disaster and just 1,050 yards away to the west, the new-hull Vermontborg stuck hard and fast on La Capelle reef.

The hull, worth close to £2m., was being towed from the builder's yard in Romania to the Netherlands for fitting out when it broke free of its lines in high winds and drifted inshore and aground off Perelle.

It would be there for 15 days and might have been there for a lot longer but for the efforts and local knowledge of Barry Paint.

'It was very well stuck,' he recalled. 'We needed a 7.7m tide to even start thinking about refloating her and it was stormy weather all the time up to the day we got it off.'

His job was primarily to pilot the tugs into the area, dodging the array of rocks.

'The biggest had a 21ft draft and I was chosen as the one with the most knowledge of the coast.'

For this reason alone, it was never going to be easy to get the 120m-long Vermontborg off and some doubted it would disappear at all.

Roger Berry, then president of the Board of Administration, said at the time: 'It is so far up the beach there is only a minute chance of refloating it.'

Barry said there were reefs that the tugs could not clear, although the ship could. He recalls much tension among the salvagers, but he insists he remained calm throughout.

'I didn't feel pressure. Concern, yes. But I had nothing to lose.

'It was hell of a challenge and the chances of getting it off were quite slight.'

He says it was the most interesting project of his 20 years as a pilot - and one that paid him well.

It took three attempts on different days to free the empty ship.

'We started pulling at 25% power, which is a lot. It went 20 metres and stopped dead on the bottom. It was hard and fast again.

But, thankfully, the sea helped out.

'Another swell came along - a huge one - and she was off. There was a huge cheer. It was like being at a football game.'

All done, with the help of Barry's expert guidance, in 54 knots of wind. It had been stuck fast for 15 days, providing islanders with an attraction with a difference.

Harbour master Captain Robert Barton praised the work of all concerned and had special words for his two local pilots, the other being Andy Lowe.