Holiday in Portugal many years ago. After a drunken binge, I decided on an early morning dip. It was about 5.00am and dawn had come. After 10 mins or so I turned to the beach, it looked quite far to me, so decided to swim back. Unfortunately, I seemed to be getting further and further out.
Beautiful morning mind you. 10 minutes later I could hardly see the beach, and begun to worry a tad.
I gave up swimming, and lay on my back to have a think. I decided to try and swim parallel to the beach as there might be a headland or something, sobering up quite quickly, I realised nobody would have a clue where I was, and would not be missed until lunchtime.
After about another 30 minutes, half swimming , but mainly trying to conserve energy, I heard a faint sound, putta, putta, about 100yards away was a small boat, a one man fishing boat with an outboard motor.
One guy on board and he had seen me.
He dragged me on board, and shouted something, my Portuguese was not so good(still isnt).
He took me to a landing stage which was about a mile from where I had entered the sea. Bedraggled I made my way Back to the beach where my swim had started, and picked up my gear.
Told none of my mates about it, and said nothing for years about my attempt to swim to the states.
I later learnt about RIP tides and their danger.
Never did thank that Portuguese fisherman.
