Christie Boy
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Big Donald
...Big Donald was a well known character from Kyleakin, who spent his latter days fishing in the Kyle, off his home village. His son, Tarzan, was equally well known and much of their time was spent trawling for coal around Kyle Pier. This was spilled between ship and pier while bunkering was carried out. On the day of his encounter with the "Lochness", however, he was simply fishing. After a night of hard frost, the day had begun brightly, with the brilliant sunshine which so often followed in the West. In the early afternoon, Big Donald was fishing by hand line, and being midwinter, the sun was very low in the sky. The "Lochness" had just cast off from Kyle, on her way to Stornoway, and probably because of the setting sun, failed to observe the familiar figure fishing in their path. Minutes later they were equally unaware that they had run him down and sunk his boat.
The ship travelled on her way for some distance and it was only when one of the crew was tidying up the mooring ropes for'ard that he became aware of a voice calling for help. Eventually looking over the side, he saw Big Donald hanging on grimly to the anchor. A mooring line was quickly dropped to him and he was hauled board, much to the surprise of Captain MacArthur and crew. The resulting conversation is not recorded, which is perhaps just as well. Suffice to say that it was near miraculous that a man of already advanced years should survive this ordeal unscathed...
The Lochness
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