Cape Breton's Magazine

120,000-dollar job on that one. I floated her and I didn't think I was going to float her at all. But I did. I didn't think there was any chance. She was up so damned high. Just around the' first of the year. The surveyor was there, and he says, "Now you're not going to give this one up." He says, "You want that job for the winter." And I said, "We can do it if the weather is right, but it's winter and it won't be right, not long e- nough." You could walk right around the thing, you know. She had come up ashore in a high tide and a gale of wind and full speed ahead. So I said, "If a miracle would happen, my son, and that boat would go ahead a couple lengths into that brook in there, then we would have a chance." We went down there the next morning and there was such a tide that that thing floated and went down the shore 2 or 3 times the length of herself and went up in that brook. And there she was, stern out to the sea and her bow up inside. Well, she was safe for eternity. I can hardly believe it yet. The Lord must have done it. There is nothing else...how anything like that could happen I don't know. There she was. Well, we went down there and there was very little patching to do. She was loaded with fish and we dumped a lot of them over on the beach. And we got the tug down from Halifax. We run the lines out to her and took her off and brought her up here, and we had a 120,000-dollar repair on her. The way it worked, when something would happen, they'd throw it on the insurance underwriters and the underwriters would throw it on me • and you'd have to give them a price • no cure, no pay. If you float her you get paid, and if you don't, you don't. I'd go up and take a look first. Either I'd go down or one of my boys would, look her over, see how much damage was done. That was to be sure. Fig? ure how long it was going to take, how much it was going to cost. Then we'd see how much profit we'd want on it. Then we'd tell them. And they never said no. Never once. Never. Besides being a Marine Salvor and operator of the Port Hawkesbury Marine Railway, Art Langley, Sr., served off and on for lE years as mayor of Port Hawkesbury. Cape Breton's Original Fish and Chips Outlets Union St., 849-1337 | Ifl fllTU I ??SlMOr Welton St., 539-8940 • With Three Restaurant Locations to Serve You* New Waterford Mahon St., 862-2260 Cape Breton Bed and Breakfast Watch for BED AND BREAKFAST sign or contact Cape Breton Tourist Assn. for a list. Cape Breton's BED AND BREAKFAST program offers a unique and inter? esting experience in overnight ac? commodations. Every season those in the program, displaying the sign at left, open their doors to greet visitors with courtesy and warmth. A Complete Selection of Tropical Fish UR'T Bill's Pet Centre 333 George Stf*eet in Sydney next to Island Crafts Phone 539-2243 Exotic Birds and Small Animal? PI HAGEN Pet Supplies and Accessories