The Vagabond. Frank Rautenbach

      I saw Miles’s father first. He was running along the dock wall as we made our way in, angrily shaking his fist at the captain.

      We finally got to our mooring on the eastern dock. We were exhausted, but happy to be back.

      When I saw Miles’s mother, I was expecting a big smile of relief and happiness. Instead, she was crying, and her face was the picture of pure anger. Also clearly directed at the captain.

      I remember disembarking and standing on solid ground for the first time in three days. It made the pitching and rolling motion in my head even worse. We all stumbled around trying to shake off our sea legs. I was confused by Miles’s parents’ reaction towards the captain.

      He seemed like a meek old man who had just survived a terrible ordeal. There was a reporter from the local newspaper. Miles’s mother confronted him and said that they would sue him if he wrote a single word about the incident. This was way too much tension for me to handle. I grabbed my stuff, got on my bike and rode home.

      I casually walked in through the front door. My gran asked how the weekend was. I said it was fine, but we didn’t get much surf. I dumped my board in the my room and with everything still swaying about me I stepped into the best shower of my life.

      We were all back at school the next day. As I sat at my desk, I could still feel The Vagabond’s pitching and rolling motion in my head. I looked up, and saw Miles and Eyeball. They, too, were battling to sit up straight. Joking about our ordeal on The Vagabond with our classmates, they gave us the usual ribbing one can expect from teenage boys.

      Everyone burst out laughing after hearing we had got lost on a boat called The Vagabond.

      Miles, Eyeball and I would never really take the time to talk about what had happened to us.

      We just kind of moved on. I think we just didn’t want to remember such a traumatic experience. Years later, Miles told me that when he got home that night he went straight to the bathroom to take a shower. He said he just stood there and cried his eyes out for a long time.

      In the years that followed, we joked about it, but only in passing.

      The most we would say was, ‘Hey, remember The Vagabond?’ Then we would click our tongues and that would be the end of it.

      Twelve years later, while we were eating pizza with my parents and Leigh, my wife, I came clean about my adventures on the high seas. PTSD has a way of keeping secrets for a long time. And it would be 26 years before I would find out why Miles’ parents were so upset at the captain when we got back to the dock …