Former sea captain Paul Hurlston, who celebrated his 94th birthday this month, is still sharp as a tack and happy to share his remarkable knowledge of Cayman’s past.
When the Cayman Compass visited his home on Walkers Road, the old mariner was swinging back and forth in his hammock, still looking and sounding strong. He has a gleam in his eye, as if he is still scanning the horizon from the bridge of a great ocean-going tanker.
“My seafaring career began at age 14 when I headed out to the Miskito Cays, Nicaragua with my Uncle Carl Bush and we went to catch the green sea turtles,” he said.
Captain Paul explained that first voyage was on the Cayman schooner, the Antarus, owned by H.O. Merren.
“With Captain Cadien [Cadie] Ebanks at the helm of the schooner, the voyage to the waters off the coast of Nicaragua was a success. I still remember Captain Cadie’s wonderful and infectious laugh,” he said.
“We ranged around the Tyra Cay and managed to catch 200 large turtles, and as a member of the crew, I was entitled to my share.”
At 16, he left Cayman again heading for Tampa, where he landed a job on a banana boat for the Suwannee Fruit & Steamship Company. That was the start of a career that saw him rise steadily through the ranks of the merchant marine, taking him around the world and back again.
Captain Paul eventually became certified as a master mariner and, along the way, he captained some of the largest ships plying the oceans, including super tankers owned by Daniel K. Ludwig, owner of National Bulk Carriers, and who for a time, was the richest man in the world.
Sometimes he would be away from Cayman for a year or more, and over the course of his career at sea, he experienced fires, collisions, shipwrecks, ships running aground, stowaways and even armed conflicts.
We spoke about many things, including the mysterious loss of the motor vessel Nunoca, which left Grand Cayman for Tampa on 4 July 1936 in good weather, with 22 people onboard, many of them Caymanians, then subsequently disappeared without a trace. The last time they were seen, they were waving goodbye from the deck of the ship as they motored out of George Town harbour.
We spoke about World War II, with Captain Paul recalling that on 14 May 1942, he was in school in South Sound when he heard an explosion.
“I ran down to the beach and saw black smoke rising on the horizon from what turned out to be a United Fruit Company ship, the Comayagua, which had just been torpedoed by a German U-boat submarine 10 miles off the southwest point of Grand Cayman,” he said.
According to a U-boat history site, the first torpedo struck the Comayagua just forward of midships, in the boiler room, killing six crew members on watch below. A second torpedo blew off the stern, causing the ship to sink. The crew of 38 men and four armed guards abandoned the ship in rafts and were subsequently picked up by the Cayman vessel Cimboco.
In addition to all his own amazing stories, he has also been compiling historical items that he has found worth chronicling.
His efforts have resulted in a little stapled booklet called ‘50 Tidbits of Cayman History, Recollections of Times Past’. Below are a few of those items recorded by Captain Paul:
- Petra Plantation (now Grand Old House) had the first indoor toilet on the island.
- The late Levy Bodden brought the first pair of rabbits to Cayman and that is how he got his nickname ‘rabbit’.
- In 1920, there was a large shark that was on the south side of the island named ‘Big Ben’. It swamped many boats, and the fishermen were scared of it, but it never harmed anyone.
- Carrol Henderson was the first person to bring a car (a 1905 Cadillac) to Cayman.
- Aunt Beckie (Rebecca Godfrey) of George Town concocted and administered bush medicine; she often took patients into her home where she treated people for various ailments including venereal diseases.
- In the 1800s, a little boy boarded a Scandinavian ship off East End to sell provisions. The ship took off with the child aboard. Thirteen years later, the child returned to Cayman. He had learned to read and write and knew navigation. Years later, this boy became a general in the Honduran army. He was named George Dixon and he was Frank McField’s great grandfather.
- One Christmas morning, a man named Con Dan (Dan Bernard) was found dead, standing up, in the engine room of the old light plant (electric) on the waterfront.
- In Nicaragua, Jim Hurlston was being robbed of his jewellery, he begged the culprits to take his rings but leave his fingers. The robbers complied. From that day onwards, Jim was left with a crackling voice due to fear.
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