“ At sea, you’ve got to hold your wits or you can get killed quickly." - Wilson Levy

This is the nineteenth in a series of profiles on old-time Caymanians, whose lives are intimately linked to the rugged soil and the azure seas of these Cayman Islands. Rarely have these men and women had an opportunity to speak about the absorbing adventures of their youth. But each has a fascinating story to tell, which Pam DaCosta has been eagerly discovering, as she travels the length of Grand Cayman in search of these unique intriguing human treasures.

Wilson Levy bears an uncanny resemblance to Josiah Henson, the real-life “Uncle Tom” of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s beloved book, ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’. Mr Wilson’s personality even mirrors Josiah’s good-natured and humble graciousness. Having turned 93 years old last October, Mr Wilson holds the same birthday as best friend and fellow seaman, Neevil McCoy. Each evening you’ll find both happily chatting away on Neevil’s front porch.

Mr Wilson sits, lops his long legs over each other, and breaks into a beaming smile: “I’m eldest of seven born to Mrs Nettie Levy of Bodden Town. I helped raise my siblings. My mother passed away at 105 years old and 6 months; she might wind up holding the record for the oldest person ever living in Cayman.”

He taps his cane and grows serious…“Cayman was hard growing up. Us youths were worked to death. I’ve chopped some logwood in my day! A huge logwood “forest” stood in Newlands and I’d help chop and carry the logs out on my shoulders to a dirt road that stopped at Savannah. A 5-ton pickup truck belonging to Joe and Johnny Berry transported the wood to George Town. Vehicles could come no further than Savannah. Eastern districts were still just sand paths. Logwood got loaded onto schooners for Jamaica where they were used for dyeing leather, giving the leather a reddish-brownish look. I’ll never forget, once it rained for days, water caught us at waist-height chopping and hauling Logwood, the water around us turned blood red.

“My first trip to sea was as cook aboard Donna Hepsey, a Panamanian-made schooner with an engine, owned by Paige Bodden; he’d named it after his wife. Paige got boat-builder Jim Arch to saw it in half and extend its middle to carry more cargo. Captained by Rollie Bodden, we’d carry cargo and passengers to and from Cayman, Belize, Colon, Columbia and Jamaica. We also transported cows from Puerto Cortez, Honduras to Cozumel, Mexico for butchering.

“Heading to Colon late one evening, I was in the galley, heard yelling and peeped out. Everyone was shouting to Captain Rollie to stop the boat. There was no land around…but the fellows were seeing muddy water. We were almost aground onto a sandy, mud-covered reef! I checked our compass and saw it spinning. Puzzled, I dug down inside the compass’ housing box and pulled out two files (for sharpening knives). Someone had stuffed them there to be handy and that’s what had thrown our compass off by 40 miles from where we needed to be. Luckily it wasn’t at nighttime or we would’ve torn our hull out and sunk. Coast Guard wasn’t around in those days to call on. Out at sea, you’ve got to know what you’re doing…else you’ll go to hell quick!

“On one trip to Belize, I decided to stay behind and work for Dwight Hunter at his dry-dock facility at Ramsen Point, Belize. He’d relatives in Cayman Brac. I earned the best salary for the first time. For two years I cleaned, sanded, and painted boat bottoms, and then returned to Cayman at age 19.

“I found a job in George Town with brothers Audley and Lawrence (“Laurel”) Bodden doing gardening, digging cisterns, and painting. I walked daily from Bodden Town and was paid in food, which I took home each evening for my mother to cook for our family. The Bodden brothers trusted me saying: “Wilson, you don’t have ‘long fingers’ like the rest who’ve worked for us” and they’d rely on me to organize others on almost every project. The Bodden brothers owned two schooners (twin-masted), Cimboco (Cayman Islands Motor Boat Company) and Hustler. Laurel captained Cimboco. Audley was chief mate aboard Hustler, captained by Syril Bush.

“Hustler was beautiful. Everyone fell in love with her. She was fast and sleek, winning every Easter regatta race at George Town’s Hogsty Bay. Then the brothers outfitted Hustler with two deep wells in her midsection allowing her to transport live lobsters. They’d gotten a contract with the US military base at Colon, Panama, providing US Army soldiers with lobsters.

“For nine straight years without any hitch, Hustler made two trips back and forth every year from Miskitos Keys, picking up lobsters, transporting them to Colon, and then returning to Cayman.

“Every year in October, Audley would beach Hustler for me to clean her hull of barnacles, and sand, and then paint her with a copper paint that made her faster, slicker through the water and warded off barnacles.

“The two black-haired brothers were different. Audley never took chances. He was chief mate and skillfully guided Captain Syril everywhere in Hustler. I’d hear Syril boasting: ‘Audley knows Panama’s tricky reefs like the back of his hand, he knows where every rock and shoal lies.’

“Laurel was opposite, blue-eyed, hot-tempered, headstrong. Then, I’d heard they’d a falling out. Laurel fired Audley, Syril and the 8-member crew except for two and took over Hustler as captain. Apparently Laurel felt three trips could’ve been made yearly instead of two.

“I walked up asking Laurel if he’d carry me along to dive up lobsters, he agreed. Next morning, I walked to work carrying a small suitcase. Audley asked: ‘Where you going with that?’ I answered: ‘With Laurel’. He later quietly said: ‘I don’t want you going. When I take back over Hustler from him, I’ll take you to Panama then. My brother carries too much sail in bad weather. No matter how many times I tell him, he still won’t listen. He won’t even listen to God, much less me.’

In June 1941, as Hustler left, I stood on Hogsty Bay watching her sails picking up wind, moving fast. She was something to behold. I badly wanted to be aboard, but listened to Audley and stayed. A month later, I’d heard Laurel had telexed Cayman saying he’d already made two trips (from Miskitos Keys to Colon with lobsters), and would be making the third trip, then buying groceries for Cayman and returning.

“Next thing we’d heard, the sloop Radium (one-mast) had gotten washed ashore at Cape Gracias (Honduras) and had telexed Cayman saying Hustler was apparently lost. Both vessels had been exiting Panama alongside; Hustler Cayman-bound, Radium was heading for Miskitos Keys…when both entered into a hurricane.

“Captain Arnold Conolly of Radium, a tall and big-strapping man from East End, (Warren’s uncle) later said that winds started from northwest like a Nor’wester, but then his barometer started dropping fast, so he’d pulled alongside Hustler shouting for Laurel to turn back, that the barometer was dropping. Laurel had shouted back: ‘It’s just bad some weather! I’m going on!’ Radium turned but still got pounded by the storm, Hustler remained Cayman-bound.

“Cayman was abuzz about Hustler. Cimboco, Wilson, Armistice, Rembro and others went hunting for Hustler combing between here and Panama but found nothing floating. A month later…as I recall it was the Rembro that found Hustler’s rigging and double masts floating off Swan Island and brought them back to Cayman. The crew of the Rembro also reported seeing hundreds of potatoes floating nearby, which verified Laurel had made that 3rd trip, had purchased groceries, and was returning to Cayman. Audley asked me to help him carry Hustler’s masts and store them underneath the George Town schoolhouse that sat on stilts at the dockside, opposite Elmsley Memorial Church. As we picked them up, I couldn’t stop trembling, Audley couldn’t stop crying. I thought he’d collapse. One mast had chop marks…that meant they had tried to de-mast Hustler to avoid capsizing. The second mast looked like it had broken off. Later, someone purchased the masts for their schooner. Those days, masts were expensive and hard to come by.

“Hustler went down with 13 Caymanians aboard. Old crew of Peter Watson and Griffith Solomon (sailors); new crew of Ralph Bodden, (sailor), Teddy Linwood, (cook, old man), Windell Hurlston, (mate, aged 22, Captain Paul Hurlston’s brother), Ren and Hal Soto, (deckhands, aged 16 and 21, Bob Soto’s brothers), passengers Ivan, Ewin, Bertie Jackson, (three young brothers), Nino Bush (Ms Lassie’s brother) and his wife and Captain Laurel.

“I felt sorry for them all, but Hustler’s crew had to take orders. Those days if a captain issued orders…there’s nothing you could’ve said or done. If Laurel had made up his mind, that would’ve been it. Whatever Captain Conolly shouted across wouldn’t have made a difference. The northwest winds probably fooled Laurel into thinking it was just a Nor’wester, but the barometer aboard Hustler would’ve told them they were headed into a hurricane.

“In 1943, the US military came to Cayman asking for Caymanian men to sign up to go into World War II and 160 of us signed up. Many of us never made it back; I was lucky. I was assigned to Trinidad’s Royal Navy and worked ashore at Stoffel Bay in Port of Spain, Trinidad as a night watchman protecting sleeping guards making sure no harm came to them. They’d trained me to use a single-shot Winchester rifle and I carried one. I’d a telescope that picked up night movements too. No threats came while I was there. After nine months, I finished my stint and returned to Cayman.

“In 1954 I started with National Bulk Carriers and stayed with them six years. All their ships were Japanese-made. They flew me to New York then on to Japan’s shipyard for two maiden voyages…Ore Titan and Ore Monarch. In them, we carried iron ore from Venezuela to either Baltimore’s or Philadelphia’s refineries. I was a ‘Wiper’ cleaning boilers, engines and engine rooms. I’d keep those engine-rooms spic and span, spotless too! Never once was I seasick.

“My next ships were Ore Transport and Ore Convey. On Ore Convey we got caught loaded with ore in a bad Atlantic hurricane heading towards Baltimore. Suddenly, the 150-foot conveyor belt that sat lashed on deck broke away and started swinging and slamming back and forth against the ship’s side. We were already loaded plus the conveyor’s weight listed us badly to one side. Big waves rolled over almost capsizing us. Us men kept lunging at it each time it swung back, but then it got wrenched out of our hands. I kept praying in my mind. I was taller, huskier than most men those days. I held on with one hand, with my right hand lunged out, grabbed hard and yanked. The men grabbed on, we pulled it in and secured it back into its huge turnbuckles. Later they congratulated me: ‘Man! You were swift!’ I replied: ‘I’d better be! That was big trouble!’ At sea, you’ve got to hold your wits or you can get killed quickly.

“My last trips were aboard Bulk Trader and Petro Emperor hauling oil from Panama to Jacksonville, Florida. Ore and oil ships had the same type of boiler rooms, but Bulk Trader had huge boiler problems. I’d get called out of my bunk many an off-duty night when I’d be sleeping and I’d have to get up to assist no matter how tired I was. Those boilers forever leaked. One time we docked, we were told Bulk Trader had just been sold to the Chinese. The Chinese were familiar with diesels but not as familiar with boiler-type engines. I’m not sure what happened, but we heard later that Bulk Trader had blown up at sea and another vessel had picked up survivors.

“I returned to Cayman and worked at carpentry and painting. With the money I’d saved over the years, I built three wooden homes at Breakers, East End and Bodden Town, and rented them. Then I assisted Rex Crighton in building homes in Prospect and at Spotts, Newlands”.