Modern Day Pirates

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The Day My Father Watched Two Men Drown

And why he taught this pirate to swim

Geoff Talbot's avatar
Geoff Talbot
Jul 07, 2026
∙ Paid

It was the worst day of my father’s life.

It’s the reason he taught me to swim.

It happened years before I was born.

Sometime in the 1960’s, he and my newly married mom were walking the golden sand beach of Whangamatā, in the Coromandel in New Zealand.

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It was not summer; it was a lazy Sunday afternoon in the middle of winter.

The beach was isolated

Two peop…

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