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what sailing should always be, I thought, as we scudded along late one night. But there was
to be trouble in paradise.
I was sitting on watch with a problem on my mind. Two years before I started my cruise
from Cape Town, I had succumbed, with a good bit of salesmanship, to the outlandish idea
of having an elaborate hairpiece sewed to my scalp. I was, at that stage of my life, virtually
bald and, being only twenty-eight, felt I was justified in so doing. It became an absolute
curse to me for the next two years.
Essentially it was a mop of artificial hair that was attached to thirty subcutaneous stitches
in my scalp, installed by a plastic surgeon. I was then ushered into the clinic's hairdresser
chair where a young lady proceeded to shape the “mop” until it looked just like my own.
My friends and family were understandably shocked, and some were even amused at my
vanity. I walked into my chandlery shop the very next day, and my innocent eighty five year
old bookkeeper looked up suddenly and in a loud, clear English accent inquired, “Good
God, is that a wig?” to which several customers wheeled about to stare at my red face.
One unkind acquaintance did not let on that he knew, and one day when in the back of his
pickup truck, he proceeded to try and have the wind blow it off me by speeding about as
fast as he could. May he remember that day with shame all his life. It was the day he almost
got me killed in a diving incident, but that is another story. Word soon got out in the tight
yachting circles that I was wearing a “rug” and the people's attitude towards me changed
noticeably. In retrospect, I deserved it.
For the next two years I was to be embarrassed by this cursed wig from women who wanted
to run their hands through my hair. Why do women all want to do that? I became increas-
ingly uncomfortable about the situation as the months wore on. The sea air and sun soon
began to have a disastrous effect on the lustrous, shiny, brown artificial locks, and they
turned a drab, greenish yellow. The carefully coiffured locks and curls lost their shape and
it became like a limp, straggly mop in every sense of the word. Apart from the discoloring
effect, the stitches started to hurt and would go septic very easily. I did have a supply of an-
tiseptic shampoo I was to use (for the rest of my life!), and when that ran out I used normal
shampoo which only exacerbated the situation.
I admitted wearing a hairpiece to a few ladies that I dated, and there usually was one of two
reactions: “Oh God, you are so vain!” or “Never mind, it doesn't really bother me.” And I
wouldn't see them ever again.
I was in a quandary. What was I to do? While on St. Maarten, I just couldn't have it re-
moved. Firstly from pride, and secondly there was no plastic surgeon there as far as I knew;
besides, I didn't have the money to pay for one if there was. The problem weighed heavily
