Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
It is true though, on a boat there can only be one person in charge, no matter how unfair it
sounds. This has been proved so many times. I have sailed with skippers that are absolute
tyrants; usually they are very nervous owing to their lack of experience or inability to sail.
On the other hand, a calm, logical skipper tends to promote safety and a feeling of compet-
ence aboard amongst his crew, making sailing so much more pleasant.
Six days out of Curacao saw us arriving at the Panama Yacht Club roadstead. The sail there
was wonderful although the wind decreased steadily to around ten knots the farther south
we traveled. The evenings were dry and warm and exciting. There was a lot of traffic about,
and we had to keep a sharp lookout on watch. This was the funnel to the Pacific Ocean, and
all sorts of ships and boats were converging at the entrance. On most mornings our decks
were peppered with flying fish from the night before. We would tie these onto a bare brass
hook and troll them behind us. We usually caught dorado or dolphin fish and had fish al-
most every night for dinner, almost to the point of being weary of fresh fish! But, of course,
not quite.
One morning at the break of day, something woke Gavin from a deep sleep, and he came
out to investigate. I was on watch, and I shamefully had fallen fast asleep. “Jesus Christ,
Jon, wake up!” When Gavin was agitated or angry he would call me Jon. I had started call-
ing myself the full “Jonathan” when I was twenty, and he never fully accepted my “new”
name.
“Didn't you see that bloody boat?”
I wheeled about and saw behind us a large, red hulled yacht bearing down on our stern
not two hundred feet away. “Oh shit, I must have just dozed off,” I mumbled quite shaken.
There appeared to be nobody visible; it was obviously running on auto pilot of some sort.
I leaned over and altered our course more south to allow them to pass in safety. I swung be-
low and unshipped the foghorn from the bulkhead. Returning above decks, I grinned, “This
should wake 'em up.”
“And anyone dead for miles around,” sniffed Gavin. He was still piqued at my falling
asleep during watch. I let loose a mighty blast from the foghorn, and within seconds a
tousled haired youth appeared and waved sheepishly as he stood by the helm. We waved
stiffly as they went by. “Harbor trash,” remarked Gavin. We noticed they were from the
U.K.. “It's no wonder their navy's gone to pot,” I rejoined.
That had been a fairly close call, and I mentally scolded myself for being such an idiot. I
never was much of a night owl, and it would plague me virtually all my sailing nights.
Closer to the entrance of the canal, the shipping traffic increased dramatically, and we had
to be on guard all the time. There were lines of gigantic oil tankers and container vessels
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