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A Sailorâs Point of View
Foreword
Oceanic travel by passenger ship began ending when the airline Pan Am announced regular transatlantic flights in 1945. Travel by plane changed the very essence of the travelerâs psychology and the fundamental experience of a different place. We travel to learn and grow. Curiosity drives our quest to see the next port, to look around the bend, to climb the mountain top, and sail to the edge of the horizon. Our travel experience informs our understanding of our place on earth and the relationship of places in ourselves. Traveling provides the contrast to our normal. A different place makes this place, your place, your home understandable. How we are prepared to experience our travel has fundamentally changed since flying became open to all who could afford a ticket. We have lost the benefits of preparation and thus lost the ability to comprehend the nuanced aspects of travel both interior and exterior.
With air travel, we no longer wait in a heightened state of anticipation over discovering that distant place. Honestly, the wait is about discovering that far-off place in our soul. No long evenings on the deck of a massive ship watching sunrises and sunsets, where the only entertainment is playing shuffleboard, conversing with fellow travelers to glean inside information about the best restaurants, reliable drivers, clean hotels, crime, shopping, history and a variety of other subjects needing to grasp the contours of the new place. Our vanity demands a world-weary appearance to cover our innocence as if locals will sanction us for our lack of experience. Air travel excluded the long periods of wonderfully anxious and sumptuous anticipation. Waiting is something we sailors do well as we have no choice given the speed at which we travel. Some travelers are pressed for time, limited by funds, limited by vacation time from work, wanting to skip the first big step and get to the heart of the vacation. The casual traveler wants to be transported from his comfortable chair at home to the steps of the Roman coliseum as seamlessly as changing channels on their flat screen television. No sweat. No hassle. No experience? Seen it. Ate it. Hiked it. Slept in it. That will do, thank you very much, but I have to be back at work tomorrow. The experience of place washed away within days of returning home, leaving little or no impression of that place on their minds or souls. What is the point of travel if you are not willing to be fashioned by the place even a little?
Sailing to a place involves an entirely different psychological and physical dynamic for the earnest and open traveler/sailor. Passenger ships and cruise ships offer a hint of the maritime experience. Modern cruise ship experience has been so honed to entertaining the passive traveler it is hard to see how getting off the ship at a port of call has anything to do with the authentic experience of travel other than to pry dollars from your hands for trinkets. Trinkets you use as a reminder of having been there. There is no dynamic experience, no moment of realization, no conversation with your soul or reminders of your place in the continuum of humanity. You are left with sad little trinkets and a reminder of a lost opportunity.
Sailing is a physical and mind-altering experience of dimensions rarely understood, even by local sailors. Lauded through time, a sailorâs experience informed the homebound. Travel changed their being. Regardless of education or age, they wore their foreign experience like so many tattoos, a traveling corporeal pictographic. The sailor is a portal to the world.
What I am describing is very real but largely forgotten. Travel by sail is a unique experience that prepares you in wonderful ways to enter a world, unfamiliar in culture, language, and custom, yet to find an honest kinship with the inhabitants because of your confident awareness. The physical and emotional preparations inherent in sailing across the ocean make you different. The sailorâs point of view was once a common entity that allowed one to see the world and be in the world at once with a sublime understanding. The sailor's experiences, the history, the people and their customs, their art, their industry, their desires, likes and loves all become vividly apparent as the sailor immerses himself or herself in the sea of life.
I am that sailor and here are the stories, large and small from a sailorâs point of view.
What is the sailorâs point of view? How does one achieve that awareness and perception?
Sailing slows the perception of time, allowing the mind to be in the present tense. There is nothing a sailor can do about the past and the future is a waypoint in the distance. He is obligated to be in the present and face whatever tasks the boat and ocean throw at him or her. Time is experienced in a way most people who farm, which was just about everyone on earth. Distance determines time. Plow that field from dawn until dusk and that was your measurement of a day. Oneâs awareness of distance traveled is heightened. An example of that mind bending phenomenon is when it snows for example. Driving to work takes 20 minutes at 60 mph on a dry day. It snows and you creep along at 20 mph and 2 very slow hours pass. At this point you realize distance as another measurement of time. Sailing obliterates your sense of time much the same way.
This wonderful state of simply âBeing,â the body experiences something akin to 24/7 of yoga. The body adjusts to the rolling deck swinging back and forth until it becomes second nature or as I like to say the original nature. It must be the same type of experience as being in the womb.
At this point in your voyage, you have attained a degree of preparation. Mentally, you are very much present. Physically, your body has been transformed into feeling fluid and aware. You are ready to experience a new place with heightened senses and acute awareness. You are a sailor.
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Scott Dodgson is a very captivating storyteller indeed, an easy read. I am a serious fan of his podcast, Offshore Explorer, so I decided to buy one of his books. Not A Moment To Lose was too good to put down. He takes you on an adventure of a lifetime and gives you a different perspective about significant changes in your life. I found the main characterâs experiences to hit home for me in more than one way. It was all I thought about all day at work until I could come home and read what happened next. I learned some new words too, which is always a bonus for me. By the end of the book, I was disappointed for the story to be over and wonder if there will be a sequel. Either way, Iâll gladly read any of his tales, hands down. If you need a new story in your life, you wonât be disappointed about going on a sail from New York to Coral Bay in Saint John, would you? Anyways wonât give away any more details. You have to read it for yourself. Hope you enjoy as much as I did. Nikki!https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BFTSWDBQ
A wonderful novel that keeps you engaged. If you knew nothing about sailing you would still know that the author is really a world class sailor. He brings the yacht in the story to life. He beautifully translates the creaks and noises of the boat struggling in the rough sea into a language ripe with feeling. He has developed the characters so you see them as they are and how they got to be who they are. I highly recommend this novel. Nan https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BFTSWDBQ
Buy the book today!
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https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BFTSWDBQ
The first time boat buyer will meet a maritime professional for the first time in the form of a surveyor.
Why? How to use it? And the reasons to follow the surveyor closely and take notes.
Maritime regulations are there to make you safe, prevent pollution to the environment, and provide suitable working standards.
Training is very much apart of regulations.
If you are buying a 27 ft sail boat with an outboard engine to 160 foot mega yacht all of what Iâm going to discuss is important to some degree, but mostly it is important for the captainâs confidence and calm state of mind.
Periodic surveys and inspections of ships are carried out to ensure the safety and seaworthiness of vessels. With maritime laws becoming more stringent with each passing year, sea-going vessels have to go through a series of inspections to meet minimum requirements to continue sailing.
Annual surveys by classification society are a vital part of a shipâs trading eligibility. Thus for a vessel to continue trading, various periodical surveys and certifications by classification society are mandatory to ensure its continued compliance with International regulations and endorsement.
Various certificates require annual endorsement after the class surveyor verifies that the conditions, functioning and operational and maintenance requirements of the vessel are complied with.
After the class surveyor verifies the same, he endorses the certificates for the annual survey. Annual surveys are namely Safety equipment survey, International oil pollution prevention certificate survey, International air pollution prevention certificate survey, and Safety Radio Survey.
Before all these surveys, the companies appoint independent servicing agencies, which are approved to conduct annual servicing and maintenance of equipment such as fire extinguishers, fixed fire extinguishing installations, annual foam compound analysis for fixed foam fire fighting installation, annual servicing and maintenance of lifeboat equipment and launching appliances.
Your flag and the rules and regulations. Annual servicing and inspection of equipment systems can be performed by various institutions such as accredited laboratory, service company, maker or manufacturer trained personnel, shore-based maintenance provider, class approved service applier, and service personnel authorized by the flag.
The criteria for inspection are being laid by classification societies acting as recognized organizations on behalf of flag states so that requisite certificates are revalidated or issued in line with international regulations.
Every flag has streamlined its requirements, and thus accordingly, the classification society develops checklists of inspection programs to harmonise the same.
Hauling out your boat before the sale. What is the surveyor looking for?
A safety construction survey will be focused on the structural strength of the vessel. It will be assessed for any excessive corrosion of deck or hull, along with the condition of watertight doors, bilge pumping and drainage systems, fire protection equipment, and fixed and portable fire fighting equipment.
Fire contraol
International shore connections fixed firefighting equipment.
Training Prerequisites for Operator of Uninspected Passenger Vessels (OUPV/â6-Packâ)
The National OUPV license is limited to uninspected vessels, of less than 100 gross tons, operating on U.S. domestic waters ONLY. Also limited to carrying six or less paying passengers. You must meet all of the requirements established by the USCG National Maritime Center in order to apply for this license. The USCG checklist of requirements is located here on the National Maritime Center website:https://www.dco.uscg.mil/nmc/checklist/. Under National Officer Endorsements for Deck, click on National OUPV Less Than 100 GRT.
Important sea service requirements for OUPV:
Must be at least 18 years old.Must be able to document 360 days of experience on a vessel, of which at least 90 days must be on Near Coastal/Ocean waters otherwise license will be limited to Inland Waters ONLY. (See: What Counts as Sea Service)90 days of sea service must be within the last 3 years of when you apply.90 days of sea service must be on Ocean or Near Coastal waters or otherwise the license will be limited to Inland Waters only.If you are not a U.S. Citizen, you can apply for this license but it will be limited tonnage and restricted to undocumented vessels.Prerequisites for Master up to 100 Tons on Inland Waters/Great Lakes
With a Master license you may operate inspected/commercial vessels and also take more than six paying passengers. You must meet all of the requirements established by the USCG National Maritime Center in order to apply for this license. The USCG checklist of requirements is located here on the National Maritime Center website:https://www.dco.uscg.mil/nmc/checklist/. Under National Officer Endorsements for Deck, click on National Master 100 GL and Inland.
Important sea service requirements for Master Inland/GL:
Must be at least 19 years old.Must be able to document 360 days of experience on a vessel. (See: What Counts as Sea Service)90 days of sea service must be within the last 3 years of when you apply.The tonnage of the license (25 Ton, 50 Ton, or 100 Ton) that you get, is determined by your experience. See USCG checklist in the paragraph above for the specific tonnage qualifications.If you plan on operating an inspected sailing vessel, you must have a sailing endorsement along with the Master Inland/GL license. The required amount of sea service for a sailing endorsement on a Master Inland/GL license is: 180 days on sail or auxiliary sail vessels.
Prerequisites for Master up to 100 Tons on Near Coastal Waters
With a Master license you may operate inspected/commercial vessels and also take more than six paying passengers. You must meet all of the requirements established by the USCG National Maritime Center in order to apply for this license. The USCG checklist of requirements is located here on the National Maritime Center website:https://www.dco.uscg.mil/nmc/checklist/. Under National Officer Endorsements for Deck, click on National Master 100NC.
Must be at least 19 years old.Must be able to document 720 days of experience on a vessel, of which at least 360 days must be on Near Coastal/Ocean waters. (See: What Counts as Sea Service)90 days of sea service must be within the last 3 years of when you apply.The tonnage of the license (25 Ton, 50 Ton, or 100 Ton) that you get, is determined by your experience. See USCG checklist in the paragraph above for the specific tonnage qualifications.If you plan on operating an inspected sailing vessel, you must have a sailing endorsement along with the Master Near Coastal license. The required amount of sea service for a sailing endorsement on a Master NC license is: 360 days on sail or auxiliary sail vessels.
6 pac to 100ton near coastal and ocean upgrades to inspected vessels 200t to 1500 ton captain third mate on ships, advanced firfighting, radar plotting and observation and first aid courses.
Able seaman
Tanker man
Hazard waste protocols etc.
There is a host of courses and certifications that can be gotten through certified maritime training institutes.
Training becomes part of the package including hull inspections, fire water, environmental oil, etc, electrical safty equipment like resuce boat operators towing and sailing aux.
Understanding SOLAS: Safety of life at sea
Under the regulation, ships should have adequate strength, integrity and stability to minimize the risk of loss of the ship or pollution to the marine environment due to structural failure, including collapse, resulting in flooding or loss of watertight integrity.
MARPOL :The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) is the main international convention covering prevention of pollution of the marine environment by ships from operational or accidental causes. The MARPOL Convention was adopted on 2 November 1973 at IMO
IMO ILO: Maritime Labour Convention, 2006
The Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (âMLC, 2006â) establishes minimum working and living standards for all seafarers working on ships flying the flags of ratifying countries.
And many more. In an inspected vessel it is the responsilbility of the owner and skipper to keep all the regulations on board and up to date.
Mosaic Artist https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KQ6R34R
The Casket Salesman https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NHN1FHT
Paulette Mc Williams music https://music.apple.com/us/album/a-womans-story/1522026059
The Importance of Place Episode # 10 in fiction published https://issuu.com/liveencounters/docs/le_american_poets_writers_january_2022issuu?fr=sNTQ5ZTQ4MjI3MA
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Let me couch these stories into this atmosphere. Pretend you have come over to my boat one evening and we are sharing dinner and maybe a drink or two. The sun has set, and the stars just blanket the sky. The temperature is a balmy 80 or 27 Celsius. The cockpit light hanging over the thick varnished table reflects a warm golden hue on everyoneâs face. The table has the remnants of a fine dinner. Wine glasses with a couple of sips left. We might be into Cognac, so I have my Tiffany cut glass snifters coddling the VSOP reminds one of fruits flowers oak notes and dreamy rich round earthly flavors, even without the aroma you are living and breathing all these flavors wafting across the water from the land. In the Caribbean the soft scent of palm with a hint of lilac. If we are in the pacific the scents are mixed in a favor stream of sweet and smoke. If we are in Greece Rosemary, sage, dried coriander. And turkey pine, and the rich loamy soil of history.
You are comfortable and relaxed. But there is one thing nagging you, why do I feel so hungry for sex? So, you ask me your captain because there is nothing he canât deliver or know. Iâll tell you a story. My mindset for years was to find the perfect sexy woman, who would be the perfect partner to fulfill my illusions or delusions. I was granted my wish. Here are stories about all the other crazy uninhibited nonsense that takes place in the bubble of boats, sea, and waves.
Mosaic Artist https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KQ6R34R
The Casket Salesman https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NHN1FHT
Paulette Mc Williams music https://music.apple.com/us/album/a-womans-story/1522026059
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Please buy my new book"Mosaic Artist" from my Dry Port Series: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KQ6R34R
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Robert Smalls (April 5, 1839 â February 23, 1915) was an American politician, publisher, businessman, and maritime pilot. Born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina, he freed himself, his crew, and their families during the American Civil War by commandeering a Confederate transport ship, CSS Planter, in Charleston harbor, on May 13, 1862, and sailing it from Confederate-controlled waters of the harbor to the U.S. blockade that surrounded it. He then piloted the ship to the Union-controlled enclave in BeaufortâPort RoyalâHilton Head area, where it became a Union warship. His example and persuasion helped convince President Abraham Lincoln to accept African-American soldiers into the Union Army.
After the American Civil War he returned to Beaufort and became a politician, winning election as a Republican to the South Carolina Legislature and the United States House of Representatives during the Reconstruction era. Smalls authored state legislation providing for South Carolina to have the first free and compulsory public school system in the United States. He founded the Republican Party of South Carolina. Smalls was the last Republican to represent South Carolina's 5th congressional district
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Next to sailing, sex, cooking and eating/drinking is the most important activity on a boat.
General Tips: Planning, Make meals in advance, space management, The right kit, expectations be realistic or not!
I cover all the systems for cooking as well as different equipment for your situation.
Day Sailor, Live aboard that stays put and Cruiser, to charter chef every category has different needs.
Prepare to use local products in your cooking.
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Father of the Port of Los Angeles
The American mariner does not exist in a vacuum. Commerce and war are the two key principles of purpose for the sailor. The third principle of purpose, exploration, is a distant third. If the American mariner was the central character in the movie about America, the supporting characters would be the entrepreneurs and visionaries that facilitated their direction and motive. The lead supporting character in the story of Los Angeles, who was both a mariner and a visionary businessman, was Phineas Banning. Known as the âFather of the Port of Los Angeles,â he built the first breakwater in San Pedro to protect ships from the sea.
Phineas Banning was working in the dockyards in Philadelphia. At 20 years old, he signed up to work a passage to a then exotic destinationâSouthern California.
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I have hired or invited hundreds of crew onto my boats of the years. I have learned some difficult lessons, but I have found a couple of key elements to allowing someone on your boat who will be with you 24/7 for an extended time: Kindness and training.
Please buy my new book Mosaic Artist: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KQ6R34R
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Saké Barrel Divers
The mariner brings a spirit of work and focus to any job. A fisherman brings faith. Together, these traits form a citizen of the oceans. In the middle chapters of world nautical history, specific characteristics from the tenacity of the Japanese fisherman/sailor have profoundly shaped the American mariner. Sailorâs knowledge is transformative. Knowledge of techniques, sources of best practices, the intuition and faith, are guidelines to living on the ocean. Like flotsam and jetsam, what doesnât work on this tide might be the solution on the next. The American mariner at the turn of the century could be characterized as being in a period of transition. The Japanese fisherman had a thousand years of uninterrupted practice at fishing and sailing. Their fortitude and skill became the envy of the white population in Southern California during a time of Jim Crow. Anger and racism persist today among a few, but it is clear the heritage of the Japanese fisherman and sailor added a beneficial facet to the American marine character.
Japanese fisherman sailed down the west coast of American past Point Conception and found the Channel Islands. The Japanese showed great courage and determination to build a new life based on ancient skills. Japanese on the Channel Islands began harvesting abalone at the turn of the century. The Channel Islands lay a few miles off Santa Barbara. Both Japanese and Chinese abalone competed fiercely for the abalone, a delicacy much loved in Los Angelesâs Little Tokyo and China town. The railroad brought many Chinese and Japanese laborers to Southern California. However, the Japanese that made the mark were the sailors and fishermen.Japanese fishermen began diving for abalones, first as free divers from surface floats and later, more successfully, as hard-hat divers. They used old rice wine casks as floats to rest on after each dive. Taking a few deep breaths, they would dive to the bottom and return to the surface with their catch. They quickly earned the nickname of sakĂ© barrel divers because of their unusual technique. Abalone are snails with a large foot used for grasping a rock. They feed off the kelp and the organisms that live in and around the kelp. Often an urchin will attach itself to the heavy shell and offer camouflage. Once a diver spots an abalone, he swoops in and tries to lift it off the rock as quickly as possible. This can be done with some success. If the Abalone locks, itâs meaty foot to the rock, a bar will be needed to pry the foot off the rock. It is not a simple task, especially free diving.
In 1900, county ordinances were passed that made it illegal to gather abalones from less than twenty feet of water. These regulations were racially motivated. The regulations completely halted Chinese commercial abalone operations. Undaunted by the new regulations, the Japanese dominated the collecting of the abalone in a short time.
âAvalon. Catalina is up in arms. She has been invaded by Japan. A lot of little brown men, with a small sloop, appeared at Empire a few days since, and are preceding to skin the rocks of the abalones. These Japs are divers. They wear goggles with which they locate the abalone as they swim along the surface, and making a spring, they emulate the âhell diverâ and disappear to wrench the inoffensive shellfish from its hold on the rock by a quick thrust of an iron bar. Practice has made these men able to remain underwater an inconceivable length of time, and they seem to be as much at home in and under the water as the shag...â LA Times. April 21, 1903. Soon the albacore was over fished. One of the last remaining drying camps was White Point. The Japanese were routed by police and forced to leave. Unable to dive for albacore, the fisherman took up residence on Terminal Island in Los Angeles harbor.
Shifting gears, the Japanese fisherman took to purse seine fishing for tuna.
Japanese fishermen built small rowboats to explore the San Pedro Bay for tuna and used 6-foot poles for their catch. By 1907, the Japanese fishing village of Fish Harbor was established with its first houses built on pilings along the shore of the main channel. Within a few years, the Japanese population on Terminal Island had increased to 600. The tight-knit community, living in isolation, developed their own blend of Japanese and English, referred to as âkii-shu benâ, a dialect from the Kii district in Wakayama, the township where many had immigrated.
While small motorboats increased the distance traveled for their catch, Japanese immigrants devised an unprecedented fishing technique. They would send an advance boat to scout for schools of albacore tuna and catch the anchovies and sardines the tuna followed for live bait.
Then, a fishing vessel with a team of fishermen would release the bait and spear the tuna using short bamboo poles with hooks while standing on the steel walkways near the hulls and toss them on to the deck of the boat. Because of local fishermenâs high yield of tuna, several fish canneries opened on Terminal Island.
Their success was met with anger and violence. The Los Angeles Herald reported August 4, 1920: âFishermen battle. Vessel blown up. San Diego, August 4. â The police today expressed the belief that ill feeling among the Japanese an Italian and Austrian fishermen operating off the Southern California coast, has led to a sea battle in which the Japanese fishing
schooner Yomato was blown up or sunk and her entire crew slain. Bits of wreckage from
the Yomato were found today. Recently, four bodies were washed ashore. How many lives were lost is unknown?âAugust 7, 1920 [LAH]: âHunt Austrians as Jap boat wrecks. Nets on Japanese fishing craft were tucked in lockers today and the smacks themselves idled back and forth in zig-zag courses over the fishing lanes while the expressionless faces of their owners searched the sea for a sight of certain Austrian boats, wanted in connection with the sinking of the Jap boat Itzumato. Government patrol boats are plying overfishing banks in Southern California waters on the same mission, trying to find the craft and its crew believed to be responsible for the ramming of
the Itzumato and the probable murder of its crew. Working to end the feud prevailing for weeks between Japanese and Austrian fishermen, Fish and Game Warden Paul Anderson, on board the patrol boat Albacore, came on the wrecked Itzumato off Catalina Island last night. Coincident with the report of the finding of the Itzumato, it was reported in San Diego by American fishermen that the crew of a wrecked Japanese boat had been picked up by an Italian fishing craft. Word of the Phrone Rose, an Austrian boat, has not been received for the past 10 days and authorities are now confident that this boat has met the same fate as the other, being sunk with her crew on board. The fishing boat Wanderer of San Pedro, abandoned by her crew because of a broken propeller shaft, is now believed to be a derelict at sea, according to the latest reports. With the finding of the wrecked Itzumato, four boats are now missing in Southern California waters, only one of which has been fully accounted for. Besides the Wanderer and Phrone Rose, a Japanese boat named Yamato disappeared last month and is believed to have been swallowed up by the sea and hew crew murdered in the Jap-Austrian warfare.â
The Japanese were in the right in these conflicts. The Austrians and Italians were poaching the fishing grounds. No matter the right, being white won the day. No one was ever prosecuted for the murders. The warfare eventually dissipated with the loss of fishing stocks. The incidents were closely watched by the local fisherman. For Los Angeles locals, these reports were sensational news.
Testimonies of the times:
âMy fatherâs name is Tomekichi Takeuchi. The Japanese came from Shima-gun, Mieken, Japan. He landed in San Francisco in 1902, at twenty-two years old. He worked as a cook in a restaurant for a couple of years. Heard him mention how he threw a pie at a customer and got fired. He moved to Los Angeles, Little Tokyo, and got a job as a private chauffeur driver, off and on. Meantime, he moved to Terminal Island, called his wife from Japan. He and his friend, Mr. Heizaburo Hamaguchi, leased a fishing boat called Amazon from French Cannery. They carried, including them, thirteen crew members. They fished from near the lighthouse, to the north and much later toward Mexico.â Kimiye Okuno Takeuchi Ariga.âFish Harbor on Terminal Island was on the southwestern part of the island and comprised a fishing fleet, canneries, and 5,000 Japanese men, women, and children. The adults were the first generation Issei from Japan, and their children who were born in America are the Nisei like me. The fishermen working out of Fish Harbor visited the local waters of Catalina, Santa Barbara, and San Diego to catch sardines, mackerel, skipjack, and tuna throughout the year. My father was captain of a small fishing boat and had several men working for him. My mother worked in the fish cannery, of which they were part owners. Each cannery had a very loud whistle, which was sounded when a ship came into the harbor with a catch, signaling that it was time to go to work. Most of the ladies knew what cannery was calling for work by its distinctive whistle. I recall hearing the loud whistles from the various canneries being blown one after another. This meant that many ships had come back full of fish. My mother, like all the ladies, always had her work clothes ready, because there was no definite schedule when the ships would come in. Most of the ships did not have a radio or other communications equipment. Upon hearing the whistle, my mother would drop whatever she was doing, change clothes and run to work, along with many others in the neighborhood. Four of the largest canneries were French Sardine, Van Camp, Franco-Italian and Southern California.â Frank Koo Endo.
By the 1930s, the Japanese community had increased to 2,000, with most of the men employed as fishermen and the women working in the canneries.
In 1935, following the depression, 6,000 people were directly employed in the fishing industry. Its payroll was the largest in San Pedro, approximately three-quarters of a million dollars per month.The industry was at its peak during World War II. During the fifties, sardines, and mackerel gradually diminished, causing the decline of the industry in San Pedro.
There is no better example of the determination, work ethic and skill of the Japanese fisherman. They were directly responsible for creating the fishing industry that employed 6,000 American workers despite the sickness that was Jim Crow.At its height in 1942, the Nikkei population had grown to 3,000, just prior to its abrupt demise following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Internment
âOn December 7, 1942, I was in the twelfth grade. My father was still working the rice business in Japan, and soon I was going to graduate with the class of summer 1942. I heard on the radio that morning that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by the Japanese. I really didnât know where Pearl Harbor was but was shocked by the news. I wondered if this would have any effect on me. Early that afternoon, I went to see a movie in San Pedro. I boarded the ferryboat that I took daily to school. Upon docking in San Pedro, I was taken into custody, along with other Japanese Americans, by armed soldiers. We were put into a temporary barbed wire enclosure. I told them I was an American citizen, but they stated they had orders to stop all Japanese. After being detained a couple of hours, we were told to return to the island.â Frank Koo Endo.
On February 19, 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, ultimately sending 120,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps. Within two days, Terminal Island residents were told they had 48 hours to prepare for relocation. Former Terminal Islanders recall with great sadness giving up almost everything they owned, including business their families had built up for generations.
Interning Japanese Americans was done out of fear and ignorance. It was illegal. The Japanese sailors had made their mark on the American mariner.
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Fugitives
I have found over fifty years of sailing around the world that fugitives of all sorts gravitate to boats as a way of hiding from authorities. I would know. I was a fugitive from myself yet not wanted by the law but so emotionally disconnected, my head put out a warrant for my heart.
There is a beautiful disconnectedness about sailing. Ocean as far as the eye can see. I have met and been absolutely surprised by sailors I have discovered were fugitives from the law.
I met Amos Hardy on the dock in Puerto Vallarta. I was coming into the slip from Cabo San Lucas after a rough, windy, and rainy couple of days across the mouth of the Gulf of California. I stood off in the bay while a squall roared through pushing the boat back out to sea. The squall lasted thirty minutes. The deck was washed of salt. The fresh tropical water spilled out of the gunnels. The tropical sun turned the whole place into a natural steam bath. I found the slip where I was going to stay for a couple of days. As I approached the slip, my mate, Alex stood ready with the lines. Fenders were down for a port too docking. That is when I saw Amos for the first time. He hustled off a 32-foot Bay Liner to catch our lines. He was dressed in a white business shirt, unbuttoned to the third button from the top. His shirt hung over his natural round belly. He was no athletic figure and never was. He was more pear shaped. He wore a pair of pink shorts and black loafers. This wasnât the outfit you expect from someone on the dock catching lines.
He caught the bow line and started to pull the line very hard. I yelled at him to just tie it off. He looked up at me puzzled. I could see he wasnât comfortable with taking orders. He smiled a thin sort of smile. My mate stepped of onto the dock, my other mate, Joe, who was sleeping came up the companionway stretched and yawned, then hopped onto the dock taking the stern line with him. We kissed the dock oh so gently and Amos let out a cheer of âWell done Captain! Iâm American!â
I greeted him and thanked him for helping with the lines. He was nice. He asked where did I come from⊠Where was I going. He hoped I had a good trip down from the âUSA.â You can always tell a new traveler, especially Americans they always seem ready to join other Americans, finding the foreign experience to taxing. Americans are not alone in this behavior. The English tend to flock.
Amos invited us to his boat for a drink. We were happy to be on the dock after the rough ride.
Amos spun us a story about his trip down the Baja. He drove his Bay Liner from Los Angeles. As he was telling his story, he ran his hands through his thinning hair. He was a stressed-out man trying to be cool. Alex told me later he felt sorry for Amos. He was way out of his element. I asked what did he think Amosâs element was? Corporate was the simple answer.
Amos asked us all out to dinner. Alex begged out of the dinner claiming a headache. Joe who was just 20 years old didnât want to hang out with his elders. I went with Amos to dinner. All through dinner he was searching out for threats. I could see he was wanting to confess something. Just before the main course of steak and potatoes he broke down and cried.
He was an accountant for a school board. He stole money from the school board for years. He referred to the theft as salary compensation. He wasnât getting paid enough and he had to support is family. His wife spent too much and the two kids needed a lot of dental work. He didnât think anyone would notice. He added bills for a service company he owned but didnât do anything for a little over a million dollars of false building. He claimed his was going to pay it all back. It got out of hand. His supervisor approved the payments over and over again without asking why. I asked him if he had any of the money left? He had this relatively new Bayliner he was hoping to sell but instead he drove away from the dock and kept going and here is where he landed.
Anyone who has sailed the Baja coast knows there are not many places to get gas along the way. Those few gas stations are far enough apart that you need a bladder or barrels of fuel. Carrying gasoline on deck is a dangerous proposition. Diesel is okay, but gas thatâs just crazy.
Much to his credit figured he wouldnât get far without doing something. At this point he was a fugitive. The Sherriff had gone to his door to arrest him. He dashed out the back door when he heard the knock. He was wearing his business suit and the shirt he had on. The shorts were own board.
He drove down the 101 to the 405 and parked his car at the airport long stay lot. He took the bus back up to the marina. His biggest anxiety was that the sheriffâs harbor patrol would be alerted, and he would be nabbed. He arrived at his slip in the dark. He started his boat and left quietly passing under the watchful eye of the sheriffâs station. He headed South towards Mexico. He had his driverâs license and six hundred bucks in cash and his credit cards.
This was the 80s and the instant reporting of your card was still delayed. Amos knew he need to use the cards before they were cancelled. He was desperate. He filled up in Ensenada. He was again lucky not to be caught or have his boat impounded. He used his driverâs license to fill up saying he got off course and had mechanical trouble. He didnât know he was in Mexican waters and need fuel to go back to San Diego. This was a plausible excuse. He got his fuel. He made down to Turtle Bay. He arrived with fumes. The range at 10 knots is 346nm according to the brochure. Amos told me he was praying all the way. The next leg was to fuel in Mag Bay. Santa Maria is a little town where a few big sport fishing boats operate. I asked him if he had any charts? He didnât he relied on a book he bought at the Shipâs Store the local chandlery. Sometimes ignorance is luck.
He made it to Cabo San Lucas. He filled the boat and talked with a broker. The broker and ex-pat American told him he couldnât sell his boat because it was wanted along with the owner the US law enforcement. The broker told Amos he would tell the harbor master if he doesnât know already. He quietly advised Amos to get on his boat and go.
Amos ran out of the office in a panic. He drove is boat in the direction of Puerto Vallarta. The boat ran out of fuel 50 nm from the coast. He drifted for a couple of days. He confessed to me and to God that he was wrong. He promised he would turn himself in and take his medicine. He swore on his knees looking up to the heavens on a boat tossing in the ocean couldnât be a fugitive from justice. At that moment a Mexican fishing boat came by to see if he needed help. They towed him into Puerto Vallarta. His prayers were answered. Sort ofâŠ. The fisherman offered him a good price for the boat.
He thought. Okay. He needed money right away. Half the value of the Bayliner was better than nothing at this point.
When I sailed up and docked my boat, he was waiting for the fisherman to come back with the money.
âDid you get the money?â I asked.
âYes.â He was smug about his affirmation.
âThatâs great, isnât it?â I couldnât tell but I supposed he didnât get the money and he wasnât even able to afford this dinner.
Then he hit me with the bomb. âCan you take me with you?â
The wind blew through the open-air restaurant. The iguanas screamed. The screeching sound of reptiles faded with the onset of a thunderous squall. Amos looked so helpless. I could see in his eyes I was his last bit of luck if I would just say yes.
It was a big ask. Amos didnât know how risky taking a fugitive on board was for me and the owner of the yacht. Our side could and would lose everything. I would be jailed, and the boat impounded.
I leaned over the table with soiled dishes, steak bones and chewed steak gristle. âGo home.â I whispered. âBe with your family.â âYou are still young.â
He was in tears. His big round sunburned cheeks glistened with tears of relief. He choked. He coughed. Gathering a deep breath with a wheeze he asked, âIâm not good at this fugitive life, am I?â
I gave him money for plane ticket home and cab fare. I put him a cab and sent him off to face his consequences. I didnât hear about Amos for twenty years. He was discovered running a dive charter business in small island in Polynesia. He never went to the airport. He married a beautiful woman who came to dive from New York. He was recognized by a school board member when one of their friends were showing them pictures of their dive vacation.
Fugitives have narratives. Some fugitives are running from other powers and not the law. Teddy Rawlins is six foot three and solid as a rock. He looks more Sicilian than most Sicilians. He says he was Irish, English, and Bostonian as if Bostonian is a part of a genetic heritage. He wears a Boston Red Sox hat tilted back on his head. A black tuft of hair curls out from under the bill over his forehead. Deep set chocolate-colored eyes give him a sadness and vulnerability about his presence. Make no mistake he was anything but vulnerable. He was a predator.
I was in a café in Antibes France drinking coffee and going through the Herald reading the American news. I was reading the box scores.
I learned to read box scores from my grandfather who was a sportswriter. I could recreate the game in my head. The Phillies are my team for better or worse. They lost last night to Pittsburg, 2 to 1. They lost the lead in the eighth because of a hit batter by a rookie reliever. The next batter hit a double driving in one run making it 1 to 1. With the pitcher batting, why was the starting pitch still pitching and batting no less? I found the box score from the day before where they played a double header both went into extra innings. He was the last guy standing. The pitcher hit a single and drove in the run. Final score 2 to 1.
A shadow fell over the paper. With the sun at his back, he stood over me like a gunslinger from and Italian spaghetti western and said, âWhoâs you rooting for?â
âIâm a Phillies fan.â
âGood.â A guttural âgoodâ exhaled like the air from a punch to the gut. âIf you were a Yankees fan, I wouldnât be your friend.â
He sat down across me. âYou from Philly?â
I said yes and he launched into a story about driving to Philly in a school bus with his band. He played guitar. His thick hammer like fingers made me doubt the truth of statement. Later I learned he was actually a pretty good player. They were on their way to Florida when they when they ran off the road in a snowstorm. The bus happened to have a ton of pot in false compartments in the floor of the bus. The band left the bus in the middle of a cloverleaf exit and walked to a holiday inn. The left a note that they might be back after the storm. They stayed in the Holiday Inn and played in the lounge for a week. The band who was supposed to play was stuck in Altoona in a snowstorm.
Teddy would go on and on with stories. Most were very funny, almost always there was drugs, rock in roll, and mishap. If Terry liked, you, he really was a loyal friend. If he, didnât you were lower than scum.
Discerning the truth about Teddy was like reading a box score to a baseball game. The information was there in names, positions, innings, hits, type of hits, runs scored, RBIs, innings pitched, etc.
The truth as much as I could discern after hundreds of hours of hanging out with Teddy was something like this. Teddy grew up with a kid nicknamed âAmerican Expressâ because he was welcomed everywhere. He was the son to a notorious gangster. Teddy got sucked into that world. Teddy started a construction company to build houses in the Boston area. Teddy was a master cabinet maker. He was so good with wood he built many redesigned cabinets on mega yachts. He is in demand.
American Express was his partner and borrowed the money from his father the gangster so he and Teddy could buy land and build houses. The deal went sideways from there. American Express didnât work with Teddy. He preferred to do coke and play in the band. When the loans came due Teddy was responsible. American Express had spent most of the money on coke. The mobster father wasnât going to press his degenerate son, so he blamed Teddy for everything. One day while on a building site, Teddy was installing cabinets in the kitchen when two mob thugs showed up to teach him a lesson. The lesson went all wrong. Teddy defended himself. He put both thugs in the hospital. He walked away from the site and boarded a plane for Europe. He settled in Antibes. At first, he kept a low profile. After a while his mother had extracted a promise from the next-door mob boss to leave her son alone. He made one stipulation that he never see his face again in Boston. Teddy has lived in Antibes for the last thirty years a fugitive.
Fugitives come to be fugitives because of different kinds of crimes. Amos was a really a con man. Teddy wanted to preserve his life from predictable retribution. David Taylor on the other hand was a thief, possibly a murderer, with absolutely no redeeming morality. He was bad. He was in every sense of the word a pirate. David Taylor was wanted by Interpol and Scotland Yard for robbing a bank, theft of boats, and suspected murder.
I didnât know all these nefarious acts when I first met David. I learned about them when an Interpol agent stopped by my boat while I was fueling my boat in Antigua. I had just crossed from Europe and David was one of my crew. We arrived two weeks earlier. I hadnât seen him since he got off the boat. He had a British passport. I cleared him with the rest of the crew. The Interpol agent a Belgium man who looked like a policeman with his black dress shoes, slightly scuffed and low on the heels, a tie and a sports jacket that was never in style no matter he thought. He was completely out of his comfort zone in the yachting world. He asked me where he was going? I didnât know. But the agent seemed to be suspicious of me for aiding a known felon.
David said thanks for the ride and left. I saw him briefly speaking with another skipper outside the Incanto Restaurant.
The agent told me what he was wanted for, and I was shocked. He was considered dangerous. I had just spent a month and a half with the man, and I didnât see that coming.
In the yachting world there are lots of people wanting to escape from their world. Lots of 20 and 30 somethings who started down the corporate path only to get frustrated with their progress and take a hiatus crewing and traveling the world. David seemed like that sort of guy.
He was clean cut. Blond hair blue eyes five-foot ten, athletic build, quick with a smile. The Agentâs description of David.
I could see David in a corporate setting. He was bright and articulate. He spoke fluent Spanish and French. He was well educated or as he said ironically as well educated as the English school system would allow a coal minerâs son.
David was a good sailor. You can always tell very quickly experienced sailors. They take to the task whether trimming a sail, hoisting an anchor, or helming. I knew David was my kind of people or so I thought.
My family came from Wales. My Great Grand Father was an orphan from the Isle of Man. He was brought to America by a Dutch family who gathered kids to work for the family in the coal mining business in Scranton. My great grandfather, Nathan was indentured until he was 25 years old. Like other kids from a working background, he was very savvy in the ways of the world where his classmates from upper income families were not.
He spoke of having a daughter. He was sad he had to be away from her, but his ex-wife made life impossible for him. He decided one day to take a break from all the pressure of modern life and find his footing.
I liked the concept of finding oneâs footing. Some people donât possess the disposition to be on the sea. They find land as a better place, but a man with sailing in his blood finds a rolling and pitching deck of a ship the perfect place for finding his footing in life. David understood.
I met him in Rhodes Greece. I was looking for crew to come to the Caribbean. He was quick to sign on. I felt I was lucky to have him. Finding experienced crew can be difficult. In all my crossings looking for competent deliver crew as a major task. I tried agencies and they didnât work. I liked picking up guys and sometimes girls with enough competence and personal responsibility to stand watch while I get some shuteye.
David demonstrated his skills on the deck and navigating. He asked the right questions and became maybe one of the best mates I ever had over 50 years of sailing with crews.
I have heard plenty stories about men whose lives went wrong on land who come to the sea to live a wonderful productive life. They may be a bank robbing, thieving, murderer on land, but on the sea, they are the perfect sailor. This is not an unusual story. I hoped it wasnât true.
Before the Agent stepped off the fuel dock. He walked on the dock like one walks on ice. I said you will never catch him. The Agent nodded saying we will.
The years passed as they do. Moving from one side of the Atlantic to the other. Plenty adventures stacking them on top of one another blurring the memories. The image of David hoisting the main stayed in the fore front of my memory. Maybe it stayed because he was accused of such violent crimes. I donât know. I wanted to trust my instinct believing that he was falsely accused, but why did he run? Does running prove guilt? There is a certain logic to it.
I grew up in Philly. I spent the last two years of high school in Bay Village Ohio. Home to the Dr. Sam Shepard murder. For those who donât know the brilliant brain surgeon Dr. Sam Shepard was accused of killing his wife. He couldnât prove his innocence for years. Eventually he did. The television series the Fugitive staring David Janssen and the movie by the same name stared Harrison Ford are based on this sensual murder. I lived a couple of doors down from where the murder took place. I have always been amenable to the escapist story.
I later caught a glimpse of David in Trinidad sailing a catamaran. He was alone from what I could see. I called to him. He turned and looked in my direction and waved. I am sure he recognized my boat and me for that matter, but he was working a new narrative to say he was free.
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I offer advice on sailing in the Caribbean during hurricane season. There are plenty of bad pieces of water like the Bay of Biscay, Bay of Lyon, the Mona Passage and more. How to prepare you boat to sail away from the weather event and what to do if you are hunkering down. Bad weather avoidance.
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A love story.
Knowing the truth about yourself may be the hardest insight to discover. Human beings have a natural ability to deceive themselves about the most important and sometimes the most critical aspects of their mental machinations. Being deceitful is commonplace. What isnât commonplace is truthfulness. There is a global business of selling insights and truth. The path has been monetized. This plethora of guides to your personal truth has existed forever, gurus, spiritual masters, yogis, priests, and priestess, rabis, pastors, fathers, friars, monks, shamans, psychologists, doctors, prophets, gods, and writers. Writers are the most dangerous. Their commitment is to the deceit, not to truth. Truth is a McGuffin. The best writers are magicians casting a spell that seems real but vaporizes under scrutiny. Skilled writers can spin a story in which all the evidence of the existence of truth appears irrefutable. The guides to personal truth point the way down the path to salvation, the writer repels down the path laughing at the darkness as his line uncoils until the line snaps stiff, drawing the writer back to the surface of comfortable deceit. He is a writer. It is a game of sorts. Follow him and you wonât have a line to snap you back. You will fall into the rabbit hole of disillusion and depression.
I am a writer and a sailor. My psychological machinations are akin to stepping from one boat to another or stepping from the dock to the boat. Never straddle between land and boat: that is how you fall into the water. I have been wet many times. I have fallen in the drink so many times that I learned how to swim. I donât panic at all while falling. I have deceived myself with so much conviction I smile when I land in the dark waters of life and sink to the quiet, darkest bottom.
The problem with this daredevil behavior is its dangerous and alluring to the innocents.
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Repo Man. I never liked taking a boat from someone. I would be devastated if it happened to me. Banks just want their money. They don't care. I share a story on how I got into the business. Driving for Vessel Assist made me familiar with what boats were around and how to find them. I was approached by a recovery agency to find a couple of boats. I found them and became on of the favorites of the agency for getting har to get boats. I traveled to Hawaii, Mexico, and Columbia to repo boats. I share the details of a scam for stealing small boats and sending the hulls to Asia.
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Turbulent is how I would describe my teen years. I started down one path, going to college with all the uncertainty and trepidation leaving home trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life unaware I would do a lot of different things before I finished. In fact, Iâm still doing different things.
Few have you probably arenât old enough to remember the draft as a participant. The draft was the Damocles sword hanging over every male who was 18 years old. Nixon had dropped all the draft deferments like going to college or and Iâm half joking here being rich and white.
At eighteen I was faced with an important decision. Did I love my country enough to die for it?
The counterculture was roaring. Four dead in Ohio just happened. I knew at least five guys who had gone to Vietnam and two were killed.
My friends were in a band. I am not musical in any way, but I love music and I am married to a great musician. And I mean great Paulette McWilliams. I added a link to her new album A Womanâs Story. We all talked about if we were drafted, we would go to Canada. Canada was just across Lake Erie from us in Bay Village Ohio.
You are a sailor.
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https://www.cycrr.org
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Oceanic travel by passenger ship began ending when Airlines Pan Am announced regular transatlantic flights in 1945. Travel by plane changed the very essence of the travelerâs psychology and the fundamental experience of a different place. We travel to learn and grow. Curiosity drives our quest to see the next port, to look around the bend, to climb the mountain top, and sail to the edge of the horizon. Our travel experience informs our understanding of our place on earth and the relationship of places in ourselves. Traveling provides the contrast to our normal. A different place makes this place, your place, your home understandable. How we are prepared to experience our travel has fundamentally changed since flying became open to all who could afford a ticket. We have lost the benefits of preparation and thus lost the ability to comprehend the nuanced aspects of travel both interior and exterior.
With air travel, we no longer wait in a heightened state of anticipation over discovering that distant place. Honestly, the wait is about discovering that far-off place in our soul. No long evenings on the deck of a massive ship watching sunrises and sunsets, where the only entertainment is playing shuffleboard, conversing with fellow travelers to glean inside information about the best restaurants, reliable drivers, clean hotels, crime, shopping, history and a variety of other subjects needing to grasp the contours of the new place. Our vanity demands a world-weary appearance cover our innocence as if they will sanction us for our lack of experience. Air travel excluded the long periods of wonderfully anxious and sumptuous anticipation. Waiting is something we sailors do well as we have no choice given the speed at which we travel. Some travelers are pressed for time, limited by funds, limited by vacation time from work, wanting to skip the first big step and get to the heart of the vacation. The casual traveler wants to be transported from his comfortable chair at home to the steps of the Roman coliseum as seamlessly as changing channels on their flat screen television. No sweat. No hassle. No experience? Seen it. Ate it. Hiked it. Slept in it. That will do, thank you very much, but I have to be back at work tomorrow. The experience of place washed away within days of returning home, leaving little or no impression of that place on their minds or soul. What is the point of travel if you are not willing to be fashioned by the place even a little?
Sailing to a place involves an entirely different psychological and physical dynamic for the earnest and open traveler/sailor. Passenger ships and cruise ships offer a hint of the maritime experience. Modern cruise ship experience has been so honed to entertaining the passive traveler it is hard to see how getting off the ship at a port of call has anything to do with the authentic experience of travel other than to pry dollars from your hands for trinkets. Trinkets you use as a reminder of having been there. There is no dynamic experience, no moment of realization, no conversation with your soul or reminders of your place in the continuum of humanity. You are left with sad little trinkets and a reminder of a lost opportunity.
Sailing is a physical and mind-altering experience of dimensions rarely understood, even by local sailors. Lauded through time, a sailorâs experience informed the homebound. Travel changed their being. Regardless of education or age, they wore their foreign experience like so many tattoos, a traveling corporeal pictographic. The sailor is a portal to the world.
What I am describing is very real but largely forgotten. Travel by sail is a unique experience that prepares you in wonderful ways to enter a world, unfamiliar in culture, language, and custom, yet to find an honest kinship with the inhabitants because of your confident awareness. The physical and emotional preparations inherent in sailing across the ocean make you different. The sailorâs point of view was once a common entity that allowed one to see the world and be in the world at once with a sublime understanding. The sailor's experiences, the history, the people and their customs, their art, their industry, their desires, likes and loves all become vividly apparent as the sailor immerses himself or herself in the sea of life.
I am that sailor and here are the stories, large and small from a sailorâs point of view.
What is the sailorâs point of view? How does one achieve that awareness and perception?
Sailing slows the perception of time, allowing the mind to be in the present tense. There is nothing a sailor can do about the past and the future is a waypoint in the distance. He is obligated to be in the present and face whatever tasks the boat and ocean throw at him or her. Time is experienced in a way most people who farm, which was just about everyone on earth. Distance determines time. Plow that field from dawn until dusk and that was your measurement of a day. Oneâs awareness of distance traveled is heightened. An example of that mind bending phenomenon is when it snows for example. Driving to work takes 20 minutes at 60 mph on a dry day. It snows and you creep along at 20 mph and 2 very slow hours pass. At this point you realize distance as another measurement of time. Sailing obliterates your sense of time much the same way.
This wonderful state of simply âBeing,â the body experiences something akin to 24/7 of yoga. The body adjusts to the rolling deck swinging back and forth until it becomes second nature or as I like to say the original nature. It must be the same type of experience as being in the womb.
At this point in your voyage, you have attained a degree of preparation. Mentally, you are very much present. Physically, your body has been transformed into feeling fluid and aware. You are ready to experience a new place with heightened senses and acute awareness. You are a sailor.
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Bohemian Sailors
Coral Bay St. John USVI
For a moment in time Coral Bay was the home of sailors who are visionaries and hippies and drug smugglers. I have never come across a group of sailors with this level of mad sailing skills unless I was at an Americaâs Cup race or a Whitbread/Volvo race.
There are few places in the world were time and circumstances create a legendary moment. You might think of Hemingway in Paris with Gertrude Stein, Picasso, and many notables. Maybe the 80âs in the village and the punk scene. Phuket beach action and culture.
That piece of time is rare. Most of us just read about it or hear about it. Woodstock was a happening and the people who traveled through Haight Ashbury, the Monterey Jazz Festival, Vietnam War protests, Rock and roll, Earth Day, civil rights revolution and out the other side opted for a different life; a life of truth and peace far away from mass commercialism, suburbs, two cars, gray suits and the grind of the modern life. âLifeâ in quotes because it is a life less desired, but submissiveness required. Those few brave souls who realized early on in their lives that one is all they get found a life in Coral Bay. I was lucky enough to be a part of a little recognized but profoundly significant community experience. It wasnât a political movement. Nothing of real value came from it other than those who shared the space and time. I was on the periphery and maybe because of the slight distance I was able to gain a perspective on what was happening. The very coolness, nobility, honesty of purpose lasted a brief moment in time before the principles scattered to the far ends of the earth a small group created the first resorts in Costa Rica.
The one thing we can be sure of is things change. Coral Bay is no different than any other port except the change came a little slower than most. Coral Bay is located on the eastern end of St. John USVI. It is more a protected anchorage than port. In the network further east on the island is Hurricane Hole. A series of inlets and fingers give hurricane hole almost a perfect 360-degree protection from the ocean and the low-slung hills and towering mountains north protect it from gale force winds. Hurricane Hole is without a doubt the best place to take cover when the storms come.
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The voyage that never ends.
I was asked by charterers over my years generally the same question but in different forms, âAre we one of the best charter groups you have ever had?â or âWe werenât the worst charter, were we?â In other words, âwho was the worst charterer? What were they like and what did they do?â My reply was if you are asking this question, you probably feel comfortable about your behavior and your charter has been successful.
If you didnât ask the question, it is because you didnât care or you were so bad everyone knew the answer, yes you are in the hall of fame of worst charterers!
I admit that over the years there were a few charters I conducted that werenât up to grade, because of weather, equipment failures, bad temperament, accident, and stupidity. Sometimes all those types of things happened, and we still managed to have a great time.
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To be successful in the charter boat business you need the right personality, sailing skill set, fix-it skill set, vast amount of energy, and the commitment to building the business. I set out three different levels of the charter business. Brokage charter is when you buy a boat and put into a company who runs the charter business. Monied yacht charters are also a good way to get into the business and make it successful, but cash flow will have to come from the outside. Still the keys to success are personality, a mad skill set covering cooking, sailing, engineering, social skills, and psychological understanding of yourself and those around you. Itâs not easy. Itâs not for everyone. If you still think you can do it you are off to a good start, perseverance and dogged commitment are prime attributes.
- Näytä enemmän
