Tuesday morning we again hoisted the spinnaker and continued south under moderate seas. As we all had Mexican fishing licenses, as soon as we had passed into Mexican waters we rolled out lines with lures but had no luck all the way to Turtle Bay although others in the fleet did manage to land Tuna and Dorado closer to Turtle Bay.

It is 2:00 am and quite dark outside, everyone is asleep below. There is nothing out there except for a small light far, far away. It is July, 1971 and I am standing the midnight to 4:00 am watch on a sailboat. My compatriots are two South Africans who own the boat and an American who, like me, is extra crew. We are off St. Lucia and it is really hot with almost no wind.
It is also dark outside but this time I am surrounded by at least a dozen or more lights of the other 140 plus sailing boats, all partaking in the Baja Ha-Ha sailing rally and en-route from San Diego to Turtle Bay, Mexico, our first stop. It is October 24th, 2011 and everyone is asleep below. I am left to my thoughts of tonight, previous sailing experiences and sailors past. The Chart plotter is on as is the Radar and all of the other sailing instruments. Sometimes the VHF springs to light with news of other boats as some have AIS installed which gives the position, size, name, speed and direction of boats over 100 tons. They relay this information to the fleet.
Some years ago, I had read my Dad’s journals that were a part of his sailing experiences in 1928. He had taken a contract with Lamport and Holt as a ship Medical Officer for two round-trip voyages from New York to Buenos Aires His journals were really a photo album in which he had extensively annotated each of the pictures he had taken. He had remarked that on passing Dominica, that he could smell sulphuretted hydrogen from the sulphur springs on that Island. That was almost 80 years ago and there was no Radar or Chart plotters, everything was done by Sextant and plotted on a paper chart. Morse code was the standard for communications.
The light in the distance had grown closer and now had my full attention as I could make out the navigation lights. We were just a small craft on the Caribbean Sea, without Radar. In fact our total navigation equipment consisted of a Sextant, some charts, a hand bearing compass and a small portable radio with directional antennae on the top into which was embedded a very small compass. We used this to tune in various radio stations and plot a rough estimate of our position. We had no way of communicating by radio and no engine to use to help us get out of the way.
I can watch the boats in the Baja Ha-Ha around me on Radar and plot their position, direction and speed automatically and even overlay them on the chart plotter. Of course I can communicate with the other boats via VHF radio. It is a nice night and we are motoring along at just over five knots using our diesel engine.
My Dad was on a coal fired steamship called the S.S. Vauban and he had talked of being coaled in Santos by hand with baskets of coal being handed up from a barge. The Vauban was one of the famous ‘V’ ships and she was built in 1912 with bunkers for 3,000 tons of coal. This ship was one of the many Passenger-Cargo boats that plied the world’s oceans before the age of air travel. A type of ship that is almost gone except for a few like the RMS St. Helena which sometimes still travels between the UK and Capetown.
It is 1971 and the light had grown brighter, the navigation lights indicated she was headed directly for us. She was about three miles away. I went below and alerted Andy who came on deck. We put the deck lights on and put our spotlight on the sails. The boat continued on its course. At less than a mile away, we raked her bridge with our spotlight. Suddenly we saw her sharply change course to port. She passed less than 400 yards from us, using a spotlight to look at us and leaving us rocking in her wake. She continued on her way disappearing into the night. She looked like a passenger-cargo boat, one that was still somewhat common in 1971; she was probably one of the famous Banana Boats.
Looking at what capabilities I have on my small sailboat is a far cry from my Dad’s boat and the boat I had sailed on almost 40 years before. As I thought about the tools at my disposal, I was reminded that it was time to go below and plot our position on a paper chart. Sometimes, things do not change, except in this case, I used the GPS coordinates provided from the chart plotter. I did not need to take a star sight and compute my position, even though we have a sextant on board.

Unlike Monday night, Tuesday night was rolly with quartering seas so Hilbre was moving around quite a lot. Neither Anita nor Carl had experienced a coastal passage in quartering seas and Anita got somewhat frustrated with the constant motion of the boat, but that is sailing.