Next message: Joel: "[world-cruising] Re: Email, SSB, TVs and other rubbish...."
There's a guy on the SSCA site asking best route and time to sail from Panama to Florida. No big deal except he's navigating the old fashioned way with clock, compass and sextant. Of course someone pipes up that they couldn't imagine taking their boat to the fuel dock, let alone making a passage without one each of the entire Raymarine catalogue on board. Saw an ad for a 38' sailboat in SoCal and first on the equipment list was a 30" flat panel TV. How do I survive at home with a tube 27"er???
That Christopher 'what's his name' sailed across the ocean to find America and he didn't even have a clock or a proper sextant?? How did hi do it?? Oh that's right, he actually was lost and thought he'd found India. There are some things to be said for GPS like not ending up in Ft. Lauderdale on a passage from Marathon to Miami, btdt. Still, I've managed to sail from St Pete to the Chesapeake, SF Bay to San Diego, to Tahiti and back to Hawaii and all sorts of adventures in between without one. I think it's foolish not to have a GPS these days especially since you can get one for under a $100 while a good sextant will run you more than a 1/2 BU (boat unit). Not that I'd ever leave home without my trusty Tamaya and plastic Davis back up
A GPS is about as far as I go, however. We did not have and did not miss refrigeration, air conditioning, tv, VHF radio, email, Satphone, etc. and can't see a need for it now. We particularly didn't admire the posterior orifices who came into our totally peaceful anchorages, ran their gensets for 16 hours a day so they could have their toys running, and raced around the anchorage in their 20hp inflatables trying to swamp everyone else's dinghy, rock your boat and generally disturbing the peace with their noise and carrying on. Guess I'm kind of a retrogrouch as the best part of going sailing is turning off the engine as soon as possible after leaving the slip, using my wits, compass, dividers, charts and sextant to get where I want to go and rowing/sailing around anchorages in my dinghy when I get there.
I think what we need to explore is really effective ways to get people to slow down in their motorized dinghys and either never run or only run their gensets between the hours of 11 and 2. They apparently don't realize how obnoxious they are, or they wouldn't be doing it, right??? Open for suggestions that others have tried.
Aloha
Peter O.
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