Old Sailor, Retired

[Ken W]

Hello to all and as I am a new member I would like to share or encourage any newbies with some of my experiences. The trip was from Santa Barbara California to Galveston Texas. About 7 thousand miles in 7 months in 1972 & 3. I went thru the Panama Canal three times with two of those transits to get experience/courage to take my own boat thru. This was mostly a coastal Cruise of port to port and the details are dated. I still have my log books and will be glad to share any details that may be pertinent to your trip. I also joined here to sell my Cruising Boat Library of about 200 Books Charts Hardware Sexants and a lot of misc Hardware. I need to move it all and so perhaps I can share with you practical knowledge as well as some of this Gear. I am looking forward to hearing from any one interested in this endeavor. I have made 3 trips via the Intra-Coastal Waterway from Galveston to Panama City Florida and so have a lot of small boat Charts for that trip. Thanks for the forum.
ex-capt'n Ken W

[brutb]

Welcome, Ken. Please share some of your stories.

[Ken W]

Thanks for the invite to share a "Sea Story". You may find this interesting as we went thru some rough weather & chose to put in at Mazatlan Mexico in the Harbor behind the breakwater. After dropping the anchor we watched the Mexican fishing boats coming thru the channel entrance and all but the raised outriggers would disappear. Some good sized waves. A few hours later a small boat approached us with a card in English asking us to move as we were over the permanent mooring of the "Wild Goose" a 136' converted mine sweeper which belonged to John Wayne and he was on board. Well in that wind while bringing up the 22lb danforth anchor a fluke caught in one of the links. I winched it up very slowly with the main winch on the mast and finally freed it. The Wild Goose came in "smartly" and turned stern to and with an A frame brought up the chain again and inspected each link for damage. Then the captain turned bow on and secured the "Goose". A short time later a boat was lowered for Mr Wayne and his body guards. Last time we ever saw him. I will try to be more brief in the next story. Ken W