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Trawling the ICW, day 2

"Day 2" on the water was very interesting. We started out in relatively open, marsh country; many square miles of it viewable on either side of the ICW. Then, we plunged into a relatively narrow winding stretch of the waterway, with a wall of dense swamp on either side, and moss hanging down from trees growing out of the water; very beautiful. Then suddenly, we spilled out into the golf courses and zillion dollar homes of Myrtle Beach. One of the more interesting sights was the cable car. When I think of a cable car, I think of mountains and ski resorts. But, there is a cable car in Myrtle Beach. It's on one of the many Myrtle Beach golf courses that border the ICW. If you try to use your fingers to count the number of golf courses along the Myrtle Beach ICW, you quickly run out of fingers. But, there is only one golf course (to my knowledge) that has a cable car. The golf course is on one side of the ICW, and the clubhouse is on the other side. Much to my surprise, the golfers apparently were not keen on the idea of swimming their clubs from one side of the ICW to the other. So, the golf course owners built this cable car that goes up and over the ICW. The golfers hang their clubs on the outside of the cable car, they pile into the inside of the car, and away they go. Crazy.

Later, after we had pulled into a marina for the night, Frank and I got to meet a very interesting character. The guy was sort of a jack of all trades in the marine industry, but the most interesting thing I learned about him was his experiences as a delivery skipper. A delivery skipper is someone who is paid to take a boat from point A to point B. This guy had really "been there done that", including a long stint in a life raft after the boat he was delivering sunk in a hurricane (and you think YOU had a bad day at the office???). Even more interesting was his opinion of the United States Coast Guard Captain's license. Basically, he thought it was a joke. In the United States, if you want to get paid to drive a boat (yacht, fishing boat, tug, ship, whatever), you need to get a captain's license. It's like an automobile driver's license for boats. The Coast Guard does not just give away these licenses. To get one, you have to document "x" days of experience on the water, pass a nasty written exam, get some red cross training, and lord knows what else. Frank went through that drill and got his captain's license. But apparently, the captain's license requirements from the USA Coast Guard pale in comparison to the same requirements in Europe. And to a certain extent, he probably has a valid point. If you can hang out on a friend's boat long enough, or hang out in a ship long enough (courtesy of the US Navy), or hitch enough rides on enough boats (like I was doing on Frank's boat), then you can satisfy the Coast Guard experience requirements. And, if you have a great memory, you can memorize enough to pass the written exam. Then, you satisfy a few more "red tape" requirements and presto, you now have a captain's license from the US Coast Guard. So, in theory, some young cook on an aircraft carrier can get out of the Navy, memorize a bunch of test questions, and walk away with a captain's license that will permit him to get paid for delivering a big ass sailboat from New England to the Virgin Islands.

The question is, does that REALLY make you a competent captain? This license is not just a "do the ICW and get paid for it" type of license. You can use it to drive tour boats across the harbor, or drive fishing boats hundreds of miles offshore, or drive yachts across the ocean. People's lives hang in the balance on these kinds of trips, both captain and crew. Sure, you can log enough hours on the ICW to get your captain's license, but is that teaching you whether 60 knots of wind in mid Atlantic is best handled by heaving-to or streaming drogues? And sure, you can figure out that question 69 on the captain's written exam should be answer B in a quiet exam room at 78 degrees Fahrenheit, but can you figure out the same question 100 miles west of San Francisco at 2 am after the last wave broke loose the microwave and threw it to the other side of the cabin? I'm certainly not qualified to pass judgment on these questions, but I can understand the concern of our delivery skipper friend when he questions the requirements for becoming a licensed captain in the United States. It's kind of an interesting question, don't you think?

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