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"Dad, we're about to hit a coral head!"

Though my shoulder ached I kept up the steady rhythm, heaving the lead line, proud to have such an important job. For more than two hours we picked our way towards escape from the shoals of the Bahamas. With growing weariness I gathered in the dripping line as the boat rode up to the spot where it had been tossed. "Fathom and a half!" I called out to my Dad at the wheel. My younger brother Tim, in the ratlines echoed the call. "Fathom and a ha-a-a-lf…..and steer to port around some coral!" In the past month we had negotiated hundreds of square miles of water barely deep enough to accommodate our six-foot draft; a wavering trail traced in the sand behind us like the path of some gigantic sea snail. We were now closing two narrow scrub-covered sand keys between which we hoped to find enough water to cross into the open sea beyond. Cautiously we advanced. Leaning out as far over the lifelines as my 12-year-old frame would allow, I took one more back swing and heaved the lead again. At that moment, as though caught up by some unseen hand, the boat plunged forward in heavy current at speed, the shoal bottom giving way to a rich patchwork of marine colors. Gasping as I looked ahead I yelled out, "Dad, we're about to hit a coral head!" but the line I had just tossed kept slipping through my hands, not finding bottom. Shellback shot right over the threatening coral below without a bump, while I belatedly realized that the seabed was magnified out of all proportion by the lens effect of the flowing water. A minute later the swift current catapulted us into the deep ocean to continue our journey southward.

San Diego to Panama in 1947.
I had been sailing all of my life. My brother Tim and I were fortunate enough to have grown up on boats at a time when those who cruised were considered foolhardy. Our adventurous parents, Jack and Ruthie Carstarphen, first cast off their lines in 1947 when I was a sturdy toddler of three and my baby brother was not yet two. On that ten-month odyssey we sailed our little 34-foot wooden cutter Te Tiki all the way to Panama from San Diego. Perhaps a voyage to Panama these days doesn't sound like much of an accomplishment, but what a voyage it was in 1947!

Te Tiki possessed no electricity, icebox or fridge, no autopilot, radar, weather fax, depth sounder, electronic charts, roller furling, wind vane steering, water maker or GPS, and certainly not a marine radio. It was just a simple seaworthy little wooden boat that would float. No one used harnesses, and only we children wore lifejackets. My mother Ruthie, 23 at the time of our departure, was the dreamy sort, but fearless and determined. My father, Jack, 25, was full of curiosity and fun-loving energy, only a grouch when he was unsure of himself. They relied on good old-fashioned seamanship, the sort of thing their hero Joshua Slocum preached. And like him, they were great romantics!

On the eve of their California departure another yacht, blown off course from an attempt to reach Hawaii, decided to join Te Tiki on the voyage to Mexico.

Most yachts that ventured southward after the war deadheaded straight for Acapulco's playground so Te Tiki's more systematic exploration paved the way for later cruisers. In a 1948 issue of Rudder Magazine Dad published a cruising guide to the then, almost unknown anchorages along the coast from San Diego to Acapulco, a coastline, which was at that time considered nothing less than treacherous!

Family aboard Te Tiki in 1947 just before setting sail for Panama.

Tere & Time, happy in the care of their dad, Jack, while mother, Ruthie caught up on her sleep off watch.

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