The simplest warnings often go unheeded

Take in all lines. We’re going back to sea.

You should know that running a ship isn’t rocket science and, by keeping a few simple things in mind, you can enjoy a career that will provide you with an endless supply of stories (just ask my wife) with which to bore your friends and relations.

Yours truly is proof of this and was even luckier, early in my career, to have been taken under the wing of a very wise and experienced mariner.

Some of the things he taught me included:

Magnetic compasses always point to magnetic north. Face that direction and south is behind you. Now, by remembering that the sun generally rises in the east and sets in the west and by studying a chart or two, you can usually find your way around when you’re out on the pond.

Navigation made easy. You learned it here.

Another helpful tidbit he offered was the fact that those same charts depict water in blue and land in brown. If you simply kept your vessel in the “blue” areas, running aground became difficult and you soon became known as a “wise and capable mariner.”

No less important was understanding that two objects cannot occupy the same piece of ocean at one time. Mastering this theory prevented collisions (See: Titanic/iceberg) which, as a Roman admiral once noted, generally ruined your entire day.

In personnel matters, it helped to understand that crew members spent years learning their trades. Thus, the best leadership technique available was to walk around the ship on a regular basis and say things like, “How’s it going?”

If the reply was, “Great, Captain,” you could nod sagely, say “Fine, carry on,” then walk off, leaving the crew awed by your understanding of the workings of the vessel.

If, however, you saw the chief engineer standing waist deep in water and shouting profanities at everyone, you could deduce that things might be a bit off kilter. If this same individual was carrying on like a miracle had better happen quickly, you would say, “Report to me when you have things under control,” and walk back to your cabin to check if your survival suit was still under the bunk.

In actuality, though, most day-to-day problems tended to sort themselves out and the toughest thing you faced at sea was keeping people from injuring themselves.

As an example of this, we once visited Cocos Island — a small speck located approximately 300 miles west of Costa Rica. In preparing to visit this uninhabited island, I read all of the information available. It was mostly promising except for repeated warnings regarding the large numbers of spiny sea urchins in the area.

Because I knew everyone would want to go ashore, we held numerous daily briefings regarding the island. During these briefings, we repeatedly emphasized the danger of spiny sea urchins and the necessity to wear shoes while in the water.

On the night before our arrival, we made an announcement reminding everyone of the spiny sea urchins and, upon anchoring the next morning, we repeated that announcement. In nautical parlance as regards these warnings, we were “flogging a dead horse.”

Secure in the belief that no one would enter the water without footwear, I launched the first boat.

It stopped about 10 yards from the beach and, through my binoculars, I watched the first three people jump over the side and immediately begin flailing and falling all over themselves.

About then, the radio sprang to life telling me that the boat was returning to the ship immediately with three people suffering from sea urchin injuries.

Apparently, when the three jumped into the water — without looking and without shoes — they landed on a colony of (need I say this?) spiny sea urchins. They then fell — butt first — onto said colony, thus immensely compounding their problems.

Once back aboard and after appropriate medical treatment had been rendered to reduce pain and ensure there’d be no infection, I did the only thing a concerned captain could do.

I walked over to them and — mustering all of the care, sincerity, compassion and sympathy I could — said: “I told you so,” and left.

I’m told there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

Larry Simoneaux lives in Edmonds. Send comments to larrysim@comcast.net.