I was 11 years old when I read Joshua Slocum’s
“Sailing Around the World Alone”. I’ve read it at least 5 times since. I like
to sail alone too. I’d like to sail around the world but it’s too late, at
least I think it is.
Webb Chiles
has sailed around the world 6 times, alone. One circumnavigation he didn’t
finish, he quit in the Canary Islands. Chiles made that trip in an open
18 foot boat, San Diego to New Zealand to Africa to the Red Sea. Chiles was
arrested in Saudi Arabia for being a “spy”. He spent two weeks in jail and his
boat was confiscated. He got a new one and continued his trip only to have it
end in the Canaries.
Later Chiles
and his wife Jill left New Zealand, sailed around Cape Horn and up the South
American coast to Montevideo, Uruguay. They continued on to Key West.
In Key West
Jill left him. Chiles continued his trip alone.
Off Fort Lauderdale,
he made a decision. He opened the sea cocks on his 37 foot boat and sailed it
until it sunk. At the last moment Chiles stepped off the boat and into the Gulf
Stream wearing a tee shirt and shorts. He had committed himself to dying at sea.
He took off his glasses. He unstrapped his watch and let it go into the water. It
was 11 at night. The next morning he was still treading water. He made another
decision, he started to swim, he swam all day and all night. 26 hours and 125
miles north of Fort Lauderdale he was rescued by two young fishermen.
Since then
Chiles has married his 6th wife and circumnavigated once again in a
Moore 24.
Webb Chiles
is almost 75 years old, he listens to classical music, reads and enjoys his
daily drink of scotch from a crystal high ball glass, whether ashore or at sea.
Chiles
writes…
“Old men
should be explorers.” I first read that in a book by Jan de Hartog, but
subsequently came across it in T. S. Eliot’s FOUR QUARTETS, which predates
Hartog by several decades.”
A life well
lived.
