If I had a fancier camera, or if Insegrevious were a more stable camera platform, I would make a regular feature of comparison photographs of nautical objects taken first from far away and then from up close. I find identification difficult and wonder how many other people share my curse. It’s not even a vision thing; my wife has much worse eyesight than I do, yet she can often spot and identify objects before I can. It’s something about how my brain is wired that it can’t decide what it is looking at.
Is it a floating flock of seagulls ahead? Or crab-pot hell? An indistinct white dot against the shoreline; breakers over a rock, or an idling Bayliner? Two masts appear on the horizon; a tame and friendly ketch crossing, or is it a fishing trawler coming at you on autopilot? Is that a line of kayakers, or a low-lying reef? Then there is the always popular game for kids and watchkeepers, “How many sportfishermen can you find in this picture?” You’ll always miss at least one!
The issue is exacerbated in a stern cockpit sailboat, where the helm is situated at the worst possible place to see anything that matters most, ie, ahead of you. You’re often lower than the bow by some few feet, and there is the whole mess of sails, masts, ventilators, hatches, lifelines and pulpits ahead of you. It would amaze wildlife biologists what size of whale you can effectively hide behind a one inch lifeline stanchion, and it’s a phenomena that I feel should be further researched as it almost certainly holds vital keys to the preservation of the species from the depredations of whalers.
Then, on our boat and many others in the chilly Pacific Northwest, you have the dodger with its plastic windows that distort and hide objects on the other side. I often spend my watches huddled beneath the warmth of the dodger and amuse myself with the manner in which it turns all sorts of obstacles into rather poor Van Gogh knock-offs. While a boon to the arts community, this probably isn’t exactly in the finest traditions of seamanship.
So, partly of necessity and partly through my own cowardice, I spend many watches in fear of running down whales, kayakers, and fishermen in Zodiacs (well, I’m actually a little encouraged at the prospect of running down sportfishermen, savoring the possibility of the tables being turned for once, but you don’t exactly get to choose), enjoying the fine vistas off the beams and stern and then realizing with a start that I haven’t had a good look dead ahead in some time now. It’s amazing what leaps out at you in those moments of panicked clarity and, as if through some sort of adrenaline-driven super-power, I have yet to nail all manner of deadheads, crab pots, and aquatic mammals, but I am sure it’s only a matter of time.