No GPS, No Problem: A Family’s Pacific Adventure

A veteran offshore sailor reflects on a pre-GPS Pacific crossing with two young boys, and how climate change and technology have transformed—and complicated—the art of bluewater voyaging.

By
Pamela Bendall
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Our family photo. Left to right: Sam, Michael, Charlie and me. (Photo/ Pamela Bendall)

Forty years ago, I set sail from Victoria, Canada, with my former (now late) husband, Michael, and our two young boys, Sam, 10, and Charlie, 4, bound for Hawaii—2,350 nautical miles away. We had no GPS, just a sextant and mathematical reduction tables for navigation. No generator, no water maker, no solar or wind generators—just wind and sails. I was 31 years old: young and immortal!

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Pamela Bendall
https://www.pamelabendall.com/
Pamela Bendall has an extensive nautical background with over 200,000 miles of ocean adventures since she began sailing in 1980. In 1986, Pamela and her former husband and two young boys ages 4,10 circumnavigated the Pacific to New Zealand and Japan and most of the islands in between using only a sextant and mathematical reduction tables. She began sailing offshore solo in 2008, taking her boat Precious Metal from Victoria, Canada to Mexico, Peru, Galapagos and throughout Central America. Pamela has her Masters 60 ton Captains license, CYA Seamanship and Navigation Certification, and owned and operated her own sailing charter business Precious Yacht Charters in northern British Columbia and Alaska. She has extensive ocean racing experience including the Victoria-Maui Race and Marblehead and was Chairperson of the Vic-Maui from 2002-2008. She has authored two sailing-related books: Kids for Sail, and What Was I Thinking: Adventures of a Woman Sailing Solo. Pamela and her partner Henry Robinson are currently living aboard their Fountaine Pajot 43-ft. catamaran in Central America and Mexico for Canadian winters and aboard their 40-ft. Ocean Alexander Quetzal in British Columbia, during Canadian summers.

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