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PAN-PAN in the Caribbean
A Lesson in Humility
“PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN. This is sailing vessel Caribbean Reiki, heading south/southeast toward Aruba, at position 16.32° North, 72.39° West. We’ve encountered an issue with contaminated fuel in our tanks and require assistance from any nearby vessels who can spare clean diesel and a tool to change our fuel filter.”
That was our broadcast in the middle of the Caribbean Sea in 2016. We repeated it once more, then waited.
Thirty minutes passed. No response. We tried again.
This time, a tanker replied. They could reach us in 45 minutes.
I was both elated — and embarrassed. I didn’t own the boat. I was just crewing, helping the captain deliver it to Aruba, where he planned to turn it into an Airbnb and never sail it again.
The embarrassment wasn’t just from needing help — it was that I had to make the Pan-Pan calls. The captain, a native French speaker, worried about his English pronunciation and insisted I handle the radio. I didn’t argue. But I hated how unprepared we were to begin with.
We’d been limping along under foresail alone ever since the engine failed. The mainsail had torn early in the trip, and the owner refused to repair it. No sense spending money on a boat he never planned to sail again. That left us…
