Thank you all for the off list reply to my 29 May letter. It is very encouraging. I will answer to two questions of : Do you have firearms on board and what is a cattle prod rather here on the list and not in individual email. Nope, we don't have firearms on board, not counting the two flare guns. Why not having a gun on board? We are Canadians and in Canada we have strict gun laws and keeping a gun is made difficult. Yes, we can acquire a gun or guns. I might correct this because buying a handgun is extreme difficult and out of a question for the normal person. But long guns like rifles or shotguns are possible. You must be older than 21 years of age, have no criminal record, take a gun handling and safety training course. It doesn't matter if you had military training or law enforcement training. You have to take this course. Then you can apply for a FAC (stands for Firearm Acquisition Certificate) You have to have a safe storage cabinet or box, like a gun safe. The police will check out your storage solution and do random checks once awhile. When you have purchased a gun, the serial number is registered with the National Gun Registration Office and every time you move, you have to notify the police when and where and get a permission with a time slot. But now comes the hammer. How do you do this on a boat? This is not possible on a boat. Maybe some Canadian Listees have suggestions? Cattle Prod: Our prod is 29 inches long and pumps out 6000 Volt. Manufactured by PARMAK, USA www.baygard.com/Additional/prods.htm and was purchased in Canada by Princess Auto in Whitby, Ont. for the cost of about $50 Cdn. It is used for moving life stock on a farm or in a stock yard. It works, I can promise this to you, but has a drawback I will explain further down these lines. In Aug. 2008 Diesel Duck anchored on the Pacific coast in the Bahia Pinos, Panama, very close to the Colombian border. A picturesque bay with the "Tropic Star Lodge" worldwide known as one of the best fishing lodges. The Embera Indians, the natives of this region are of a small stature, similar to the Kuna Indians of Panama or the Warao Indians of the Orinoco Delta in Venezuela. During the second night under anchor, around 01:00 hr. in the morning, my wife whispered into my ear, "There is someone on deck." This worked like an alarm bell and I was instantly awake. The aft cabin hatch is in the center of the deck covered by the 9 ft Caribe dinghy on stands and above our queen size bed. The hatch was open for a clearance of 8 inches and touching the keel of the dinghy. From above, the hatch (2x2 ft size) is hardly visible in the dark and mostly covered by the dinghy From the inside of the aft cabin I looked through the gap of the hatch and saw two legs on two feet and a thought crossed my mind. What the heck is this guy trying to steal? The gap was big enough to get my arm through and try and grab a leg. But a better thought came to me. The cattle prod. I fetched this cattle prod and quietly stuck it through the hatch. Pressed the button and hit home. For about a second and a half nothing happened. But then everything happened. Some sounds and bad noises. I released the button and we heard a big splash. Somebody was retreating. It was quiet again and the only sounds came from the howler monkeys in the jungle. We went out onto the aft deck to investigate. All clear. Our visitor was gone and properly thinking this gringo boat is evil, but then we noticed the smell. I looked down and shit, I was standing right in the truce of the word. Our visitor had dropped a load. My medical knowledge is limited, but the cattle prod must have triggered a muscle relaxation at the nightly unwanted guest. Maybe some of our Listee can shed some light on this. I was glad to have a 25ft water hose connected to a deck outlet to clean the deck and me of this unwanted present. The cattle prod proved to be effective, but it shows that while handling the prod, it should be done outside in the open and not on the carpet in the salon ! Benno + Marlene on "Diesel Duck"

Benno... an amusing account of using a cattle prod! Sound like it did the job, so to speak. To one of your other points, about difficulty of a Canadian getting permission to carry a long gun on their boat, what's interesting is that US Citizens traveling in Canadian British Columbia by boat have no issues in bringing long guns with them. I've entered BC several times with my shotgun, declaring it and paying $35 for a 60 day permit each time, as long as I declare the purpose for carrying my shotgun is "Protection from Wildlife". What's interesting is that no one from Canadian customs has ever come aboard my boat when I enter, they just take my firearms application by phone, run my credit card through and give me a permit number (which is my Clearance Number). I have to have a copy of my permit with me when I go ashore with the shotgun. (Of course, the rule of strict honesty and openness applies when dealing with Canadian Customs... if Customs ever catch you being shading the truth or not being open, least of all carrying something you didn't declare, their retribution has no limit. Kittens with six-inch fangs, or so I call the Canadian Customs folks.) >From your description below, it sounds a lot harder for Canadians to do this on boats in their own country. That said, I have met Canadian boat owners who openly carried shotguns ashore in both Canada and Alaska for bear protection, so there must be a way. Of course, as has been discussed many times before, no matter what your country of citizenship, carrying a firearm in many parts of the world is very difficult and often impossible to do legally. But Canada, at least for long guns owned by US citizens, appears to be quite liberal in this regard. On the other hand, the purpose is entirely different up here. No piracy in Canada that I've ever heard of, or in Alaska, but there are lots of potentially dangerous bears. If you go ashore a lot, which we do, and compete with the grizzlies for fish at stream mouths, your risk of a bad bear encounter is, I suspect, orders of magnitude higher than the risk of piracy, even in the bad parts of the world. The Canadian Customs people seem to be very understanding of this. And of course, if you enter Alaska without guns, they wonder what's wrong with you. <grin> I recall the first time I entered Alaska, and the Homeland Security Border Patrol inspector asked how much ammunition I had, and I said I had ten shells for the shotgun, he said I should probably buy more. John M On Jun 1, 2010, at 8:30 AM, Benno Klopfer wrote: > Thank you all for the off list reply to my 29 May letter. It is very > encouraging. I will answer to two questions of : Do you have firearms on > board and what is a cattle prod rather here on the list and not in individual > email. > Nope, we don't have firearms on board, not counting the two flare > guns. Why not having a gun on board? We are Canadians and in Canada we have > strict gun laws and keeping a gun is made difficult. Yes, we can acquire a > gun or guns. I might correct this because buying a handgun is extreme > difficult and out of a question for the normal person. But long guns like > rifles or shotguns are possible. You must be older than 21 years of age, have > no criminal record, take a gun handling and safety training course. It > doesn't matter if you had military training or law enforcement training. You > have to take this course. Then you can apply for a FAC (stands for Firearm > Acquisition Certificate) You have to have a safe storage cabinet or box, like > a gun safe. The police will check out your storage solution and do random > checks once awhile. When you have purchased a gun, the serial number is > registered with the National Gun Registration Office and > every time you move, you have to notify the police when and where and get a > permission with a time slot. But now comes the hammer. How do you do this on > a boat? This is not possible on a boat. Maybe some Canadian Listees have > suggestions? > Cattle Prod: Our prod is 29 inches long and pumps out 6000 > Volt. Manufactured by PARMAK, USA www.baygard.com/Additional/prods.htm and > was purchased in Canada by Princess Auto in Whitby, Ont. for the cost of about > $50 Cdn. It is used for moving life stock on a farm or in a stock yard. It > works, I can promise this to you, but has a drawback I will explain further > down these lines. > In Aug. 2008 Diesel Duck anchored on the Pacific coast in > the Bahia Pinos, Panama, very close to the Colombian border. A picturesque > bay with the "Tropic Star Lodge" worldwide known as one of the best fishing > lodges. The Embera Indians, the natives of this region are of a small > stature, similar to the Kuna Indians of Panama or the Warao Indians of the > Orinoco Delta in Venezuela. During the second night under anchor, around > 01:00 hr. in the morning, my wife whispered into my ear, "There is someone on > deck." This worked like an alarm bell and I was instantly awake. The aft > cabin hatch is in the center of the deck covered by the 9 ft Caribe dinghy on > stands and above our queen size bed. The hatch was open for a clearance of 8 > inches and touching the keel of the dinghy. From above, the hatch (2x2 ft > size) is hardly visible in the dark and mostly covered by the dinghy From the > inside of the aft cabin I looked through the gap of the hatch and > saw two legs on two feet and a thought crossed my mind. What the heck is > this guy trying to steal? The gap was big enough to get my arm through and > try and grab a leg. But a better thought came to me. The cattle prod. I > fetched this cattle prod and quietly stuck it through the hatch. Pressed the > button and hit home. For about a second and a half nothing happened. But > then everything happened. Some sounds and bad noises. I released the button > and we heard a big splash. Somebody was retreating. It was quiet again and > the only sounds came from the howler monkeys in the jungle. We went out onto > the aft deck to investigate. All clear. Our visitor was gone and properly > thinking this gringo boat is evil, but then we noticed the smell. I looked > down and shit, I was standing right in the truce of the word. Our visitor had > dropped a load. My medical knowledge is limited, but the cattle prod must > have triggered a muscle > relaxation at the nightly unwanted guest. Maybe some of our Listee can shed > some light on this. I was glad to have a 25ft water hose connected to a deck > outlet to clean the deck and me of this unwanted present. > The cattle prod > proved to be effective, but it shows that while handling the prod, it should > be done outside in the open and not on the carpet in the salon ! > Benno + > Marlene on "Diesel Duck" > _______________________________________________ > http://lists.samurai.com/mailman/listinfo/passagemaking-under-power > > To unsubscribe send email to > passagemaking-under-power-request@lists.samurai.com with the word > UNSUBSCRIBE and nothing else in the subject or body of the message. > > Passagemaking Under Power and PUP are trademarks of Water World Productions.