Here’s A Cat Who Sailed The Seas. Roger That!

Frank and Lou are seasoned sailors who had no trouble handling their 42-foot sailboat together. However, they unexpectedly picked up another crew member in Central America. Here’s the story in Frank’s own words.

It will be seven years ago this Christmas that my wife and I sailed into Colon, Panama from the San Blas Islands. We were on the tail end of a four year cruise in the Caribbean on our 42 Ft. Ketch, “Sweet Lou”. We moored alongside a slip at the old Panama Canal Yacht Club, which I understand has since been torn down.

One of the features of the Yacht Club was a Hispanic/Chinese restaurant. It was a cruiser’s hangout for cold beer and inexpensive food. The owners of the restaurant fed leftovers to a large group of quasi feral cats. We were there on two different occasions and always saw at least twenty to thirty cats waiting to be fed. All of them were quite large and mean looking. One day while returning to our boat I saw a small kitten hiding in a hole in a doorway. The kitten would come out and beg food from passers by and then run into his protected hole where the larger cats couldn’t get to him.

I told my wife, Lou, not to pass by the door because there was the cutest little kitten there and I was sure (tongue in cheek) that she didn’t want to see it. Well she did see it and the kitten ended up on our sail boat. We never saw the mother cat and assumed it died.

We named the cat Roger Roger after a lady, forgot her name, who ran a Security Network from her sailboat in Grenada. She used the single side band radio and did an excellent job alerting cruisers to security issues. However she would Roger you to death, i.e. Roger that Sweet Lou, Roger, Roger. It seemed that every five or ten words would include a Roger. Anyway we named the cat Roger Roger.

Roger Roger was small, he fit in the palm of my hand. White with black spots, he’s slightly cross eyed; our vet tells us it is due to inbreeding. We took him to a vet in Colon and learned that he was healthy and just needed some good meals. Roger Roger got his shots and became our boat cat.

Preparing for our passage North to Tampa Bay we soon left Colon. In order to get a good sailing angle on the trade winds we beat due east to Portobelo where we laid over a few days. Roger Roger quickly took over the boat. We bought him a small harness and when ever he went top side he was attached to a strong line, just in case he went overboard. Thankfully this never happened.

Roger Roger took to sailing like a fish to water. With the boat heeled over with all sails set Roger Roger would find little nooks and crannies where he could wedge himself in and go to sleep. We were amazed at how fast he grew. We set up a kitty litter box in the shower stall, wedged it in with old towels, showed Roger Roger where it was and it was in business.

Our first overnight passage with Roger Roger was from Portobelo to San Andres, a Columbian Island a few hundred miles north of Panama. I held the midnight to sunrise watch and every hour I would leave the boat on auto pilot, go below to check our position on the GPSD chart plotter and transfer our position to our paper charts. The boat was lit with red lamps and Roger Roger would come out of his hole and look to play. He would nip on my feet and jump to my shoulder and peer at the GPS with me. It was in San Andres that he got his second rabies shot. Roger Roger wasn’t allowed ashore and the vet would not come out to the sailboat; we were riding on our hook. We compromised. Lou and I took Roger Roger ashore in our dinghy, secured to the end of a long dock where the vet gave him his second shot.

After a week or so in San Andres we resumed our passage north to the Island of Providencia, another Colombian island. (Roger never got off the boat until we reached Bradenton, Florida). From Providencia we sailed for the Honduran Bay Islands where we spent several weeks.

The father north we went the more hatch boards we had to put in the main hatch. When Roger Roger first came on board he was so small that he couldn’t climb the stairs from the main cabin to the cockpit. However it wasn’t long before he managed to crawl up the stair and get into the cockpit all on his own, without his harness. This called for inserting one hatch board which blocked his entry to the cockpit. But it wasn’t long before he managed to climb over the single hatch board and we had to insert a second board. And yes, you guessed it, it wasn’t long before he managed to climb over the second hatch board and we had to slide the hatch cover shut to prevent him from getting out unattended.

From the Honduran Bay Islands we had a very fast passage, thanks to strong trade winds and the beginning of the Gulf Stream, to Isla Mujeres, Mexico. By now Roger Roger was quite large and accustomed to life on a sail boat. We rode out a strong norther in Isla Mujeres and after giving the sea and winds time to lay down we left on a three day passage for Tampa Bay and Bradenton.

It was at the Twin Dolphin Marina that our voyage ended. We spent several weeks getting adjusted to living ashore, finding jobs, buying a home, and putting the boat up for sale. During this time Roger Roger learned how to climb up on the bow and jump down to the dock. He roamed the dock and made friends with all the live-aboards in the marina. He knew every dog on the dock and was quite friendly with them all.

After a couple of months we moved into our new home in Pelican Cove, Sarasota, Florida. We picked up another kitten that had been abandoned so now Roger had a Buddy. Roger Roger appeared to like his new living quarters. Lots of room. A three bedroom apartment gave him more room than did a sailboat 42.5 feet long with a beam of 13 feet.

Roger Roger still gets out. Can’t let him run around on his own but he goes for daily walks with me and stays close to me. Of course I carry a light-weight but long rake that I use to direct his movements. From the little kitten that I could hold in the palm of my hand Roger Roger has grown into a 15 lb sleek tom cat. He’s extremely playful and has a mind of his own. He’s very lovely with Lou but likes to play rough house with me.

From the movie, Airplane (1980):

Roger Murdock: “Flight 2-0-9′er, you are cleared for take-off.”
Captain Oveur: “Roger!”
Roger Murdock: “Huh?”
Tower voice: “L.A. departure frequency, 123 point 9′er.”
Captain Oveur: “Roger!”
Roger Murdock: “Huh?”
Victor Basta: “Request vector, over.”
Captain Oveur: “What?”
Tower voice: “Flight 2-0-9′er cleared for vector 324.”
Roger Murdock: “We have clearance, Clarence.”
Captain Oveur: “Roger, Roger. What’s our vector, Victor?”
Tower voice: “Tower’s radio clearance, over!”
Captain Oveur: “That’s Clarence Oveur. Over.”
Tower voice: “Over.”
Captain Oveur: “Roger.”
Roger Murdock: “Huh?”
Tower voice: “Roger, over!”
Roger Murdock: “What?”
Captain Oveur: “Huh?”
Victor Basta: “Who?”