Disaster Time…

By Nigel Barraclough

As sailors something we occasionally do is think about various things that might go wrong and how we might handle the situation; you know the sort of thing:
• Someone has gone over board,
• The gas taps have been left on,
• The mast has come down,
• The prop has stopped because you have run over a net,
• And if matters are really serious: the boat is sinking – fast.

OK, so let me give you another one: you have had your wallet nicked. It contains your cards, cash and photocopy of your passport. Also you are in a foreign country where you have no idea about the language or how the phone system (if there is one) works, you are 4000 miles from home and 15 from the nearest city which you hardly know. Now what do you do? More is the question what should you have done before you left home.

A few simple precautions:
• Keep some local and “international” currency in small and large(ish) denominations in another place. In Europe that can easily be Euros but US Dollars can be useful.
• Make a note of the contact numbers for the cards you are carrying and keep those cards as few as possible, also make sure you have international dialing codes. Oh, keep this in a different place to your wallet.
• Do you have a record of your passport number?
• How well do you know the area where you are or the local language?
• Can you arrange for someone else to find the information at home for you? A simple way is to have a file somewhere that you can easily describe to someone else.

Finally, what made me write this article? Its simple, a few weeks ago I was in Uganda (4000 miles from home). Kampala was 15 miles away (in the last 37 years we had been there twice). I couldn’t speak the local languages – Baganda and Luganda, and while there was a phone system I didn’t have the money to pay for a call! Oh, I forgot to mention…. I had my wallet nicked!

But…..
• I did have the contact numbers – but couldn’t remember straight away where they were but when I found them, they did work.
• I did have some US Dollars but some of them were old and the notes had changed!
• Our mobile phones did actually work so I could stop the cards there and then.
• I did have an alternative means of getting cash – Dad was there as well and effectively became my Bank, (one silver lining: I spent very little from there on because he was very reluctant to give me very much!)
• I was amongst local friends who knew the language and were able to help.
• If all that failed I knew folk at home who could get into my flat and do all this for me.

There is of course another solution: don’t get your wallet nicked in the first place but don’t rely on that one either because you will be amazed just how skillful some people are at removing it from you.

By the way you could extend this to other things as well – for example: medical details. I have a series of coloured files, which I can easily describe, to someone else if I need to.

PS Uganda is a wonderful country and well worth a visit! I had a really good time when I was there.