John Florence Adds Another Feather To Hooded Rashguard: Order Of The Ditch

First, a glossary for the sailing-naive.

Pollywog / Wog — sailor who has not yet crossed the Equator.
Shellback — has crossed the Equator and been initiated into Neptune’s realm.
Golden Shellback — crossed the Equator at the International Date Line / 180th meridian.
Emerald Shellback — crossed the Equator at the Prime Meridian.
Golden Dragon — crossed the International Date Line.
Blue Nose — crossed the Arctic Circle.
Frozen Stiff — crossed the Antarctic Circle.
Horned Shellback — rounded Cape Horn and crossed the Equator on the same voyage.
Plank Owner — member of a ship’s original commissioning crew.
Goldfish — traditionally awarded to aircrew who ditched at sea and took to a life raft.
Sea Squatter — in one US Navy tradition, a Goldfish who spent more than 24 hours adrift.
Order of the Rock — passed through the Strait of Gibraltar.
Order of Magellan — circumnavigated the globe.
Order of the Ditch — transited the Panama Canal.

John Florence has been a property of Neptune’s realm since 2022, when he first crossed the Equator while sailing 3,000 miles from Hawai‘i to Fiji.

That same voyage also carried him across the International Date Line, making him a Golden Dragon (gotta catch them all).

Before either distinction came the ITCZ (Intertropical Convergence Zone), where Vela was greeted by rain, chop and swirling squalls, which had the modestly sized catamaran maxed out at 20 knots (terrifyingly fast).

“You could feel the load on everything,” John wrote in a mid-Pacific dispatch to Stab.

“There are all kinds of strange noises, the bow is crashing into waves, and it really demands every part of your attention. It’s a scary feeling when you’re in the middle of nowhere, and you feel like you’re sailing right on the line, just waiting to hear a big ‘bang’. It lasted about 30 min but it felt like a lot longer. We never heard a bang thankfully, and we made it through unscathed for the most part. That felt like our sign off to the ITCZ this time around. It was the scariest part of the trip.”

John’s desire to continue decorating his skipper hat, or hooded rashguard, has shown no signs of slowing.

Only months ago, he added another unofficial maritime distinction by joining the Order of the Ditch, earned by transiting the Panama Canal — the roughly 80-kilometre, 50-mile waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and saving mariners from the considerably less convenient option of sailing around South America.

For a private sailboat, the privilege can easily run into the thousands once tolls and transit costs are accounted for.

Worth it, though. The American Society of Civil Engineers once named the Panama Canal one of its Seven Wonders of the Modern World, which is about as excited as civil engineers are legally permitted to get.

More importantly for John, the Ditch spat him back into the Pacific, with a lot of wave-rich coastline between Panama and wherever Vela points next.

Here’s his soiree with the sweet local Sanchez family, who found him some soft walls to steady the sea legs.