Page 32 - Sun Rays March 2013

32 | SUNRAYS MARCH 2013 ONLINE: SCTXCA.ORG
About three and a half hours east of
Georgetown, Captain Chris Guti-
errez is on a small boat heading
several miles offshore, toward a cruise
ship waiting to be docked. Once he reach-
es the ship, he’ll climb aboard—liter-
ally, by a rope ladder—to safely guide
the 100,000-gross ton, 1,000-foot-long
vessel to port.
Chris is a harbor pilot for the Port of
Galveston and a part-time Sun City Tex-
as resident. He’s on call in Galveston for
two weeks 24/7 navigating (or waiting to
navigate) ships into and out of the port,
and on the two weeks he’s off-duty he’s at
his Sun City home with his wife Brenda
and mother-in-law Elizabeth.
Surprisingly, Chris grew up inland in
San Antonio, but his parents took him
to Port Aransas every summer, where
he would see ships coming into port.
Chris’ uncle was also a merchant sea-
man, and he loved to hear his uncle’s
stories of traveling around the world. Not
only did he love his uncle’s stories, but,
as a big history buff, Chris would read
about the Navy and all of the heroes of
the Revolutionary War through World
War II and Korea. After graduating from
high school, he began studying at the
Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
“That’s where I got my start, learning
seamanship and navigation and any-
thing like that,” Chris said.
For more than 35 years, Chris worked
on ships at sea, mostly merchant ships,
earning his Captain’s License, until he
finally settled down in Galveston in 1999.
“I met my wife and figured: she probably
won’t be around again if I go out to sea for
months at a time,” he said. So he began
working as a tug boat captain in Galves-
ton Bay. As a tug boat captain, he got very
familiar with many harbor pilots in the
area, since tug boats aid pilots in putting
the ships alongside their dock and pulling
them away as they head for open waters.
When an opening for a pilot became avail-
able, Chris put in his application.
He was commissioned by the Governor
of Texas as a Port of Galveston harbor
Sun City cruise lovers, meet your Galveston pilot!
By Maggi Jones
PHOTO BY BURTON ANES