*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74535 ***
ALL IN THE SAME BOAT
THE FORBIDDEN VOYAGE
ALL IN THE SAME BOAT
An American Family’s Adventures on a Voyage around the World in the
Yacht _Phoenix_
By
EARLE and BARBARA REYNOLDS
DAVID McKAY COMPANY, INC.
New York
ALL IN THE SAME BOAT
COPYRIGHT © 1962 BY EARLE AND BARBARA REYNOLDS
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or
parts thereof, in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations
in a review.
PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 62–18969
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
VAN REES PRESS · NEW YORK
INTRODUCTION
At a party, celebrating the passage of the _Phoenix_ through the Panama
Canal, the master of ceremonies introduced our group as follows:
This is the crew of the yacht _Phoenix_, now on a voyage around the
world.
First we have Jessica Reynolds, who is the first little girl, to my
knowledge, to have attempted this feat.
Then there is Ted Reynolds, probably the first teen-age navigator of a
globe-circling sailing yacht.
The third member of the crew is Nick Mikami, from Hiroshima—the first
Japanese yachtsman to sail around the world.
Beside me is Barbara Reynolds, surely the most charming
circumnavigating yachtswoman I have yet had the pleasure of meeting.
Finally—here is Dr. Earle Reynolds, whose sole claim to distinction is
that he is the first, and _only_, skipper ever to sail around the
world with all these wonderful people.
Fellow yachtsmen, both deep sea and dry land, both cockpit and armchair,
here we are—all in the same boat.
DEDICATED TO
“All those men who want to go to sea and never do—” (Jessica’s Journal)
and to their long-suffering wives.
AUTHORS’ NOTE
For simplicity, this collaboration is presented from the point of view
of the Skipper
CONTENTS
Introduction v
1. THE RISE OF THE _PHOENIX_ 1
“Between a dream and a deed lie the doldrums.”
2. PREPARATIONS FOR A VOYAGE 20
“Cruising is walking, talking, buying, scrounging ... but
cruising is also sailing.”
3. FROM JAPAN TO HONOLULU 39
“The long shakedown ... a seven-week course in How to Sail.”
4. ON TO THE SOUTH PACIFIC: FROM HAWAII TO TAHITI 61
“Banzai!... Banzai!... Banzai!”
5. TAHITI AND THE ISLANDS UNDER THE WIND 81
“Money? What I do with money?”
6. WESTWARD THROUGH THE SOUTH SEAS: RAROTONGA, SAMOA, FIJI 100
“A broad reach, a quiet sea, a full moon....”
7. DOWN UNDER: NEW ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIA 115
“Ah-h-h, yes-s-s!...”
8. —AND BACK UP: THE GREAT BARRIER REEF 133
“Better men than we had come to grief....”
9. INTO INDONESIA: THURSDAY ISLAND TO BALI 151
“Our life at sea was teaching us....”
10. BALI, JAVA, THE KEELING-COCOS 169
“A sense of uneasy anticipation....”
11. ACROSS THE INDIAN OCEAN: COCOS TO DURBAN 189
“You have seen people of all sorts. Makes my mouth water....”
12. SOUTH AFRICA: BEAUTIFUL, UNHAPPY LAND 207
“What will you do when that day comes?”
13. ACROSS THE ATLANTIC THE LONG WAY: CAPE TOWN TO NEW YORK CITY 225
“Beautiful night, new moon, slow progress, who cares?”
14. EVERY KIND OF CRUISING: NEW YORK TO PANAMA, BY THE CORKSCREW
ROUTE 247
“A man must stand up for what he believes.”
15. GALÁPAGOS: HOME OF THE LAST PIONEERS 267
“Those delicate souls whose coffee must be just so....”
16. BACK TO HAWAII 286
“How come change ya mind?”
17. THE LAST LEG: HONOLULU TO HIROSHIMA 297
“Of course, there were a couple of incidents.”
INDEX 305
ILLUSTRATIONS
(_between pages 182 and 183_)
Map of the journey around the world
The _Phoenix_ under full sail in the waters off Hawaii
In port, Wellington, New Zealand
Arrival in Honolulu, 1954
Japan, buying scrap iron to use as inside ballast
The timber is cut
Shaping the hull
Full-size patterns for the ribs
The Captain and his ship
Launching day
Bora Bora, French Oceania
Skipper and Mi-ke
Sextant shot on a quiet day
Mickey: Portrait of a seasick sailor
Galley scene, April, 1955
Jessica and her journal
Lassoing albatross
Rough day, Tasman Sea
Repairing sails
Marina, Staten Island
Ted refurbishing figurehead
Jessica sewing on Girl Scout badges
Reynolds family
1 THE RISE
OF THE _PHOENIX_
“Between a dream and a deed lie the doldrums.”
The yacht _Phoenix_ stood poised on the launching cradle. The ways were
greased, the tide at spring high, and only a single wedge restrained our
newly built ketch from sliding into the waters of the Inland Sea of
Japan.
Standing on deck, I looked at the crowd below, at the Shinto priest
chanting a blessing at the bow, and at Yotsuda-san, my long-suffering
shipbuilder, waiting alongside for my signal.
Across the bay I could see the mountainous island of Miya Jima, green
and beautiful in the bright May sun. Over there, in her famous shrine
which at high tide seems to float upon the surface of the sea, sleeps
the goddess, Itsukushima-hime-no-mikoto, famed and feared for her
jealous nature. I could only hope she would not begrudge us our brief
moment of glory.
When the priest had finished, I made a short speech, and then mochi—pink
and white rice cakes of ceremonial significance—were tossed to the
crowd. The moment had come: it was high noon. I caught Yotsuda-san’s
eye, and nodded. He smiled, bowed, and signaled to a workman. I suddenly
thought, Well, Yotsuda, if this launching is a bust, I’ll be busted,
too—but you’ll probably have to revive the good old custom of harakiri.
“Ikimasho!—Let’s go!” I shouted. Then everything happened very fast.
Jessica, standing on tiptoe, cut with a tiny golden ax the ribbon which
symbolically bound the _Phoenix_ to the shore; Barbara swung mightily
and broke the traditional bottle across the bow, cutting her finger in
the process; a workman knocked out the last block. We paused for a
breathless moment, and then began our slide, picking up speed as we
descended rapidly, until we hit the blue waters of the Inland Sea with a
grand and noble splash.
From the boat Ted and I could hear mingled American cheers and Japanese
banzais floating out across the water, as our _Phoenix_ glided, riding
free on the placid bay—where she promptly rammed into the side of a
Japanese sampan, and spilled the too curious occupants into the drink.
So now we had our boat, and she floated. It was another stage in a
long-term dream, a dream which had been born in my seventeenth summer.
With my first pay check from my first job I had bought a book: Joshua
Slocum’s account of the building of the beloved _Spray_, and of his
singlehanded voyage around the world. That was the beginning.
But between a dream and a deed often lie decades of doldrums.
During the next two decades I lived what might be called a normal
academic life, acquiring three degrees (all in anthropology), one wife,
a daughter, two sons, a growing waistline, and a suspicion that life was
pulling a fast one on me.
It was not until 1951 that my dream of ocean cruising returned in
strength. At this time I was associate professor of anthropology at
Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio—where the nearest body of water
is the local pond, three feet deep—and head of the department of
physical growth at the Fels Research Institute.
That year the National Academy of Sciences asked me, as an expert in the
field of human growth and development, to set up a scientific study in
the atom-bombed city of Hiroshima. I accepted and went to Japan,
together with Barbara and our three children: Tim, now fifteen; Ted,
thirteen; and Jessica, seven. For the next three years I studied the
effects of atomic radiation on the growth of the surviving children of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Now, for the first time in my life, I lived within sight and sound of
the sea, even though it was the relatively gentle Inland Sea of Japan.
Every day, as I drove to the laboratories of the Atomic Bomb Casualty
Commission, I passed busy shipyards, where wooden ships, both large and
small, were being built with age-old skills. Oyster boats, fishing
sampans, and trading schooners dotted the blue waters of Hiroshima Wan.
Gradually, as I settled into my research and got my bearings, I began to
look about with a very specific purpose in mind.
There is a poem by Browning whose lines are haunting: “Never the time
and the place and the loved one all together!” At last it seemed that
these three magic elements might possibly be combined. We had the time—a
two-year contract, with an option to extend it for a third year. This
was certainly the place—the magnificent Inland Sea, unrivaled for
beauty, with plenty of opportunity for sailing—while just beyond lay the
vast and challenging waters of the Pacific. Moreover, there were skilled
Japanese shipwrights here, with centuries of tradition in the building
of wooden craft.
As for the loved one—she existed as yet only in the notes, sketches, and
pictures I had stored over the years, but which I hoped might be
assembled into the plans for the ideal boat.
Finally, for the first time in our lives, we had a chance to accumulate
some capital. At last, and for once—the time, the place, and the loved
one seemed to have met.
The type of craft that evolved in my mind was a heavily built ketch,
stressing the factors of safety and simplicity. I knew about the pros
and cons of light-versus-heavy displacement cruising boats, and had
compared modern and old-time designs, rigs and methods of construction.
One fact was all-important: styles in boats, like everything else, may
change, but the sea doesn’t. Boats built along traditional lines have
made long voyages in safety and relative comfort in years past, and they
can do so today, even though they may be scorned as “old-fashioned.”
With this idea in mind, I made a few contacts with stateside designers
and ordered a number of stock plans. I came across some very fine
designs, but none completely suited me. One very real problem was the
particular circumstances under which this boat would have to be built. I
would have to use materials and equipment now available in Japan. The
boat would have to be built of Japanese woods. Would a foreign designer
know which to recommend? Also, there was the matter of the local
boatbuilders, who didn’t take too kindly to plans and blueprints, to say
nothing of the English language. Would an absentee designer be able to
anticipate and provide for all the problems that were bound to arise?
Reluctantly I had to face the facts: if I wanted a boat built in Japan,
by local shipwrights, I would have to design it myself and supervise
every detail of its construction. If I didn’t think I could do it, it
would be better not to start.
I settled myself to the task. For the next year all my time and energy
outside the laboratory were devoted to the labor of designing the boat.
It was entirely a “library research” type of job, based on my studies,
collected materials, and the books I had brought to Japan with me.
I drew up the plans for a double-ender, along the lines of the early
Colin Archer designs. It was to be 50 feet over-all, with a 14-foot beam
and a draft of 7½ feet, displacing about 30 tons.
The ketch was to have a straight keel, high bulwarks, gaff main,
topmast, inside ballast (6½ out of a total of 9 tons), and a flush deck
forward of a small after cabin. Her accommodations would attempt to
combine the best features of an open design, so necessary in the
tropics, with the essential privacy for each member of the crew, which
could make all the difference on a long voyage.
With the plans well along, we hit a real snag. For months all efforts to
find a satisfactory boatbuilder, at a price we could afford, drew only
blanks.
A major problem was language. I could speak enough Japanese to get a hot
bath, to find out when the next train left, or to agree that the scenery
was out of this world—but this was a long way from being able to discuss
technical phases of boatbuilding. I began to enlist help from among my
Japanese friends, and before long had built up a working team, which we
called the “four-man parlay.”
Man No. 1 was Yasuda-san (“san” is a suffix meaning Mr., Mrs., or Miss).
Yasuda-san was a teacher in the local high school; his knowledge of
English was excellent but he knew nothing whatever about boats.
Man No. 2 was Takemura-san, key member of the Hiroshima University Yacht
Club. He was a former officer in the Japanese Navy, an expert navigator,
and a keen sailor of small boats, though not a deep-sea yachtsman. His
interest in the venture was as a potential member of the crew. He spoke
not one word of English.
Man No. 3, whom we called the catalyst, was Niichi Mikami, a fellow
employee at the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission. Nick (as he quickly
became known) spoke fair English and had a good understanding of “how to
get along with Americans.” He was also a fine small-boat sailor and a
member of the local yacht club. He filled in the gaps in the chain of
communication.
Man No. 4 was myself, who thought I knew what I wanted but was hard put,
at times, to get it.
Whenever the team could be assembled, we toured the boatyards of the
surrounding areas, but without success. The builders either refused
outright, or quoted such a fantastically high price that there was no
point in dickering, or—more in character—were so devious in their
discussion that this amounted, in Japanese terms, to a refusal. Not
until the search was widened well beyond Hiroshima, to the region near
Miya Jima, did I find my man. One cold, wet morning in December, our
four-man team set out for Miya Jima Guchi, thirty minutes by
standing-room-only train from Hiroshima. From here a short walk took us
to the small shipyard of Mr. Yotsuda.
As we approached we could see Yotsuda-san himself, silhouetted against
the terraced rice fields of an adjoining hillside. His kimono waving
briskly in the breeze, he was repairing his roof—and judging from the
looks of it, none too soon. At a hail, he scrambled down, and I bowed
through the rituals of introduction, via Yasuda-san, via Takemura-san,
with help from Nick.
Yotsuda-san impressed me favorably when I met him, and I had a feeling
he liked me. He was a cheerful, shrewd-eyed, honest-faced man of middle
age. He had been a busy and prosperous shipbuilder in Manchuria until
after the war, but now, repatriated to Japan, he had been able to bring
back only his family and a few hand tools. At present, the Yotsudas were
living precariously from hand to mouth, or rather, from fishing smack to
oyster boat.
The workshop consisted of an open shed, with living quarters behind, and
a nearby pile of scrap lumber. The shop had a bare and austere
appearance to American, gadget-accustomed eyes. There were no high-speed
tools in evidence, no laborsaving devices, no power saws or sanding
machines, not even a brace and bit. There were only the traditional hand
tools of Japanese boatbuilding—adzes, chisels, hammers, augers, saws. I
noted that the saws functioned by pulling instead of pushing. As I later
discovered, so did the workmen.
Our group was ushered into the Yotsuda living-sleeping-dining room, with
its bare tatami mats and the family shrine in the corner. There we knelt
about the hibachi, trying to warm ourselves from its core of glowing
charcoal. The family had apparently been banished to the earthen-floored
kitchen. While the wind whistled through the plainly visible cracks, the
“team” discussed with Yotsuda-san in tortuous fashion the possibility of
bringing to life, in wood and iron, my sketches and notes. And I thought
doubtfully to myself, When this man can’t even plug the holes in his own
walls, how could he ever be able to build a good boat?
At any rate, I showed him what I wanted, bringing out my plans and
pictures, and discussing notes and construction. Hours passed.
Yotsuda-san looked and listened quietly. Behind his impassive smile—that
famous Japanese smile!—there began to glow a spark of genuine interest
and understanding. Through the interpreters he began to ask pertinent
questions and make sharp comments. There was no doubt this man knew his
business, and that he saw, in the designs, a challenge that intrigued
him. Suddenly I found myself thinking that, cracks or no cracks in the
wall, this man _could_ build our boat!
So I knelt there, with legs long ago gone to sleep, and shivered
silently in my overcoat, while a long and vigorous discussion took place
in Japanese. At last there was a pause, a question from Takemura-san
which could be recognized as climactic, and Yotsuda-san’s answer, ending
in the phrase, “Dekimasu—Can do it.”
The team summed up the four-hour meeting succinctly: “He say ‘Okay’!”
Now we had to come to grips with reality. A dream on paper is no risk at
all, but the time had come to back it with a sizable wad of cash. Even
though the price agreed upon was remarkably low, by American standards,
it would take all the money we had and could raise. I had to face the
fact that, if anything went wrong, we might be financially wrecked
before we even got the boat in the water.
The contract, when completed, was a magnificent document, embodying
every item and clause I could cull from legal terminology and textbooks
on boatbuilding (I had eight of them). It protected us (or so I thought)
from every imaginable disaster or delay, whether from act of God or from
error of Nippon.
Even so, the contract contained, as I later discovered, two flaws.
First, when translated into Japanese by Mr. Yasuda, the language somehow
lost the force of the English version, so that the verbs “will” and
“must” came out “it would be nice if” and “it would be good to.” Months
later, when I came to know both Mr. Yasuda and the Japanese language
better, I asked him why he had so softened the original version.
“Reynolds-sensei,” said Mr. Yasuda (“sensei” being a term of respect
accorded professors and the like), “Reynolds-sensei is a very polite
man.”
“Oh, I am?” I asked politely.
“Of course. And Reynolds-sensei would never say anything to make
Yotsuda-san unhappy.”
“No?”
“Because then Yotsuda-san maybe not work so well.” Mr. Yasuda smiled.
“So I do not translate what Reynolds-sensei _say_; I translate what he
_mean_.”
“Oh.” I thought this over for a moment. “Mr. Yasuda—the boat—it’s still
to be fifty feet long, isn’t it?”
“Of course!” said Mr. Yasuda, shocked. “Everything just like you say in
contract!”
The second flaw in the contract was a very simple one. The time
stipulated for the completion of the job, to be started in December,
1952, was June 15. The contract merely neglected to mention _which_ June
15.
In any event, having made the down payment, as per contract, so
Yotsuda-san could begin to buy the materials, I retired to the bosom of
my family for Christmas. Perhaps there was something in the gifts I had
shopped for so lovingly—heavy brass ship’s candlesticks mounted in
gimbals, a ship’s bell with a truly mellow tone, a bright orange life
jacket for each member of the family—that made the kids realize that,
although this boat might be another of daddy’s whims, it was a whim that
was going to affect them directly. They began to take a mild interest in
the project and to look at my plans with more respect. Jessica, in
particular, asked to be shown _her_ place in the boat, and wanted it
distinctly understood that she would have no part in it unless room was
made for _all_ her dolls. This was managed by simply labeling one locker
in the plans, “Jessica’s Dolls.”
Shortly after New Year’s Day I returned to the shipyard, eagerly
expectant. I looked forward to seeing the piles of lumber, redolent with
promise. Perhaps the keel had already been laid. At least the lines of
the boat would have been laid down, full size, as directed.
I was alone this trip, so as I trudged the muddy road from the station
to the boatyard, I went over my meager Japanese vocabulary. But after
all, I wanted only to look at the progress of the work, and surely no
technical problems would come up this soon.
None did, for when I arrived I found the shop, in its original
condition, together with Mr. Yotsuda, in his original condition, and
nothing else. At a disadvantage, I began a conversation in my best
pidgin Japanese.
“Ohio gosaimasu—Good morning,” I said, as an opening gambit.
Mr. Yotsuda bowed. “Ohio gosaimasu. Shinen omedeto gosaimasu!” This
meant not only good morning but also Happy New Year, which put him one
up.
“Boat,” I fumbled. “Not begin?”
“Yes,” agreed Mr. Yotsuda happily. “Not begin!”
“Ah so desuka?” This is the Japanese equivalent of “You don’t say?” “Why
not—begin?”
“Ah—now New Year!” Mr. Yotsuda seemed vastly surprised at my ignorance.
“But, Yotsuda-san, New Year—three days before!”
“Ah, yes!” agreed Mr. Yotsuda. “Also today—and tomorrow—and tomorrow.”
His gestures indicated a vast array of tomorrows. “Many, many days.”
So I learned a new thing about Japan—that New Year’s is not a day, it is
a season.
However, when we visited the yard again, together, late in January,
things looked more promising. Much lumber had been assembled; nearby
were many curved logs of keyaki, comparable to oak, from which the
frames would be made. Set upon a foundation near the shore was a massive
log of kuromatsu (black pine) which the awkward-looking adzes of the
workmen were rapidly transforming into a long, gleaming white keel. As I
ran my hands lovingly over the fresh, smooth wood, I knew that at last
we were on the way.
The methods of the workmen never ceased to fascinate us. In one corner
of the shipyard was a sight that was to become very familiar: a solemn
little man in a black fur cap who, sawing horizontally with an enormous
curved saw, steadily, day after day, reduced huge logs to two-inch
planks. Every bit of lumber on our boat was to be hand sawn. All the
workmen handled their tools with consummate skill, an ease which was
deceptive when one tried to use the same instrument. For example, after
the deck had been laid they smoothed it to perfection by removing almost
transparently thin shavings with the swing of an adze—an operation in
which a fraction too much follow-through would have removed a toe or a
miscalculation in depth would have left an ugly gouge. Neither gruesome
alternative ever happened.
The men worked mainly by eye, even when operating within the confines of
measurements, but the completed job was always amazingly accurate. An
example was the fitting of the planking which, forced into position by
huge vises, was fastened to the frames with handmade, hot-dipped
galvanized boat spikes, through-bolted at the butts, and then, for
additional strength, edge-nailed from the inside. The planking was begun
from the bottom up and completed from the top down. It remains one of
the mysteries of the inscrutable East how that last plank was so cut as
to fit exactly into the space that awaited it. No crack of light could
be seen between the finished planking, even before calking.
Both planking and deck seams were calked with oakum. When the job was
done, the cooperation of the local fire department was enlisted and a
hand pump set up on the sea wall. A contingent of volunteers spent hours
pumping the Inland Sea into the hull, while workmen on the scaffolding
outside marked the few small leaks with chalk. At the end of a busy day,
a hole was drilled in the bilge and the sea allowed to drain out.
The chief exceptions to traditional Japanese methods were in my
insistence on the use of wood preservatives, marine glue and American
putties and paints. Such procedures are not a part of normal
sampan-building activities. A certain preliminary confusion was also
caused by the fact that Japanese shipwrights do not operate in terms of
feet and inches, but with shaku and sun, which are only rough
equivalents. Eventually, I discovered that the work proceeded much more
smoothly if I adapted to their measuring system and translated my
figures into Japanese dimensions. I became quite casual, as time went
on, in the use of shaku and sun, not to mention bu, ken, kan, kin,
tsubo, sho, to, and koku.
We never did become casual, however, about the manner in which the
workmen smoked on the job and tossed their butts and matches—sometimes
still aflame—into nearby piles of trash and shavings. Naturally, there
was a fire clause in the contract, but we were realistic enough by now
to know that if the job came to a fiery and untimely end, Yotsuda-san
would be profoundly distressed, but absolutely without means to rebuild
our boat. Insurance? Just the thought of beginning negotiations made my
head reel. No, the men must stop smoking on the job. I told them so, and
they smiled and bowed politely. From then on, each time we came out to
the boatyard, they smiled, bowed, and carefully put out their
cigarettes. We smiled and bowed also, and hoped for the best.
Nevertheless, these months were happy ones for us all. The work
progressed steadily, if slowly, and although we had gradually reconciled
ourselves to the fact that we would not launch in June, we felt that
surely by July—or, at the latest, August.... We still had much to learn.
During this time hundreds of problems arose, and each, after its own
nature, had to be met and surmounted. Scores of items, major and minor,
had to be hunted down, designed or made, or contracted for. A principal
source of supply was in the junk and secondhand marine shops that lined
the waterfronts. The nearby city of Kure had during the war been a
mammoth shipbuilding center, and even then in some half-forgotten bin at
the back of a shop one could sometimes make rich strikes. I would emerge
sneezing, dragging out a length of galvanized chain or an assortment of
bolts. The proprietor, knowing quite well who I was and what I was up
to, would grin amiably. The conversation usually went like this:
“Kono jonku wa—ikura desuka?—This junk—how much?”
“Jonku!” he exclaimed in mock indignation. “Jonku nai! Yotto no mono
desu!—Not junk! Yacht equipment!”
“Iie! Jonku dake! Ikura?—No! Only junk! How much?”
He laughed. “Hokay. Sekai isshu no yotto kara, jonku desu.—Okay. Because
it’s for the round-the-world yacht, call it junk.” He weighed it up, I
paid for it at the rate of scrap iron, and hauled it down to the boat.
In Kure also was an offshoot of the Korean War, the BCOF—British
Commonwealth Occupation Forces—salvage depot, which was a high-class
name for another junk yard. War materiel poured into this depot in
bewildering abundance and a wide variety of conditions, from completely
unused to completely useless. Climbing the mountainous piles of scrap in
the yard, or delving into the bins in the sheds, I would sometimes make
a fine haul, as on the day I picked up two new 65-pound plow-type
anchors for one pound Australian ($2.25) apiece.
Sometimes, however, the find would turn out to be fool’s gold, as it was
the time I bought a 1,200-foot coil of condemned one-inch manila rope
for 10 shillings, sight unseen, only to discover that it should have
remained sight unseen, forever.
In time the officers in charge of the depot became interested in our
activities, and set aside items which they thought we could use. In this
way we acquired such things as a ton of truck springs (for inside
ballast), an Air Force compass (which we used all the way around the
world), a big bilge pump (still in use), an aluminum gas tank from a
crashed plane (our deck water tank), and dozens of other items, great
and small.
No amount of searching, however, would dig up the outside keel we had to
have cast by a foundry, or a marine engine (ordered from America), or
our sails (made in Yokohama), or the many special deck irons, or the
rigging. In cases such as these, I had to do it the hard way.
By September, work had progressed far enough so that we felt it was high
time to decide on a name for our craft. My preference was for Daruma,
the Japanese doll with a rounded bottom and the well-known ability to
bounce upright every time it was pushed over. The Japanese have a saying
about the daruma: “Nana korobi, ya oki!—Down seven times, up eight!” I
liked those odds very much. So, when our Japanese language teacher and
very good friend, Mr. Yamada, next visited us, we broached the subject.
“Daruma....” Mr. Yamada said, slowly tasting the word. “Yes-s-s ... very
good.” From his tone we knew he really meant not worth a plugged yen.
What we didn’t know at that time was that to the Japanese the daruma
also connotes a lady of easy virtue, for obvious reasons.
“Maybe something else would be better?” Barbara said, giving him an out.
“I think so—maybe something else,” agreed Mr. Yamada. “I will think
about it.”
On his next visit Mr. Yamada did not bring up the subject of the boat’s
name directly. That was not his way. But he did produce a 10-yen note
and point out to us the mythical bird engraved across its face, the
phoenix. And during the rest of the evening the word “phoenix” seemed to
recur frequently in our conversation. “We Japanese hold phoenix in very
great esteem.... One of the rooms in the Imperial Palace is called
Phoenix Room. It is most beautiful.” More importantly, Mr. Yamada had
written out for us, in his amazingly neat script, an account of the
place of the phoenix in Oriental mythology—“He is legendary king of the
birds appearing to reign only in time of universal peace.” In turn Mr.
Yamada seemed both awed and incredulous when we told him of the Western
concept: that the phoenix is eternally born again from the ashes of its
own destruction.
“Perhaps—world peace—shall rise from the ashes of Hiroshima,” he
murmured.
“Mr. Yamada,” I asked, “what would you think of the name of _Phoenix_
for our boat?”
“_Phoenix_....” Mr. Yamada echoed the word softly. “Yes.... I
think—maybe a very good name. Very—auspicious.”
And that was that.
The next step was to arrange for a suitable figurehead—naturally a
phoenix. A local wood carver submitted an ambitious design. We managed
to tame his enthusiasm somewhat, but our present compromise, carved from
a solid block of camphorwood, is still a very impressive bird.
By now it was fall and we had begun to adjust our sights to a December
launching. After all, that would be only six months late! The work was
going along well and all seemed serene when suddenly, like the collapse
of a pricked balloon, everything stopped. On several consecutive visits
we saw no workmen, no progress, no signs of life. Yotsuda-san seemed not
to be available.
There was only one thing to do. Rounding up the “team,” I called a
conference. Mrs. Yotsuda was sternly warned to have her husband there.
Yotsuda-san came to the meeting, but it was only after long prodding
that the reason for the delay came out. Yotsuda had run out of money.
Without pay, the workmen—even though they were his relatives—wouldn’t
work. Therefore, he needed money—not more than the contract called for,
but the next installment in advance of the due date.
After getting this straight, I advanced the sum needed. When
Yotsuda-san, bowing his apologies all the way out of sight, had
departed, I asked the natural question.
“Why didn’t he tell me at once? Why waste so much time?”
“Yotsuda-san was very much ashamed,” Mr. Yasuda explained.
“Ashamed because he needed money?”
“Yes. Contract says, ‘Next payment when masts stepped,’ but masts not
stepped yet, so Yotsuda-san is ashamed to ask for money. It is a great
disgrace to the Japanese people.”
“To the Japanese _people_?”
“Yes. You are foreign gentleman. You have made very careful contract. To
foreigners, contract is important. So Japanese people much disgraced if
Yotsuda-san cannot keep contract.”
“Don’t Japanese people have contracts among themselves?”
“Of course!” said Mr. Yasuda. “They _have_ contracts, but do not _use_
them. If contract is no good, they forget it.”
“Mr. Yasuda,” I said, “tell Yotsuda-san to forget the contract and build
the boat.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Yasuda happily. “I think it would be much better.”
With the threat of disgrace from contractual obligations removed from
Yotsuda’s shoulders, together with judicious advances of small sums at
regular intervals, work again proceeded slowly and happily, interrupted
only by the prolonged O-bon festivals of the fall months, the bad
weather in November, and of course by the expected hiatus at New Year’s.
By early March the work was far enough along so that I thought we should
discuss a definite date for the launching, but I was determined that
this date, once set, would not be postponed, and stressed this strongly
at the next group meeting.
Mr. Yasuda seemed surprised. “But date for launching is already
decided.”
“Ah so desuka!—You don’t say!” I remarked. “Who decided it?”
Mr. Yasuda consulted his companions. “The priests at Miya Jima shrine,”
he announced.
“Oh—naturally. And the date—may I ask when it is?”
“The fifth of May, a very good day. The priests say this is a lucky day.
Also, it is big spring tide and you cannot launch except at highest
tide. And it is Boys’ Day—Japanese national holiday—so everyone will
come!”
This seemed to be an unbeatable combination, so May 5 was set as L day.
In the meantime, we were busy as never before. We hung the rudder—a big,
barn-door affair, on which the ironwork alone weighed 500 pounds. We
sanded, puttied, and painted. And we stepped the masts, an all-day job
using manpower alone. For this task the Hiroshima University Yacht Club,
of which Nick and Takemura were members, turned out in a body to help.
Even the press took notice, reporting that “A gigantic yacht is building
near Miya Jima Guchi.” Compared to the snipes and sailing dinghies of
the local yacht clubs, the _Phoenix_ did indeed look gigantic as she
reared up in her makeshift cradle, towering above the roof (now
repaired) of Yotsuda’s humble home-shipyard.
As the date approached, our craft, superficially at least, began to take
on the appearance of a boat. For the moment we refused to think of the
work yet to be done: all the interior joiner work, the engine
installation, the tanks, the deck-iron work, the standing and running
rigging, the sails. And beyond this, such items as clothing, supplies,
stores, navigation equipment, charts—literally hundreds of individual
items to be obtained. And at the end of it all, the cruise itself, for
which the entire undertaking was merely preparation. Of this last stage
I dared not, at the moment, even think.
In the last hectic weeks before launching Barbara took over a number of
items that had been added to the already lengthy list of Things to be
Done. She located an upholsterer who could cover the frames for our
seats and couches; she arranged for our weekly “sewing girl” to shift
her talents from shirts and dresses to such necessary items as mattress
covers, canvas cushions, and a complete set of signal flags.
All in all the family didn’t see too much of each other as we moved into
the home stretch, but we consoled ourselves by thinking that once we
moved aboard we’d be together constantly. This prospect was not one of
unalloyed bliss, however, especially when Ted and Jessica tangled in a
brother-sister dispute. At such times we were inclined to agree with
Tim, who had announced violently, “I simply couldn’t _live_ with my
family on a fifty-foot boat!”
Soon thereafter Tim announced his decision to return to the States and
go to college, rather than accompany us on our voyage. Barbara was
disconsolate.
“It was one thing when I thought we’d all be in this together,” she
tried to explain, “but with Tim in the States—and the rest of us out of
touch for weeks at a time—possibly months—” She paused, and we both
finished the thought silently, Maybe forever.
“Families,” wailed Jessica, “ought to stay together! I don’t want Tim to
go!”
None of us did, but it was his decision to make. We let him go with our
blessing, and went ahead with our plans. Barbara determined to do
everything possible to draw the rest of us even closer together.
The last forty-eight hours before launching was a time of continuous
work, accompanied by the hammering of shipwrights, who removed most of
the scaffolding and poised the _Phoenix_ in her launching cradle. They
also had to demolish a portion of the heavy sea wall so that the ways
could be extended out over the water. On the last night work continued
long hours after dark, by the light of bonfires. The men themselves were
considerably lit up by several cases of beer, so it was a tired but
musical gang who saw the sun come up as the job was finally completed.
During the night Takemura-san, Nick, and I completed our preparations
for the launching ceremonies, which had blossomed until they were far
more elaborate than anything I had ever imagined or wanted. Much of this
was due to the activities of Takemura, the prospective first mate, who
had shown himself a bit unreliable in the matter of solid work but now
proved himself to be a born master of ceremonies.
Among other things he had arranged elaborate king-size badges, to be
worn by all participants. It was during the preparation of these badges
that the first faint signs of future complications put in an appearance.
At four in the morning Takemura approached and through Nick indicated
that he needed to consult with me. Nick’s English, which had improved
remarkably during the months we’d known him, was still strained a bit
when conversations got beyond the realm of the strictly functional.
“Takemura-san wants to know what to write on badge,” said Nick.
“Do we _have_ to have badges?” I asked desperately, but I already knew
the answer to that one.
“Of course,” said Nick. “Always have badges—very important.”
“Okay,” I said resignedly. “On Oku-san—Mrs. Reynolds’ badge, write
Cook.”
“Just—Cook?” repeated Nick, aghast.
“No—better make it Chief Bosun’s Mate,” I hastily amended.
“Ah, taihen ii desu—Very good!” approved Takemura when Nick translated.
The title was duly brushed in, in beautiful Japanese ideographs.
I was getting warmer now. “And on this badge—” taking up Ted’s—“write
Assistant Navigator, and on Jessica-san’s badge write Cabin Girl.” This
was done, and Nick, who had been officially signed on, was given the
title of second mate. Then there was a pause, and I could sense some
sort of crisis.
“Reynolds-san, your badge. Takemura-san asks what to write.”
“Why, Captain, I should think. Unless you want something fancier?”
“Captain. Ah so desuka!” Takemura sucked air and bowed very low. All at
once I got it.
“Yes,” I repeated firmly, “Captain. And on your badge write First Mate
or Navigator in Chief—or both. Just as you please.”
The last two titles were recorded in a rather tense silence. I realized
for the first time that Takemura had coveted the senior title and that
this entire build-up may have been designed solely to establish that one
point. Well, it’s been established, I thought. It’s settled, once and
for all. As I discovered later, it settled something, all right, but not
what I expected.
By dawn a crowd had begun to arrive, and we shared breakfast coffee with
a dozen early well-wishers. The family came soon after, driven out in a
truck along with the housegirls, the sewing girl, the gardener, and any
number of large paper fish (for flying on high during Boys’ Day),
ceremonial rice cakes, and various bottles of sake which had been
dropped off at the house during the preceding evening. The most
_appreciated_ present, bar none, was the three-colored kitten which
Jessica was clutching tightly in her arms.
“Miss Uchida says a three-colored cat is lucky on a boat,” Jessica
announced. “Its name is spelled m-i-k-e—Mee-kay, not Mike—and that
_means_ three-colored, and it will catch rats when it gets big.”
“Just what we needed!” we managed to proclaim, to her intense relief.
In spite of my forebodings, Barbara had not forgotten to bring the
champagne and a bag of netting to cover it, so the glass wouldn’t be
sprayed at the critical moment. The bottle was promptly hung from the
bow, convenient to the platform that had been erected for the
ceremonies. Beyond this we had barely a moment to exchange a conjugal
word (“Did you remember to bring the lanterns I left on the porch?”
“Yes.”) before we were surrounded by friends who shoved bouquets and
gift-wrapped parcels into our hands and asked us to pose, together with
reporters, who held microphones of portable tape recorders in front of
our faces, and press photographers, who begged for “Just one more,
please!”
Long before noon all the choice vantage points, including nearby hills
and the roof of Yotsuda-san’s house, were filled with people. By eleven
o’clock there was no room left on shore, and very little left on the
water. At 11:30 the program began, and promptly at the tick of noon the
_Phoenix_ was launched.
2 PREPARATIONS
FOR A VOYAGE
“Cruising is walking, talking, buying, scrounging ... but cruising is
also sailing.”
It was almost dark before visitors ceased to stream aboard the
_Phoenix_, now riding at anchor in the bay. Then it was time for me to
go ashore for a conference with the owner of the sampan we had wrecked
during the launching.
After that, I told Barbara, Ted and I would attend a party ashore, given
for everyone even remotely connected with the building of the
boat—except, of course, females. For the first time Barbara appeared
recalcitrant.
“Do Jessica and I stay on board here alone?” she asked.
“No, you go on back to the house. The Yacht Club boys will keep anchor
watch. Come back out tomorrow.”
“It was nice knowing you,” Barbara said, climbing down into the dinghy.
“I hope you and the _Phoenix_ have a wonderful honeymoon.”
Only after Barbara had left did it occur to me that she had really
_wanted_ to stay on board, even without bunks or conveniences. I
suddenly realized that my actions must have revealed my misgivings about
the family, their adaptability and willingness to “take it.”
The conference with the sampan owner was protracted. His boat, badly
holed, had been hauled up on the beach, a mute testimonial to the
ruggedness of the _Phoenix_, which was barely scratched.
The victim readily admitted his responsibility. He had been warned to
stand clear and had ignored the warning. On the other hand, it was the
_Phoenix_ that had been launched. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been there.
If he hadn’t come he wouldn’t have lost his sampan. Obviously, it was
nobody’s _fault_—it was the will of the gods. However, since the captain
of the _Phoenix_ was a rich man—
I hastened to correct that statement.
—Well, anyway, richer than the sampan owner, and since this was an
auspicious day when everybody should be happy, perhaps a sympathy
offering....
“How much sympathy would the sampan owner need?” I inquired cautiously.
This required a long conference, but it came out to 2,000 yen—about
$5.50 American. I announced that I could be _that_ sympathetic, and the
offering was duly made. With mutual expressions of esteem and
satisfaction the conference broke up, and we moved on to the evening’s
festivities.
This party, for which preparations had been under way for weeks, cast me
in the dual role of guest and host. As guest, I was given the seat of
honor; as host, I was expected to foot the bill. I hasten to add that I
was by no means being victimized; it is the custom of the country.
Besides, the whole affair came to less than a hundred dollars, including
a bonus to each worker in proportion to his work.
It is also worth mentioning that Yotsuda-san never so much as hinted
that a bonus should be given to him or that he should be paid more than
the contract called for. This, in spite of dire predictions by fellow
Americans—“old Japan hands”—who had warned me gloomily throughout that
I’d be “taken for a ride.” What they failed to recognize was that Mr.
Yotsuda was a completely honest man.
Late that night, after the party, Ted and I relaxed on deck, listening
to the rustling of the tide as it slipped gently past the hull. Our
first night aboard our yacht! In fact, I mused ruefully, it was the
first night I had ever spent aboard _any_ yacht. Ahead of us lay an
unknown future but here, tonight, lying on deck and watching the stars
overhead swing slowly in gentle arcs, I was at peace.
Early the next morning the _Phoenix_ was towed to Hiroshima harbor, and
the next stage of work began. A cabinetmaker and three workmen, complete
with tools and lumber, moved aboard and began to carry out our plans for
the interior accommodations.
Four main areas had been laid out. There were to be seven permanent
bunks, each a tiny unshared domain. Two bunks were in the forecastle,
just aft of the forepeak and chain locker. Between the forecastle and
the main cabin an area was laid out to starboard for the head (American
fixtures) and to port for a large and waterproof sail locker.
The large central cabin contained two more bunks, the main companionway,
galley, lounge, and food and storage lockers.
Aft of the main cabin, and raised two feet, was the “ladies’ cabin.” It
was to be finished in Oriental cabinet woods and ornamented with a
ramma, or carved bas relief, and a miniature tokonoma, a replica of the
family shrine that graces the main room of every Japanese home. Beneath
the floor of this cabin was a large area for food storage.
At sea, there would be no traffic through the ladies’ cabin, everyone
forward using the main companionway. Aft of the ladies’ cabin was a
small cabin for the skipper, with navigation table and chart drawers.
Beneath the floor was the engine space, and a small hatch led directly
to the cockpit abaft the mizzenmast.
The entire arrangement seemed well adapted to our needs, giving adequate
ventilation, but allowing a certain amount of privacy.
Once the _Phoenix_ was afloat and nearer the house, family participation
picked up. Barbara took a particular interest in the galley, and made a
number of changes in cupboard and drawer arrangements. She and Jessica
also ran a series of experiments in food preservation and provisioning,
including a number of methods of preserving eggs. Each egg was carefully
marked as to process used and date, and every few days one of the batch
was tested—naturally on me. In the end we found the simple practice of
greasing the eggs with oleo to be the most practical.
Meanwhile, most of my free time was spent away from home, working on the
boat or roaming the streets and alleys of Kure and Hiroshima, with a few
jaunts as far afield as Kobe, Osaka, and Yokohama. Only too well did we
learn that cruising is not just sailing—it is walking, talking (in
halting Japanese), buying, planning, scrounging, compromising—for months
and months—and all on dry land. Nevertheless, we did manage to save
several thousand dollars by these efforts.
Our sails were made up by the Ohara (that is not an Irish name!) Company
of Yokohama and required, before negotiations were completed, three
trips upcountry—a day’s journey each way. Drawing up the sail plans was
a task on which I had burned a lot of midnight oil, and after the
contracts were let I could only hope there had been no slip of the
pencil.
At last the day came when a dozen bundles, carefully wrapped in rice
straw, were dumped on the Hiroshima dock. Eagerly we opened them, to be
greeted by an exciting odor of canvas, manila, and tar. Inside were the
sails, gleaming white. One by one we checked them, stretching each in
its appointed place. Outwardly businesslike and matter of fact, I was
tremendously relieved to see that each sail had been properly designed.
We now had a mainsail, mizzen, forestaysail and jib (these four lowers
giving about 1,000 square feet), plus a mizzen staysail, topsail, top
jib, storm trysail, and storm jib. We had spares for the main and
foresail. (Later, in Honolulu, we added a genoa.)
The arrival of the sails was a high spot during a time which was
otherwise rushed, uncertain, and confused. Crew problems were beginning
to emerge. We had been aware that Takemura-san was becoming increasingly
uneasy. Instead of moving aboard to help with the rigging and final
fitting-out, as we had agreed upon, and as Nick had done, Takemura
became less and less dependable and often failed to show up at all. One
night, after a long conference which put a heavy strain on both Nick’s
English and his loyalties, the two men went up on deck and talked for
several hours.
The next morning Takemura-san came to me, shook hands long and
earnestly, and with real tears in his eyes, said “Sayonara.” He rowed
ashore and out of our lives, leaving us not only without a mate, but
without a dinghy, as this had been his contribution to the _Phoenix_.
Well, we thought glumly, we can always buy a new dinghy, and at least we
still have Nick.
This was the cue for Nick to appear and explain that, under these
changed circumstances, he would have to reconsider his decision to join
us. Since he had been Takemura’s protégé, constant satellite, and
uncritical admirer, we were sure we knew what that meant.
“Okay, Nick,” I told him. “We understand.” I held out my hand.
Nick looked a little startled. “I will go home, talk to family.” He was
obviously trying to let us down easy, passing the ultimate
responsibility to his parents.
“Fine,” I said, “you do that. Good-bye—and thanks for everything.”
Hailing a passing launch, Nick too went ashore. We sat on the deck and
watched the harbor traffic, too dispirited to talk. Below decks, Ted and
Jessica were shouting at each other, in an overheated sibling dispute.
Here we are, I thought—what remains of my crew. One woman—with only half
a heart in the venture. One son, age fifteen—willing, but a bit
absentminded and not too good with his hands. One daughter, ten years
old and small for her age, expert at handling dolls—but what good will
she be on the mainsail? And myself—an armchair sailor, an untried
skipper, who can cope fairly well with things mechanical but has little
finesse with human beings, even his own family.
The inescapable conclusion of my gloomy inventory was: You’ve had it. A
foreign country, a half-finished boat, a dwindling bank account, a
divided family, and your crew has just walked off. I hardly noticed when
Barbara reached over to slip her hand into mine. Nor did I note that the
wrangling below had stopped of its own accord—as it always did—and that
Ted was now busily entertaining Jessica with a story.
The rest of the day passed like a funereal dream. In the afternoon I
went ashore and bought a secondhand rowboat. That evening we sat on deck
and were uncheered by the nightly visit of the local sightseeing bus,
which had added to its itinerary a visit to the docks to see the
American “Around-the-world-boat.” “Around the world!” I muttered
bitterly. “We couldn’t even go around Hiroshima harbor.”
Early the next morning we were aroused by the sound of oars and by
voices alongside. Onto the deck clambered Nick, grinning broadly, and
with him were two young fellows I recognized as members of the Yacht
Club.
“Ohio gosaimasu!” Nick greeted us cheerfully. “Good morning! My father
said, You promise to go, you go. So—I go. Okay. Oh—and these my
friends—Fushima-san and Suemitsu-san. They will help make boat ready.
They both want to go with us, which one do you want?”
From that day on, Motosada Fushima (Moto) and Mitsugi Suemitsu (Mickey)
slept and worked aboard the _Phoenix_, splicing rope, wrapping blocks,
and in general competing, in a completely friendly fashion, for the
berth vacated by Takemura. In the end, unable to decide between them and
perhaps feeling that we might make up in manpower what we lacked in
experience, we took them both. Now all our bunks were filled, with a
ship’s complement of seven.
We were an oddly assorted group: two sexes, two races, two languages and
nationalities—and _seven_ personalities, with a wide age range. How
these personalities would act—and interact—would, I knew, have as much
to do with the success or failure of our voyage as the seaworthiness of
the boat itself. At the moment we could only guess—and hope.
Our crew selected, there remained the matter of obtaining the consent of
their families, which proved not too difficult; and of acquiring
Japanese passports and American visas, which turned out to be very
difficult indeed. We finally got them, but it took several weeks of
correspondence, several trips to Kobe, and several times the amount of
patience I normally possess.
During this summer we had still another problem to contend with, and it
was one we couldn’t do much about. This was the weather. In three years
in Japan, only one typhoon had come close enough to Hiroshima to cause
any real concern. However, in the summer of 1954, after the _Phoenix_
took to the water, no less than four typhoons paid us an unwelcome
visit.
Typhoon June, the third of the unwonted—and unwanted—series, was the
worst of the lot. At the advice of the Coast Guard we took refuge in a
sheltered cove behind the island of Eta Jima. On the way we tried out
our newly rigged mainsail and, for the first time, had the experience of
heeling. As we tilted in the breeze, Barbara, who had been making
lemonade in the galley, began to pick up broken glass and lemon peel,
while Jessica, a bit shaken, took refuge in the cockpit. “I don’t like
it,” she said. “I’d rather live in a house where things don’t fall
around!”
That night, however, she slept unconcernedly through the worst of the
blow, and by the next day was ready to brag of her experiences and feel
more than a little superior to her shorebound friends.
For the rest of us, however, the night of Typhoon June is one that will
not soon be forgotten. Around midnight, with the center of the typhoon
less than twenty miles away, the wind shifted abruptly. We were no
longer in the lee of the mountainous island, but much more exposed, and
the waves in this little bay built up to enormous heights. Suddenly
Nick, on anchor watch, let out a shout in frantic Japanese. I rushed on
deck, and though I couldn’t understand Nick, could see at once what had
happened. Our anchor chain had snapped. Endless minutes passed, as we
drifted inexorably toward the nearby shore, while we struggled to get
the spare anchor over the side. Only a few feet short of grounding, the
anchor caught—and held.
Two souvenirs remain of that wild initiation night: the broken link of
our brand-new half-inch anchor chain and a sheet from our recording
barograph, which charts the pattern of Typhoon June. The line of
barometric pressure descended sharply until, at the passage of the eye
of the typhoon, the ship was bucking so wildly that the ink was spilled
out of the pen, and the record stopped.
We also gained some valuable information and experience from this
episode. First, we began to appreciate the difficulties in communication
that were to plague us in time to come. Regardless of how well the men
improved their English, and I my Japanese, in a crisis they lapsed into
“man’s talk”—rapid, peremptory vernacular—which conveyed nothing but a
sense of extreme urgency. The normal, formal Japanese language, which we
knew a bit, was gone with the wind.
Beyond this I learned the absolute necessity for anticipation if this
voyage was to be a success. At all times we must expect the worst, and
try to be ready for it. Had the second anchor been ready for instant
use, precious minutes would have been saved. On the credit side, I
profited, because never again were we caught without ready anchors.
Typhoon No. 4, Marie, caused no great damage in our area, but roared
past us and northward to Hokkaido, where she overturned a seagoing ferry
with the loss of over a thousand lives. Locally, however, she did play
havoc with the tides, and drowned out the machinery in the local
shipyard, so we had to postpone our haul-out, for bottom painting, more
than two weeks—another unavoidable delay.
However, by September, in spite of typhoons, troubles, and tape (red),
we were far enough along to be thinking about a date for our departure.
We still lacked such extras as electricity, running water, gimbaled
stove, radiotelephone, and a host of minor items, but we ignored these
and concentrated on the absolute necessities. Provisioning, of course,
led the list, and Barbara took the brunt of this terrible task. Now that
she had a better knowledge of the crew’s daily food consumption, she
doubled her original estimates of rice, fruits, and canned foods, and
then doubled the amount again as a safety factor. The total was
prodigious. Day after day, carrying yardlong lists, she set out in a
taxi-jeep, to return in the evening with a mountain of supplies to be
hauled aboard and stowed.
Ted, meanwhile, when I informed him that he had been promoted to chief
navigator on the defection of Takemura, redoubled his studies. With a
textbook and the help of a navigation officer friend, Ted gained a
competent grasp of at least the theoretical aspects of his assignment.
However, when we worked out our practice sextant shots, we often found
the _Phoenix_ not in Hiroshima harbor but somewhere up the slope of
Fujiyama.
Jessica, too, had been given an official role, that of ship’s historian.
She took her assignment seriously and, from the day we moved aboard, she
kept a daily record of our activities—as she saw them (a _very_
important qualification). I might add that this diary was continued
without a break for the next six years, and by the time we had completed
our voyage around the world she had filled seven large ledgers with
about 200,000 words. Unprompted and uncensored, Jessica’s Journal
provides a detailed, refreshing, and sometimes chastening picture of our
rather unconventional family life.
Time had now become an important element in our plans, for it was late
in the season. After many conferences with family and crew, after a
careful (and prayerful!) study of the North Pacific Pilot Charts, and
after consultation with the Japanese Coast Guard, we finally decided
that November was the very latest date we could leave Japan and still
have a good chance of a successful crossing to Honolulu, over 4,000
miles to the east. This would put us at the tag end of the typhoon
season and, we hoped, ahead of the worst of the winter storms which roar
down out of the far north Pacific.
We decided upon Honolulu as our first landfall, because it was an
American port, where we could have the _Phoenix_ registered as an
American ship and could obtain certain supplies and equipment lacking in
Japan.
The numerous unavoidable delays had made it impossible to fit in the
shakedown cruise in the open ocean, which we had planned, but by leaving
Hiroshima early in October we could have a short cruise up the Inland
Sea and give ourselves and the boat at least a smooth-water test. We
could then complete our fitting-out at a northern port, make any
adjustments that seemed necessary, and still depart by the appointed
date. It was not an ideal plan, perhaps, but it was the best we could
do. For a number of cogent reasons, mainly financial, it was impossible
to lay over until next June, the optimum month for crossing the North
Pacific under sail.
Our departure was set for October 4, and throughout the day gifts poured
aboard: flowers, candy, fruit, rice cakes, a painting of the _Phoenix_,
a new heaving line, a can of metal paint, a gallon of used oil (“to pour
on troubled waters”), and most formidable of all, a magnificent Japanese
doll for Jessica, complete in a fragile glass case. This present brought
Jessica exquisite joy and the captain exquisite pain, for he knew tears
would flow when he had to jettison the case over the side—in
anticipation of the inevitable.
We grew more and more harassed as we found our last-minute preparations
and stowing of supplies continually interrupted by the need for greeting
another well-wisher, making a short statement to yet another gentleman
of the press, or posing on deck for one more group picture. To load
last-minute supplies, we had come alongside the dock. All our friends,
many of whom had never been aboard, now wanted a tour of the ship. They
charitably assured us that they didn’t in the least mind if everything
was a mess, and asked us literally hundreds of well-meaning questions,
to most of which we didn’t know the answers. “How long will the trip to
Honolulu take?” “Won’t you be bored?” “But isn’t it _dangerous_?” “How
will the children go to school?”—all very good questions.
But the one most frequently asked, and the one we were least able to
answer, was “But won’t you be seasick?” All we could reply was that we
never had been—which was perfectly true. On board the _President
Wilson_, en route to Japan—our only other experience on the high
seas—none of us had been in the least sick. Of course, this wasn’t
_quite_ the same thing.
Shadows were already long when we left the dock, with all the ceremony
of tossing bright paper tape, singing “Auld Lang Syne”—in Japanese—and
shedding copious tears. The tears, I might add, were all in the eyes of
those who saw us off. We ourselves were much too busy to have time for
sorrow or regret—then—but to our hundreds of friends the whole venture
was nothing less than a gallant form of suicide—for which no one has a
more subtle appreciation than the Japanese.
A fleet of snipes and sailing dinghies from the Yacht Club accompanied
us halfway across Hiroshima Bay, while a plane circled overhead to drop
a tiny silk parachute carrying a hand-lettered scroll of good wishes and
prayers for our safe return. One by one, our escorts waved and turned
back until at last we were on our own.
Our first day’s destination was not far—the shrine of Miya Jima, just
across the water from where the _Phoenix_ had been hatched. There, while
Barbara started supper and the men tried to find places to stow the
piled-up gifts, I made my first entry in our nice new logbook:
Dropped anchor at Miya Jima Guchi harbor, opposite the shrine.
Itsukushima is one of the famed “Three Most Beautiful Places in
Japan.” All secure by 1900. Big spaghetti dinner to celebrate—too busy
at noon to eat. Decks in good shape, but considerable of a shambles
below—2 tons of last-minute ballast, now on floor of main cabin—169
iron pigs.
Many last-minute gifts—even a stack of old newspapers for Mi-ke. Poor
Mi-ke—her box was forced to give way, in its nook under the starboard
water tank, to a pile of iron pigs. The box is now in the aisle of the
main cabin, where she is doing her business in the middle of traffic.
Doesn’t seem to worry her too much.
That night, while the rest of the crew slept, I went on deck. Across the
bay the shrine gleamed faintly in the moonlight. The _Phoenix_ stirred
gently in the swells from a distant ferryboat. Above were the heavy
masts, the intricate web of sturdy rigging, the white sails, furled now
but ready to be raised at our command. We had our boat, and though she
had not yet proved herself at sea, I knew she would, and proudly. This
was not entirely a matter of wishful thinking. During her construction,
a number of experts had looked her over, and their reactions had been
unanimously favorable. But even without their praise I had faith in the
_Phoenix_.
About the human beings aboard I was not so sanguine. None of us had ever
been to sea in a small boat. The Japanese boys were good sailors of
snipes in the Inland Sea, and I had done some sailing in an 18-footer,
but this was a far cry from cruising outside.
And the family. How would the children take the trip? Would they be able
to adjust to discomfort and occasional hardship? How much would they
miss the companionship of others their own age? What of their schooling?
We were taking along plenty of textbooks and teaching materials for both
of them, and Barbara, who had been a teacher, would handle their
lessons, but would this be sufficient?
And what of Barbara? We had made a contract with each other—for better,
for worse—but was a situation like this anticipated in the contract?
Suddenly I felt a surge of deep respect and admiration for her, as it
came to me with full force that I was going because I wanted to go, but
_she_ was going only because I was, offering me a rare and precious
loyalty.
Our Japanese crew—what of them? How would they wear? How would two
groups of diverse backgrounds get along, in weeks at sea under confining
conditions? So far the men had shown themselves to be fine companions
and hard workers. Moreover, on that wild night when Typhoon June almost
had us on the rocks, they had proved themselves courageous and
resourceful. Would these qualities last during the long grind?
Finally, the captain. Could _he_ take it? And could his companions take
_him_? Could he curb his temper, learn to control his impatience? I
deeply felt my inadequacies, my faults, and especially my lack of
experience. Whenever one of the family called me “Skipper,” as they had
begun to do, I felt uneasy and self-conscious. One of the biggest
unknowns was the ability of this so-called Skipper.
Beset with doubts I finally turned in.
The next day we slept late, and did not get underway until midmorning.
The doubts and introspection of the previous night were swept away in
the sparkling breeze. We had made our choice, we were on our way, we
would do our best. From now on, all thoughts and energies would be
directed toward making a successful voyage.
Slowly we drifted past the shrine, so that the men could say their
farewells to the goddess, which they did, standing in a row on the
foredeck with caps in hand and heads bowed. Suddenly I realized that
there was still another possibly divisive factor—one I had not thought
of: differences in religion.
We continued up the strait and drew abreast the Yotsuda shipyard. We
broke out the foghorn, Mickey blew lustily, and the entire shipyard
crew—all four of them—came down to the shore while Yotsuda-san ran up
the Japanese flag, and we dipped our American colors in a return salute.
Just four months ago the _Phoenix_ had been launched from here.
The next several days were idyllic. The fall weather was perfect, the
breeze light but fair, the scenery unsurpassed. We found out now that
cruising may take a lot of work ashore, but that cruising is also
sailing, and this is the reward.
And we were beginning to learn our boat. From the log of October 8,
which was also Ted’s sixteenth birthday:
Good sailing practice today—many tacks, brisk breeze, getting smarter
and smarter in handling her. If only the time element didn’t enter
into the picture! But each day that passes puts us later and later in
the season. Four days out and still not in Onomichi—only 72 miles (by
land) from Hiroshima.
That night we dropped anchor in the beautiful harbor of Mitarai. Fishing
boats were close about us and one of them, as it happened, was a bit too
close, since we rammed him slightly while maneuvering for a berth. In
the log, I virtuously recorded that the accident was a combination of
poor judgment on my part and a shifting wind that pushed us down on the
larger boat before we could stop our way.
From this we learned something about the momentum of our thirty tons and
of the inability of our small engine to handle the boat properly in
reverse. Later we called on the captain to apologize, and to have the
damage assessed. It came to 556 yen, about $1.50 American. Accidents
come cheaper in Japan!
During our trial run up the Inland Sea we made quite a few changes and
improvements. We put downhauls all around, so we could get the sails
down even in a gale. We rerigged our mainsail peak, painted and stowed
most of the ballast, set up a third anchor aft, and got things more
shipshape below decks.
We practiced, too, in the open areas, tacking over and over, learning to
jibe smoothly, and establishing routines for various maneuvers. We
loosed the dinghy, and practiced rounding up to it. When the breeze
freshened, and we had our first taste of really brisk sailing, we found
we could make seven knots with ease, using only the four lowers;
moreover, the boat had a very easy motion.
We reached Takamatsu, at the upper end of the Inland Sea, on the morning
of October 13. This would be our base for the final stages of
fitting-out before the long ocean crossing to Hawaii. A Coast Guard boat
came well out to meet us and escorted us to the Prefectural Docks, where
a crowd was waiting, and we went through the usual gamut of questions.
The following morning we accepted the kind invitation of the Takamatsu
Yacht Club to use their private dock, where we remained for a very busy
two weeks.
Takamatsu is a pleasant city, and at this season was gay and bustling in
preparation for the Hachiman Festival. In the evenings, after a day of
hard work, we usually wandered into the city where the open-front shops
remained ready for business. We would stop to watch groups of strolling
actors, or try out our Japanese in the process of making a purchase, or
enjoy a nightcap of soba—Japanese noodles—in a tiny booth before
returning to the boat.
During the days, however, we worked, and worked hard. Ted and Jessica
finished the job of painting countless iron pigs, and emerged at the end
of each day with a new layer of orange paint. In the course of this job
Ted uncovered a hitherto unsuspected talent: that of raconteur
extraordinary. Time passed quickly as Ted gave the iron pigs
personalities and guided them through a series of imaginary escapades in
the course of getting their faces painted. As we watched the young ones
at work we could sense a growing solidarity and identification with the
voyage.
We made a number of changes in the rigging, based on our brief
experience in the Inland Sea. We unstepped the topmast, suspecting—quite
correctly—that we wouldn’t need it in winter in the North Pacific. We
made stormcovers for all the hatches and portholes—hoping we would never
have occasion to use them. Also, we installed additional pinrails on
either side of the mainmast, having quickly learned that our one bank of
pinrails was inadequate.
On one day only, October 18, I exercised my prerogative of declaring a
holiday. By coincidence, it also happened to be my birthday. We took
this occasion to visit Kotohira, where Kompira-san, the god of the sea
and patron of Japanese seamen, holds sway. We toiled up the thousand
steps to the shrine and paused at the summit to admire the magnificent
view, while Nick, Mickey and Moto went inside to pay their respects to
the priests and to inform them of our plans.
When they emerged they were smiling broadly. Kompira-san, they had been
assured, viewed their venture with favor and predicted a successful
outcome _if_—and this, to us, seemed to be the joker—we promised to
revisit the shrine at the conclusion of our trip. It seemed to me that a
sort of Delphic aura surrounded this promise, but the boys seemed
satisfied, and we were only too happy to agree.
After this single day of relaxation we began our final preparations in
earnest. One by one jobs and purchases were checked off, from a list
which originally contained several thousand items. On the day before our
departure Barbara’s most recent provisioning efforts were delivered to
the dock: a box of apples packed in bran; 100 pounds of potatoes; 70
pounds of onions; 40 of sweet potatoes, 5 of carrots, 6 of green beans;
and some two dozen heads of cabbage. All that day, Barbara and Jessica
sorted out vegetables, setting aside the doubtful ones for early eating,
while the rest were packed in wooden crates and lashed to the cabintop.
Also on that day they coated and packed some thirty dozen eggs with
oleo. That night we had scrambled eggs for supper.
That evening Nick and Mickey stayed in the forecastle writing stacks of
last-minute notes, while Barbara, Jessica, and Moto went out to dinner
with new-found Japanese friends. Only Ted—and already I was coming to
depend upon him more and more—seemed to share a realization of the
enormity of the step we were undertaking. Of his own accord he turned
down the dinner invitation and remained to help make a final inventory.
Together we made one more check of the entire list of Things to Do and
Get. The water supply had been topped up—300 gallons in five unconnected
tanks. Canned food for twelve weeks at normal consumption had been
divided into separate duffle sacks, a week’s rations to a sack, and
stowed beneath the floor of the ladies’ cabin. The fresh produce was
aboard and stowed securely. For ship lights, stove, and engine we had
120 gallons of kerosene.
There were ample replacements for all expendable and vulnerable items,
from flashlight batteries to sail needles, and safety equipment was
complete from flares to heliograph.
In the navigation department we had six compasses aboard (master,
steering, inside telltale, lifeboat, and two spares); four watches and a
chronometer (rated); three barometers and a barograph; a sextant;
anemometer; inclinometer (never used); thermometers of various kinds; a
complete set of signal flags; several pairs of binoculars; and, of
course, the necessary navigation books, sailing directions and charts,
and the 1954 nautical almanac which Takemura had left with us at his
departure.
We had a spare battery radio, with batteries, wrapped in a moistureproof
package, and an emergency fresh-water still. We had adequate sail repair
equipment and materials, tools of every description, and a quantity of
spare lumber, in case fairly extended additions or repairs proved
necessary at sea.
Our medicine chest, a gift from the doctors at the Casualty Commission
in Hiroshima, was unusually complete, from antibiotics to scalpels.
Barbara had taken a survey course in emergency medicine under our good
friend Dr. George Hazlehurst. She had passed the final examination with
honors by successfully injecting a grapefruit and suturing a sausage. As
Ted wryly observed, if anything went wrong with grapefruits or sausages,
we were all prepared.
As for education and entertainment, we were supplied and oversupplied.
In addition to textbooks, we had a complete set of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, the Book of Knowledge, and some three hundred additional
books. We had decks of cards, and kits for checkers, chess, and
backgammon; and sets of Mahjong and Scrabble for family games. We had a
handcranking phonograph and a wide selection of records. Ted’s
grandmother, Minnetta Leonard, had even sent him a plastic ukulele,
evidently in the fond hope that he would be prepared for the beach at
Waikiki.
In everything except that important commodity, deep-sea experience, I
felt we were ready. If we were fools to embark without that vital item,
at least we were fools who were operating within a framework of adequate
preparation and common sense.
As to the mental preparation of the ship’s company, that was difficult
to assay. Barbara had taken over without demur whatever tasks were
assigned to her, and Jessica wrote faithfully in her diary, but neither
of them asked questions or appeared to be overly concerned. Whether due
to an inability to imagine what deep-sea life would be like or utter
confidence in the Skipper, it seemed to put an extra burden on me.
As for the three Japanese men, they were, during the preparation and the
trip through the Inland Sea, completely unconcerned in certain areas,
and very active in others. Although well-educated men, they seemed quite
content with manual skills: carpentry, painting, sail handling, and deck
seamanship. They appeared to have no interest in the sailing plans,
navigational methods, or the operation of the radio or auxiliary engine.
Also, as far as I could detect, they didn’t seem to be worried.
On the morning of October 26, the Rev. Raymond Christopher, a British
missionary, visited us and held a short service aboard, asking a
blessing on our journey. His solemn words sent a sudden chill through us
and more than any other event made us realize some of the implications
of our departure.
That evening we sailed from Takamatsu.
Our leave-taking was strongly reminiscent of Hiroshima: crowds, press,
last-minute gifts, bilingual confusion, tears. But there was one vital
exception: we knew that this time we were heading not for the quiet
waters of the Inland Sea but for the Hawaiian Islands, across more than
4,000 miles of open ocean.
The day was hectic, culminating in a formal send-off, for radio and
national TV, presided over by the governor of Kagawa Prefecture. The
circumstances surrounding our departure are shown in the log:
Final preparations completed, immigration cleared, and check made with
Coast Guard; decided to leave on afternoon of Oct. 26. News of Typhoon
18 (now making up near Philippines) was received, and decision made to
proceed until more details available. Decided to try to get through
Naruto Straits if possible, rather than go all the way around Awaji
Shima.
Also I notified the U.S. Navy in Yokosuka of the date and time of our
departure, our approximate route, and the estimated length of our trip
(45 days, based on an assumed distance, by sailing route, of 4,500
miles, and an average of 100 miles per day). I informed them, as I had
the local Coast Guard, that we had no facilities for sending radio
messages, only for receiving. We did, however, have a small
hand-operated emergency set (Gibson Girl) on which we could send an
automatic SOS at limited range, but this would be used only in direst
emergency.
We crossed Harima Nada during the night and reached Naruto Straits the
following afternoon. The narrow passage to the open ocean looked
formidable. Even without binoculars we could see a white wall of foam as
the tide fought its way through, at a peak speed of 11 knots. The rips
were between 6 and 9 feet in height. Even as we watched, a large ship
battered its way through but another, which had not been so lucky, could
be seen stranded on rocks in mid-channel.
We decided in any event not to attempt the straits at night, but to
check with the local fishermen and get their opinion. If they agreed it
was feasible for our boat, we would try the passage at slack tide the
next morning. So we crossed to Marugame, where we anchored, while the
Japanese men rowed ashore to talk to the inhabitants. From them we
received a golden nugget of advice: “When the fishing boats go through,
you go through.”
After the others had gone to bed, Ted and I reviewed the strategy for
perhaps the hundredth time. It was very simple—in theory. We would head
east as fast as was consistent with safety, to get beyond the area of
the late-season typhoons as soon as possible. We would sail as far south
as we could, though still keeping within range of the prevailing
westerlies and the eastward-flowing Japanese current. In this way we
would get the benefit of warmer weather and less severe storms.
In handling the boat we would try to keep a good margin of safety, never
overpressing, and we would reduce sail at night during unsettled
weather, until we knew our ship and had gained experience and confidence
in our abilities.
When we finally reached a position north of the Hawaiian Islands, we
would turn south, using the engine if necessary to help us through the
band of Horse Latitudes and into the northeast trades. We would try to
raise the island of Molokai, the long island in the center of the group,
and proceed to Honolulu.
This, in brief, was our plan.
There was only one way to find out whether it would work.
3 FROM JAPAN
TO HONOLULU
“The long shakedown ... a seven-week course in How to Sail.”
Before dawn we weighed anchor and sailed down to join the fishing fleet
near the strait and at 0955 we fell in with a procession heading through
Naruto. Great whirlpools, a threat to the small boat when the tide is
running, were still circling turgidly, but now, during the slack, they
had no power. In a short time, with a fair breeze, we were in Kii Suido,
which funnels out to the open sea. This cutoff saved us about three
days—and later was to result in newspaper headlines in our own country
and in Japan that would cause much anxiety to family and friends.
The morning was mild and sunny. Our ship rose and fell gently in the
long swells, so different from the shorter, choppier waves of the Inland
Sea. We headed south to round the headland. As a first taste of ocean
sailing, we thought, this isn’t half bad!
It took only twelve hours for the Pacific to put us in our place. Toward
evening the barometer began to fall, the wind rose, and the seas built
up fast. During the night we lost—permanently—any complacency we may
have had. The men were all kept busy on deck, fastening down the crates
of provisions which should have been better secured before we left, and
putting extra lashings on fuel drums, water tank, and extra spars. The
boat plunged frantically as one wave after another lifted her high or
smashed against her sides.
The rain came, in a fury, and on deck the sounds of wind and wave
drowned out everything except a shout at top voice. We began very
quickly to accumulate that experience we had lacked. “But won’t you be
seasick?” We were—and by the time we had the answer it was too late for
any remedies to have effect—they didn’t stay with us long enough!
Below decks everything that could fall fell; everything that could break
broke. The low railings we had just put around tables and
shelves—modest, unobtrusive fiddles—proved to be completely ineffective.
We had brought plenty of extra lumber and fastenings on the assumptions
that a few spots of carpentry might be needed while underway, but that
first night there was nothing we could do but make a mental note:
“Higher fiddles.”
Our beautiful mugs—with their hand-painted phoenix designs of which we
had been so proud—swung violently on their hooks and, one by one, parted
company with their handles and crashed across the cabin. It was obvious
that nothing fragile was going to survive this trip—and that included
people.
Barbara doggedly cooked supper but no one felt like eating. The girls
were told to climb into their bunks and pay no attention to any crashes
which might occur in the galley. No mental effort, however, made it
possible to ignore the smash of waves against the hull. Each one that
hit sounded like a sledge hammer striking an empty drum—a nerve-racking
experience for those on the inside. In addition, the shouts on deck and
the pounding of feet overhead carried below with an urgency that was
frightening, since the clamor of the elements, which made the shouting
necessary, was somewhat shut out by the heavy planking.
By midnight, although Barbara still lay awake expecting each moment to
be her last, we were in better shape on deck. Once we had succeeded in
getting everything secure, we “jankenned” for the first watch—the
“scissors, paper, stone” method of selection traditional in Japan—and
began a routine of two hours on, eight hours off, which we would
maintain around the clock from now on.
The sequence of watches, which was continued without alteration for the
next three years, was as follows: Moto, Mickey, Nick, Ted, Skipper.
There was a reason for this. Ted, the youngest, was placed between Nick
and Skipper; Mickey, whose English was poorest, was sandwiched between
Moto and Nick.
The first official watch having been determined, and the sequence agreed
upon, those off duty went to their bunks. I had no desire to go below,
however, but remained in the cockpit to study the behavior of our ship.
The _Phoenix_ climbed to meet each rushing wave, slid into the trough,
and rose again to the next challenge. She never tired, never faltered. I
had heard about this, and read about it in books, but now, for the first
time, I was experiencing the wonder of it, a wonder I have never lost.
Wet, miserable, sick, and not a little frightened by the tumult about
me—even so, I was happy.
By the next morning we were out of sight of land and our dead reckoning
put us far enough to the south to clear the point. We changed course to
the east and the long shakedown was truly underway. Ahead of us,
according to my calculations, lay about a seven-week course in How to
Sail. If we were able to pass it, I was sure we would be able to go
anywhere on earth; if we failed—well, there would be nothing more for us
to worry about.
It was our hope that in the next few days we would sight one of the
small islands, preferably Hachijo-shima, that fan out into the Pacific
south from Tokyo. This would give us a good departure—and also assurance
that we had left the islands safely behind us!
During the day I took my first sextant shot at sea, while Ted worked out
the sights. We were dismayed briefly when we discovered that the
nautical almanac inherited from Takemura was printed—naturally enough—in
Japanese. Fortunately, numerals were the same as in English, and the
only critical ideographs—“toward” and “away”—were easily translated for
us by Nick. Though we had difficulties, both in getting a good shot and
in working out the calculations, it was easier than we dared hope. We
were sure that, with practice, we could handle this assignment. Once
past the islands, there would be a whole oceanful of sea room and plenty
of time to learn the business.
The weather continued clearing during the day and the seas moderated.
All of us felt better, and everyone helped get our gear in order and
stowed in more seamanlike fashion. Our losses were mostly crockery and
expendable items, and nothing of any real importance had been broken,
including that most essential item, morale.
Several ships passed along the horizon during the day, one of them an
American aircraft carrier and another—as strange an anachronism as we
ourselves—the magnificent four-masted training ship of the Japanese
Merchant Marine, the _Nippon Maru_.
In the afternoon we had a feathered visitor, which flew on board and
settled down to preen itself in the forward rigging, ignoring the
raucous complaints of Mi-ke. It stayed for several hours, giving us an
opportunity for close inspection, including photographs, and it is our
unanimous and unshakable opinion that our friend was an American robin.
Many a mate to this little creature we had seen in the yard of our home
back in Yellow Springs, Ohio! How it got to the coastal waters of Japan
we didn’t know. Was it a pet, escaped from the flattop we had seen
earlier? Farfetched, but possible. At any rate, toward evening it flew
away, while Jessica rushed below to enter full details in her Journal.
For the next two days we sailed east, with fair weather. We were
beginning to get organized and to find our sea legs although Barbara,
who had the least desirable job on the boat, continued to suffer from
recurrent malaise every time she entered the galley. Food had assumed a
tremendous importance in all our lives, and she realized that to fail
even once in the preparation of a meal would only make the next
defection easier. And so, queasy though she was and unappetizing as the
very thought of food seemed to her, she wired the pots to the stove and
doggedly turned out an amazing variety of hearty dishes.
In addition to the galley, Barbara was responsible for three other
important departments: health, recreation, and education. She set
regular times for Jessica’s lessons, while Ted, although carrying a full
load as a working member of the crew, also carried on with his studies.
However, the elements had something to say about leisure time. On the
afternoon of October 31, just as we were beginning to congratulate
ourselves on our fine adaptation to life at sea, the barometer again
began to fall, this time in earnest. There was no doubt we were in for
trouble. That night the Pacific really lowered the boom.
My log merely says, “At midnight, high waves and strong wind. Hove to
for night, under reefed mizzen and storm jib.”
How often I had read, in published logs and stories of cruising, such
cryptic sentences, and how often I had tried to imagine the
circumstances! That night I began to get some idea, but it is not easy
to put a reader in my place.
First, it is rough, and I don’t mean rocking-chair rough—I mean rough
enough to break a leg, if you are thrown across the deck, or to smash in
your skull, if a swinging block hits you. Outside the cockpit, you must
hold on at all times, especially when working far forward. This means
that everything must be done in slow motion just at a time when all your
instincts tell you to rush.
Below decks, it is necessary to chock yourself in some safe corner or to
hold on continuously as you move about. “One hand for the boat” is not
just a catch phrase but an essential habit that must be developed, and
Barbara, who was reluctant to abandon her instinct for two-handed
efficiency in preparing or serving a meal, was a mass of bruises until
she learned this basic lesson.
Second, it is noisy, and this means noisy at a level which tempts one to
panic. On deck, the high-pitched howling of the wind cuts through all
lesser noises. In order to be heard, even if your companion is right
beside you, it is necessary to shout. Below, out of the wind, it seems
at first almost quiet, but the ship groans with a thousand noises, there
are mysterious knocks and grinds, and at this stage of your experience
every sound is ominous and sinister. Occasionally there is the sudden
boom and the shock of a wave as it slams against the hull. _That’s_ when
you’re thankful for two-inch planking and four-by-six deck beams!
Finally, there is the sight of the waves, each one mountainous and
impersonally lethal. You know it would take only one to finish you, and
that there are plenty more where that one came from. You wonder how the
ship can possibly take it. Just at this moment you don’t wonder about
yourself, because you’re too busy trying to reduce your canvas and set
up your storm sails. Your whole life narrows to a concentrated attention
on the state of the sea, the strength of the wind, the look of the sky,
and the behavior of your boat. Whether you admit it or not, fear is your
shipmate, and depending upon your temperament, you work the better or
the worse because of it.
You may or may not enjoy the experience of sailing a small boat in rough
weather on the open sea, but I can assure you of one thing—you
positively will not be bored!
After several hours of labor, we finally had the boat hove to. It was
our first experience in this maneuver, and it was a wonderful feeling to
see how well the _Phoenix_ behaved. With the sails properly trimmed and
the tiller lashed, she lay head to the wind, quartering out of the
trough, no longer fighting the seas, but riding them like a duck,
drifting slowly downwind. Below, the motion became relatively
comfortable, and it was possible to cook a good meal and enjoy eating
it, and to rest quietly in the bunk.
Three times, during the course of our first passage, we hove to thus,
when the weather became too rough for safe sailing. However, after we
had gained experience and confidence we carried on through seas which at
first would have tempted us to heave to.
On the afternoon of November 1 we sighted Hachijo-shima, dead ahead, and
changed our course to pass well to the north of it. The island was a
comforting sight, since it gave us a definite position, against which we
could check our dead reckoning and our accuracy with the sextant. Also,
having passed these islands, there would be no more land to worry about
between here and the Hawaiian Islands. At this stage of our experience,
what we needed more than anything else was plenty of sea room.
Late that night, with Hachijo-shima astern on the starboard quarter, we
saw a smaller island looming up to the north. We knew from the charts
that this should be Miyake; however, it showed a light, with a 15-second
interval, and Miyake had no light. A careful search of our list of
Japanese coastal lights, and an inspection of our charts, showed no such
light listed for this area, so I was considerably worried. Could we
possibly be in the wrong position? Ted and I were convinced we were not,
but Nick thought our position might be much farther south and the island
we had seen earlier might not have been Hachijo-shima at all.
I checked again, widening my range, searching all the charts within a
radius of several hundred miles. There were no 15-second lights, in any
location, which could conceivably be ours. No sleep for me that night,
as we kept the island in sight, and I checked and wondered.
At dawn, by studying the contours of the land, we were able to identify
it positively, light or no light, as Miyake. We sailed on, but I still
had a nagging worry in the back of my mind. If one could not depend upon
the light lists and charts....
Two days later, in the evening weather forecast of November 3, the
Japanese radio announced that on November 1 a 15-second light had been
established on Miyake-shima. We had seen it on its first night’s
operation!
I mention this little incident because it serves to bring out, as well
as any other, several points which are important. First, in a cruise of
this kind it is not safe to take anything for granted. I remember
talking to a young chap in Fiji who, with his companion, had been
approaching the Society Islands from the west. According to their
calculations, they were a good 50 miles out, so they set their sails and
both retired for the night. They were awakened about two in the morning
by the distinctly unpleasant sound of their keel hitting a coral reef.
Their boat was a total loss. They actually _had_ been 50 miles out, but
what they had taken for granted was that there was open water all the
way. What they had overlooked was the existence of the small island some
miles to the west of Tahiti, which they had the bad luck to run onto in
the night.
Another lesson I learned from the Miyake incident was that no matter how
carefully you prepare, how many precautions you may take, something
unanticipated is bound to come up. When it does, it should be met in a
way that will give the greatest margin of safety to the ship. If the
chart indicates there is a one-knot westerly drift, assume it could be
as much as two knots—one of these times it will be. If the anchorage is
strange and the weather uncertain, set an anchor watch, no matter how
sleepy you are. For ninety-nine nights you’ll lose your sleep and
nothing will happen, but on the hundredth night you’ll save your ship.
This point of view, in a number of instances, may have caused me to err
on the side of caution—I know for a fact that our Japanese crewmen
tended to regard me as cautious to the point of obsession. But when they
became impatient, or at times clearly disapproving, I reminded myself
that, after all, the responsibility was mine. This was my dream, my
family, and my boat—and I had to make the decisions.
Whether these precautions were excessive I have no way of knowing, but I
treasure the observation that Nick made, almost grudgingly, after the
successful completion of the trip:
“If other boys and I had been boss, we’d have gone on reef many times!”
I accepted the admission in the spirit in which it was meant, and
refrained from pointing out that it might not be necessary to run on the
reef “many times.” Once might be quite enough.
Finally, there is the practical matter of sleep. Unless you can snatch
it at odd intervals, and when necessary get along without that precious
commodity for long periods and still maintain your efficiency, you will
have a real handicap on a long ocean passage. You are lucky if you are a
light sleeper, for to awaken promptly when an anchor begins to drag or
when the changed motion of the ship indicates a change in the weather is
better than explaining that you didn’t hear a thing until you hit the
rocks or until the sail blew out. In my case, I found out that a
characteristic which ashore was a liability—the habit of being easily
awakened—was an asset at sea.
As a matter of fact, all of us learned to grab sleep where and as we
could get it. Day ran into night. On a ship there is always someone
awake, and usually someone asleep. Only at mealtimes does everyone
generally put in an appearance, and even then the man on watch must wait
until he is relieved before he can come below and eat. On our first
crossing, when getting ready to go on watch was often a case of putting
on heavy weather gear, it took some nice calculation on Barbara’s part
to serve each meal long enough before the change of watch so that the
man about to go up would have time to eat and dress, and still report
promptly for duty, and the man coming off could come below to a
still-hot meal.
Now we were well on our way, and there was no turning back. Until we
passed the islands, perhaps in all our minds had been the knowledge that
actually we were still close to land, and might if necessary put in or
send out a call on the emergency radio. But now we were heading into the
empty North Pacific, well outside the shipping lanes. Soon we would be
far beyond the range of our tiny sending set, and for the rest of the
4,000-mile trip, until we reached Hawaii, we would be completely on our
own.
In the first several days we saw a ship or two, and on November 10 a
four-engined plane passed over us. After that, nothing ... with one
exception.
I had given standing orders, of course, to be notified, day or night, if
anything was sighted. According to my log, this is what happened one
dark night:
11/13. Poor run yesterday, high wind and higher waves. Slogged it out,
but everyone sick of the jouncing. Slept fairly well, as waves
gradually subsided. At 0400, Mickey, at the tiller, poked his head
down the hatch. “Reynolds-sensei,” he said, without expression.
“Yes?” I asked sleepily.
“Fune desu—boat.”
“Chikai desuka?—Is it close?”
“Hai, so desu—Yes, it is,” noncommitally.
I jumped up and poked my head out. When Mickey said close he meant
_close_. Just off our stern was a flattop, looking as big as a
mountain, which seemed to be bearing right down on us. I jumped to the
cabintop and waved our kerosene lantern frantically, while Mickey, as
ordered, turned the flashlight on the sails.
After a long minute the carrier slowly changed its course to port and
gradually faded out of sight.
“Good,” said Mickey, his first sign of interest in the matter and
incidentally the first word of English I had ever heard him speak.
The following day I amended my order to add that I was to be notified
_as soon as_ anything was sighted. It cost me more sleep, but I didn’t
begrudge that. I usually woke up anyway at the change of watch, every
two hours, and took a look around—but I managed to average out my quota
of rest, and actually felt in fine shape.
The weeks at sea could never be disentangled in our memories were it not
for the help of the ship’s log, Barbara’s diary, and most vividly of
all, Jessica’s Journal. Disdaining such mundane things as barometer
readings and the state of the sea, she concerned herself with vital
matters, such as the activities of Mi-ke or the winners in our family
games. When she thought ship events were sufficiently noteworthy to
merit attention, she recorded them in her own style. Here are two
interpretations of the same event:
_From the ship’s log_: Last night, about 2300, a very large wave,
quite out of proportion to even the largest of the then current seas,
broke over the ship. Estimated height about six feet above deck.
Half-filled cockpit, drenched my bunk through the afterhatch and
Moto’s bunk through the main companionway. Swept several small loose
items overboard, and thoroughly drenched man at tiller (me) with solid
water. Only one such wave—only solid water on deck all night.
_From Jessica’s Journal_: In the night while Skipper was on watch he
just happened to look to the North. He saw a great wall of water four
times the size of the biggest wave come charging toward the _Phoenix_.
It was coming from a completely different direction from the other
waves, and didn’t just go gently under, heeling us a sukoshi (little).
It came over, soaked Skipper, flowed down the hatches, and swooshed
around in Skip’s bunk. It was a couple of minutes before the cockpit
emptied and the water stopped coming down the hatches and we came up
again. Skip says the wave was the only one of its size and kind, and
maybe caused by an underwater earthquake. Mum says we heeled down and
down on her side until she was sure we’d tip all the way over. I bet
the _lifelines_ skimmed the water that time! We realized how strongly
the boat’s built because some boats would have been smashed up by that
wave.
As to the human aspect of the voyage, I note in my log after the first
few days, “Relations between all most cordial and friendly—I think this
biracial setup is working out nicely.” Always in my mind was the
knowledge that our venture was strung upon a chain composed of hundreds
of links, some of which would inevitably wear out and have to be
replaced, and some of which were irreplaceable. I tried to anticipate
and to prevent undue strain upon any one part—rigging, sails, spars—or
men. Which of them would give way first—and at what crucial moment? I
tried to keep myself constantly aware of any evidence of chafing.
The first overt incident to occur involved Nick, the oldest of the three
and my former coworker at the Commission in Hiroshima. Though usually
cheerful, Nick was subject on rare occasions to unexplained moody spells
during which he became almost surly. During one of these periods we had
hauled the mainsail down to repair a seam. Since water from the bilge
had been coming up into our bunks occasionally when we heeled way over,
I said we would pump out the bilge before setting sail again.
Nick abruptly contradicted me. “No. Put up sail first.”
I was at the tiller. “No, Nick,” I insisted. “Once we put the sail up,
we’ll be heeling too far to get all the water out. First we’ll pump.”
“No!”
“We’ll pump first, Nick. Let’s go!”
“Do it yourself!” he suddenly burst out, in a black temper. Nothing like
this had ever happened before and all of us were petrified. We had been
in Japan long enough to know the strong emphasis placed on courtesy and
conformance. We knew that Nick’s outburst, which might have been taken
in stride by Westerners, was an unthinkable breach of Japanese
etiquette.
There was a dead silence which stretched endlessly. Then, without a
word, Nick stepped forward and began to pump the bilge.
After the job was done and the sail up again, Nick came back to the
cockpit and apologized. He said that he knew I was right, but he had
just felt tired. We discussed what we could do about the problem of
getting the bilge cleared when we were heeling and decided that another
pump, with extensions on both sides to the turn of the bilge, would do
the trick. (This was duly installed, in Honolulu, and has proved very
effective.) Then we shook hands, and that ended it. For the rest of the
passage, Nick was his former stolid, dependable self.
The next problem, which set in less dramatically but threatened to be
more serious, concerned Mickey. After we sailed from Hiroshima, and
during our quiet cruise up the Inland Sea, Mickey had been the brightest
and gayest of our group. The ditty he sang constantly, which roughly
translated meant “I’m going to Honolulu where the coconuts grow,” had
earned him the private family nickname of Coconut Boy.
However, after our first bad night on the open ocean, Mickey had quieted
down considerably. He seemed to realize for the first time that there
was a lot of water between him and his coconuts. Gradually his activity
and behavior deteriorated until at last he took to his bunk, rising only
to go to the head and for meals—which he seemed to eat with a fair
appetite.
The first night that Mickey defected completely, Nick and Moto conspired
to absorb his watch between them, without reporting his indisposition.
But by the next day there was no concealing the fact that Mickey “not
feel so good,” and although Nick and Moto offered to continue taking
three-hour watches until he felt better, it was agreed that we would
share and share alike.
From then on, Mickey was relieved of active duty until further notice
and the rest of us went on a schedule of two on and six off. This of
course meant that each man’s watch, instead of shifting each day,
remained the same. Ted drew two dark watches (0400–0600 and 2000–2200)
and found himself carrying a man’s role in earnest. In addition to his
job as navigator, he already doubled as cabin boy—a thankless job that
included siphoning kerosene from the deck drums, draining the dishwater
from under the sink, and keeping the water jugs filled from the main
tanks (we had no pump). It was not an easy life for a sixteen-year-old
who had had few responsibilities for the past three years beyond picking
up his own pajamas—and had often managed to avoid even that by stalling
until one of the Japanese housegirls did it for him.
Yet, Ted responded wonderfully, and I found myself depending on him more
and more. In these modern days fathers aren’t supposed to get to know
their sons, especially their adolescent sons, but in the case of Ted and
myself, never were conditions better for getting acquainted. Ted’s watch
preceded mine, and I often went up a bit early, especially at night, to
give him a reassuring word and stayed on to chat of this and that. His
nature is quiet and reflective; his interests run to mathematics,
astronomy, the sciences, and for relaxation, the classics. Our subjects
ranged far afield and more often than not Ted was the mentor.
Perhaps, as Barbara has since postulated, if Mickey had not “cracked
up,” one of the others would have—and I know she is thinking of herself.
Be that as it may, the heavier burden placed upon us all by Mickey’s
defection served to stiffen the resolution of the others. Mixed with a
very real concern over our ailing member was a growing pride in my
family and I felt almost ashamed of the doubts that had troubled me
before we set sail.
(Only much later was I told of the reservations Barbara and the kids had
secretly entertained, at the prospect of putting to sea with me—a
skipper whom they knew to be quick-tempered, stubborn, and far more apt
to be patient with machines or statistics than with people. My own pride
in their performance under duress was apparently matched by their own
surprised and pleased discovery that I, too, was making a real effort
and apparently succeeding. In the course of that first hard crossing, in
short, all four of us were welded into a close-knit unit based upon
mutual trust.)
At the time, however, Mickey was our main cause for concern and the
basis of many worried conferences. His illness seemed to have no
specific character and responded to no treatment Barbara could devise.
It seemed impossible to pin it down. With Nick as interpreter, we tried
to outline the symptoms, but it was tough going and largely dictionary
work. Sometimes it seemed to center around nausea; sometimes
constipation, or, equally often, dysentery. In general, however, it
seemed to be characterized only by a vague tiredness, occasional
dizziness, a general depression, and a disinclination to get out of bed.
“No pains?”
“No. No pain.”
“Has he been taking the medicine?” (Barbara had tried dramamine,
bonamine, aureomycin, and various other specifics.)
“Yes,” said Nick. “No good.” Mickey weakly put in a word and Nick
translated. “Mickey say, maybe better if you make rice like mother used
to make.”
“What? Like his mother? Well, how did she make it?”
“When Japanese is sick, his mother make special rice, very soft, very
good. If you make soft rice, maybe he be better.”
“Oh, dandy,” breathed Barbara, and repaired to the galley to try cooking
rice gruel for Mickey like his mother used to make. Evidently she didn’t
succeed, for Mickey’s condition didn’t improve. We discussed the
possibility of changing course and heading for Midway, in order to get
competent medical attention, but since Mickey’s condition seemed to be
chronic rather than acute, we decided to carry on.
And so, for three weeks, Mickey was a free-loader. He ate regularly but
took no part in the sailing of the ship. Not until we turned south,
heading directly for the Hawaiian Islands, and began to pick up balmy
winds, blue skies, and fair weather, did Mickey show signs of recovery.
He worked halfheartedly at the simple tasks I assigned merely to get him
up on deck, and at last he announced, through Nick, that he would take
an hour of his watch during the afternoon. We adjusted our schedule
accordingly and gradually, over a period of two or three days, Mickey
felt his way back into full participation. By the time we reached
Honolulu he was again our ebullient Coconut Boy.
Moto, through all this, remained quiet, gentle, and uncomplaining, the
ideal shipmate. His watch followed mine, and never did he fail to come
up promptly and with a smile on his face. This, in the darkness of a
cold, wet, rough night takes more than a bit of doing, and my respect
and liking for him increased steadily as time went on.
My arrangements for living aboard seemed to be working out well. From
the main cabin we could hear Nick, Mickey, and Moto carrying on animated
conversations in their own language, and Barbara, who had soon given up
her praiseworthy idea of cooking special breakfasts of sour bean soup
and cold rice, often reported exotic adaptations of cucumber pickles
with the oatmeal.
Of all the jobs on ship, Barbara’s in many ways was the toughest. Not a
boatwoman by inclination, or the typical “athletic” type of girl, she
suddenly found herself thrust into a role which demanded every ounce of
her courage and stamina. That she discharged her duty with full honors
is shown by a simple mathematical fact: in 47 days at sea, regardless of
the weather, her physical distress, or the balkiness of a temperamental
kerosene stove (which the Skipper had to keep in fighting trim), she
never failed to prepare and serve a meal—a hot meal—on schedule. Only
those who have cooked on a small boat at sea can know what this means.
As to her personal feelings during this time, a section from her diary
may give some idea:
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about people who went to sea in
small sailing ships. About Columbus, for one, who set out not just for
a six or eight weeks’ trip but for an incalculable and unknown number
of days in search of a perhaps nonexistent land. And more than about
Columbus himself, I wonder about his men, those hardy souls whose
individuality has been completely overshadowed by the glory of their
leader’s accomplishment. Columbus went because he had a dream and a
conviction—but why, I wonder, did _they_ go, all those unidentified
others?
And I’ve been thinking about the women on the _Mayflower_ and on all
the other tiny boats that set sail so confidently for a new world. No
longer are the Pilgrims a small band of cutout figures whose storybook
ships are somehow manipulated by wires across a painted backdrop of
heaving billows. They’ve become very real to me, people I’d like to
have known and talked to. I’d like to have asked Mistress White,
mother of Peregrine, “What did you think the first time you smashed
into a heavy sea, so that your ship stopped short and shuddered at the
impact? Did you think you’d run onto an uncharted rock and would go
down in a matter of minutes? Or was there someone who knew about the
sea, someone to put his arm around you and say, ‘It was only a wave,
darling’?”
Or I’d like to have asked Mistress Carver and the rest of them, “Did
it help to have other women aboard—or were you too miserable and
scared for woman-talk to be of any use?”
In one way, I’m sure I’m better off than they, for I have my assigned
duties to keep me from spending too much time in self-pity.
In addition to her job in the galley, Barbara had the personal
responsibility of taking care of Jessica. Since Jessica had no special
function on the boat, such as standing watch or preparing meals, she was
able to get a full night’s sleep and was the only one to whom boredom
during the day might have been a problem. Fortunately, her Journal had
developed from an assigned chore into a welcome challenge. She had
always enjoyed writing and now, in the absence of companions of her own
age, she spent more and more time experimenting with words and ideas.
In addition to her daily Journal entries, Jessica filled several
notebooks with imaginative stories which she illustrated in full color
and which served to keep us all entertained. One series in particular
afforded us great pleasure—her “Creatures,” complete from A (the
Alphabetabobbical Beast) to Z (the Znerrouch). The latter always left
his feelings lying about in a tangled web where they were inevitably
stepped on.
The worse the weather and the higher the waves the more fantastic (and
friendly) became the mythical creatures who had become Jessica’s closest
friends. She and Barbara were good companions as they shared work in the
galley or bent together over the day’s lessons, but when Barbara—tired
out after a sleepless night or just in need of an hour or two
alone—retired behind the curtains of her bunk, Jessica was never at a
loss. She kept herself busy and amused with reading, writing, and
studying, and when the weather got too rough to continue normal
activities, she quietly crawled into her bunk “to keep Mi-ke warm.”
Sometimes, at night, I would pass through the dark cabin and flash a
light in her direction to find her lying quiet, wide awake. She would
smile and wave, and I would go about my duties, immeasurably cheered.
These days our lives as well as our outlook were regulated by one major
influence: the weather. When the going was bad, we dug in and held on.
When the barometer rose, our spirits rose with it and we expanded
accordingly.
The great weather cycles, which flowed down out of the northwest,
carried us along with them for a few days and then gradually left us
behind, only to be replaced by the next. These cycles of alternating
barometric highs and lows lasted roughly a week each, and their nature
can best be described by brief excerpts from the log. One can begin
anywhere in the cycle:
11/23. Last night under full lowers, when heavy squall hit at 1930.
Kept on, after 1½ hours hard work changing sails, under mizzen,
trysail and storm jib. Continued so all night. Frontal passage at
0749, with sharp squall, heavy rain, and wind shift from SE to NW.
Jibed and continued E under same sails. Rain squalls passing at
intervals. Barometer rising at 0600.
11/24. Good run last night, with a slowly rising barometer and slowly
falling wind and sea—also good sleeping ... jib clew cringle broken.
11/25. A fine run last night—very slowly rising barometer, with wind
decreasing very slowly. Under mizzen, mainsail and foresail.... All
day, fast-moving, low wind clouds have been pouring out of NW, keeping
the wind up, with now and then a scattered short squall. Now under all
five lowers.
11/25 (_Number Two_). Another good run last night, barometer
continuing its slow rise. Last night’s Thanksgiving dinner great
success, socially and gastronomically. Menu: suimono, baked ham with
raisin sauce, mashed pot., candied sweet pot., creamed mixed veg.,
corn bread, pumpkin pie, ripe olives, grape juice, port wine, mixed
candies. Tonight _another_ Thanksgiving dinner (since we crossed date
line yesterday, through the excellent timing of the Skipper), but can
hardly expect it to come up to last night’s splendor.
11/26. At 0700, wind shifted to NNE, all night a series of squalls
have poured out of NW....
11/27. Same pattern as previous night ... low, fast-moving clouds,
each with a rush of wind that keeps the helmsman busy—sometimes with
rain. The seas are building ... the ship rides well. At 1000 put reef
in mizzen and 2nd reef in main. Changed course to 100° compass.
Barometer falling.
11/28. Bottom dropped out of barometer last night. (Barograph broken,
too rough for ink to stay in well.) Down 14 points overnight. Wind and
waves built up, hove to at 0800. Ship rides nicely. Had a big
breakfast and all hands turned in for some rest.
11/29. Hove to all night. Everybody got good rest. First full night’s
sleep I’ve had since trip began. Feel fine. Barometer fell slowly
until midnight (988 millibars), then rose slowly ... night clear and
stars shining brightly. Wind shifted between 2400 and 0200. Underway
again 0900.
And so, with the barometer rising, the wind dropping, and the seas
moderating, the cycle is completed, only to repeat itself during the
next week, and the next, and the next—as long as we remain in the
latitudes of the prevailing westerlies, above 30° North.
Just before the new low, there might be a day of calm:
12/2. Very quiet night—seas down and wind gentle. Today is drying and
cleaning day—first chance. Everything damp—for last several days have
slept on cabin floor, because of soaked bunk from Big Wave—so today is
a welcome respite. Started engine today, as a check, third time since
Nov. 1—started at once, no trouble. Checked food sacks. Moisture just
beginning to get to them. Will open the sacks that remain—dry and
grease where needed—should be okay for rest of trip.
Amazing odor—went on deck to find boys had got out their dried
squid—now soaked and moldy—and strewn them all over the cabintop, to
dry in the sun. Almost prefer bad weather.
Once we had crossed the date line and entered the Western Hemisphere—the
family’s part of the world—we felt that we were on the downhill run. The
morale of the ship’s company was high, where before we had been a bit
subdued and introspective, going around, as it were, with our mental
fingers crossed. Now, although we knew we still had a long way to go, we
felt that we had a pretty good example of what the Pacific had to offer
at this season and, although we did not much care for it, we had gained
confidence in our ship and in ourselves. These days we sailed through
weather that would have made us heave to earlier. This was not through
bravado, but because we now knew that it was safe to do so. Thus, our
average day’s run became encouragingly longer.
On December 5, at 163° West Longitude, we passed below the 30th parallel
and began to drop down on the Hawaiian Islands. On the chart we had
marked what we called “Position X,” a point about 60 miles north of the
island of Molokai, and for this we headed. Our plan was to round up
gradually on this point and then head directly south. Particularly, we
would be careful not to get too far west, which would put us downwind of
the islands.
Shortly after crossing the date line we had begun to pick up United
States radio stations, though we listened to them mainly to get news and
check our chronometer with a time signal. Now, as we neared our
destination, the Honolulu stations began to come in more and more
clearly. On December 8, while I was listening with earphones to the tag
end of the 1800 newscast, I heard the announcer say: “The Honolulu Coast
Guard says, ‘No word yet from the missing yacht _Phoenix_.’”
This bulletin came as a complete surprise to all of us. In fact, my
shipmates seemed inclined to believe at first that I was trying to pull
their collective leg. It seemed unlikely that anyone would be interested
in our arrival—certainly not to the extent of broadcasting our
_non_arrival. We speculated endlessly. “No word yet—” What word? Why
_should_ there be any word? How could they expect us to report when we
had no means of communication and had seen no ships for the past month?
Most important of all, we weren’t even overdue. The 45-day estimate I
had given the U.S. Navy and the Japanese Coast Guard before we left
Takamatsu had not yet elapsed, so it was too early for alarm. What did
it all mean?
We had to wait three more days before we found out.
We were heading almost due south now, pushed on by a steady, brisk
breeze out of the northeast. As far as this passage was concerned, we
went directly out of the westerlies into the northeast trades, and we
had no need of the extra drum of engine fuel we had brought along to get
us through the notorious variables and calms of the horse latitudes.
We could easily tell we were getting south, even without the obvious
evidence of sun and compass. Gradually we peeled off the woolens, long
johns, and parkas we had worn during most of the trip. The girls began
to come up on deck for sun baths, everyone went about in bare feet, and
Mickey, once more standing his regular watch, began to sing his Coconut
Song again.
Even the sea around us seemed to come to life. On December 7 we caught a
glimpse of a large marine animal, the first we had seen on the trip,
although birds had been with us most of the way. The next day
something—maybe this same creature—bit off our trailing taffrail log,
which had been turning faithfully for weeks. Fortunately, we had three
spares. That same day our first flying fish landed aboard, to be pounced
upon promptly by Mi-ke. (Although on later trips we frequently trolled a
line aft, on this passage we did no fishing, having quite enough to do
to handle our ship.)
On December 10 we reached Position X, according to our calculations, and
set our course due south. If Ted’s navigation was correct, we should
raise Molokai sometime that day. None of us voiced either confidence or
doubt, but we all spent a great deal of time on deck and there was
nothing casual in the way we searched the horizon.
At 1445 we saw a long, low cloud ahead on the horizon. At first no one
dared call attention to it, but when it did not change shape or melt
away but grew, instead, larger and more distinct, someone at last found
the temerity to voice the fact: “Land ho!”
There was no doubt about it now. As we drew closer we could discern the
jagged white line of a waterfall marking a dark cliff, and later still a
pencil-thin structure, obviously man-made, standing out against the
somber background. A quick check of our light list identified it as the
Molokai Lighthouse. Almost simultaneously, as the navigator let out a
triumphant shout, the light began to flash in the early dusk. We jibed
to the west, to run along the coast, and set a course for Makapuu Light,
the gateway to Honolulu.
By midnight we had closed in on Makapuu Light, passed through the
Molokai Channel, and were lying off Diamond Head in full view of the
lights, the beautiful lights, of Honolulu. Throughout the day small boat
warnings had been broadcast repeatedly, but to us, sailing in the lee of
Oahu after seven weeks on the open Pacific, the seas seemed as gentle as
a millpond. We had no desire to attempt the harbor entrance in the
darkness, so for the rest of the night we tacked, just offshore, from
Diamond Head to Pearl Harbor and back again.
Throughout the night Nick, Mickey, and Moto came up to take their watch
whenever they were called, but neither the sight of land nor the lure of
the unknown seemed to stir their Oriental calm. Smiling at us gently,
each one finished his job, took a casual look around, and went below to
sleep out the remainder of the night.
But for the family there was no desire to sleep. A full moon lighted a
path across the water; dramatic mountain silhouettes loomed darkly
behind the fairy-land lights of a thousand human habitations; and a
heady, never-before noticed scent of _land_ drifted out to us on the
offshore trades.
We sat together in the cockpit, singing Christmas carols and smelling
the flowers, the closest, happiest family in all the world.
4 ON TO THE SOUTH PACIFIC:
FROM HAWAII TO TAHITI
“Banzai!... Banzai!... Banzai!”
In the morning we entered Honolulu Harbor under power and were directed
to Pier 7, in the heart of the city. Quite a crowd had collected and
what with officials, newsmen, radio and television operators,
dockworkers, yachtsmen, and curious strangers, we found the confusion
intimidating after forty-seven days of isolation.
Even before the lines were made fast, reporters were shouting questions,
a television crew had asked us please to go out and come in again for
the benefit of their cameras (we didn’t), and our good friends the
Bushnells—who had spotted us from their home on the heights and rushed
down with fragrant leis—were breaking the news that Barbara’s mother had
flown in from Wisconsin only a day or two before and was awaiting our
arrival.
As the _Phoenix_ nudged the dock, an imposing individual cleared a space
around him and prepared to board. Our first American visitor. I
remembered my manners—we were back in the States, where one doesn’t bow,
but shakes hands. I extended mine. He promptly put his briefcase into
it, stepped aboard, and ordered all hands below. At once. No accepting
of leis. No conversation with well-wishers on the dock.
The reporters howled; the bystanders jeered; and Barbara, in the midst
of eager arrangements for getting in touch with her mother, had to be
dragged down the companionway. We went below.
Our first visitor did not announce his function, but we soon gathered
that he was the port doctor. We rather wondered why we could not at
least have spoken to the people on the pier. What obscure disease can be
transmitted by voice?
As the doctor left, Immigration arrived. We were delighted to produce
the hard-won passports and U.S. visas for the Japanese men. Next in line
was an agricultural inspector who apologetically threw overboard a
couple of tired potatoes. We didn’t want them anyway.
A truck arrived, with the ominous lettering “Animal Quarantine” on it,
and Mi-ke was snatched from Jessica’s arms and whisked away to a cell.
We could have her back in four months we were told—and, no—the time
spent at sea could _not_ be applied on the quarantine period! It was
evident that whatever terrible germs might find their way into Honolulu
they wouldn’t include rabies. As an anthropologist, my own feeling was
that these precautions, while commendable, were a bit late, since a far
worse disease, the white man, had long ago taken a firm grip on the
islands.
At last the officials moved on and we were free to come and go—but not
before the location of the Customs Office had been pointed out to me,
with instructions to report there as soon as possible. We had just been
introduced to a new aspect of cruising: the inevitable bout with
officialdom, just when you are longing to get ashore after weeks at sea.
Necessary, perhaps, but infinitely frustrating.
Taking a deep breath we went up to join our patient friends—and ran into
the second land-based hazard of cruising: reporters. Frankly, I was a
little surprised to find the press in Honolulu so interested in our
arrival. After all, boats by the hundreds come in here and they have to
sail a good long way to get to the islands, no matter which land they
set out from. Then why all the excitement about us?
I answered questions from reporters with half of my mind and tried to
carry on a conversation with friends with the other. All of us gathered
together when told to and smiled when asked and waved upon request—and
breathed a sigh of relief when at last the reporters and photographers
left.
Hours later, on my way back from the Customs Office, I bought a paper
whose headlines screamed: LOST YACHT ARRIVES! _What a coincidence_, I
thought. _Another yacht—and on the same day!_ Only after I looked at the
accompanying picture did I realize that the “lost yacht” referred to was
the _Phoenix_!
This news took a bit of digesting. Gradually, as our friends filled us
in, we learned that for more than a week we had been the subject of a
running story started, perhaps, when friends who were expecting us had
called the Honolulu Coast Guard to ask for news.
“Yacht _Phoenix_?” The C.G. had no information. “Coming from Japan?
Never heard of her, but we’ll see what we can find out.”
A query was sent to the Japanese Coast Guard who, checking back, noted
that a heavy storm had lashed Japan shortly after we sailed. Further
research dug up an early news story indicating our original intention
to sail up the coast before heading out to sea. A belated search of
coastal waters turned up no wreckage of the _Phoenix_, no coastal
station reported having seen her after her departure from
Takamatsu.—Reluctantly, Japanese officials notified the U.S.C.G., “No
trace of yacht _Phoenix_”—and the panic was on.
Conflicting reports began to crop up and were given international
publicity. One, from an “authoritative source,” said we had “undoubtedly
gone down with all hands”—a nicely flavored nautical phrase. Barbara’s
mother, approached for comment, expressed confidence that all was well.
A “Japanese naval expert” (our old friend Takemura?) was next quoted as
saying that our ship was “built for the Inland Sea and would never
withstand the rough waters of the North Pacific,” while another “expert”
was found to maintain that a sturdier, better-built boat had never
existed. “They’re safe”—“They’re lost”—“Hope dims”—“Hope
revived”—headlines argued back and forth.
One article, the most bizarre of the lot, reported that a radio
communication from the _Phoenix_ had been received in Hiroshima to the
effect that we were safe and would reach Hawaii “in a few days.”
Eventually we tracked this down. A message had been received—of a sort:
Moto’s mother had visited a shrine, where she had received assurance
from On High that all was well with the _Phoenix_. She had passed the
word along to the anxious relatives of the other men, the word had
spread, and the newspapers got hold of the story. When the overseas news
service picked it up, however, they failed to recognize that a “message”
could be heavenly as well as electronic. In their own version, they
presupposed a radio contact without bothering to inquire whether we
actually had a radio transmitter aboard.
When we protested the inaccuracy—and the cruelty to anxious friends and
relatives—of such irresponsible reporting, a newspaper acquaintance
shrugged off our indignation.
“It’s just formula stuff,” he assured us. “Yacht sails—yacht has
trouble—yacht does (or doesn’t) arrive. Sometime during the trip there
has to be a crisis—a big storm—a man overboard—or just, as in your case,
no word at all. That’s always good for at least a couple of ‘overdue’ or
‘lost’ stories. If the boat is _really_ lost, the accuracy of the press
is upheld. If it turns up—so much the better, because everyone feels
good and we can do follow-up stories, general rejoicing, and big
headlines.”
“Like ‘LOST YACHT ARRIVES’?”
He shrugged. “Anyway, it sells papers.” And then he added, a bit
defensively, “Our paper hasn’t any objection to reporting the truth—so
long as it doesn’t interfere with our circulation.”
In our case the news value was enhanced by the interracial character of
our crew and the tremendous interest in the _Phoenix_ which was felt not
only in Japan but throughout the substantial Japanese-American community
of the Hawaiian Islands. The two Japanese-language newspapers gave the
story a big play. The Japanese Consul General paid his respects within
hours of our arrival. The Hiroshima Ken Society (composed of hundreds of
first-generation immigrants from Hiroshima Prefecture) scheduled a
Welcome Banquet in honor of our men. And a cable from Japan informed us
that a “Yacht _Phoenix_ Supporters’ Association” had been organized,
with Governor Ohara of Hiroshima Province as President.
This unexpected interest and publicity impressed us forcefully with the
fact that our voyage was no longer a private affair. Whatever we did or
said would be magnified by the press, both in Japan and locally. This
put the problem of Mickey in a different light. Our instinct against
washing one’s dirty linen in public had kept us from saying anything to
press or public about Mickey’s failure, but the problem still had to be
faced among ourselves.
My own feeling was that we should send him back to Japan, and the family
felt the same. We had proved we could manage without him during the
worst that we were likely to encounter in the way of weather and it
seemed foolish to carry as supercargo someone who might at any time
become a liability.
To my surprise, when I mentioned the subject to Moto and Nick, I found
them unalterably opposed. My point of view was the narrow one of the
skipper of a boat trying to make a successful circumnavigation; but my
men were no longer thinking merely as yachtsmen. They had been greeted
as representatives of Japan and they felt the responsibility keenly. A
loss of “face” was involved. If one of them were to be sent back, the
failure would reflect upon them all. In fact, there was the definite
implication that if one went they would all feel obliged to go.
As is usually the case, no decision could be entirely satisfactory. If I
kept Mickey, I felt he would be a constant threat to our success—not
just from the standpoint of a weak stomach but because of his
personality. Nick and Moto, however, were emphatically positive that he
would turn out all right. We talked it over at tedious length and
finally decided to keep Mickey—on sufferance—at least for a while.
After several days at the commercial dock, we were given permission to
move to the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor, near Waikiki. Here we quickly made the
acquaintance of fellow yachtsmen and, for the first time, had the real
joy of visiting other yachts, of inviting friends aboard for coffee and
yarns, and of hearing at first hand the experiences and opinions of
men—and women—who had sailed all over the Pacific. We learned that the
trip from California to Honolulu, or from Honolulu down to Tahiti, is
considered the “milk run” by local seagoing yachtsmen. They had a
certain respect for our Japan to Honolulu crossing, however, and we were
human enough to be gratified.
Our _Phoenix_, with her rugged build, heavy masts, and massive tiller,
looked a bit crude among the chrome and varnish of her sleek neighbors
but, as Moto said in a series of articles he was writing for a
Japanese-language paper, “Our boat is the roughest looking boat in the
yacht harbor, but one of the most respected.”
All seven of us were made honorary members of the Hawaii Yacht Club,
which Barbara and I later joined officially. Earlier, while still in
Japan, I had joined the American Yachtsmen’s Association, which gave us
outstanding help throughout our entire voyage. Soon we added still
another burgee—that of the Seven Seas Cruising Association, composed of
cruising yachtsmen who live aboard their craft and keep in touch with
one another by means of a monthly bulletin to which all the S.S.C.A.
“Commodores” contribute.
Every day brought visitors to the _Phoenix_. Some of them, naturally,
were friends of ours, or friends of friends, but so many were people of
Japanese ancestry who bowed and chatted in their native tongue with
Nick, Mickey, and Moto that I sometimes wondered whether we weren’t
still tied up to the dock in Hiroshima.
“I thought you said you didn’t know anyone in Honolulu,” I remarked to
Moto, after several days had passed with no slackening in the steady
stream of callers.
“Yes!” Moto agreed happily. “We don’t! But Hawaii people very kind, very
_friend_.”
Indeed they were “very friend.” Day after day shiny black limousines
drew up at the docks and discharged Japanese-speaking callers bringing
gifts: clothes, cartons of cigarettes, baskets of fruit, flowers, cakes,
Japanese delicacies of all kinds—and invitations without number.
Thus began a period during which we were treated to a hospitality such
as few tourists, I am sure, have ever experienced. Our own list of haole
(white) friends grew rapidly and we had no lack of invitations, which we
could accept without qualms, knowing that our Japanese companions also
were having a fine time. Only three or four times did our paths cross:
once when we were all invited to a most enjoyable family dinner with the
Japanese Consul General, Mr. Hatoyama, his charming wife, and three of
their ten children; once when I was speaker at a Hawaii Yacht Club
dinner; and once for a never-to-be-forgotten “Welcome Party” given by
the Hiroshima Ken Society. All the guests were male (except Barbara and
Jessica), and the food, utensils, and speeches were entirely Japanese.
Mickey had apparently been elected spokesman for the _Phoenix_ crew and
he made a stirring speech, complete with gestures and bravado. For the
first time we experienced the rafter-raising Japanese cheer, a chorus
shouted at top voice from over two hundred enthusiastic throats:
“Banzai!... Banzai!... Banzai!” and we were proud that our Japanese
companions should be so honored.
In spite of an active social life and my own commitment for a series of
three articles about our trip, we managed to make time for a great deal
of work on the boat. In addition to drydocking and doing a routine
overhaul, we put in a number of improvements based on our hard-earned
knowledge of what was needed most. With the proceeds from my articles, I
was able to install a 12-volt electrical system, which only those who
have returned, however briefly, to the onerous, overheated, and smelly
age of kerosene can appreciate. Not only did this remove the necessity
for reaching for one’s flashlight before trying to move about at night,
but it made it possible for each of us to enjoy the infinite luxury of
reading in our bunks. It was an improvement, too, from the standpoint of
safety, for it became a simple matter to flick on masthead light or
sidelights at the first sign of an approaching ship. I also installed a
Navy surplus radiotelephone which, although we had no intention of using
it routinely, was a comforting thing to have around.
Changes were made in the galley, too. Previously, Barbara had had to
wire her pots to the stove—a tricky and sometimes dangerous maneuver in
rough weather. Now we set up the stove in gimbals so it would always
remain level—a sometimes fantastic sight at sea when it often appears as
if the pots on the stove are the only things tilting and that liquid
must remain in them by some kind of magic. We put in sink pumps for both
fresh and salt water—the latter, as Moto described it, connecting us to
“the biggest water tank in the world.” And we put in two more bilge
pumps, one off the engine and one which went out to the turn of the
bilge and also served to empty the sink. These changes, naturally, had
the enthusiastic endorsement of the cook as well as of Ted, whose galley
boy work was thereby considerably lightened.
Shortly after our arrival a Mr. Yotsuda from the northern island of
Kauai, had flown over to welcome us. He was a brother of the Yotsuda-san
in Japan who had built the _Phoenix_ and he had extracted a promise from
us that we would visit a little “The Garden Isle” before we sailed for
the South Seas.
By March Art Nelson, the local sailmaker, had completed the genoa jib I
had ordered for the fair-weather trade-wind sailing we hopefully
anticipated and, with all the rest of the work done, we felt we were in
fair shape for sea. It seemed high time to keep our promise to Mr.
Yotsuda and give the _Phoenix_ (and crew) a chance to try her wings
again.
Early in March we set sail for Kauai, a hundred miles to the northwest.
The trip, which we had hoped would be short, routine, and enjoyable,
turned out to be otherwise. The channel was rough, the wind was fickle,
we were soft—and it took three days. On the last evening a stiff breeze
sprang up that threatened to pile us onto the unknown lee shores of
Kauai. Ted and I had an uneasy time of it until we sighted land, but it
was too late to go in, so, once again, we tacked back and forth all
night. What with keeping an eye on the lights and rousing the men every
couple of hours to come about, we got little sleep as we waited for
daylight to arrive so that we could round the breakwater and enter the
beautifully protected bay of Nawiliwili. Happily exhausted, we dropped
the hook a few hundred feet from shore and crawled into our bunks.
Within five minutes we had visitors—the East Kauai Hiroshima Ken
Association, led by Mr. Yotsuda, who had a full program lined up for us.
Under his direction we turned on the engine and motored into the dock
where a place of honor had been reserved. On shore, a caravan of cars
was waiting and in no time we were on our way.
That day we saw all the points of natural beauty or historic interest on
the east side of the island—and they are many. A full day ended with a
formal banquet and many speeches.
It was after midnight before we were returned to the boat. At seven the
next morning we were aroused by more visitors—this time, the _West_
Kauai Hiroshima Ken Association who did the honors for the other side of
the island, including the banquet—and the speeches! If, that night, we
were all a little sleepy, there was general agreement that it had been
well worth it!
We also received an invitation from the Kauai Yacht Club, but because of
club policy it was extended only to the haole members of our group. This
gave rise to a situation we had discussed at some length: the
probability that in the course of our world cruise we would run into
discrimination. It was distressing, however, that it had arisen first in
the friendly Hawaiian Islands—and particularly that it should be a yacht
club which excluded certain yachtsmen on the basis of race.
The family’s first inclination was to decline but Nick, Mickey, and Moto
were more realistic. As they pointed out, they had already received more
invitations than they could accept, many of which did not include us.
The most sensible course, they seemed to feel, was for all of us to take
things as they came and enjoy whatever hospitality appealed to us. We
accepted the invitation, therefore, and tried, by our attitude and
conversation, to sow what seeds of tolerance we could.
While we were in Kauai, Mr. Yotsuda continued to consider himself our
official host. “Did brother build you a good boat?” he asked, one day.
“Is there anything you would like to change?”
I assured him that we were well satisfied with his brother’s work, but
we would like to extend the stern sprit someday, in order to set up a
permanent backstay for the mizzen. The next day Mr. Yotsuda appeared at
dockside with his own tools and stayed until the job was done.
Boatbuilding, it appears, runs in the family, and the _Phoenix_ had
become a family affair.
After two pleasant weeks we headed back to Oahu and Honolulu. As it
happened, the return trip was rougher, if possible, and took a day
longer than the passage up. Our initiation into trade-wind island
hopping had been unfortunate, and I could see signs of disillusionment
and rebellion among the women—particularly when we had to spend two days
within sight of Honolulu, beating our way in. It was a hard lesson in
the vicissitudes of sailing upwind and I discovered that Barbara and
Jessica had a tendency—regrettable in those who must depend on the
wind—to chafe a bit when land was in sight.
We spent only a few days on Oahu, during which time we loaded aboard
canned goods in case lots for an estimated six months. Then, bidding
farewell to the many friends we had made, and with promises to return
“in a few years,” we moved on to Maui. With us we took, as guest
“hitchsailor,” Alan Pooley, the son of Wisconsin friends, who provided
welcome companionship to Ted.
In Maui the Japanese community again took us to its heart but this time
they had to compete with the hospitality of Al and Verity Collins, known
throughout the cruising world as hosts to visiting yachtsmen. Did we
want some laundry done? Bring it on up to the house and dump it in the
machine. Hot baths? Come on over—any time! Shopping to do? Here’s Al, at
the dockside with his car, ready to take you anywhere you want to go.
The climax of our stay on Maui was the two-day trip into Haleakala, the
world’s largest extinct volcano crater. With us went our young guest,
Alan, enjoying his last adventure before returning to the mainland,
despite the minor inconvenience of a broken arm, obtained by falling
down our forward hatch. (This was the first accident aboard and we
sincerely hoped it would be the last.)
Our last memory of Lahaina is of the farewell party and hula show put on
for us at dockside just before our departure. As we cast off the lines
to the strains of “Little Brown Gal,” we suddenly noticed that Jessica
was still sitting on the edge of the dock, her back to the _Phoenix_, so
engrossed in the performance that she was quite unaware of our
departure. Hastily I put the engine in reverse, Moto tossed a line to
shore, and willing hands boosted her up over the stern sprit—together
with three more cakes and another stalk of bananas in case we should get
hungry on the overnight trip to the Big Island (Hawaii).
Sailing on down the Kona (leeward) coast of Big Island, we spent
several days in Kealakekua Bay, where Captain Cook was killed. The
bronze plaque which supposedly marks the place of his death was under
a couple of feet of water, a short distance offshore. We could never
have found it without the help of “Cap’n” Glass, a salty-looking old
landlubber-turned-yachtsman. Even Cap’n Glass, however, could not tell
us _how_ the marker had managed to end up in such an unusual spot.
Water risen? Land sunk? We’d still like to know the details.
At Napoopoo we decided to make a further test of our new equipment by
beating around South Point and up to Hilo, against both wind and
current. I had good reason to believe that the trip would be rugged and
some instinct made me suggest that the women go across the island by
bus, a trip of only a few hours, to wait for the rest of us in Hilo.
Barbara acquiesced with mixed emotions. In her diary she noted:
“Deserted the _Phoenix_. It was a queer, rootless feeling to watch her
moving out of the harbor far below us while we were driven along the
upper road on our way to the station wagon-cum-bus.”
Four days later in Hilo, she noted in her diary: “Our _Phoenix_ was
sighted this evening.... How wonderfully the Japanese grapevine works!
Three members of the Hiroshima Ken Society were waiting at the dock when
Earle and Ted rowed in to shore for the first time. Already we’re dated
up for the Welcome Dinner plus a day of sightseeing around Hilo and
another day touring the Volcano Area.”
We were exceptionally fortunate in visiting the Big Island during the
1955 volcanic eruptions, so that we had far more than the usual tourist
excursion through Hawaii National Park. New cinder cones were being
pushed up daily within easy driving distance of Hilo. In startling
contrast to other countries, where volcanoes claim innumerable lives and
force a mass exodus, Hawaii’s volcanic goddess, Pele, has a reputation
for benevolence. One of the favorite expeditions, day or night, was to
the scene of current activity. Tourists and locals alike, serenely
confident, flock to watch and photograph her pyrotechnic displays or to
scoop up—on a very long stick—souvenirs of molten lava.
I was absorbed, however, with preparations for our long hop to Tahiti,
2,200 miles to the south. The constant work and pressure took up so much
time and energy that I almost resented the interruptions of volcanoes,
hospitality, and the ubiquitous visitor with his often ludicrous
questions. A couple of sailors from a naval ship wanted to know where we
kept our gyrocompass—and they weren’t kidding. A Hawaiian housewife, too
broad even to attempt getting down the main hatch, expressed incredulity
and distress when she learned that Barbara had to get along without a
washing machine. And a gang of modern teen-agers, far from envying Ted’s
adventure, seemed rather to feel sorry for him because we didn’t have
TV!
I was so preoccupied, in fact, that I was completely unaware of
Barbara’s feelings or of the struggle she was having with herself as the
date of our departure drew near. And not until several years later,
after our trip had been successfully completed, did she allow me to read
notations she had made in her diary at that time:
This whole period has been an emotionally confused one.
Intellectually, I _know_ that no trip to come will be as bad as the
hop from Japan, but like the rat who’s been shocked too many times, I
have a deep-rooted dread of starting off again. A thousand times I’ve
wanted to cry out, “I can’t go on with it—I just _can’t_!” Yet I know
I must. I can’t be the one to let Earle down—and after the trip around
from Kona, when the men batched it, and have taken every occasion to
tell me how important I am to their well-being and how morale suffered
when I was not along.
It’s supposed to be good to be wanted, but I feel only resentment. The
few wonderful, relaxing days at the Y.W.C.A. were not enough and when
we moved back to the _Phoenix_ it was with reluctance and a sense of
being cheated. And yet, I wouldn’t have wanted her any more delayed,
for the last day or two before they arrived was no pleasure because of
my anxiety over the lack of communication.
If that trip showed the men that they needed my contribution, it also
served to show me that as long as the _Phoenix_ continues on her
voyage with Earle aboard, I have no choice but to string along.
Watching and wondering is much the hardest part!
On May 26, 1955, with a high barometer but amid showers and overcast
sky, the _Phoenix_ set out from Hilo on the long trip south. We felt
much better equipped, both shipwise and personally, than we had been
when we left Takamatsu exactly six months earlier, but I can personally
vouch for it that Barbara was not the only one who had some private
trepidation. One thing we were certain of, however: we could at least
_expect_ better conditions than on the North Pacific trip.
It was our plan to make as much easting as possible in the early stages
of the trip, so that at the southern end, when we reached the area of
the southeast trades, we could make the port of Papeete, Tahiti, without
undue effort.
For the first four days the weather, as well as myself, was uncertain.
The pattern is shown in the log:
During night about a dozen mild squalls passed over, with or without
clouds and rain. My sleep was governed by these visitors, as we had
left the four lowers up, and I half expected something to carry away.
Each time a squall passed, with no sound of smashing blocks or
flapping canvas, and no call for help from the man at the tiller, I
sank again into an uneasy sleep. But all held, and my lost sleep was
wasted, for the night passed without incident and we made good time.
Our taffrail log was misbehaving, and I broke out the spare (which I had
bought from a fellow yachtsman in Honolulu). For a while, we trailed
them both—to port and starboard. The Big Log doggedly and steadily
recorded that we were going 3 knots while the Little Log insisted that
we were making 9. Making use of a Dutchman’s log, I determined that we
were making about 5 knots, and Ted and I tried to work out the
mathematics that would reconcile the two.
Also, we now had two sextants, as I had picked up an extra in a
secondhand shop in the islands. It seemed to work fine—at least Ted and
I, each shooting the sun at the same time with a different instrument,
were able to get within five miles of each other, and this was quite
good enough for us.
The weather, after its bad beginning, steadily improved until by the
eighth day out it was perfect. Now, however, at about 10° North
Latitude, we began to run out of wind. Each day it got a little lighter.
My log asks one word, “Doldrums?”
The following day we ran the engine, on a course due south, for seven
hours, to help us get into the southeast trades, and by the tenth day we
picked up light but steady airs from the new direction. Slowly they
increased, as we worked our way south.
Our radio listening was confined to five minutes a day—from a station in
Los Angeles—at which time we caught a short roundup of the news and a
time signal, to check our chronometer. That was all we wanted or needed.
If anything of world-shattering importance happened, we knew it would be
covered in that brief newscast. The rest could wait. My log says:
So far, this trip, compared with the N. Pacific crossing, has been a
quiet afternoon’s sail on the Bay, complete with sunbathing, naps,
reading, games, and drinks—not, unfortunately, cold. It’s full moon
now and we stayed on deck late last night in a scene of fantastic
beauty.
We had moved to better locations the last-minute miscellaneous items
that had crammed the life raft on departure, and now we found the raft a
perfect family playpen and a fine spot for astronomy lessons from Ted.
We had time, too, for family games, such as Twenty Questions or Teapot,
and for conversation, that forgotten art. Unconsciously we bridged the
gap of years as we shared our reading and our thoughts and kicked ideas
around. There was a new sense of relaxation. Hatches and portholes were
left open day after day, and meals were often served on deck. Gradually
we dared to believe that perhaps deep-sea cruising didn’t _have_ to be
under conditions such as we had experienced on the Long Shakedown—given
the proper latitudes and the right season of the year.
Mickey continued in good health and spirits and I began to hope that
that problem, too, was a thing of the past. Occasionally, when it was
the watch of one of the men, the others would join him to hold long
conversations. Once the discussion became so vehement that I almost
feared they would come to blows. Overcome with curiosity, I joined them
in the cockpit and listened silently although I could catch nothing of
the quick and colloquial man’s idiom.
They were discussing Japan, Nick explained then—whether their country’s
future was a “dead end,” as one of them apparently maintained, or
whether there was cause for optimism. Also, I gathered there was some
divergence of opinion about the United States—or as much of it as they
had seen so far. One was apparently outspoken in his enthusiasm, while
the others remained noncommittal. These points of view were not
identified and I could only hazard a guess on the basis of incomplete
knowledge. In Japan, the inseparable comrades had been Nick and Moto,
both inclined to be reserved and thoughtful. As Nick had once told me,
“We are like brothers. I am sorry for Mickey. He is outside.” It seemed
likely to me that the ebullient, quicksilver Mickey would have been the
one to take immediately to the ease and glitter of American living,
while Nick and Moto, more conservative, would tend to reserve judgment.
On the other hand, during our stay in Hawaii I had noted an increasing
tendency for Mickey to replace Nick, as Moto’s friend and companion.
Often the two younger men had gone off sightseeing together, while Nick
remained on board alone to read, to write letters, or to listen to
music. At the time we attached little importance to this and certainly,
once we put to sea again, there seemed to be no real schism among the
three who ate and chatted animatedly together in the cockpit or around
the table in the main cabin.
Only a few incidents served to mark the passage of time. Trouble
developed with the head of the topmast and one afternoon we struck it—in
one hour and twenty minutes, which I thought not too bad for a first
attempt at sea although, of course, we were working under favorable
conditions. The iron cap at the head was completely off—faulty design on
my part—and we started fixing it in a leisurely sort of way.
Another day we had our first experience of sea life on a large scale: a
school of hundreds of dolphinlike creatures, which sent Jessica
scurrying below for her Journal and reference books. We saw them first
off the starboard beam, where they passed well forward of us and seemed
to be passing on their way. Suddenly they turned en masse and headed
directly for our boat. For two hours we were completely surrounded. How
many there were we couldn’t determine, but they extended as far as the
eye could see and we had a matchless opportunity for taking pictures and
enjoying their graceful performance.
Through illustrations in Jessica’s Book of Knowledge, we identified them
as blackfish, a small variety of whale. They ranged in length from 12 to
15 feet, had short snouts and round foreheads with a blowhole on top.
They seemed to be enjoying themselves, expelling air with audible snorts
as they surfaced, or slapping their heads on the water with a thwack
before they went under again. Sometimes a platoon of three or four would
curve out of the water in graceful precision, or dive in formation
beneath the boat. Others seemed to make a game out of swimming back and
forth just in front of the bobstay chain as it cut the water.
After more than two hours they slowly thinned out and moved on, but
several times during the night the man at the tiller could recognize the
distinctive _whumph_ of a straggler, surfacing and blowing just beside
the boat.
Two days later, on June 10, at 150° 20′ West Longitude, we crossed the
equator at about 2100 and were, for the first time in our lives, in the
Southern Hemisphere.
Had our Equator Crossing Celebration. Menu included roast chicken,
cranberry sauce, brown rice, spinach, olives, pumpernickel, chicken
broth, hot tea, peaches, fresh-baked “Equator” cakes. Also, there were
individual place cards, paper hats, and candy favors, courtesy of
Jessica. A gala time indeed, which began with a splash when hot broth
spilled in Nick’s lap. But no harm done, since we had plenty of broth.
As far as the operation of the boat was concerned, we were proceeding
smoothly. We had finally settled our two immediate problems, the log—we
now used the Small Log with a correction factor—and the topmast, which
we had repaired and restepped. Now, for the first time, we carried our
full canvas: main, mizzen, foresail, genoa jib, mizzen staysail,
topsail, and top jib. I wished there were some way we could take a
picture, as we had never seen ourselves fully decked out.
On this trip we trailed a fishing line but only occasionally did we
catch an addition to the menu. Near the equator, however, the man on
midnight watch pulled in a long, thin, toothed fish, which looked like
nothing we had ever seen before. It definitely did not look edible. In
the morning I hunted in vain through my book on Deep Sea Fishes.
Suddenly Barbara had an inspiration.
“I’m sure I’ve seen a picture of that fish somewhere!” she insisted. She
ran her eye along the titles of the books in our shelves and pulled out
_Kon-Tiki_.
“There it is!” she announced. She pointed triumphantly to a photograph
of the _gempylus_, or snake mackerel, which had found its way aboard the
raft at about the same latitude. Our visitor was its twin
brother—snakelike body, vicious needle-sharp teeth in an undershot jaw,
saucer eyes, and all. _Kon-tiki’s gempylus_, we read, had been the first
specimen ever found alive, so we recognized our catch as something a bit
out of the ordinary. Sacrificing all the spare alcohol on board
(methylated spirits, rubbing alcohol from the medicine chest, and just a
splash or two of gin), we popped our trophy into a spare five-gallon can
and covered him with spirits. I didn’t know exactly what we were going
to do with him, but he seemed too unusual to discard.
About this time we made a discovery which was to have far-reaching
consequences. Crawling around on the deck we found a number of glossy,
hard-shelled, beetle-like insects. The first one or two I captured and
placed in a glass jar, thinking them isolated specimens of an insect
found hundreds of miles from the nearest land. As more turned up,
however, I reconsidered. Had they actually boarded us on the high seas
or were they stowaways? And, if the latter, where had they hidden, and
what damage might they be expected to do? Eventually we were to find
out, with distressing consequences.
On June 18 in anticipation of our arrival in Tahiti—and in honor of
Father’s Day—Barbara and Jessica presented me with a French flag they
had made. Like our international signal flags, it was concocted from
flag material I had bought in a job lot from my old standby back in
Kure, Japan: the BCOF salvage depot. This lot—one of my “sight unseen”
bargains—consisted of a couple of bushels of assorted ensigns, in
conditions ranging from brand-new to moth-eaten. Among them were flags
for Russia and Red China, each about the size of a badminton court, and
all of them made in Sydney, Australia—a circumstance which we found
mildly curious.
We were now about 12° South and had to be careful to give Matahiva, to
the east, a wide berth. We passed it in the night, and set a course to
clear Tetiaroa, north of Tahiti. Now that we were approaching our
landfall, the problem of communications again became crucial. Although
Mickey and Moto were improving rapidly in their ability to understand
English, occasional incidents served to remind me that much of our
speech was restricted to highly selective bands, like a radiotelephone.
For example, if I wanted the figures from the log, it was necessary to
tune in to the proper wave length: “What is the log?” If I forgot and,
poking my head up through the hatch, inquired breezily “What are we
making?” I would be greeted by a polite but blank stare. The same
applied to any of the other dozens of circumlocutions which I might use
with Ted: “How’re we doing?” or “Has our speed picked up (or dropped)?”
or even “What’s the log say?”
All of our ship work operated through such narrow, but clear channels.
We communicated in a kind of basic English. Instead of saying, “Hand me
the painter,” I would say, “Give me the small boat rope.” We didn’t
strike sails, we took them down; we didn’t make fast, we tied.
Sometimes situations arose for which no channel of communication
existed, and at such times problems arose. Take the following incident
from the log:
We are approaching Tahiti now. Therefore, some time ago I made a
little speech to the crew, emphasizing that I wanted particular care
to be taken in making good the compass course assigned, in reading and
reporting the data from the log, etc. The purpose, of course, I
explained, was so that we would have a reliable dead-reckoning
position, if the weather closed in on us, and it became impossible to
take sights as we approached land.
It seemed to me that this was well understood by the men. On the
morning of the 17th, as we worked on our dead-reckoning position, Ted
and I noted that our speed had dropped off sharply between midnight,
when I went off watch, and 0600, when I next checked the log—dropped,
in fact, from the steady 6–7 knots we had been making to a little over
4.
I asked Nick, “Everything all right last night?” “Sure, okay!” (That
international word!) “Was the wind the same, all night?” Nick
consulted with Moto and Mickey. “Yes.” “Same as now?” “Yes.”
I went back to our figures, but they still didn’t jibe; I tried again.
“Are you sure you gave me correct log figures?” Another conference.
“Yes, okay.” Then either the log was defective or we _must_ have lost
speed during the night, because now we were again running between 6
and 7 knots.
There was a long conference this time. Finally Nick said, “Mickey says
log no good his watch.” “Why not?” “Fish line tangle with log
line—long time to fix—Mickey thinks log no good then?” “I think—maybe
not,” I said, and retired to my cabin to cool down.
We passed Tetiaroa in the darkness on the night of June 19 and estimated
that we should see Venus Point light before daylight. At 0500 we picked
up the flashes dead ahead and set our clocks—and our spirits—on Tahiti
time.
As dawn broadened into day we could see the peaks of the magnificent
island take form, their green serrated ridges touched with yellow in the
early morning sun. As we approached Papeete, a rainbow arched over the
town, giving us an auspicious welcome. We worked our way through the
pass and a pilot boat, whose assistance is obligatory in these islands,
came out to meet us and guide us to our berth. The pilot—quite
naturally—spoke French, putting the burden of reply on Barbara, who,
groping wildly for the appropriate foreign language, came up with only
Japanese! Her confusion was only temporary, however, and soon we were
able to inform the pilot that our top speed was a possible three knots.
This was too slow to suit our escort (too slow, here in the South
Seas?), so we were put on a tow and hustled into the harbor.
There, at 1000 on June 20, twenty-seven days and 2,500 miles out of
Hilo, we dropped anchor in the harbor of Papeete—the first port of our
trip that was truly foreign to us all.
5 TAHITI AND THE
ISLANDS UNDER THE WIND
“Money? What I do with money?”
In Papeete, yachts are not just visitors—they are integral parts of the
community. The _Phoenix_ was moored stern first to the sea wall on the
harbor side of the main street, between the luxury cruising schooner _Te
Vega_ and the 30-foot ketch _Tahiti_. Like them, we laid out a gangplank
to the shore and, since the rise and fall of the tide is negligible, it
needed no adjustment during the month of our stay.
Thus established as semipermanent residents, we settled down to enjoy
our central location. From the cockpit or while working on deck (always
there was work to be done) we could watch the world of French Oceania as
it went by, ceaselessly, from before dawn on one day until the wee small
hours of the next. Here comes a woman, pushing her bicycle with a small
and squealing pig dangling from the handle bars by its trussed trotters;
there go a group of laughing Polynesians, loaded with bundles and
crowned with circlets of leaves and brilliant hibiscus blossoms, on
their way to board an interisland schooner bound for the Tuamotus.
Sometimes a squad of tidily uniformed children passes by, shepherded by
a nun in a white habit; or a bearded priest in a round-crowned hat
cycles past, his cassock flying.
The center of town, however—and one of the most fascinating aspects of
Papeete—is the open-air market. From 4:30 A.M. on, buses full of
humanity, with roofs piled high with stalks of bananas, bunches of
coconuts, strings of fish, trussed fowl and indignant pigs, pour in from
the outlying districts. On the waterfront similar cargoes are being
unloaded. Stalls in the market fill rapidly and the whole town pours in
with baskets to shop for the day’s supplies.
Most visitors make an effort to get up early—or stay up late enough—to
pay at least one visit to the Papeete market, but for Barbara the 5:30
trip to market was not only fun but essential. By seven o’clock most of
the fresh vegetables are gone and the fish are beginning to wilt in the
heat. By eight nothing is left but the picked-over discards. The buses,
loaded once again with produce which looks the same but which has,
presumably, changed hands, pull noisily out of the market square and
head back to the villages. By 8:30 the market is deserted and, had we
overslept, it would have been impossible to buy fresh food for that day.
Usually I went with Barbara for companionship and to help bring home the
booty, but mostly to marvel at the display. The Papeete market is the
only place I know where a magnificent branch of bleached coral, a fresh
pig’s head, and a flagon of Chanel No. 5 may be found sharing counter
space in a single stall. Surprises were never-ending and, after we had
made our purchases for the day—red-fleshed tuna chunks threaded on a
string, a small mound of tomatoes at an exorbitant price, or a woven
palm-leaf basket of fresh limes for practically nothing, basket
included—we usually wandered through the crowded aisles admiring the
color and variety of the wares.
On the way home, in broad daylight, we would stop at a little café to
enjoy a prebreakfast café au lait, served in a cup the size of a soup
bowl.
Back at the _Phoenix_, the rest of the gang would still be asleep,
awakening only reluctantly at the insistent clanging of the breakfast
bell. Although they shared an inclination to lie abed, we were actually
very proud of our crew and received frequent compliments on their
industry. Old-timers, who had seen many a yacht come to grief in Tahiti
on the rocks of crew trouble, were greatly impressed with Nick, Mickey,
and Moto. Far from spending their time in the bars, they worked for a
part of every day on the endless small jobs of upkeep without which a
boat—and a cruise—begins to come apart at the seams. This was a routine
we had established in Hawaii, even in the midst of a whirlwind round of
hospitality: half a day for the boat, half a day for fun. Nights didn’t
count!
My own tasks, though less obvious than painting in the hot sun or
greasing stays, included the ever-onerous and time-consuming jobs of
locating and purchasing needed supplies, current or for the future, and
the cutting of red tape in preparation for further voyaging. For
instance, while in Papeete I obtained permission from the Governor to
visit “Les Iles Sous Les Vents”—The Islands Under the Wind—in the French
Oceania Group; I cabled the New Zealand authorities for permission to
visit Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands; and I wrote the American Consul in
New Caledonia about the possibility of visiting Samoa. Since there were
Japanese nationals as well as Americans in our group, we didn’t dare be
too casual about our island hopping.
Most of my local negotiations, of course, had to be carried on in
French, of which I knew even less than Japanese. Just to convey our
thanks to the proprietors of the Cercle Polynesienne for their offer of
shower facilities, or to order a drink, became a frustrating or a
challenging adventure, depending on the situation and one’s temperament.
We began to see the sense in having an international language which
would be a second tongue to all and could be dusted off and used
anywhere in the world.
Tahiti has always been a Mecca for yachtsmen. During our stay, we met
several—some of them transients like ourselves; others who had succumbed
to the charms of Tahiti and settled themselves more or less permanently.
Outstanding among the latter was William Robinson, who circled the globe
many years ago in his famous _Svaap_. Robinson seemed to be very shy and
reserved, but when he came aboard he soon lost his shyness, when the
talk shifted from social nonessentials to a discussion of the best rig
to use in trade-wind cruising.
Another yachtsman of former days deserves special mention: Robert Argod,
who sailed out from France with his wife and children and several others
on _Fleur d’Océan_ and has remained as captain of an interisland
schooner. He is the uncontested senior host to all visiting yachts and
has a fascinating logbook with pictures and accounts of all the
yachtsmen they have met, a treasury of cruising yachts. We began to
understand more clearly the close bond that grows up between those who
sail, the gradual accumulation of anecdotes and experiences which one
hears and passes on so that, although we may never meet many of the
yachts mentioned in the Argod logbook, we feel that we are old friends.
As June passed into July, preparations for the Bastille Day fete began
to get under way in earnest. Because of our location—practically a part
of the Midway—we had ringside seats for everything and could stroll out
a dozen times a day to see how the work was getting along. The
concessions themselves were not unlike those of any honky-tonk state
fair, but there was a charm and novelty to the French and Tahitian songs
that poured out of every sidewalk café, a gaiety to the brilliant pareu,
or wrap-around skirt, with which the dark-haired women clothed
themselves, and a bit of humor in the fact that the frequent parking
areas, labeled “Garage,” were to accommodate bicycles instead of cars.
Cold pop vied in popularity with drinking nuts—the natives drinking the
pop and the tourists the coconut milk!
Most fascinating of all was the transformation of the large park in
front of the Governor’s Palace, which was to be the scene of the
Bastille Day ball and the subsequent dance contests. A huge wooden dance
floor was fitted together and laid down on the grass. Around it were set
coconut palms, clumps of plants, and flowering ginger—all transplanted
for the occasion. Strings of colored lights were festooned across the
area and dozens of little tables were set up around the edges of the
floor, changing the open lawn into a fairy-tale ballroom. On the night
of July 14 hundreds of couples completed the picture, a picture as
evanescent as Cinderella’s own finery, for the very next day the palms
and the torch ginger were discarded, the dance floor was carted off, and
a new phase of the construction got under way with the erection of
grandstands and bleachers around the smooth expanse of grass where the
dance contests would next be held.
The fete itself opened officially with a bang—with twenty-one bangs, in
fact—as the government fulfilled the promises made on all the posters:
Vingt et un coups de canon!!! That afternoon (while Mi-ke was on the
boat giving birth to a long-awaited brood of kittens), the various dance
teams, in costume, paid ceremonial calls on the Mayor and the Governor
and presented gifts of bananas, breadfruit, and coconuts, as well as
bundles of live chickens, ducks, and even suckling pigs. (After the
formal presentations had been complete, the gifts were quietly returned
to the donors.)
As soon as the opening ceremonies had been disposed of, the booths along
the Midway went into full swing. Soon the dancers themselves became a
colorful part of the scene, their grass skirts discarded and slung over
their shoulders as they wandered along the street in more conventional
garb, licking ice-cream cones.
Throughout the week of the fete, events came thick and fast. The most
widely publicized feature, of course, is the series of dance contests in
which teams from most of the neighboring islands as well as of the many
districts on Tahiti itself take part. The Tahitian hula, justly famous,
has to be seen to be believed. The girls vibrate with such frenetic yet
effortless activity, to the insistent rhythms of native drums, and their
hips perform such incredible gyrations that the dance leader not only
has to call the figures but must constantly circulate among the dancers
to retie a skirt or adjust a bra that a performer has danced herself
right out of!
In addition to the nightly dance contests there was an overflowing
program of events: sailing canoe races, spear-throwing contests, soccer
games, swimming and diving competitions, horse racing, greased-pole
climbing, and to climax all, the hotly contested outrigger canoe races,
both single- and double-hull canoes which are propelled at incredible
speed by teams of men or women rowers.
The fete was officially over, but the Midway was still going strong when
we left Papeete on the 20th of July. The palm-bedecked booths were
turning yellow in the heat, the flowers had long since wilted, but the
performers, loath to return to their outer island homes, still wandered
the streets doing brief dances for a few francs here and there or
selling their dance costumes outright if a buyer could be found. We
thought it time to sail on.
The island of Mooréa is eight miles and one universe away from Tahiti.
After living for twenty-four hours a day in the midst of a
never-sleeping carnival atmosphere, it was a blessed relief to drop
anchor in Papetoai Bay, which many have called the most beautiful in the
whole world. Certainly it is one of the most spectacular. The mountain
peaks are a vivid emerald green and quite unreal in shape, rising almost
vertically to end in a surrealist play. In fact the whole scene, the
changing blues of the sky, the glowing greens of the land, the clear,
translucent blue and green and turquoise shades of the water seemed like
something dreamed up by a Technicolor consultant gone berserk.
From our anchorage just off the palm-lined shore we could see a couple
of native houses with woven walls of split bamboo and roofs of pandanus
thatch. Beyond the houses, but visible only from the top of the mast,
ran the narrow crushed coral road which is the main highway around the
island—a distance of some 36 miles. The nearest village, a cluster of a
dozen or so houses, an octagonal church with a red spire, and two rather
dispirited Chinese stores, was two miles to the east. We walked there,
to present our credentials and to buy some supplies. Neither of the
stores offered anything in the way of fresh fish, meat, or vegetables,
and no one seemed at all interested in our papers, so we settled for
four bottles of warm “lemonade”—a sweetish soft drink—a large bag of
unroasted peanuts, and a handful of vanilla beans. Then we returned to
the boat to open cans for the first time since our Tahiti landfall.
Outside of Tahiti, life was dreamy and time lost its sharp insistence.
There was no radio, no newspaper—and not even the possibility of
receiving mail. It was a relief not to have one’s anxieties and ulcers
churned into unrest each day, as they had been during our stay in
Hawaii, where every newscast, each fresh edition of the daily papers,
had kept us aware of the manufacture of each new ice cube in the Cold
War.
We stayed five days in Mooréa, and would have postponed our departure
much longer had it not been for the lure of such names as Huahiné,
Raïatéa, Tahaa, and Bora Bora.
From Mooréa, we sailed to Huahiné, about a hundred miles downwind. It
was an overnight trip and gave us another lesson in How Not to Navigate,
as recorded in the log:
Last night, just after Nick came on watch (2400), I could feel a
definite change in the motion of the boat and heard the staysail
flapping and the foresail boom swinging. Went up and found Nick
working hard to keep the set course but unable to do so.... Noticed
the stars weren’t in the proper position and checked the compass. (It
is a grid-type airplane compass, on which the course is preset.) Saw
at once that course was set for 252°—not proper 292°—and trouble was
caused from this and not from a sudden change in the wind direction.
What must have happened: After setting proper compass direction, I
presumably forgot to lock the rotating portion and one of the men, at
change of watch, brushed against it, changing the course by 40°....
Learned new lessons: (1) Check the compass at each watch. (2) Keep it
locked.
To this I added one more rule, just to be on the safe side: _No one_
adjusts the compass but the Skipper.
We spotted Huahiné just at dawn and were able to get a bearing and set a
course to round the north end before the island was lost in a series of
rain squalls. Working our way through the reef, we dropped anchor off
the town, and chalked up another South Seas landfall.
Fare, the port of Huahiné, is a village of perhaps a score of small
Chinese-owned stores along the waterfront, including cafés, bars, and a
hotel. We were quickly introduced to one of its most charming features.
A couple of times every day, one or another of the storekeepers would
roll a large ice-cream freezer—hand-cranked—out onto his porch and chalk
up a sign on the blackboard in front: Glace en vent!! This was the
signal for customers to gather, with Jessica and Ted well in the front
rank. First comers—solid ice cream; stragglers—soup!
One afternoon we took a hike around the north end of the island, looking
for the ruins of a two-storied temple site, known locally as a
marae—which was rumored to be in that area. The road along the shore
narrowed to a trail and in an hour or so we were walking single file
along faint paths. At the end of the trip, we found a small settlement
with the ever-present Chinese store, but no marae—and no one who could
tell anything.
Disappointed, we started back. A good-looking young Tahitian, his guitar
slung over his shoulder, flashed us a smile and stepped off the path to
shake hands with each of us as we passed, according to the hospitable
custom of the islands, and to wish us “Iorana!—Good Day!” When we asked
him, in halting French, if he knew anything about the lost marae, he
answered in quite understandable English and volunteered to take us
there!
The marae, it seemed, was across the lagoon on a wide stretch where the
fringing reef had risen above the sea and was covered with undergrowth
and trees. Getting there was no problem at all. Our guide simply
commandeered a pirogue, complete with boatman, and arranged for us all
to be ferried across, three in each load. Reassembled on the other side,
we set off across the hundred yards or so of trackless vegetation,
accompanied by a host of interested Friends and Acquaintances of our
new-found guide and/or the boatman. Each had equipped himself with a
musical instrument of sorts, and our South Seas safari was accompanied
by an impromptu orchestra composed of guitar, dry sticks, flat stones,
hollow coconuts, and an empty kerosene tin.
In this irreverent fashion we reached the ruins, a rather extensive
edifice of volcanic rocks in a fair state of preservation though, of
course, quite overgrown with plants and even trees. Our guide led us to
the top and, with a sureness born of knowledge, lifted aside a slab of
stone. From a cavity beneath he lifted out two gleaming skulls, handling
them with a lack of awe that showed scant regard for the last two chiefs
of olden times, whose remains he claimed them to be.
I examined the relics with interest, the anthropological side of my
nature uppermost, and decided that if these were indeed the skulls of
Tahitian chiefs, then chiefdom in those latter days must have followed
the female line. None of the natives seemed to know or to have any
interest in the history or legends surrounding the people who had built
the structure long ago.
The next day, with Ted at the masthead to con us through, we worked our
way down inside the reef to the south end of the island, where the
charming little village of Haapu nestles in isolated quiet. No roads
connect it with the outer world and only an occasional visit from a
motor launch, with mail and supplies, keeps the people in touch with the
world outside.
Here we tied up to the dock and took our first stroll down the main
street between rows of woven and brightly decorated native huts, many of
them raised on stilts. Everywhere we were given a warm welcome. Haapu
struck us at once as the kind of South Seas community we had read about
and dreamed of and we gladly accepted the urging of the villagers to
make ourselves at home and stay awhile.
Our location once again was central, right next to the community
laundry—fresh-water tap on the shore beside the dock. Here the
housewives gathered every morning for washing clothes and gossip and
Barbara, who had not done any laundry since Mooréa, took her sack of
dirty clothes ashore and joined them. Soon she was the center of an
ever-increasing throng and I strolled over to see what the excitement
was about.
Now, it should be explained that the women of the Societies do their
washing by first soaping the clothes thoroughly on a large flat board or
stone laid on the ground and then they pound the soap in—and the dirt
out (or such, I suppose, is the theory)—with a rounded wooden stick. No
wonder they were impressed by our American know-how and the laborsaving
devices enjoyed by American women! With envy and admiration they were
watching Barbara scrub our dirty boat clothes with efficiency and ease
on a corrugated washboard before rinsing them in a galvanized iron tub!
In Haapu we had our first taste of real entertaining. It was simple to
issue invitations: we just sent Jessica up on deck with the portable
phonograph and told her to start playing records. Within minutes
villagers had begun to gather and soon the party was in full swing.
Breaking it up was not so easy, for in spite of frequent showers and the
coming and going of the dinner hour no one deserted.
The dancing—both Tahitian and modified European—took place beside the
boat, on the dock. After each dance the men boarded the boat to squat
around and talk, while the girls retreated down the dock to the shadows
of the road. With the beginning of a new tune the men would seek out
their partners and lead them back into the lighted area around our
pressure lantern. During the frequent showers, everyone crowded aboard
and took giggling refuge below so that, at times, we had over a hundred
people packed into the cabins, the bunks, and the aisles, examining our
possessions as they waited for the rain to stop and making excited
comments about our accommodations.
Nothing, I hasten to add, was missing when the last guest had finally
gone, but the next day our ship’s inventory was increased alarmingly by
gifts of bananas, breadfruit, necklaces of shells, carvings of wood and
coconut, and hats of woven pandanus.
Nick’s birthday fell on the day before we were to leave Haapu, so we
gladly accepted an invitation to eat Tahitian style with a local family.
We provided the pig—bought from one of the villagers—and our friends
agreed to cook it for us, Tahitian style, in their family oven. Early in
the afternoon we gathered to watch them disjoint the pig and place the
large chunks of meat in a huge, saucer-shaped cooking pot which was then
placed directly on a bed of hot coals in the hollowed-out dirt floor of
the “cookhouse” behind the main dwelling. Around the chunks of meat were
laid quartered breadfruit and dozens of peeled bananas. These were
roofed over with long branches, and upon the frame were piled layer upon
layer of green banana leaves followed by numerous mats of pressed dried
leaves and bark which had been stored in stacks around the cookhouse
walls. Finally, heavy burlap sacks were spread over everything and the
oven was complete.
While our Polynesian dinner was baking, Barbara decided she would whip
up a birthday cake—not because she was afraid the dinner would be
inadequate but because she thought our hosts might be interested in our
birthday customs. Birthday candles and fancy holders she had stored
aboard in quantity, but for a time the lack of an egg threatened to
spoil her plans.
It is impossible to walk anywhere in Haapu—or in any other Polynesian
village, for that matter—without flushing a chicken a minute, not to
mention ducks and pigs. Getting hold of an egg, however, was something
else again. When we inquired at the store, the Chinese proprietor seemed
to be quite taken aback at the very thought of anyone wanting to _buy_
an egg.
“Perhaps,” he suggested finally, in barely intelligible French, “madam
might ask chez le médecin?”
As she didn’t have a headache—yet—it seemed unlikely that the doctor
could help, but Barbara went there and tried again. The doctor and his
wife seemed completely nonplused, but the daughter of the family, who
had been to school in Tahiti and could speak French, not only grasped
the situation but was able to make it intelligible to her parents.
Immediately they went into action.
Taking Barbara in tow, they set off on a house-to-house canvass of the
village. Every passer-by was stopped and, after the usual exchange of
greetings and handshakes, our problem was presented. People waved from
their porches as the growing crowd moved on and when they were informed
of the dilemma they, too, came over to join in the discussion—and the
search. Children were excitedly recruited and sent off in all
directions—mostly into the bushes. Haapu was aroused into a fever of
activity and concern.
Eventually results were achieved. A child came proudly out of the jungle
with—an egg! It was rather small and very dirty, but it was an egg.
Barbara accepted it with private reservations and paid the little girl
the astronomical sum of a five-franc piece—the smallest change she had.
This staggering reward of industry (almost eight cents) caused a near
panic and other eggs began to be pressed upon her. One, which a small
boy delivered at a run, was fortunately broken when its owner tripped
and fell in his eagerness to hand it over. (It had obviously been almost
ready to hatch.) Two others were safely delivered, however, and of the
three, one proved to be edible and the birthday cake was duly made and
proved to be a tremendous success.
After the dinner, and to top off Nick’s birthday celebration, we went to
the weekly movie—for the products of Hollywood have penetrated even this
remote outpost. The theater itself was no bigger, nor did it look any
different, than any of the other woven houses along the meandering main
street, but inside the single room was lined with rows of backless
benches—very hard and very crowded. The whole village seemed to be
there, young and old, babies and octogenarians—even pets. We were given
seats of honor, right in the middle, but since our area was slightly
less crowded than the rest of the house, we were each given a youngster
to hold.
The show began with newsreels, all of which had long since been
withdrawn from regular circulation. Scenes of the fighting in Korea were
succeeded by a documentary of ancient vintage about the armistice
negotiations—a development which obviously pleased the audience
immensely. The sound track, which was in French, alternately bellowed or
broke down altogether but it hardly mattered as no one was listening.
Action was what these people liked and when there was no action, they
called back and forth, made comments at top voice, or bounced the
babies. Every horse that failed to clear a barrier, every bomb that
blasted a house into splinters, every soldier who fell in battle was
greeted with much clapping and with screams of delight and appreciation.
The feature itself had enough action to please even the most critical,
but the dialogue was unintelligible, having been dubbed in in French.
This was of no consequence, however, as the sound track was
considerately turned down to a murmur so that a running translation and
commentary on the development could be shouted out in Tahitian by the
manager as the movie progressed.
At the end of the feature it was announced that it would be run again
immediately, at no extra charge. This was our cue and, bowing politely,
we turned our seats—and the babies—over to the women and made our way
outside.
Here we discovered that not all the village had been inside after all.
In the dooryard of packed earth a number of vendors had set up tables
and were selling food and drink. A circle of men played cards around a
lantern in one corner while a group of women in another part of the yard
gossiped, nursed their babies, or gave casual comfort or an absentminded
slap to various little ones who romped about them in the dirt. Every
once in a while a young couple would come out of the theater, hand in
hand, and stroll off into the shadows, or someone would leave the movie
long enough to shove a fussy baby into the arms of someone outside.
Although it was after eleven when we walked back to the boat, no one
else in Haapu seemed in the least prepared to call it a night.
The next morning we left Haapu, stopping at Fare only long enough to
pick up a few loaves of bread and say hello to Buz and June Champion,
fellow yachtsmen who had just arrived on _Little Bear_. Then we took our
departure for Raïatéa, the next island to the west, which beckoned to us
across some 20 miles of intervening ocean.
It was an easy half-day trip and by early afternoon we were tied up at
the main dock of Uturoa, capital of the “Islands Under the Wind.” It
didn’t take long for word of our arrival to get around and, as he has
done for yachts before us and, no doubt, since, Charles Brotherson
turned up promptly to take us in tow and make our brief stay in Raïatéa
a pleasant one. His cordial friendliness lengthened our one-day stopover
into four, climaxed by an evening of mutual cordiality during which we
gave a showing of our slides and a large and appreciative crowd in
Uturoa reciprocated with a program of dances and ended by presenting us
with a slit drum belonging to the official Uturoa band, as evidenced by
the initial “U” carved on it. Another souvenir that money couldn’t buy!
We did not take the _Phoenix_ to Tahaa, the other island enclosed with
Raïatéa in a single fringing reef, but we did spend an entire day going
around Tahaa on the weekly “mail” boat, an eye-opening experience. In
addition to a few letters, the launch carried meat (which dangled in
bloody chunks from the overhead beams during transit), sacks of kapok,
inner-spring mattresses, cases of canned goods, people—and for a good
part of the trip—two horses. The horses were got aboard after much
difficulty and tethered in the cabin with the passengers. When their
port of debarkation was reached they were off-loaded by being goaded
over the side and left to swim ashore, where they were promptly lassoed.
The last island on our passage through the Societies was Bora Bora,
another half-day’s sail from Raïatéa. Throughout the islands we had
heard much of Bora Bora—and little of it good. The natives, we were
told, had been spoiled by the Americans during the war. They were greedy
and insolent, out for all they could get. Moreover, many warned us that
we would not even be able to get bread on Bora Bora—or fresh water!
We were already learning that it is not wise or fair to form judgments
in advance so, in spite of Charles Brotherson’s dire predictions—and his
tempting offers of expeditions to fabulous marae on the far side of
Raïatéa if we would only remain a few more days—we decided we must push
on.
With Jessica very proudly manning the tiller, we edged cautiously out
Paipai Pass through the Tahaa reef. Bora Bora, its distinctive rocky
pinnacles rising through the early-morning mists, could be seen to the
west, its distinctive profile like a giant molar making a sharp break in
the horizon. As we sailed nearer we began to understand why many have
called this island the loveliest in the South Pacific. Green,
precipitous, cloud-capped, it beckons the seafarer from afar and its
beauty only increases as one draws closer to where the tumbling line of
crashing surf on the reef divides the deep-sea indigo from the clear
turquoise of the shallower lagoon. Along the shore, eternal symbol of
the tropic isle, we could see a fringe of coconut palms.
One of our first visitors was the local schoolmaster, Francis Sanford,
beloved of yachtsmen. He took us to his house to meet his vivacious
French-Tahitian wife, Lysa, and half of his brood of children—the other
five being away at school in Papeete. We also met Coco, the 300-pound
pig, who insisted upon settling himself in the midst of any gathering
and who, once settled, was unbudgeable. He had been, Lysa explained
apologetically, only a very _leetle_ pig when one of the children
brought him home as a pet, but he had grown!
The abandoned dock where we tied up during our stay in Bora Bora was a
relic of the war. Here, during the late unpleasantness, several thousand
American troops had directed round-the-clock activity, a state of
affairs that remains a highlight in the memory of many on this island.
As one of them expressed it, “Maybe everybody have another war pretty
quick, yeah? Maitai!—Good! Then maybe more soldiers come—we work like
hell all day, all night—see plenty movies—eat plenty ice cream—get
plenty American babies!”
The Bora Bora attitude toward the mixed-blood children left on the
island was a strange contrast to the attitude toward war babies in
Japan. Every family on Bora Bora who has an “American” child is very
proud, and the children themselves are eager to brag, in hesitant
English, “I—am—_Américain_!” even if they look the very model of a
perfect Polynesian. When an article about the war babies of Bora Bora
was published in an American magazine a few years ago, a number of
people from America sent letters offering to adopt a child and take him
back to the States where he would have “all the advantages.” Not one
family could be found, however, who could be persuaded to give up so
valuable a treasure!
Because of their association with the U.S. military during the war, the
Bora Borans found it difficult at first to understand the anomaly of an
American family traveling in company with feared and hated Japanese.
“They good boys?” everyone demanded doubtfully. “They want to fight?”
We assured them that our companions had no desire to fight, but the
community reserved judgment for a day or two and kept an eagle eye on
the behavior of Nick, Mickey, and Moto. It didn’t take long to convince
them, though, and soon the Three M’s were in greater demand than any of
us. Day after day they squatted tirelessly on the dockside in the midst
of a crowd of admirers, and displayed postcards, magazine pictures of
Japan, and various souvenirs of their distant home.
It soon became evident that, if the French administration and the people
of the other islands had no affection for the people of Bora Bora, they,
in turn, had no affection for the French. “Bunch of thieves!” was the
way one of the Bora Boran natives described them, and he explained to us
how French officials had helped themselves to all the plumbing, the
quonset huts, and the fluorescent lighting which the Americans had left
behind “for the people of Bora Bora” and had carried them away to
install in Raïatéa, making Uturoa perhaps the best-lighted town of its
size in the entire South Seas.
I remember the day a French official, resplendent in gleaming whites,
came aboard for a social call. Big Joe, our nearest neighbor and the one
who spoke the best “American,” watched the proceedings anxiously from
the dock and as soon as Barbara had ushered our visitor below he drew me
aside.
“You want me throw him overboard, boss?” he whispered loudly.
“No—why?”
“He French—no good. Bunch of thieves. You want me punch him good?”
“It’s okay, Joe. He’ll be here only a short time.”
“I stay,” said Big Joe grimly. He settled himself on the gunwales and
remained there until our visitor had returned to his jeep (the only one
on the island) and driven out of sight.
Actually, Bora Bora was personified for us by Big Joe. He lived nearby
with his wife and an “American” daughter of about Jessica’s age, in a
compact house of woven side walls and a thatched roof, set high on
stilts. Working together, he and his wife made a living by making the
dance costumes of bleached fibers, elaborately decorated with hundreds
of yellow and brown cowrie shells, which sell for $25 to $30 American in
the tourist shops of Papeete. What Big Joe and his family made on the
deal we never did find out, although we suspected that the Chinese
storekeeper to whom they turned over their entire output managed to do
very well on the transaction.
In our own case, I am able to quote the price exactly, for I ordered two
of the outfits for Barbara and Jessica, complete with “grass” skirt, a
brassière of fine bark cloth trimmed with shells, and the handsome
crownlike headdress. When Joe brought over the completed costumes—and
Jessica’s, at least, had been made to order, for it fitted her small
size exactly—Big Joe waved away any mention of cost.
“But, Joe, you’ve got to tell me _how much_! We’re sailing tomorrow. If
you don’t tell me how much to pay you for these, I can’t take them!”
“Aw—never mind money. What I do with _money_?”
“But there must be something you need?”
Joe thought that one over. At last he asked, hesitantly, “You maybe got
an old pair pants? I could use pants. Or maybe old blanket?”
We had plenty of blankets on board—all bought at the Australian salvage
depot for a couple of shillings apiece. I gave Joe a couple, plus a pair
of pants that were hardly large enough for his vast size, and weighted
the whole down with a carton of cigarettes.
Joe looked at the items soberly, then said, “Wait a minute.” He went
over to his house and returned with two massive necklaces and two
bracelets made of large and beautifully matched cowries, one to adorn
each costume.
“Now okay,” he said, with a grin. He had no intention of letting me get
the best of him by adding something more than the exchange he’d
suggested.
So many memories come crowding back that even in writing it is almost as
hard to leave Bora Bora as it was in August, 1955, when we reluctantly
said good-bye to the Societies. How is it possible to pass on without
mentioning the dockside parties that foregathered nightly beside the
_Phoenix_, parties which sometimes started by a song or two in Japanese
by one of the Three M’s, or a cowboy or hillbilly record on our portable
victrola, but which always ended with the soft plucking of a guitar, the
strumming of homemade coconut ukuleles, and a completely spontaneous
exhibition of Tahitian dancing to the compelling rhythm of slit drum,
kerosene tin, or just the slapping of hands on a bare thigh. Everybody
sang—everybody joined in the dances—and the natural, unself-conscious
grace of even the little ones made it obvious why, year after year, the
dance teams of Bora Bora continue to walk off with all the prizes at the
Papeete fete.
And how can we fail to recall the simple services that were held three
times every Sunday at the small village church, services we will never
forget, not because we were inspired by the sermons, which were in
Tahitian and may or may not have varied from one service to another, but
because of the singing—the most beautiful and inspiring we have ever
heard. Everyone sang, some singing the words while others chanted or
hummed the melody or a kind of antiphonal accompaniment which filled the
room with such tremendous rolling resonance that we could hardly believe
there was not an organ somewhere, concealed behind the woven screen of
the altar or, perhaps, beneath the floor!
But nothing can be recaptured completely and there were other landfalls
ahead, other memories to gather.
“Please let us hear from you!” Lysa Sanford begged, adding a bit
wistfully, “Sometimes we don’t know if the yachtsmen we’ve entertained
even got to their next port!”
And, “Don’t forget—you promise to send us picture!” Big Joe reminded us,
referring to the many snapshots we had taken of him and his family.
“Plenty people take picture—but we never see!”
We remembered the Sanford’s yacht register, containing many blank spaces
for pictures that had been promised and never sent. We reminded
ourselves of the tiny Kodacolor print, now faded almost to invisibility,
which occupied an honored spot in the middle of Big Joe’s living room
wall—the only picture of himself that had ever been sent to him of all
that had been taken by passing yachts.
Then and there we resolved that the friends we made during our various
stops would not be forgotten; that the promises we made would be kept.
The hospitality, the favors, the gifts of fruit and vegetables and
souvenirs that were pressed on us everywhere were gifts we could never
repay in kind, but at least we would send, at the first opportunity, the
snapshots we had taken and a postcard to say we had not forgotten. The
chance to share vicariously in our experience, to travel with us by
means of whatever reports we could send, would perhaps be thanks enough
for the wonderful hospitality we had received.
And so we sailed from Bora Bora on August 16, knowing that no matter
what enchantments might lie ahead we would never see its like again.
6 WESTWARD
THROUGH THE SOUTH
SEAS: RAROTONGA, SAMOA, FIJI
“A broad reach, a quiet sea, a full moon....”
We set out for Rarotonga, capital of the Cook Islands. Although we had
official permission to visit these islands, we had no idea what our
reception would be—especially for the Japanese. The Cooks are
possessions of New Zealand, and of course that country and Australia
have Oriental exclusion policies. Moreover, we knew that World War II
was still well remembered in this part of the world.
For five days we had good trade-wind sailing, then a day of calm
followed by a sudden sharpening of the breeze. It looked like an easy
passage. Crew relations were good, although there still remained a gulf
to be bridged—either of communication or of differences between Western
and Eastern psychology.
One morning, after the wind had dropped off during the night, I was
awakened by the sound of the foresail boom slatting around. I went up to
the cockpit where Nick, at the tiller, was staring ahead as if in a
trance.
“Good morning,” I began. “Looks as if the wind’s dropped.”
Nick did not answer.
After a pause I said, “I wonder, if we rigged the foresail more forward,
would it work better?” There was no answer.
“What do you think, Nick?” I pressed.
“I don’t know,” he replied, in a completely indifferent tone. (Didn’t
know whether it would work? Didn’t know what I was talking about? Or
didn’t want to be bothered?)
“I’ll go take a look,” I said, and did so. While I was forward,
adjusting the sail, Nick called Ted to the next watch and went below. I
fought down my rising irritation and tried to understand, to put myself
in Nick’s place. The incident was trivial, and yet it was one of those
things that could be significant. True, there had been no emergency and
one man could easily do the job. Nick was tired and looking forward to
going off watch. On the other hand, why the silence which seemed rude or
sullen at the very least? What was the answer? I didn’t know.
The only conclusion to be drawn was that, at this stage, subtleties,
suggestions, and hints were out of place. If I wanted a job done I must
give a simple direct order even if it made me a Captain with a capital
C, rather than a yachting companion. So far as the work of the boat was
concerned, nothing must be left unclear. On the other hand, I couldn’t
look to Nick or the others for the kind of companionable discussion of
pros and cons of procedure that I was sharing more and more with Ted.
The Japanese seemed to prefer clear-cut orders and to look upon
preliminary discussions as an indication of inefficiency on the part of
their skipper. This placed an additional burden on me!
On the sixth day, just after noon, we sighted land off the port bow.
Simultaneously, with a noise like an explosion, the main after chain
plate on the port side parted. Immediately I put the boat about to take
the strain off the port shrouds. Everything else held.
When we inspected the damage, it was easy enough to see what had
happened. It was a matter of poor design—my design—in having made the
neck too narrow. This was a serious matter and meant that all the chain
plates would have to be replaced at the first opportunity. In the
meantime, we jury-rigged the shroud, reduced sail enough to ease the
strain, and worked our way gradually toward Rarotonga. By the middle of
the next afternoon we were off the entrance to Avarua, port of entry for
the Cook Islands.
The channel was easy enough to spot. It lay between the wrecks of two
ships that had missed the entrance and ended their trips, one on each
horn of the encroaching reef. The pass was narrow and the harbor beyond
obviously too small to maneuver in. Feeling less than happy about the
situation, we dropped the sails, and I started the engine, prepared to
go in cautiously under power.
At this moment a small tug came out and offered to take us in for 30
shillings (about $4). Never was a deal closed more swiftly. The captain
gave us a shouted rundown of the procedure: “Get lines ready at each
quarter—pass them to the native divers as soon as you get in.... As soon
as you’re inside, drop your anchor _at once_ and put the tiller hard
over ...” etc. I, in turn, repeated the orders to my crew in slow and
careful English, and assigned each man his position and function. Only
then, and under tow, did we tackle the entrance. It was a narrow
squeeze, but after much shouting and more sweating, we were finally
fixed in place like a fly in a spiderweb, with two anchors forward, two
lines aft to the dock, four set out to rings in the underwater coral,
and a final line secured to an interisland trawler, _Inspire_, which lay
to the tiny dock and threatened to overturn from the sheer weight of the
crowd that had rushed aboard her for a grandstand view of the
proceedings.
We were not left long in doubt about the hospitality of the Cook
Islands. Ten minutes after we were secure, a note was handed to me:
Dr. Earle Reynolds and Mrs. Reynolds:
Welcome to Rarotonga and the Cook Group. I hope you will call at the
Administration Building sometime at your convenience and please let me
know if there is anything we can do for you.
Yours sincerely,
G. Nevill, Commissioner.
While we cleaned up the boat and ourselves and donned our shore clothes,
we savored to the full the satisfaction of having arrived safe and of
being warmly welcomed. All of us were looking forward to the amenities
of shore living. As far as Nick, Mickey, and Moto were concerned, hot
baths were at the head of the list—the hotter the better. Personally, I
also wanted a cold beer, a good steak, and a crisp salad.
Just to make sure, I asked the bearer of the note whether it would be
possible for us to dine out in Rarotonga. He told me that the only
public dining room was at the Government Hotel, just off the docks, and
he offered to go there directly to make arrangements for hot baths and
dinner reservations for our entire group.
Barbara and I went ashore first, to pay our respects, and arranged to
meet the rest at the hotel. The Commissioner was quite as cordial as his
note. He invited us to tea at the Residency the following afternoon and
promised to put a car and driver at our disposal so we could all make a
trip around the island at our convenience.
When we reached the hotel, glowing with good cheer, we found our group
were not so happy. They had had the promised baths, but had been told
that dinner “for so many” was out of the question.
To the Japanese, sensitive to polite circumlocutions, this meant
discrimination and they were all for withdrawing forthwith. I could not
believe, judging from our reception, that any slight had been intended
and I approached the manager directly.
I found him full of welcome and apology. “It’s just that you came in so
late, sir—the government freezer closes at three, and each day we draw
our rations from there. We might have squeezed in one or two, but trying
to do for seven on such short notice would be hopeless. I trust you do
understand?”
“Then how about tomorrow night?” I wanted something definite to take
back to my companions.
“Oh, that would be excellent, sir! I think we can do you very well
indeed.”
And very well indeed they did do us, well enough to make up completely
for the letdown of having to open cans again on our first night in port.
There were few times during the rest of our stay when we had occasion to
eat on board, for the hospitality of Rarotonga was overwhelming. As a
family, we had little contact with the native Cook Islanders (whom the
government is careful to refer to as “Maori”), but Nick, Mickey, and
Moto saw a great deal of them. This disparity was quite against our own
inclinations. We simply had no invitations to native dances or
gatherings and were quite envious of the reports brought back by the
Three M’s, who had their choice of both worlds—and frequently chose the
more colorful!
From Rarotonga we again headed north, bound for American Samoa. We set
our course to sight Aitutaki, then headed northwest. It was good
sailing—a broad reach, a quiet sea, a full moon, and a seven-knot
breeze. Two days out I noted in the log: “Just informed today is Labor
Day. Well, not working too hard, anyway.”
At dusk on the seventh day out, we sighted the mass of Tau Island,
looming out of the mist, and jibed to the west for the night, turning
northwest again at dawn. At 0735 we picked up Tutuila, dead ahead, and
worked our way into the entrance of Pago Pago harbor, one of the best
protected in all the South Pacific.
By midafternoon we had been met and escorted to the docks and all was
secure. The weekly mail, we were informed, was due to leave within the
hour, so our first official act was to scribble hasty notes of
reassurance to family and friends. Our next—and one that gave us great
pleasure—was to accept the invitation of Phil Mosher, the representative
of Governor Lowe, to go with him to his house for hot baths and cold
drinks—an unbeatable combination for those who have just come in from
the sea.
We expected to spend about a week in Pago Pago; we stayed over a month
and hated to leave. A great many factors combined to extend our visit,
including the possibility that we might be able to haul out at a
government dock if we could stay two or three weeks until they could fit
us into the schedule. Also, we were offered a two-bedroom house (at the
cost of $1 a day), which gave Barbara that chance to move ashore which
she still seemed to crave. Jessica went off each day to the dependent
school, and both she and Ted were given placement tests to see if they
had lost ground in the course of their rather haphazard program of home
study. (They hadn’t. In fact, Ted was issued a certificate equivalent to
a high school diploma on the basis of the tests developed by the Army.)
Almost before she had been given a chance to adjust to the rather
frightening mob of thirty students—three of whom were in her own
seventh-grade class—Jessica was asked to give a talk to the entire
school about our travels. The prospect was so terrifying that she was
unable to eat breakfast, but when she returned at the end of the day she
was both relaxed and triumphant.
“Now I know how to do it,” she explained, when we asked about her
speech. “It’s easy.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Anything they wanted to know. I just showed them a map of the world and
pointed out where we’d been. Then I said, ‘Any questions?’”
Our stay in Pago Pago was a round of constant activity, but this time,
in addition to many enjoyable evenings with local officialdom, we were
able to see something of Samoan life as well. Our entree was through the
school system.
Barbara mentioned to Mr. Fort, the director of education, that she was
interested in visiting some of the Samoan schools. The next time he made
a trip to one of the outer villages for a meeting with the local school
board, Mr. Fort took her with him. She visited a number of classrooms,
waxed indignant over the folly of trying to teach reading to Samoan
pupils from stateside-oriented textbooks—“Mother and Betsy are going to
choose wallpaper for Betsy’s room”! Why, these kids have never even seen
a room with _walls_, much less wallpaper!—and sat in on a “Board of
Education” meeting in a little village called Lauli’i.
Afterward, when Mr. Fort introduced her to the various chiefs and
“talking chiefs” who make up any Samoan village council, there was so
much interest shown in the _Phoenix_ and her cruise that Barbara felt
called upon to offer hospitality. Remembering an incautious speech in
Rarotonga, when she had spoken at a school and invited “everybody
interested” to visit the _Phoenix_—and everybody, by the hundreds, had
come—she confined her invitation this time to “any representative of
your village who might like to see the way we live on the boat and
report back to his people.”
The very next day the pulenu’u (or mayor) of Lauli’i turned up. We
entertained him as best we could with cigarettes and warm beer and gave
him an exhaustive tour of the boat. His English, though far from fluent,
was adequate for communication.
“Many boats come this island,” he explained. “But my people—we never see
inside. When I go back Lauli’i, I tell my people many things your
family. How you live. What you show. How you are kind.”
He asked many questions about the United States which, he pointed out,
was his country also. (Samoans, as wards of the government, are a kind
of third-class citizen with certain fringe benefits but a great deal of
pride and loyalty.) Remembering the pleasure the people of the Societies
had in looking at pictures of Japan, we brought out a three-dimensional
viewer and a series of stereo pictures of National Parks. It was a great
success.
“I never before see like this,” at last said the pulenu’u, laying the
gadget aside reluctantly. “It is like I go there.”
“Take it back to your village,” Barbara urged. “Show it to your people
and then bring it back next time you come to town.”
The pulenu’u didn’t have to be urged. Stammering his thanks and
forgetting to finish his beer, he hurried off, clutching the viewer and
all the stereoscopic reels.
“But, mummy!” Jessica protested. “Don’t you remember what that man in
Honolulu said about the Samoans? You can’t trust them—they’ll steal you
blind! And you gave him my viewer!”
“Let’s give him a chance, hon. Remember the French officials in Tahiti,
who were supposed to ask for bribes before they’d give a boat
clearance—and who didn’t? And the Bora Borans, remember—who were
supposed to be greedy and spoiled. Were they?”
“But that yachtsman in Hilo, who’d just come back from here, said—”
“Let’s not take hearsay evidence. Let’s just keep on expecting people to
be honest and decent until we’re proved wrong. Okay?”
Jessica remained dubious. After all, it was her viewer and although we
promised to replace it if anything happened to hers, it might be many
months before we could. She didn’t have long to wait, though. Only a few
days later the pulenu’u came again, returning the viewer and all the
reels. He told us that his people had spent several evenings looking at
the pictures and discussing them and now, he continued, they wanted to
meet _us_! In fact, they wanted our entire group to come to Lauli’i and
make it our home for as long as we could stay. His own fale, he added,
would be put at our disposal. We accepted with alacrity although
Barbara, who had been there before, felt there might be some problems
connected with living for any length of time in a completely open
pavilion with only thin lauhala mats to sleep on.
We arranged for a government jeep to drive us out to the village and
piled it high with presents for our hosts: cases of corned beef, canned
vegetables and pineapple, and a five-pound can of hard candies for the
kids.
It was my first trip outside the port town and I soon began to see what
Barbara meant. The Samoan fale is nothing if not open. A thatched roof,
a floor of coral, and between the two, posts at regular intervals
marking off a circle or an oval. When it rains, shutters of woven
pandanus matting can be dropped on the windward side, but at all other
times the houses are as a cage at the zoo.
We had worried, however, without realizing the extent of Samoan
hospitality. The large oval pavilion in which the chief had gathered for
the school board meeting on Barbara’s first visit had been transformed
for our benefit. Every family in the village must have contributed for
our comfort: a long wooden table, straight-backed chairs, a massive
wardrobe with a cloudy mirror on the door—all had been installed to make
us feel at home. Army cots had been set up for the men and, for Barbara
and Jessica, one end of the open pavilion had been curtained off with
beautiful tapa cloth to form an inner room. Within were two thick
mattresses, made up with clean sheets and elaborately embroidered pillow
cases, and draped about with folds of mosquito netting suspended from
the roof.
Our meals, too, deferred to Western taste. While the families of the
village gathered in the compound behind the fales to share their food in
Samoan style, we sat on the hard chairs that had been provided for our
comfort and ate from a conglomeration of Navy issue crockery with
monogrammed utensils (USN). Only the pulenu’u ate with us, while his
wife and a couple of the younger men waited on table. Our first meal,
indeed, was served up to us from our very own cans: corned beef, canned
peas, and pineapple. In spite of our insistence that these were for the
people of the village, the pulenu’u was sure we would not care for
Samoan food.
One evening a group of children from the pulenu’u’s family put on a
performance of native songs and dances for our benefit, and then we
played our portable victrola for them while Jessica demonstrated dances
of other islands. After the entertainment, the older people vanished
silently into the night, but the children lingered. Then the pulenu’u
unlocked the door of the large wardrobe, where he kept our gifts, and
brought out the big tin of hard candies.
Placing it on a table, he drew up a chair, and as the children passed by
in a single file, he carefully counted three pieces into each
outstretched hand. This was a nightly ritual, and we decided that the
candy, at that rate, would last quite a while.
On our last afternoon in Lauli’i all the village chiefs gathered once
more in the guest fale and an ava ceremony was held. It was a bit
unusual for a woman to be included in what is normally an all-male
affair, but we were told that “a brave woman is the equal of a man” and
Barbara, by sailing across the Pacific, evidently qualified.
The chiefs, clad only in lava-lavas (a kind of wrap-around skirt which
reaches the ground) and garlands of green leaves, settled themselves
around the room each in his preordained position, according to rank.
Ava, a slightly narcotic drink, is made from the fibrous roots of a
local plant, which is mixed with water according to a very precise
ritual. The resulting liquid is then passed to each in turn and drunk in
accordance with a ceremonial formula. We had studied up on the ceremony
in advance, had removed our watches and all jewelry as demanded by
etiquette, and were very careful not to offend by stretching our legs
out in front of us, or by standing up inside the house.
As guests of honor, we were served first, from the polished half-coconut
shell. Each of us carefully spilled a few drops on the matting in front
of us and uttered the proper incantation (Manuia—Good luck!) before
draining the cup. We could only hope we had not disgraced ourselves or
our country.
Back in Pago Pago we again took up our bustling activities. Thanks to
our rented house we were able to spread out a bit and, while Barbara
worked on her book, the boys and I set ourselves to painting and
redecorating the cabins. The haul-out we had planned proved impossible,
as we were too heavy for the cradle, but we got far enough out of the
water to have a good look at the bottom and found it in pretty fair
shape.
Since we had lingered so long, we were forced to shift our plans and
skip British Samoa. More and more we were realizing that a trip such as
ours must be a constant series of compromises. If we go to this place we
must miss that one; if we stay longer here we must skimp our visit
there. Weather conditions and the length of the seasons places limits on
the amount of time we can spend in any one area, while hundreds of
islands must be bypassed because one simply can’t go everywhere. Had we
allowed ten years for the trip instead of four, it still wouldn’t have
been enough but, even so, we were infinitely better off than those who
travel by plane or cruise ship with only a day or two in each port and
no way to meet people.
And so, knowing we would have no time at all in Fiji if we didn’t get
going, we sailed from Pago Pago on October 9, bound for Suva.
Throughout our nine-day passage we all scanned the sea with more than
usual attention, for a ship not much larger than the _Phoenix_ had
disappeared mysteriously only a few days before and all shipping in the
area had been alerted. _Joyita_, a charter boat operating out of Apia,
had departed for the Tokelaus, less than 250 miles away, but had never
arrived. The government boat from Pago Pago had joined with British
ships and planes from Apia to comb the area, but without success.
We did not sight any wreckage of _Joyita_, but on the fifth day we came
across what was, on the face of it, another mystery. Sighting the island
of Niuafoo to the northwest, we decided to make a detour to investigate.
This island is referred to in the Pilot Book as “Tin Can Island,” due to
the local custom of floating mail out to passing ships in a watertight
container. No one, however, attempted to float anything out to us and,
even with the aid of binoculars, we could see no sign of any inhabitants
save for a couple of horses up in the hills. Intrigued, we sailed all
the way around the island, rather close in. On the northeast tip we saw
a village with a number of houses still under construction, but no sign
of a living soul. It was as if everyone had simply walked away a few
minutes before.
This was indeed a weird situation and we speculated endlessly. Even if
everyone had gone on an excursion into the interior for some reason,
surely there would have been old people staying behind, there would have
been dogs around—and pigs—and chickens. And, no matter where they were,
the sight of our boat—an unusual visitor—should certainly bring out at
least one curious inhabitant!
Puzzled, we sailed on. Not until we reached Suva did we learn that the
entire population of Niuafoo, under the control of Queen Salote of the
Tongas, had only recently been evacuated because of a volcanic eruption
and the threat of further disturbances.
Eight days out we saw the loom of Wailangi Lala Island light and another
of those incidents occurred which demonstrate how narrow is the
borderline between success and disaster. Knowing it would be several
hours before we came up on the light, I went below to rest, leaving what
I thought were clear instructions with Mickey, on watch, that I was to
be called _before_ we reached it, so that we could make a necessary
change of course at the light. I slept fitfully and came up on deck
without having been called—to see the light already abeam and the boat
on a course that would very shortly have piled us on the rocks. I
changed the course and asked Mickey why he hadn’t called me according to
orders. His only reason was that he couldn’t remember what I had told
him, and thus had done nothing!
It is necessary to navigate very carefully in the Koro Sea. All day we
cruised among countless inviting-looking islands, wanting to stop, but
required to push on to Suva, the official port of entry for the Fiji
Islands. We knew that, on this trip at least, we would not have the time
to backtrack, for the hurricane season was approaching and by the first
of November, at the latest, we would have to be on our way south to New
Zealand, out of the area of tropical storms.
That night, as we worked our way through a tricky series of lights at
the western exit of the Koro Sea, I stayed on deck. I had no desire to
push my luck and knew there would be plenty of time to catch up on lost
sleep when we had dropped the hook in the harbor of Suva.
By afternoon on October 18 we were rounding Viti Levu with a good breeze
and at 1600 we dropped anchor off the Royal Suva Yacht Club. A very nice
birthday present for the Skipper!
As usual, the first hour or two was hectic. The port doctor cleared us
without difficulty, but the customs official sealed not only our guns
and liquor, but a case of root beer as well. (Beer, he insisted, is
beer!) The immigration officer was a bit bothered by the presence of
three Japanese tourists without visas, although I explained that I had
checked in advance and been assured that no visas would be necessary for
a short visit of a yacht to a crown colony. At last he solved the
dilemma by deciding officially to ignore their presence so long as they
did nothing to call attention to themselves. In other words, so long as
there was no trouble they had the freedom of the port.
After we had been cleared there came, as usual, the press, followed by
the Commodore of the Royal Suva Yacht Club, who presented the family
with honorary membership cards. When we introduced Nick, Mickey, and
Moto, emphasizing that they, too, were yachtsmen, there was an awkward
pause.
“Er—well—yes!” I almost expected him to add, “Raw_ther_!” Instead, he
drew me aside as soon as convenient and confided that the club was
forced to adopt a “Whites Only” policy—because of the Indians, you
know—and although he, personally, had nothing against the Japanese—and
he was sure that most of the others would feel the same—well, there it
was, you know, and all that.
As a family, we discussed the situation long and seriously and decided,
at last, that we could do more good by accepting the proffered
membership than by huffily refusing. As Jessica expressed it, “We’ll
make friends and sow destruction!” This we tried to do, taking every
opportunity of bringing our companions into the conversation: “They’ll
be the first Japanese yachtsmen ever to have sailed around the world”
and “Those chaps of ours are pretty good small-boat sailors. They made a
fine record in the All-Japan Intercollegiates—they sail Class boats much
like those you have here,” etc., etc. When we admired the clubhouse, we
expressed regrets that _all_ of us couldn’t see what a fine place they
had and described how wonderfully we had been treated by yacht clubs in
Japan. “Wonderful what a common interest in sports can do to bridge
international barriers, isn’t it?”
Our campaign didn’t seem to have much effect at first, but after a few
days we noticed that those who came aboard made a special effort to be
cordial to the Japanese, albeit somewhat ponderously.
We did not change the policies of the Royal Suva Yacht Club; Nick,
Mickey, and Moto never saw the inside of the clubhouse, and yet we felt
we had gained something when one of the senior members remarked, in
tones of obvious astonishment: “Those lads of yours are fine chaps—very
intelligent!” And he added thoughtfully, “It is rather a pity they can’t
go into the clubhouse—walk around a bit, what? Some of the trophies make
a good show—and then, there are the photographs.... Yes, it is a pity.”
We could not hope, during our brief visit, to sort out the rights and
wrongs of the complex issues here, but we found the racial tension in
Suva a disquieting contrast to that other crossroads of the Pacific:
Honolulu. Jessica, for instance, found that although a Girl Scout may be
“a sister to every other Girl Scout,” in Fiji her sisterhood does not
cross color lines. There are Fijian Guides, Indian Guides, and European
Guides—and never the troops shall meet, not even for an occasional
jamboree.
Barbara and Jessica, however, visited them all and were warmly received.
The Fijian Guides, wearing costumes of beautifully designed tapa, put on
a program of native dances and entertained the visiting Scout from
America with lemon tea (made by boiling lemon leaves in a tin can
“billy”). They even invited her into a native bure, the Fijian name for
the shaggy grass huts that are as completely closed and airtight as the
Samoan fale is open. But this was about all the Fijian life they saw.
True, the city of Suva itself is colorful, with its tall and picturesque
Fijian policemen, hair trained to a bushy headdress, wearing red and
white sulus with scalloped hems; its tiny, fine-featured Indian women in
gauzy saris, with jeweled pins in their nostrils; its blatant Chinese
shops; its bustling open-air market, like something out of the _Arabian
Nights_; its colorful flower vendors. These sights are all worth seeing
and remembering.
But over it all hangs a sense of tension. There are sharp contrasts in
Suva between the principal ethnic groups: the dominant British, the
cheerful Melanesians, the quiescent Chinese, and the restive Indians.
The last-named are rapidly increasing their economic and political
influence in the islands, and there is clearly a conflict brewing. There
is no contact between Fijian and Indian, nor between these groups and
the British. The British in turn have a patronizing affection for the
Fijians, but a dislike and distrust of the Indians, which is
reciprocated. The Chinese sit in the background and make money.
When we left Fiji we felt we knew even less of the people here than we
had in other Pacific islands, and we regretted it.
7 DOWN UNDER:
NEW ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIA
“Ah-h-h, yes-s-s!...”
On the trip from Suva to Auckland, New Zealand, we had a marine
hitchhiker along, a lanky, cheerful Australian, Bill Sherwood. Bill was
on his way home to take part in the World Championship 18-footer races
and, as we all liked him at once, he had little difficulty in persuading
us to give him a lift for the first 1,100 miles.
The first few days were quiet. Once we had cleared the several islands
of the Fiji group, south of Viti Levu, the course presented no
particular navigational hazards and we settled quickly into our sea
routines. With an extra man, I evolved a new system of watches to give
everyone, including the cook, a bit of change and occasional relief. We
continued our schedule of two-hours-on-eight-off, but each day one of
the men was relieved from tiller duty and put himself at the cook’s
disposal for such chores as peeling vegetables, washing the rice, or
washing up the pots and pans. Mickey wasn’t too happy about this,
evidently considering galley duty as beneath the dignity of a Japanese
gentleman, but since the Skipper took his own turn whenever it came
around, there was little Mickey could do but conform.
The missing ship _Joyita_ was still on our minds and, in the
early-morning darkness of the seventh day we had an encounter that gave
me some moments of uneasiness. A ship passed us fairly close to port,
only her riding lights showing. Changing course, she pulled ahead and
stopped as we sailed by. I recalled that other boats besides _Joyita_
had disappeared without a trace in this region and the thought of
pirates flashed across my mind. As we approached, I began signaling with
the flashlight: “Yacht _Phoenix_. American Yacht _Phoenix_. We are okay!
We are okay!”
I sent this several times, but there was no response of any kind from
the silent ship ahead. After we had passed, the vessel got underway
again and moved on out of sight.
We were working our way south now, out of the area of steady trades and
into the horse latitudes. Gradually the wind dropped and at last for
several days we were becalmed outright or made bare steerageway in very
light airs.
Far from being bored, we found these quiet and indolent days full of
interest. We lolled on deck, read aloud, fished (without success), shot
at cans for target practice, and slept. A great deal of time was spent
just staring at the gently heaving sea.
In some strange fashion, a sea that is utterly calm seems to me more
alive than a sea in a gale. An angry sea is a mechanical monster, all
sound, power, and threat of immediate destruction. But a calm sea, its
surface breathing slowly and gently like a sleeping giant, seems animate
and, in spite of its seeming gentleness, somehow more menacing.
At various levels below the surface we could see hundreds of life forms:
jellyfish of many shapes and colors and innumerable other floating
shapes ranging from tiny, confetti-like blobs to fairly large and
elaborate, flower-shaped creatures. We caught a man-of-war, floating on
the surface of the water like a child’s plastic bath toy, and Jessica,
who spent hours hanging over the gunwales, discovered a school of half a
dozen little banded fish, about eight inches long, who were escorting us
faithfully, in the shadow of the hull.
Our most memorable day at sea was the one we christened the Day of the
Albatrosses. In the glassy calm these birds, who had been following us
for hundreds of miles, one by one left the air and skidded in for a
landing on the quiet sea, braking with feet flat ahead as they hit the
water. We threw out bits of pilot cracker and soon they had been lured
up to the boat where they squabbled noisily over the scraps.
Our next move was obvious! Rigging a loop on the end of a bamboo pole,
we began to try our hand at lassoing them. To my amazement, when I
finally succeeded in dropping a noose over the head of my chosen victim,
he struggled hardly at all—nor did his neighbors show the least alarm at
his predicament. I pulled the ungainly creature alongside, Nick and I
lifted him by his outspread wings and held him while Barbara got a
picture, and then we released him. He withdrew only a few feet, grumbled
a bit, and smoothed his ruffled feathers. In no time at all, he had
forgotten the indignity and rejoined his fellows to battle under the
stern sprit—and another threatening noose—for the delectable bits of sea
biscuit.
During the next couple of hours each member of the family had a try and
all of us, including Bill Sherwood, earned our membership in
P.A.L.S.—the _Phoenix_ Albatross Lassoing Society. Since there weren’t
enough birds to go around, it is obvious that some of them must have
been captured more than once! (Sidelight on the mysterious East: Nick,
who was mildly interested in our capture of the first albatross, soon
went below without attempting to try his luck: Mickey, reading in his
bunk, never did appear throughout the excitement; neither of the two
bothered to wake Moto, who was taking a nap.)
At last a light breeze, out of the northeast, rippled the surface of the
sea in a tentative manner. After a few false starts, it settled down,
and we were again on our way. With the breeze came a large school of
porpoises and a solitary whale, who surfaced nearby as if to round out
the entertainment.
On the sixteenth day Ted calculated that we should be able to see the
lights of the north end of New Zealand soon after dark. At this
information Bill, suddenly infected with land fever, glued himself to
the upper shrouds and began to strain his eyes to the south. Every half
hour or so he descended, wondered volubly where the light could be, and
climbed to the crow’s nest again. Watching his antics, we realized how
really seasoned we had become. Naturally we would be glad to make our
landfall, but none of us was impatient. We knew we’d see the light
sooner or later. Poor Bill, however, was in a fever of eagerness and
doubt. Not until 2200 did a loud and happy shout come from aloft and
Bill climbed stiffly down to announce triumphantly that he had found the
lights, right where Ted had said they ought to be. Shortly afterward we
were able to see them from deck level.
By morning we could catch glimpses of land through the haze and set our
course for the entrance to the Bay of Islands. Once we were in the
straits, the wind came up strongly and sent us bowling in so that, by
midafternoon, we were riding to anchor off the little port of Russell
and ready to be granted pratique.
Russell, New Zealand, is a charming village of some two thousand souls,
a world-renowned center for big-game fishing. The clustered red roofs
and the green hills beyond were very inviting and we all looked forward
to our traditional celebration dinner ashore—and the nice, cold drinks
that would precede and accompany it. But now we were to have our first
taste of New Zealand casualness. We met with no difficulty in clearing
customs and immigration, the officials seeming far more interested in
the details of our passage than in trotting out regulations. But
quarantine? “Ah-h-h, yes-s-s ...” in a delightful New Zealand drawl.
That was a bit of a problem, that! The only doctor, you see, was out
fishing and there was no telling where he was or when he might be
expected back. It was a pity he had chosen this day to go fishing, but
there it was. We would just have to wait.
When we asked about the prospects of getting dinner ashore, we were
assured there would be no trouble, no trouble whatsoever. The Duke of
Marlborough could serve any number and no advance notice need be given.
The only thing, of course, was that we must get there before seven
o’clock, when the dining room closed.
Rather enchanted than otherwise with this evidence of the
small-townishness of Russell, we settled down to wait for the doctor’s
return. In the meantime we tuned in the news and learned that _Joyita_
had been found at last, a battered and empty hulk, drifting among the
islands of the Fiji group. Passengers and crew were missing and there
was no clue to their fate. No one of us said anything, but I was sure
that in all our minds was the knowledge that it could have been us.
The afternoon passed and the shadows lengthened. Finally the sun set and
Bill, who had been regaling us with descriptions of the huge steak he
intended to order, with two—no, three!—fried eggs sitting on top, began
to consult his watch more and more frequently. Every time a fishing boat
came in he dashed hopefully on deck, only to rejoin us below with
obviously sagging spirits. At last, and with only a few minutes to
spare, the doctor arrived—apologizing charmingly for the inconvenience.
He glanced around, gave us a clean bill of health, signed the guest book
with a flourish, and then took us ashore in his own boat and rushed us
to the hotel, where the entire gang was treated to a seven-course dinner
as guests of the management!
We spent a week in Russell and then, eager to reach Auckland, where mail
had been piling up (we hoped) for several months, we started cruising
down the coast. This was a type of sailing we’d had little experience
with. We found it fascinating to be always within sight of land, sailing
by visible landmarks rather than by celestial navigation. The
countryside was fertile and lovely, with brilliant green uplands dotted
with the woolly blobs of grazing sheep, while along the shore stretches
of sandy beach piled into yellow dunes or reared up in sheer sandstone
bluffs.
We made only one stopover, at Kawau Island, where we spent a most
enjoyable weekend tied up to the private dock of Roy and Irene Lidgard,
New Zealand’s number one entry in the Be Kind to Visiting Yachtsmen
sweepstakes. There we fished, went crabbing, helped crew the small-boat
races at the Kawau Yacht Club, and took long walks into the hills
hunting for elusive wallabies. The climax was a spontaneous potluck
picnic that eddied back and forth between the _Phoenix_, Jim Lawler’s
_Ngaroma_ out of Auckland, and the Lidgards’ front lawn.
Auckland, when we finally arrived, proved equal to its reputation as one
of the most yacht-conscious cities in the world. It supports more than
three dozen yacht clubs and its beautiful and extensive bay provides
opportunity for every type of yachting activity. Certainly the welcome
extended to overseas yachtsmen would be hard to beat and, for those who
are interested in racing events, the Annual One-Day Regatta, with its
hundreds of entries, is undoubtedly the largest and most varied of its
kind.
Our concern about our Japanese companions was quickly dispelled, for
although we did hear one or two uncomplimentary asides, most of our
visitors were happy to accept us all as yachtsmen rather than racial
types. In addition, a number of “Kiwis” who had spent some time in Japan
under the occupation came down to show the boys around as a gesture of
appreciation for courtesies shown them in Japan.
During our three months in Auckland we learned much about the strange
mixture that is New Zealand—a country where personal relationships are
warm and hospitable, but where business contacts can be irritating in
the extreme. The casual absence of the doctor on the day we arrived
turned out to be quite typical of the “couldn’t care less” attitude of
the average New Zealander. The socialized state provides free medical
care, free dental care, old-age pensions, mothers’ pensions (with
bonuses to Maori mothers for increased production!), and many other
benefits so that worry scarcely enters the consciousness of most
individuals. No one works any more than he can help and business and
industry have to beg for laborers and make all sorts of concessions to
keep them happy. We had hardly settled down after arrival when I
overheard the following conversation on the dock:
“How would you blokes like a job while you’re here? We’d pay you right!”
“But we have only tourist visa. Cannot work.” This from Nick, who had
been strongly warned against trying to earn any money while staying in
Hawaii.
“Oh, you can work here right enough! Anybody can. When will you start?”
“I don’t think ...” Nick was obviously bewildered, afraid of getting
into trouble, not sure he had understood correctly, or perhaps reluctant
to desert the boat. I knew how low all the boys were in personal funds
and hurried up to reassure him that they were quite free to take any job
they might wish. Before I could get there, however, the would-be
employer had pressed ahead so eagerly to close the deal that he had
twice raised the going rate—although even the base pay was far more than
any of the men had ever received in Japan—and had even agreed, without
being asked, to have a taxi call for and deliver them every day.
And, as Moto said in bewilderment after the visitor had extracted their
willing promises and gone, “We don’t even know what kind work! Maybe we
cannot do!”
Actually, the job turned out to be the breaking up old American planes
for scrap metal, a task that all three could do very well and took a
particular delight in getting paid for.
Christmas in Auckland, 8,000 miles from home, found us locked up behind
the high board fence of a deserted shipyard. December being midsummer in
New Zealand and the height of the yachting season, we had found only one
shipyard that could accommodate us for the bottom job we had promised
the _Phoenix_—and that only if we would do our own work over the
holidays. On the morning of Friday the 23rd the workmen had made a
feeble gesture of assisting us to haul out—then silently stole away to
start their vacations. Before we knew it, the last of them had gone,
locking the gate behind him, and there we were—trapped.
Of course, we could always rescue ourselves by rowing the dinghy along
the shore until we found an escape hatch, but we wanted easier access to
our ship. Moreover, we were smarting with the indignity of it. How
_dare_ they just walk off and lock us in? (We had yet to learn that the
New Zealand workman will dare anything.)
The family and I explored the yard, whose fences extended down to the
waterfront on either side, in a vain search for a man-sized mousehole.
Nick, Mickey, and Moto stayed on board and settled themselves for a
philosophical nap. Situations like this, they seemed to feel, were
pre-eminently the problem of the Skipper.
Dusk was falling as we climbed onto a pile of lumber near the main gate
and peered over into the silent, empty streets.
Suddenly Jessica shouted, “Man ho!”
Sure enough, far down the street a speck resolved itself into a
pedestrian. We waited until he came abeam.
“Hey!” I hailed him.
He looked up. “My word,” he observed genially, “Americans!”
“Too right!” I responded in flawless New Zealandese. “Can you tell us
how to get out of here?”
“I’m frightfully afraid I can’t,” he admitted. “I should think
everyone’s gone home by now. The holidays, you know.”
He started on, but then he had a thought. “By the way,” he added, coming
back and speaking directly to Jessica, “if you should want a Christmas
tree, you’ll find bags of them at my stand just down the road. No one
seems to be buying this year, I’ll take a frightful loss. Just trot on
down and help yourself!”
“But there’s still time. You’ll sell lots tomorrow,” Jessica pointed
out.
The man sounded positively shocked. “On _Saturday_! Now, what would the
wife and kiddies say if I was to tell them I was going back to the stand
on a Saturday just to sell a few more trees? No, I stayed a good half
hour over as it is and now I’m for me holiday! And a happy Christmas to
you!”
He disappeared around the next corner, but we were not alone for long. A
car drew up to the curb and four very large bobbies stepped out. They
deployed in approved Scotland Yard fashion, one remaining near the car
and two covering the fence, while the fourth strode toward us
purposefully. His face was officially stern. He opened his mouth—but not
fast enough, for Barbara, always the strategist, spoke first.
“Can you tell us how to get out of here?”
The policeman seemed taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”
“Out!” I pressed our advantage. “We want to get out!”
“We were informed,” he told me reproachfully, “that some person or
persons were attempting to break into this yard.”
“Quite the contrary!” We explained the circumstances and suggested that
they summon the manager.
“The manager? Of the shipyard? Impossible. It’s the holidays, you know.”
I explained, as gently as my nature permitted, that we well knew it was
“the holidays.” In fact, that even increased our desire to be free to
come and go. We, too, would like to celebrate Christmas. So would he
please get the manager? Or could he get a key to the gate? Or perhaps it
would be simpler if I just broke the lock?
That did it. My last suggestion was vetoed in horrified tones, we were
told to wait, and sometime later a defensively apologetic manager came
down and unlocked the gate. He permitted us to put our own combination
padlock on it for the duration, and even gave us the key to the W.C. and
shower for which we had quite forgotten to make arrangements.
Our original plan, to sail on down to the South Island after the first
of the year, was rudely changed in the course of this overhaul, for a
routine inspection revealed the presence in the head of our mainmast of
a nasty variety of boring insect, the first of which we had discovered
in the course of our trip to Tahiti. After digging into the mast and
finding that it had been badly infested, I decided that, like a bad
tooth, the whole thing would have to go. The situation was discouraging,
however, for—unlike an infected molar—it would have to be replaced
immediately.
There was no doubt what wood we wanted for the new mast—kauri pine,
historically famous for its use as spars on sailing ships. However,
there is a modern-day hitch in that kauri has become so scarce that it
is now protected by law.
Where there’s a law there’s a loophole, however, and it was the helpful
manager of the shipyard who helped us find a way. Suppose someone wished
to build a new house—or construct a road—and a kauri “ricker” just
happened to be growing in the way? In such a case, permission might be
obtained to cut the tree and no questions would be asked as to its
subsequent disposition.
After scouting around for days we were finally directed to the right
combination of tree and circumstance. Permission was granted, the tree
was cut, and the trunk, bark and all, was hauled to the shipyard and
dumped. I had announced that our own gang would do all the work, but
when we looked the log over it seemed a truly formidable undertaking. I
could feel my feet getting cold.
“Are you quite certain you know how to go about making the mast?” the
yard foreman asked.
“Quite certain,” I said firmly.
“Is there anything you need?”
“Nothing but adzes, axes, spokeshaves, planes, sandpaper—and a few
weeks.”
He lent us the tools and told us to take as long as we needed. The boys
looked at me.
“What do we do first?” asked Ted.
“First,” I said, “we take off the bark.”
About a month later we had our mast, gleaming smoothly in the summer
sun. Frankly, I was proud of our job. Kauri is beautiful wood, both to
look at and to work, and it has the added advantage of needing no
seasoning period. With the help of the workers at the boatyard, we
rolled the mast into the water, borrowed a motorboat, and towed it
across the harbor to where the Auckland Harbor bridge was under
construction.
I approached the operator of an enormous steam crane.
“I have a boat,” I explained, “and that mast over there. I’m trying to
figure out how to get them together. Any ideas?”
He grinned. “Bring them on over.”
We did so, the crane lifted our new mast like a twig, poised it
dramatically for a moment over the gaping hole amidships, and then
lowered away. By nightfall we had our “homemade” mast completely wedged
and shrouded, with a bright “thruppenny” bit—a gift from Jessica, which
we were assured would bring luck—nestled beneath the base.
It was time to move on and I began to inquire about the possibility of
sailing down the east coast as far as Wellington, through Cook Strait,
and thus across the Tasman to Sydney.
“Wellington?” everyone demanded scornfully. “Why do you want to go to
Wellington? There’s nothing there, really. And as for the trip down the
coast—you’re likely to have very bad weather, you know—shocking!
Wellington harbor’s not too good, either—exposed and windy. My word!
Terrible! As for Cook Strait—worst stretch of water in the
world—absolutely notorious. No yachts go that way to Sydney. You must go
north first, then west and around the cape. It’s the only way.”
Still I hesitated. We’d come from Russell and it seemed a shame to go up
that way again when there was so much farther south that we hadn’t seen.
Surely there must be another side to the story.
At last I found it. One day I met a charming chap on the dock. He had
just come in from his mooring. In the course of our chat I mentioned the
possibility of our sailing to Wellington. He was delighted.
“Ah-h-h, yes-s-s! Wellington! Splendid place. You’ll like it. Very
active yacht clubs there—real sailors, you know—nothing they won’t do
for you. The trip down the coast? First-rate fun—easy course. Fine
sailing. Wellington harbor? Couldn’t be better. Bit of a wind there,
true—but it’s well protected. Wellington to Sydney? Through Cook Strait?
Well, why not—why not? I remember distinctly another yacht made it that
way—no trouble at all. Back in the thirties, I think it was. Not as
sturdy a craft as yours, either.”
Here was the optimistic note I’d been seeking. I turned away,
encouraged, but had a sudden thought. “By the way, where are you from?”
He smiled cheerfully. “Ah—Wellington, actually!”
At any rate, on February 6 we sailed south, en route to Wellington. We
left Auckland with a bit of a flourish, in a force 6 southwesterly, amid
showers. For two days we bowled along, covering a record 280 miles in 48
hours, but then the winds fell off. In the next few days we experienced
the wide variety of weather that can be expected in these latitudes,
with winds ranging from calms to gales in rapid succession, and
neglecting no point of the compass. First-rate fun, indeed!
Early on the morning of the eighth day we rounded the last headland and
tackled notorious Cook Strait. It did not disappoint us—although we were
more than willing to be disappointed. A northerly gale funneled down on
us and after a few rough and profitless hours of beating through high
seas we eased off and continued on across the southern approaches to the
strait and ran for the lee of South Island. The _Phoenix_, which takes a
bit of a breeze to get underway, was making an easy seven knots under
storm jib and reefed mizzen alone and her motion evoked unwelcome
memories of our North Pacific crossing.
By evening we were well down the coast and had about decided to pay a
visit to Christchurch, as long as we were in the neighborhood, when the
evening weather forecast announced a strong southerly in Cook Strait.
That was what we had been waiting for, so we put about. The breeze swung
to the south, at first tentatively polite and then rudely boisterous,
and we tore back up the coast, staying well offshore.
When taking our sun shots the next morning we suddenly realized that our
latitude was now outside the range of the H.O. 214 navigation tables we
had on board. Ted, in no way disturbed by this discovery, extrapolated
the data necessary to work out our position. That afternoon the entrance
to beautiful Wellington harbor rose out of the mists, dead ahead. At
1800 we were met by the pilot boat and escorted to a comfortable, if
somewhat public, berth at Queen’s Wharf, five minutes from the center of
downtown Wellington.
Our first visitor was Bill McQueen, an enthusiastic young chap from the
Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club, who had spotted us through glasses as
we entered the harbor. Anything he could do for us? Any shopping?
Perhaps we’d like him to run up and bring us a few pies, since it’s well
past teatime? (A pie, in New Zealandese, is a delicious and filling
meat-and-vegetable concoction, a meal in itself.) We accepted the offer
gratefully.
While he was away, our next visitors arrived: Commodore Tomkies and
Vice-Commodore Catley, also of the yacht club. They, too, offered hot
pies, and were a bit chagrined to learn that one of the youngsters had
beaten them to it. However—would any of us care to come up to the house
later for hot baths and supper? We would? First rate! Someone would be
down to pick up the lot of us at eight o’clock.
The hot pies arrived, two apiece, fragrant and delicious. Handing over
honorary guest cards to all of us, our new friends of the yacht club
took their leave and we retired below to enjoy our pies. It was nice to
be alone for a few moments, to sort out our impressions. Suddenly
Jessica, curled up on the seat box by her desk, glanced out the
starboard porthole and gave a gasp.
“There are _hundreds_ of _people_ up there on the dock—watching every
bite I take!”
“It is rather public,” Ted agreed, “but you can always close your eyes.”
Our central location was both an advantage, for shopping, and a
disadvantage. Each day, during the noon hour, some two or three hundred
workers were decanted from nearby offices and all of them wandered down
to look us over and comment on our activities while they stood about
drinking beer and eating fish and chips. Frequently, I’m sure, they had
no idea how their voices carried.
“Do they have to crawl around on their hands and knees?” we heard one
citizen demand, eying the two feet of cabin that is raised above deck
level.
“They came all the way from Hiroshima,” a man explained to his
companion. Obviously he had read the newspaper.
The girl beside him let out a little cry as she spotted our bobtailed
Mi-ke sleeping in the furled mainsail. “Oh, look at the poor little
pussycat!” she crooned. “It must have lost its tail in the atom bomb!”
In Wellington we said good-bye at last to a quiet, but not particularly
attractive, deck passenger—the _gempylus_, or snake mackerel, that we
had caught and preserved on our passage from Hilo to Papeete. We had had
some correspondence with Dr. Falla, of the Wellington Museum, and now we
turned our specimen over to him with accompanying newspaper fanfare.
“SNAKE MACKEREL ARRIVES!” proclaimed headlines on the front page and we
were reminded again of how little it takes to titillate the reading
interest of so remote a country as New Zealand. Accompanying the article
was a picture of our unprepossessing-looking creature, curled into a
tight U-shape, just as it had solidified in the can. It was obvious that
it would need considerable expert attention to restore color and natural
form before it would be ready for display.
Meanwhile, we were making preparations for our crossing of the Tasman,
mostly a matter of laying in provisions, as we had given the ship a
thorough overhaul in Auckland. Another boathiker was signed on for this
passage: Peter Callander, a sensitive and intelligent young Britisher
who was looking for deep-sea cruising experience and promised to be an
enjoyable companion for Ted and a help to Barbara.
We sailed on March 5, with the promise of a southerly to push us through
the strait, a promise that was not kept. Cook Strait had fought us
coming in and it fought us going out. Unable to make progress against a
fresh northerly and heavy seas, we crossed the strait and I checked the
charts for a likely anchorage along the coast of South Island. There was
a choice of two, but one was suspiciously empty of soundings, so I
elected to backtrack ten miles downwind to a better-marked anchorage,
Weary Bay. Once again my fellow crew members made it obvious from their
attitudes that they felt I was being overcautious, and when I insisted
on setting an anchor watch there was even more audible dissent.
I think we were all a little jittery about the passage, particularly as
we had only recently been told, in graphic detail, about two yachts that
had been lost, with all their crews, in the course of a race across the
strait only the year before. We lay uneasily at anchor and even though I
had set an anchor watch, my rest was disturbed. I was more than annoyed,
therefore, when I found Mickey sound asleep in his bunk during the
period of his watch. He apologized profusely, and promised it would
never happen again.
Once again the ever-recurring dilemma presented itself. The only
sensible thing to do with a delinquent or mutinous crew member would be
to fire him, for the safety of the ship. But how could I fire Mickey
when I hadn’t hired him in the first place? To sever our relationship
now would mean putting back to Wellington and waiting for an indefinite
period until passage could be arranged for him to Japan. On the other
hand, to make it clear that I intended to terminate the association as
soon as we reached Sydney would certainly do nothing to make for smooth
crew relationships on the potentially difficult crossing of the Tasman.
Again I compromised with my better judgment, accepted Mickey’s apology,
and hoped that all would work out for the best. This solution was not an
easy one for me, personally, as I am not a patient man by nature nor do
I take kindly to mutiny. However, I was learning patience, a lesson I
sorely needed.
The south wind finally arrived in the early morning and we began to work
our way through the strait. By nightfall we had recovered our lost
ground and made good progress, but we found the going very tricky at the
northern end, where the currents were strong and unpredictable. It was
another day before we had made a safe offing, and I had a deeper
appreciation of the passages in Cook’s Journal in which he describes his
own difficulties in this area, which came near to wrecking his ship.
Once again, after a wistful looking backward to friends left behind and
things undone, we settled into the timeless routines of life afloat,
with Peter to continue the galley boy arrangement that meant so much to
our cook. It was good to have leisure to relax, to get acquainted with
one another again, and to sort out our impressions of the country we had
just left before plunging into the whirl of the one that lay ahead.
We were six days out before we had our first taste of “Tasman weather.”
A front passed, with its sudden squall, and ripped out our foresail
sheet. We had a busy half hour before we got all secure and then I made
one of my rather rare radiotelephone contacts, reporting to the
Wellington weather station the passage of the front. I had a very good
contact.
Two days later, in the predawn darkness, Peter called me sharply. In an
instant I was on deck.
“Someone just shot a flare—off the port quarter. A green flare.”
Together we watched for some time, but the signal was not repeated. As
Peter described it, he had seen a greenish glow light up the white of
the mizzenmast and had turned in time to see the tail end of the
rocket’s flight and the star shower. I took a bearing, which was
directly upwind of us, and attempted to report to Wellington by radio.
This time, however, I was unable to raise them.
Whether it was an actual flare, a natural phenomenon, or perhaps a
flying saucer—we had no way of knowing, but we tacked our way back,
under power and sail. We cruised the area all day, with a man at the
masthead, but found nothing. At nightfall we added the incident to our
backlog of mysteries of the sea and set the course again for Sydney.
The next day we spoke the _Waitaki_, Union Steamship freighter bound for
New Zealand, and reported the sighting and the approximate position. We
have never heard any more about it.
On the thirteenth day the Tasman gave us another sample of its dirtier
side. The barometer had been dropping slowly for two days and, at 0730,
with a quick shift of wind to the south and a torrential rain, the seas
and wind began to rise. By evening, with wind force 7–8, we took a reef
in the main, and thereafter rode easily. According to radio reports, we
were caught in the tail end of a cyclone centering over Lord Howe
Island, north of us.
The next day was squally, with overcast skies, but with occasional
fleeting glimpses of a wan sun. I kept a sextant to hand all morning,
and near noon Ted and I were lucky enough to get two quick shots of the
sun, so that we could be reasonably satisfied of our position. Late that
afternoon we saw a line on the horizon that gradually hardened into
land, and by dark we were able to identify Barranjoey Light, twenty
miles up the coast from Sydney Heads.
The wind was now dead against us, so we tacked down the coast all night.
The breeze and seas were dropping rapidly, and by 0600, with North Head
in sight, we were becalmed between short bursts of mild rain squalls.
Taking advantage of each flurry, we gradually closed the heads and went
in under both sail and power.
It was good to drop anchor in the first likely-looking spot, Watson Bay,
and there, with our Q-flag flying, we waited for the officials to
arrive. The port doctor quickly gave us pratique, the immigration
officer glanced at our visas and stamped our passports—and H.M. Customs
took over. He was courteous and affable, but his duty was to guide us
through the largest and most formidable assortment of documents and
manifests that we had ever seen. By the time we had completed everything
we were quite exhausted and ready for the more enjoyable aspects of
arrival to begin.
After the officials had left, we sat on deck, ate a leisurely if belated
lunch, enjoyed the splendid view—and felt a little bit deflated. We had
been cleared—yes, but we had no idea of where to go next or what to do.
Sydney’s harbor is so vast, her anchorages so numerous, her geography so
unknown that we felt intimidated. We longed for someone to come and take
us by the hand.
The afternoon wore on and still we were unmolested. No one on the shore
seemed so much as to glance in our direction. A few yachts and launches
passed at a distance, but we might have been a part of the permanent
view for all the attention we got. We commented on how nice and peaceful
it all was, how attractive the red roofs, how big and clean the city.
But Jessica summed up our unspoken feelings when she demanded, at last,
“Where _is_ everybody?”
“This is a big city, honey,” Barbara explained carefully, “the biggest
we’ve visited. It’s a seaport, with hundreds of ships coming and going
all the time. We can’t expect them to pay much attention to us.”
Suddenly I realized that she was right. We’re spoiled, I told myself,
that’s our trouble. Okay, so we’ve just crossed the Tasman Sea of
terrible repute, and we did it the hard way, direct from Wellington. So
what do we expect—a medal? Nobody asked us to do it, nobody invited us
to come. We complain about the fuss and furor of greetings, the invasion
of our privacy by the press, the curiosity of dockside crowds, but when
we are paid no attention at all we pout.
I went below and started checking the harbor chart for a likely
anchorage, while Ted and Barbara hunted through the accounts of other
yachtsmen to see what they had done about Sydney.
You’re on your own, I reminded myself sternly. Nobody is going to meet
us, nobody is going to greet us. Sydney is just a great, big, impersonal
city and, as they say down under, the inhabitants couldn’t care less.
A motorboat pulled alongside. “Ahoy, _Phoenix_!” sang out a cheery
voice. “Welcome to Sydney! We’ve been watching for you!”
“You _have_?” unbelievingly.
“Too right! We’re from the Cruising Club of Australia. Throw us a line!”
“A line?”
“Too right! We’ll tow you over to your moorings.”
“Okay!” It was wonderful to turn over decisions to someone else, someone
who knew his way around.
“We’ve been saving a spot for you, right off the clubhouse in
Rushcutter’s Bay. We only just heard you’d arrived—sorry if you’ve been
kept waiting. And, by the way—we have a couple of gentlemen from the
press who asked to come along. All right if they come aboard?”
“Sure—come ahead! Boys, throw them a line!” And the fun began.
8 —AND BACK UP:
THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
“Better men than we had come to grief....”
Sydney, like most cities, is big, bustling, and impersonal, but it has
its own atmosphere and flair. The hills, covered with typically
red-roofed houses; the extensive harbor, with its multitude of bays and
sheltered coves, dominated by the magnificent arching bridge that is
Sydney’s pride; the breezy friendliness of the people—all these give
Sydney a unique character.
Our own location, in quiet Rushcutter’s Bay, less than fifteen minutes
by bus from the heart of the city, was as lovely a spot as one could
hope to find in or near a metropolis. Through the kindness of Mr.
Packer, editor of the Sydney _Telegraph_, whom we had met first in
Honolulu, a company car was put at our disposal during our entire stay
but, due to the trauma of driving on the left—and a vague fear of
getting involved in some accident that could wipe out our entire
savings—we depended mostly for transportation upon the scarlet
double-decker buses that moved majestically through the streets.
One of the disappointing realities of travel is the impossibility of
ever seeing as much of any country as one had hoped to do, and Australia
was no exception. We had come armed with addresses: friends who had
worked with me at the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Japan; the
Japanese wives of Australian servicemen whom Barbara had taught in Kure.
All of them had said, cheerfully, when we parted: “See you when you get
to Australia!” But now we discovered how widely scattered these friends
were and how impossible to see them all. A few of the Japanese brides
lived in or near Sydney, and through them Barbara was able to get news
of many more, but the two friends Jessica had most looked forward to
seeing lived near Melbourne and we had no time to sail farther south.
At last it was decided that Barbara and Jessica would travel overland to
Melbourne for a short holiday from boatkeeping. Barbara stayed only a
few days, long enough to fall completely under the spell of the city,
which was in a fever of preparation for the Olympic Games, but Jessica
was so delighted to be with Carol Exton, whom she had known when we
first went out to Japan, and Clare Davis, the pen pal whose father we
had first met in Tahiti, that we didn’t have the heart to tear her away
while both families were urging extended hospitality. As a result,
Jessica stayed on for the better part of two weeks in the army town of
Puckapunyal and went with Carol to the dependent school, where she
learned to figure in pounds, shillings, and pence. Then she switched
families for a visit with Clare in Melbourne. By the time she rejoined
us she was talking like a “proper Aussie,” throwing around such
expressions as “beaut,” “terribly posh,” “it’s a dill” (meaning no good
or stupid), or “let’s have a gig”—in Yankee talk, “let me see.” In
addition, she had persuaded the Davises to let Clare sail with us up to
the Great Barrier Reef—and now all she had to do was convince the
Skipper that we needed a subdeb hitchhiker for a change. Since Clare’s
parents were quite willing to pay for her to return by air from one of
the northern Queensland ports before we set off for Indonesia, I was
more than willing. One of the inevitable drawbacks to such a trip as
ours is the lack of companionship for those who are under age. Ted and
Jessica got along far better than most brothers and sisters with a
five-year gap in their ages—but the gap was there. And although Barbara
had found an amazing number of interests, confidences, and giggles that
she and Jessica could share, we knew that even the best mother-daughter
relationship is no substitute for an intimate of one’s own age.
At every port there are dozens of things on the list of Things to Do and
Things to Buy. Sydney was no exception. Again we hauled out and gave the
_Phoenix_ her biannual face lifting, using the Cruising Club’s slip. I
arranged, at last, to replace the faulty chain plates that had been much
on my mind for a reason which is obvious: there are two things that
_must not_ fail on a seagoing yacht—the masts and the rudder. The chain
plates hold the shrouds that support the mast. Period.
I laid in a supply of essential navigation aids for the next stage of
our trip—pilot books, light lists, tide tables, and nearly a hundred
charts, enough to get us to Durban, South Africa. As was always the
case, many of the charts were for places we did not expect to visit, but
plans have a way of changing—or of being changed—as one goes along, due
to weather conditions, local advice, or dire necessity. Not too long
before us, a yacht bound for Australia had been blown off course in a
storm and had tried to put in to Lord Howe Island—without a chart. It
had ended up on a reef, with the vessel a total loss.
There were the usual visas to arrange for, too. South African officials
raised no objections, in spite of their well-known color bar, and even
assured me that Japanese citizens were considered “European.”
The very young fellow at the Indonesian Consulate, however, was
hesitant.
“Just why do you wish to visit my country, sir?” he asked politely.
I had a sudden hunch that the usual reasons would not be enough. It is
one thing to fly to Jakarta, like any self-respecting tourist, there to
follow the beaten track on conducted tours before flying home
again—having “seen” Java. It is quite another to request permission to
_sail_ in, to poke around in ports where there are no other foreigners
and no liking for them, possibly to get oneself in a jam and even create
an international incident. (Only recently, exactly that did happen, the
yacht ended up a wreck and the yachtsman landed in jail.)
I reminded myself that, once again, we were going against all local
advice in going to Indonesia at all. “Give the whole bloody place a
miss!” was the way one recently returned Aussie phrased it. “They’re
insolent puppies, the whole bloody lot of them. Threw me passport right
on the floor, they did, and made me pick it up myself!” But we had heard
similar unfavorable comments about almost every port on our
itinerary—and since our informant had struck me as rather an “insolent
puppy” himself, we reserved judgment.
The young Indonesian was waiting, not at all insolently, for my reply.
“The main reason we want to go is because Indonesia is a young republic.
You won your independence as we did, by revolution, but you’re still
having a lot of problems to face and the going is hard. Back in the
United States, we’re not young and eager any more—we’ve forgotten our
beginnings. We’d like to see how it’s going with you—and how you’re
meeting your problems. And we’d like to be in Indonesia on August
seventeenth to help celebrate your eleventh birthday.”
There was a long pause. Then the young man said, “Could you come back in
two weeks?”
I could and did, to be handed a visa for every member of our _Phoenix_
party, without qualifications. Across the visas was written, boldly,
“Guests of Indonesia.” There was no charge.
While in Sydney, I bought an additional dinghy, a flat little skiff that
was promptly christened Flattypus. I also added a “gadget,” a small,
kerosene-burning refrigerator. It seemed to work beautifully—in port, at
least—and Barbara was ecstatic. Knowing who would have to service it for
the rest of its natural life, I withheld my enthusiasm, but I had to
admit that it cooled the beer nicely and hoped that happy condition
would continue.
By late April (corresponding to October in the Northern Hemisphere) the
weather was getting nippy and we accelerated our preparations for
departure. Once again, Barbara drew up her commissioning list, making
adjustments according to whatever “tinned goods” and staples were
available. By now, she was quite an expert in estimating our needs for
weeks or even months at a time, and the provisions she laid in now would
be required to carry us all the way to Durban—an eight to nine months’
supply. Even in English-speaking countries, however, it is not always
easy to find what one needs. Baked beans and spaghetti, for instance,
were sold in tiny cans like potted meats and were used in much the same
way—for sandwiches. And canned food for cats was practically unheard of.
“Cat food—in tins?” one wholesaler repeated incredulously. “Now, why
don’t you just nip down to the butchery and ask for a tuppenny-’orth of
scraps?”
When we sailed from Sydney it was our plan to make no stops until within
the Great Barrier Reef, almost a thousand miles to the north. We all
looked forward to a restful period at sea to recover from the gradually
accelerating pace of life ashore which inevitably becomes frenetic as
departure nears. Especially after a prolonged stay in port, the last few
days are a rat race, complete with “little lists” and a constant,
gnawing worry lest something vital may be overlooked—either socially or
from a subsistence point of view. Have all thank-you’s been said—or
written? All engagements remembered and kept? All necessary supplies
purchased—and _delivered_? Human nature being what it is, there are
always a number of items we tentatively check off because someone or
other has said, helpfully, “Oh, I can get that for you wholesale—just
leave it to me!” or “I’ve dozens of those lying around, I’ll bring you
all you can use.” But, as sailing day approaches, where are they? If it
is an important, but expensive, item, you find yourself torn between
laying out money for it unnecessarily or running the risk of sailing
without it.
As departure draws near, the visitors increase, as do the number of
invitations, until at last every waking minute of every day is filled
and only the nights are left for worrying over things-to-be-done and
things-to-be-bought. In the end there is a real sense of relief when we
shove off and know there will be no more chance callers, no more
absolutely necessary places to go or things to see, and no temptation to
rush downtown for one last vital item.
Naturally, there is never any way of knowing whether a given trip will
be pleasant or not. We usually have some control over the first day or
two, in that we can wait for a favorable weather forecast or a fair
wind, but after that it’s anybody’s guess.
On our run up the east of Australia we had generally good luck and
racked up an auspicious record of 600 miles in the first five days,
which was not bad against the current and in variable winds. Young
Clare, who had never been away from home before _or_ on a ship, was both
homesick and seasick for the first few days, but she was a game sport.
Gradually she perked up, and before long she and Jessica fell into an
easy routine of schoolwork and play in a most congenial vein.
We all joined in studying the geography and history of the areas and
towns we passed, for most of the time we were in sight of land and able
to get a good idea of the vastness and, in the northern reaches, the
desolation of the continent. Even Clare was properly impressed that it
took the better part of four days to leave New South Wales behind—one of
the smallest of Australia’s seven states. As Jessica observed, “Texas
would certainly have its nose put out of joint down under!”
By day we passed mile after mile of white sand beaches, backed by
rolling hills and occasional sharp, mountainous profiles. By night we
could spot our position at any given time with the help of well-marked
coastal lighthouses and beacons that made coastal cruising a pleasure.
On May 8 we entered the wide southern mouth of the Great Barrier Reef.
Here the seas were calm, as quiet as any we have ever experienced, yet
we were twenty miles offshore and well out of sight of land. The wind
died away and for the next two days, by going absolutely nowhere, we
managed to get back to our usual long-term average of four knots.
Actually, we were drifting slowly northward, for here the current goes
up the coast rather than down as it had to the south.
By May 10 we could see the five high islands of the Percy group, with
grassy, wooded slopes, brilliant white beaches, and inviting bays.
Jessica and Clare, who had laboriously made a pirate flag, complete with
skull and crossbones, wanted to land and take over an uninhabited
island. Barbara, too, had land fever and the islands looked so tempting
that we yielded to their lure. Picking one from the charts at random, we
cast anchor in a lovely bay off the west side of Middle Island.
A mile away, Pine Islet has a lighthouse and, through the binoculars, we
could see a number of houses grouped about it. On Middle Percy, however,
the only sign of civilization was an apparently deserted shack set well
back from the beach with a big sign: TELEPHONE. This, we assumed, was
connected in some way with the lighthouse settlement.
The surf was too high to carry four in Flattypus, so I rowed Barbara
ashore first, promising to return for the excited girls. First, however,
I decided to take a look at the shack. Inside was the telephone, looking
as tempting as Alice’s cake marked: “Eat me!” How could I resist
following the directions: “Wind crank and lift handset.”
At once I found myself talking to the sole family on the island, a
Canadian sister and two brothers who lived high in the interior. They
knew all about the _Phoenix_, as soon as I mentioned my name, having
read my series of articles in the _Saturday Evening Post_.
At their invitation, and under the guidance of Claude and Percy White,
who came down to the shore to meet us, we all trooped up to the White
home, a good stiff hike. There we were able to send off a message of
reassurance to Clare’s parents by the interesting expedient of flashing
a message in Morse to the lighthouse of Pine Islet, from whence it was
relayed by radio to Mackay on the mainland and thence overland to
Melbourne!
This taken care of, we settled down to enjoy three days of wonderful
hospitality, climaxed by a wild-goat hunt—or I might say a wild
wild-goat hunt—which ended successfully with a barbecue on the beach.
Now began a new and delightful stage in our travels, island hopping,
with a different anchorage every night. Our first call after the Percy
Islands was at Lindeman, a resort island where Clare’s father “shouted
us” by means of a cable to the management instructing them to entertain
the entire crew of the _Phoenix_ in style. They did, and Clare took
great pleasure in her role as hostess at a sumptuous dinner in the
hotel.
From Lindeman we made our way gradually north, with occasional stops to
explore scattered and mostly uninhabited islands. Barbara, especially,
took great pleasure in “fossicking” on the reefs at low tide and
invariably returned to the _Phoenix_ with pailfuls of live shells which
we had no convenient way of cleaning while underway, since the approved
method is to bury them for a week or two and allow ants and nature to do
the job. As a result, we sailed always with a more or less pervasive
odor of decaying animal life and, try as she would to keep her trophies
downwind of our living quarters, she insists that many of them were
given the deep-six by unnamed members of the crew.
Our next major stop was Townsville, on the mainland, where we spent four
days, catching up on baths, laundry, fresh vegetables, and the news of
mutual friends.
A day or two beyond Townsville we made one of our most interesting stops
in the Barrier Reef, at Great Palm Island, the largest aboriginal
settlement in Queensland. Great Palm is strictly _not_ for the tourist.
There are no accommodations for overnight guests and no public services.
Only those who, like ourselves, come in by boat and are
self-sufficient—and who are able to obtain the permission of the
superintendent—are allowed to remain after dark.
During our stay at Great Palm, we gave an evening of slides and movies
in the outdoor theater, a program which was an outstanding success. For
the first time, we ran the movies we had taken of the Bastille Day fete
in Tahiti and the response of the Australian aborigines to the Tahitian
belles and their vibrant hula was such that we had to run that
particular reel three times! I made a special trip out to the _Phoenix_
at anchor to bring back the slit drum from Uturoa and the cowrie-trimmed
grass skirts from Bora Bora, and these exhibits were passed around and
tried out by every man, woman, and child in the settlement, to the
accompaniment of much giggling and many gibes.
By the way of return, the native population put on a “corraboree” for
our benefit. A great deal of care and elaborate preparation had gone
into the costuming and make-up of the aborigines, whose black faces,
ribs, arms, and pipestem legs were outlined in strange patterns of white
paint. At the last minute, however, and when all was in readiness for
the dance, it seemed that a native drum and drummer were not to be
found. A plea for one, repeated several times over the loud speaker,
finally turned up a volunteer who used, as his drum, that universal
instrument—an empty kerosene tin!
From Great Palm Island to Cairns, the next mainland port on our
itinerary, was only a day’s sail. My log notes that the seas were short
and choppy after we had left the shelter of the island and we rolled
considerably with the resultant sound of numerous crashes from below,
“particularly,” as I remark smugly, “in the ladies’ cabin.” A couple of
weeks of quiet sailing, plus sheltered anchorages, had made us all a bit
careless in stowing.
We reached the outer lights of Cairns channel at 2:30 in the morning,
but I refused to transit the narrow passage, five miles long, until
daylight, especially with a balky engine. Again, my possibly
overcautious decision to anchor and wait out the night was at odds with
the ideas of my Japanese companions, who were all for going right on in.
They grumbled a bit about waiting, and even more over my insistence on
the ever-unpopular anchor watch, but I remained adamant. The _Phoenix_,
with 30 tons displacement and a 25-horsepower engine (18 when using
kerosene), is sluggish under power and coming in to a strange anchorage
is always tense under the best of conditions. Channel markers, docks,
and shore lines may be well marked on the charts, but neither chart nor
pilot book can give advice about such imponderables as weather, poor
visibility, the movements of shipping, or the vagaries of our own
engine.
Since I was engineer as well as skipper, and since the engine is under
the floor of the after cabin with no remote controls, coming in to a
dock or mooring demanded a high degree of cooperation between the
lookout forward, the man at the tiller, and myself.
The next morning, with the wind dead ahead, and the engine still acting
up, we limped down the long corridor to town, stopping once to make a
quick spark plug change. I think that even Nick was grateful for good
visibility as he helped pick out and guide us past the intricate system
of buoys that marked the channel.
As we entered the harbor we had another of those experiences which can
only sound routine in the telling but was nerve-racking in the extreme.
In Cairns there was a solid line of docks and warehouses along the shore
to starboard, but nothing to indicate where we should go. Barely
crawling, we moved down the channel, scanning the land. At last we saw a
man in uniform emerge from one of the buildings. Waving a paper in one
hand, he signaled to us to come in. I dived down the afterhatch, put the
engine in reverse, ordered the helmsman to put the tiller over, and we
began to maneuver our way alongside the dock. The current was strong,
but we finally succeeded in bringing our boat up neatly, almost abeam of
the uniformed official.
Moto made ready to throw a line.
_“Phoenix?”_ The official demanded. At my affirmative, he leaned over
and handed me a letter. For Jessica. No greeting. No word of
explanation. Just a letter.
I shoved it into my pocket while I prepared to cut the engine and make
fast to the dock.
“You can’t tie up here!” the official told us, shocked. “This is the
main dock!”
“Where then?” I asked.
He looked amazed and nonplused. At last he suggested that we had “best
move right on down.” He gestured down the harbor into infinity.
I put the engine in gear once more and we headed away from the dock and
on up the channel. At last, almost at the end of the harbor, we found an
old jetty that seemed to be sufficiently out of anyone’s way. A couple
of bystanders helped us come alongside, but we had barely made the lines
fast and put the engine to bed when our friend the official arrived,
panting.
“You’ll have to move on back,” he told us. “You can tie up where you
first came in, for a few hours. Then you’ll have to move along, because
there’s a big ship coming in.”
He also said we would be charged “regular docking rates” while there. I
was a little annoyed by then and retorted that, if this were the case, I
would have to charge admission to come aboard the _Phoenix_. (I had a
wonderful precedent for that action: old Joshua Slocum himself did it,
when officials tried to gouge him.)
After we had moved back to our original spot, I visited the dockmaster,
who decided that if other ports in Australia had not charged the
_Phoenix_ a docking fee, neither would Cairns. I then graciously invited
him to come aboard at any time—no charge. He hardly seemed to know what
to do with a yacht, and was concerned because we might interfere with
the berthing of two big ships that were due in at the same time. I
assured him that if they came close enough to interfere with us, they
would be too dangerously close to each other. He finally agreed to
permit us to remain where we were, which would put us right between
them. And so it worked out very nicely—our forward lines shared the same
bollard with the after lines of _Manunda_, while our after lines kept
company with the bowlines of _Taiping_.
We spent ten days at Cairns, which was Clare’s last port of call before
flying home to her family. Just before leaving us, she confessed that
she had been “a little bit scared” when she started off with an unknown
family—the first Americans she had ever known.
“I’d heard a lot about Yankees,” she admitted, “and I just didn’t know
_what_ you’d be like.”
“What do you think about Yankees now?” Ted asked her teasingly.
Clare almost stammered in her eagerness to reassure us. “Oh!” she cried.
“I’d like you now even if you were French or Turquoise!”
We made several trips into the magnificent Atherton tablelands of the
interior, where dense jungle, crater lakes, rolling grassland, giant
anthills and, everywhere, the typical dusty gray-green of the
ever-present eucalyptus trees gave us a different feeling for the
Australian scene. It was frustrating to be unable to get even farther
from the seacoast, to experience the peculiar isolation and beauty of
the “outback” and the renowned hospitality of those who live there.
During this stopover we had another flare-up of crew trouble, or rather,
a lot of suppressed minor grievances had accumulated and become
critical. This was something we were beginning to recognize as a pattern
in our East-West relations, inevitable because of our very different
backgrounds and philosophies. The American way (or, at least, _my_ way)
is to speak freely and openly, to discuss problems as they arise, and to
leave little doubt in anyone’s mind about my reactions to events. Our
companions, on the other hand, had been reared in a tradition of
reticence, submission, and fatalism. They kept their feelings to
themselves and looked upon my occasional outbursts as signs of weakness.
Moreover, the idea of a free and open discussion of differences of
opinion was completely alien to them. They did not overlook or forget,
however, with the result that every once in a while the pressure of
accumulated misunderstandings or dissatisfactions would mount until some
ridiculously small incident would bring our relations to a head.
Such an occasion arose in Cairns. I had called the gang topside one
morning to help get a drum of fuel on board. Mickey, as usual, was slow
to respond, and I called him rather sharply a second time. Almost at
once, he emerged from his forward hatch, clad only in a pair of gaudily
striped underpants.
“Go below and get dressed!” I commanded sharply, thinking he was being
deliberately insolent.
“You never mind!” Mickey flared, unable to express himself in English.
“You can’t come up here in your underwear!” I spoke hotly, furious at
what I considered an insult to the ship and family.
Immediately Nick, as hot-tempered as I, flung himself into the fray.
“Not your business what Mickey wears!” he challenged.
My own problems with Nick had been many—open insurrection, like the one
in the North Pacific, or simply sullen withdrawal, when he disapproved
one of my decisions. Since he was, technically, first mate, and at most
times a good and responsible shipmate, I felt the need of his
cooperation. I decided that now was as good a time as any to have it
out, so I called a conference of all the men in the hope that, somehow,
we could achieve a meeting of minds.
We began with the immediate source of irritation, Mickey’s underpants.
As was so often the case, the whole incident turned out to be the result
of a misunderstanding. Mickey, who had had little experience in Western
dress, had been given the briefs in Hawaii, along with various other
articles of clothing: socks, shirts, bathing trunks, and neckties.
Mistakenly assuming them to be sportswear, he had donned them for the
first time that morning as being more presentable than the patched khaki
shorts he’d been wearing at sea.
This was finally settled and, with the ice broken, a great many other
grievances came out. Primarily, they stemmed from two sources: the
Japanese interpretation of quite innocent actions as slights (as when we
had once or twice omitted introductions all around when some quite
casual visitor came aboard); and their continued feeling, in spite of
everything we did to combat it, that we did not treat them as “equals,”
as fellow yachtsmen. Nick showed us a local newspaper report which
referred to the “Reynolds family with crew of three Japanese,” and
seemed to feel it was my fault because I had not properly briefed the
newsman responsible. In this instance, as in many, it was Ted who
quietly stepped into the breach, pointing out that the reporter in
question had come aboard when only the three Japanese were there and
that any information he had or had deduced must have come through them.
Ted, I might add, was a very important member of our conferences if only
for his rare ability to remain objective, aware of all points of view
and partisan to none. More than once, after a more than usually
acrimonious debate, he would manage to sum up the entire controversy in
a simple and direct restatement of viewpoints which often had the effect
of soothing and pointing the way to agreement at the same time.
So it was in Cairns. Gradually our various points of disagreement were
dredged up and disposed of, the air was cleared, and good relations were
re-established—or so we liked to believe. Now we could hope for smooth
sailing, for a time at least, until the next accumulation of resentments
boiled over.
Two days after leaving Cairns we reached Cooktown, a veritable ghost
town, whose glory, like its gold, has long since played out. From the
days when it was the third largest city in Australia, with some 30,000
population, Cooktown has dropped to 400 individuals, who live quietly
amid the ruins of the past.
We tied up at a dilapidated dock and walked to town along wide streets
lined with deserted mansions and tumbledown hotels with rotting floors
and elaborate wrought-iron balconies. The few existing shops close
during the heat of the day, so we wandered the streets until four
o’clock, inspecting the inevitable monument to Captain Cook (he had been
_everywhere_ before us, from Hawaii on through the South Seas) and
musing over the memorial drinking fountain (dry) which commemorated the
heroism of a woman who had died of thirst in 1883.
When the shops reopened, we located an enterprising baker who regretted
his almost-empty shelves—“Hardly ever get strangers here, and Cooktown
people know what _they_ want!”—but who agreed to bake whatever we cared
to order. It was our last chance to get fresh supplies until we reached
Thursday Island, beyond the still-extensive reef, so we ordered a dozen
loaves. The baker also suggested a couple of pies and I, thinking to
surprise Barbara at her birthday dinner that evening, slipped back to
close the deal in secret.
“What kind do you have?” I asked, my mouth watering at the possible
choice between apple, cherry, and lemon meringue.
The baker greeted my question with stupefaction. “_Meat_,” he answered,
implying, Natch—what else?
For Barbara’s birthday dinner we had a pie apiece—meat.
With our departure from Cooktown began the serious part of our trip
through the reef. Above this point, the coral closes in, the channel
narrows day by day, the trade winds sharpen, the tides and current
strengthen. We would have to thread our way with great care during the
next 400 miles for, unlike the larger ships that ply up and down, we
could not follow a radar course from one beacon to the next.
Ted and I consulted the charts and laid out anchorages in advance for
each night: Lizard, Bewick, Hannah, and Night islands; all uninhabited,
of course. The last 200 miles we planned to do in a final stretch from
morning of one day until afternoon or evening of the next.
Back of our planning was the knowledge that better men than we had come
to grief in this treacherous region, including Captain Cook himself.
Even the old master, Slocum, had nicked a coral reef with the _Spray_,
“while going full speed.” He was a lucky man, in that a six-inch
difference in the tide would have put a sudden end to his voyage.
There was no settlement along this stretch, no emergency telephone or
first-aid station, nor any outside help. To me, it seemed somehow more
isolated than mid-ocean and many times more dangerous. The area offers
fabulous beauty, endless variety, wonderful sailing, and just below the
surface—treacherous, lurking danger. Even cloud shadows playing across
the surface of the blue-green waters could be nerve-racking, suggesting
the presence of underwater coral heads.
Our fears were not without justification. On the evening of June 15 we
approached Hannah Island, whose automatic light had already begun to
flash its signal through the dusk. Under mizzen and foresail, we came in
slowly from the south, staying well west of the light and taking
soundings. Suddenly events kaleidoscoped.
“Eight o!” called Moto, swinging the lead up forward. Almost
immediately, on the next cast, his report changed urgently. “No!
_Cannot! Yon dake!_—Four!”
“Hard to port!” I shouted. Ted, at the helm, pushed it hard over but
before we could even begin to swing around there was a shock of impact.
With an ominous crunch we ground to a stop.
“We’ve hit!”
No further words were needed. Barbara and Jessica huddled on the deck
box, keeping out of the way while the men sprang to drop the sails. I
went below and started the engine, but already the moment was past.
Pushed by the current, the bow of the _Phoenix_ swung gradually and she
drifted free astern. Unbelievably, we felt again the gentle rise and
fall of the deck beneath our feet.
Hardly daring to credit our luck, I kept the engine going as we drifted
and sounded until we had reached eight fathoms. Then we dropped the
hook. We checked immediately and pumped out, but so far as we could tell
only the keel had hit and we were taking no water.
In the morning—after a restless night in which treacherous coral heads
intruded into my dreams—we checked our position and tried to estimate
where we had been the previous night. As far as we could determine, we
had been nowhere near the reef as indicated on the chart. It seemed
likely that we had happened on an isolated coral head, as yet unmarked,
and we made careful notes so that the maritime agency could check
further.
In any event, the sound of our keel crunching on coral in that desolate
section of the Great Barrier Reef is a sound none of us ever wishes to
hear again!
More than ever I became convinced that in every successful
round-the-world cruise a certain amount of luck—or, at least, the
absence of bad luck at a critical moment—must play a part. Pidgeon, who
twice sailed around the world singlehanded, went ashore while asleep,
just after sailing from Cape Town. He landed on a small, sandy beach,
the only such on a rocky coast that extended for scores of miles.
Moreover, he had miraculously gone over a rocky ledge, passable only at
high tide, in order to have landed there! Slocum himself, in addition to
his brush with Moody Reef, went ashore on the coast of South America,
but was fortunate enough to escape without damage to the _Spray_. Every
voyager, I am sure, can recall some incident which could have meant the
end of his trip had not good fortune—or Providence—intervened.
So intrigued did I become with these speculations that, during a stay in
Cape Town, I gave a talk on the subject, calling it “The Fifth
Ingredient”—the other four being a well-found ship; a good crew;
adequate preparation and maintenance; and seamanship. Regardless of the
other four essentials, it is my contention that a generous portion of
this fifth ingredient is essential if success is to be achieved.
During the afternoon of June 17 we knew we were truly in the neck of the
funnel. From deck level we could see the discolored water of the
fringing reef closing in, mile by mile, as we sailed northward.
Occasional blackish coral heads of the white mounds of sand shoals
humped above the surface at low tide, only to disappear treacherously as
the tide rose. Low-lying reef islands broke the surface of the waters
ahead as the channel grew progressively narrower. We _knew_ there was a
passage, but it was easy to understand how early voyagers, with
square-rigged ships that were unable to beat back against the wind, must
have trembled when they reached this spot!
The final approach to Thursday Island was a harrowing finale to a
sleepless night, during which we had to pick our way from beacon to
beacon. Our entry into Ellis Channel was complicated by brisk winds, a
heavy tide, and a sharp rain squall which hit just as we started through
and forced us to turn and head out again until it had passed. No one was
in sight when we finally entered the harbor and drifted down on the
Thursday Island dock, so we continued past and dropped anchor in three
fathoms just beyond the wharf in the midst of a fleet of pearling
luggers, sailing ships like ourselves.
Only then, as Jessica filled another red line on the map of our trip,
did I dare to relax and draw a deep breath of relief. Another phase of
our apprenticeship had been successfully completed: the passage of the
treacherous and awe-inspiring Great Barrier Reef.
9 INTO INDONESIA:
THURSDAY ISLAND TO BALI
“Our life at sea was teaching us....”
The importance of T.I., as it is called, is out of all proportion to its
size and population, for it is the focal point for the thinly settled
Cape York peninsula and for the many islands of Torres Strait. Its
principal products are pearl shell, crocodile skin, and tall talk. Among
other tale spinners we met a team of two young men who had made a tidy
stake out in the bush, shooting crocs. They had started their venture
with only a gun and a flashlight apiece, their method being to stand in
a stream, with water up to their armpits, and shine their lights until
they attracted a customer. The technique seemed to be to shoot the croc
between the eyes before it got close enough to grab one of them, but not
so soon that the valuable carcass would be swept away by the swift
current before they could get to it.
After they had spent a season in this way and collected enough skins the
enterprising hunters took their trophies to town and invested the
proceeds in a boat. As one said, the hunting was drier that way.
Our location at anchor was well out from shore and had its drawbacks.
Rowing in presented no difficulties, as tide and current set strongly
toward the shore, but getting back was a different matter. The first
night, when we went ashore for our celebration dinner, we met a genial
old codger who was just full of anecdotes.
“Terrible current out there,” he told us proudly. “Hardly a month passes
but what it puts some ship on the reef—or takes them off to sea.
Wretched holding ground—slick—nothing for an anchor to grab. And as for
getting out to your ship—why, just a couple of weeks ago two men were
rowing out to their lugger—got caught by the current and swept off to
the westward somewhere....” He gestured broadly. “They sent out a
powerboat, but never caught up with them.... Yes, it’s a terrible
current!”
I resolved to make arrangements as soon as possible to bring the
_Phoenix_ up to the dock. Meantime I spoke to the proprietress of the
Royal Hotel, where we were dining, and reserved a room for my womenfolk
for that night. They deserved a night ashore—and I had no desire to risk
getting them back to the ship after dark.
Barbara’s diary account of their accommodations was well worth the pound
I paid for their one night’s lodging-with-breakfast:
First you try to _find_ the entrance to the overnight accommodations.
(The façade of any Australian hotel is all Pub and every visible
entrance leads to one bar or another.) Finally we were rescued by
“Miss Marie”—pronounced Mahry—the manageress, and escorted up a
creaking stairway which led from the lower side veranda to a wide
upper one, off which opened all of the bedrooms. Every door was wide
open for ventilation and most of the guests seemed to be sprawled on
their beds in full view, in various states of _deshabille_.
Our own room was at the extreme end of the front porch, next to a room
marked “Ladies’ Bath.” How very convenient, I thought, looking forward
to an extra dividend in the form of a Hot Bath.
Jessica and I waited on the porch until we saw the masthead light wink
on out in the harbor. Then, knowing the men had made it safely to the
boat, we prepared ourselves for bed: a simple job, since we had
brought no nightclothes and not even a toothbrush.
The Ladies’ Bath turned out to be nothing _but_ bath—and with cold
water, at that. No soap, either. And there were no other facilities
visible, so I had to go downstairs and seek out Miss Marie again to
ask about the W.C. Greatly embarrassed, she led me back up the stairs,
along the two sides of the upper porch to our own room and
there—presto!—she crawled under my bed and produced a porcelain
chamber pot, child’s size!
My night ashore, to which I had looked forward for many weeks at sea,
turned out to be anything but a restful one. The bed was considerably
harder than my bunk on the _Phoenix_, and the snowy mosquito netting
which we were driven to drape around us shut off most of the air.
Since the “Ladies’ Bath” was the only room beyond ours, I left the
door open at first, but after two or three very raucous males had
wandered past and spent varying lengths of time in the Ladies’ Bath, I
pulled the half-curtains across the opening, even at the risk of
losing what feeble breeze there was.
The night was hot and stifling, although we had been assured that this
season is _pleasant_ compared to the summer months (November to
March), when the wind blows from the other direction and puts this
side of the island in the lee. Every time someone walked across the
porch—or even when Jessica turned over in her sleep—the floor shook as
though an elephant were doing a fandango. I couldn’t help thinking how
ironic it would be if we had sailed thousands of miles and survived
the North Pacific and the Great Barrier Reef, only to die in the
shambles of the Royal Hotel in T.I., on the night the upstairs
sleeping porch collapsed into the Pub below.
In the morning, we were awakened with cups of tea at an ungodly hour.
Some forty-five minutes later, a little girl of about seven—who was
entranced with our American accents—came up to lead us down the stairs
and through a rabbit warren of interconnected parlors, dining rooms,
halls, and porches to a small breakfast room where we and the nine
other guests of the hotel had breakfast en famille. All along the way
we kept stumbling over cats which our guide told us belonged to the
establishment, but the five fat dogs who sat about the breakfast table
and waited for scraps were, she insisted, “only strays.” Better fed
strays I never hope to see.
Our anchorage continued uneasy. The trades funneled through, the oceans
held a daily tidal tug of war, and the holding ground was slick. Twice
in the first three days we dragged and had to sweat mightily to keep off
the shore. Finally, room was found for us at the dock. There was some
confusion as we approached about how they wanted us to lie and, while we
were still maneuvering in the channel, we were caught by the change of
the tide and swept against the pilings and were pinned there for over an
hour. Finally we were able to work free and tie alongside _Cora_, a
small coastal vessel trading between T.I. and the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Safely berthed at last, we checked the damage: four bent lifeline
stanchions, a big dent in the deck water tank, paint worn off the stern
sprit, and a very ruffled skipper. At that we were lucky, for a broken
section of the pier was pointed out as testimony that, only a few weeks
earlier, a much larger boat had been caught by the tide and current and
pushed straight through the dock, carrying all before it.
Provisioning with fresh supplies in T.I. was a bit of a problem.
Vegetables and fruits were brought in once a month, on the supply boat
from Brisbane. The cost was high and the selection limited. Any number
of people bemoaned the fact that they “used to have” plenty of fresh
vegetables, grown locally, before the war but that nothing seemed to
grow any more. They seemed to think that the climate or the soil must
have changed as a result of the hostilities and no one drew any
conclusion from the fact that the Japanese, who had made up a part of
the T.I. population, had been repatriated after the war.
On the night before our departure we were invited to a church supper
where the pièce de résistance was turtle, served up in its own enormous
shell. It was a gay party, but midway in the proceedings I grew so
restless that I excused myself and returned alone to the boat. The next
day’s departure was very much on my mind and I wanted to go over the
charts once more. Before entering or leaving ports Ted and I made it a
practice to familiarize ourselves with the layout in advance, for when
an emergency arises it’s too late to run below and start reviewing.
In addition, I needed leisure to go over my list of Things to Do Before
Sailing, a written check list of more than thirty items which experience
had taught me was the only way to avoid overlooking some perhaps vital
detail. It ranged all the way from checking such items as radiotelephone
and engine to making sure that everyone, including the cats, was aboard
at take-off.
The next day, June 27, I signed the last of several hundred forms which
had been shoved at me during our stay in Australia, we took on our final
supplies and the farewell gifts of pearl shell, magazines, and cake
(always welcome!) that were put into our hands by friends of whose very
existence we had been unaware two weeks before. Then, with the beginning
of the west-going tide, we made an easy exit. By midafternoon we had
passed the Carpentaria Light Boat and were well underway in the Arafura
Sea.
Throughout most of our trip the breezes were light and the seas
moderate. By night we were treated to a breath-taking spectacle of that
phosphorescence for which the Arafura Sea is famous: sheets of gleaming
silver covered vast areas of the ocean, while in others the dark surface
was broken with eerie patches of light that danced on the slow swells
like reflected moonbeams, though there was no moon. Sometimes the bow
pushed aside only black water, but again we would enter a stretch where
the entire ocean would be broken into shimmering patterns of cold
radiance and the bow wave would become a sparkling, foaming crest of
light.
Mi-ke and her all-black daughter, Manuia, also were fascinated by the
phosphorescence and spent hours sitting near the bulwarks and staring
into the depths. On July 2 my log gives brief mention of an event which
we all felt deeply:
0700. Mi-ke is missing. Jessica saw her last, yesterday afternoon,
sitting on an oil drum on deck. No sign since. Did not report for
supper last night. Did not show up for breakfast.
1200. _No sign._
This was the obituary of a companion who had signed on with us the day
the _Phoenix_ was launched. How she came to go over the side we’ll never
know. Perhaps the block of the genoa sheet, alternately slacking off and
jerking upward in the light airs had snapped up and caught her unawares,
stunning her and flipping her over the side.
Jessica, consoling herself with Manuia, said little, but it was obvious
that this break in our security had affected her. In fact, the event
served to bring home to us all most forcefully how vulnerable we were.
We had begun to regard the _Phoenix_ as a safe little world in the midst
of the vast ocean, a kind of magic circle within which we were safe,
where nothing could touch us. Yet now one of our group had slipped out
of that world and was gone—quietly, irrevocably, and without even the
man on watch being aware of her leaving.
As we moved slowly westward, it was both fascinating and frustrating to
study the charts and to realize that to each side of us lay great areas
that begged for exploration, areas we would never see, since we knew we
were not likely to pass that way again. To the south lay the Northern
Territory of Australia, of which very little is known even today, with
Melville and Bathurst islands still the home of Stone Age man. To our
north, past the wilds of New Guinea, stretched islands we knew only from
their bewitching names: Aru, Tanimbar, Sermata, Damar, Watubela, Ceram,
Misol.... It made us wish that time were never-ending. We could only
mutter, with no real conviction, “We’ll see ’em next time around.”
Finally, on July 6, the island of Timor rose out of the haze off the
starboard bow—a birthday present for Mickey, this time, but not one he
could pack away under his bunk with his other trophies.
All the next day we cruised westward, with the land growing more
distinct. By late afternoon we were sailing just off the southern shore,
but it was obvious that we could not reach Kupang that night. The coasts
of islands in the Indonesian archipelago are not marked with coastal
beacons as was the case along even the most deserted stretches of the
Australian shores and I had no desire to feel my way along a dark and
unknown coast by night and then grope through an unlighted channel on
the way to Kupang. Telok Bay, Sakala, seemed to offer a protected
anchorage, so we dropped the hook there in eight fathoms, half a mile
offshore. It was a restless night, with considerable swell, so I
insisted on keeping anchor watch once more.
This time Barbara, who had been sharing the extra daytime hour at the
tiller with Jessica whenever we set the clocks back, volunteered to take
an hour of night duty. Later, she confessed that the experience had
given her a new respect for the job of the man on watch!
Every time we pitched, the anchor chain jerked, making the most
frightful noise—as if it were going to break or rip out of its
fastenings at any moment. I kept studying the points of land on each
side of the bay, trying to decide whether or not we’d shifted
position, which would mean the anchor was dragging and I ought to call
Skipper. What a burden of responsibility! There’s nothing like
darkness—and being on duty all alone—to magnify one’s fear!
At 0500 the next morning, we got underway and continued along the coast.
This was supposed to be the “dry season,” but the visibility was
consistently poor and at times rain blotted out the land. Several times
we passed sails—Indonesian praus—the first signs of humanity we had seen
since leaving Carpentaria Light Boat behind.
We flew our colors and the Indonesian flag, which Jessica had made
during the trip, straightened up the deck, readied the anchor, and put
on clean shirts. After we had dropped anchor in the harbor of Kupang, I
even celebrated by going below for a quick—and necessary—shave.
Two immigration officers in neatly pressed tans were the first to board
us. Both were very young and slight in build, looking like neat,
precocious, and well-scrubbed schoolboys. Once again, the dire
predictions of “informed sources” failed to materialize, for no one
threw our passports on the floor. Instead, they examined them carefully
and then handed them back with a smile. One of them, indeed, wished us
“Well come!” in two understandable English words.
We spent an enjoyable hour while Barbara served coffee and opened a tin
of Australian “sweet biscuits” and I filled out the necessary
forms—which were printed in both Indonesian and English.
That, the officials then indicated, was all. There were no further
requirements. We were quite free to go ashore.
Thank you very much, we said. And where could we get our American money
changed?
Communications took a bit of time, because our pronunciation of English
words was obviously unintelligible, but we were all patient and
determined—and we were able to invoke the additional assistance of
_Teach Yourself Dutch_ and _Teach Yourself Malay_ which I had prudently
bought back in Sydney.
American—money—changed? The officials looked at each other. They
consulted. They examined a proffered $10 bill with great interest.
“May be Jakarta!” they suggested helpfully. (Jakarta, the capital of the
far-flung republic was a thousand miles to the west.)
“No—_before_ Jakarta. We want to buy food—here!”
“No. Here impossible,” they insisted, although with regret. They climbed
into their launch—an open dory with American outboard—and chugged off.
Armed with our language books, we set off for shore in Flatty—Barbara,
Ted, Jessica, and I. We had anchored out farther than we had realized
and found it a long haul to the beach past dozens of large sailing praus
and a few motorized fishing boats. People seemed to be living on all of
them. We could see them gathered around open fires on the raised poop
decks, cooking, eating, hanging out clothes. They watched us curiously
and when we waved they shouted back a friendly greeting.
It was already dusk, but the beach was a ferment of activity. A Dutch
freighter had arrived, lighters were plying back and forth, and hundreds
of Timorese were wading out beyond the shallow water to unload the boats
and carry boxes, barrels, and bales up to the customs shed. Drums of oil
were simply dumped overboard and floated to shore, where they were
rolled up the sloping beach by a number of wiry men. The scene was one
of frenetic bustling, a startling contrast to the deserted quiet of the
evening waterfront in New Zealand or Australia, where the eight-hour day
is King.
As we neared the shore, a crowd surrounded us and willing hands helped
to pull us in. No sooner had we stepped out of the dinghy than a dozen
men seized it and rushed it up far beyond the high-water mark. No one
spoke a word of English, so we could only assume that Flatty was in the
hands of friends and would be well cared for until our return.
Out of the darkness a roly-poly Indonesian approached. “Dr. Reynolds?”
he asked, in carefully enunciated syllables. He handed me his card: Mr.
Ndonoe, Customs Office. He wanted to go out to the boat.
“Tomorrow morning all right?”
“No, please. Now.”
A word from Mr. Ndonoe and the dinghy was rushed back down the beach and
refloated. We climbed in. Mr. Ndonoe, as I mentioned, was hefty and
there seemed no point in overloading the boat, so I suggested that Ted,
Barbara, and Jessica remain ashore until our return. We gained nothing
by this maneuver, however, as their places were promptly taken by three
young Timorese, two of whom seized an oar apiece and began to row
mightily in opposite directions, while the third shouted orders. Finally
we got partially squared away and began an erratic course out across the
harbor. Looking shoreward I could see that the rest of my family were
being herded up the beach under escort—evidently someone had been
delegated to look after them. I could only hope that Mr. Ndonoe’s
business would not keep them waiting too long.
When we finally reached the _Phoenix_ it developed that Mr. Ndonoe’s
visit was by no means an official one. His curiosity stimulated by the
reports of the two young immigration officers, he simply wanted to see
for himself the small refrigerator that made ice by means of a kerosene
flame! And, having shown him the ice, which had hardly begun to solidify
around the edges, since we had used it for our earlier guests, I had to
mix him a drink to prove the usefulness of the six small cubes.
By the time we got back to shore Barbara and the youngsters, who had
been shown to Mr. Ndonoe’s office in the customs shed, had practically
memorized the customs forms, written in Indonesian, which was all they
had found to entertain themselves. They had almost convinced themselves
that our amateur oarsmen had sunk us in the bay and were so relieved to
see us that nobody minded that it was too late to shop for the bread and
fresh vegetables we had hoped to take back for supper.
I was able to assure them that Nick, Mickey, and Moto were not waiting
for any problematical fresh produce but had already started
philosophically to cook rice and open cans.
“Then why can’t we go to a restaurant?” A longing for someone else’s
cooking—anything, in fact, that they themselves hadn’t prepared—seemed
to be an occupational disease with the women.
“I doubt if there’s a restaurant here—and anyway we haven’t any money,
remember?”
Mr. Ndonoe confirmed my doubt. Yes, there was no restaurant and there
was no place to get our American money changed.
“There is American family, though,” he volunteered.
“_Where?_”
A guide was sent to lead us through dark, narrow, teeming streets to the
large and rambling house (a Japanese hospital during the war), where the
Kingsleys, Mennonite agricultural consultants, were living with their
seven children and a couple of missionaries from Australia. They took us
in at once and, when they learned we had not eaten, placed us around
their kitchen table and filled us with home-baked bread, butter and jam,
hot chocolate, and bananas—green in color and about the size of a hot
dog, but ripe and very good.
While we were still eating, another official dropped by. He spoke no
English, but told us—through our hosts—that our Japanese men would
_not_, after all, be allowed ashore. Also, in spite of our earlier
understanding that we had satisfied all requirements, it now developed
that Mr. Ndonoe wished to see all of our ship’s papers in the morning;
the “polisi” wished me to report to them first thing; and it would also
be necessary to pay calls on the harbormaster and the port doctor. The
next day, it appeared, would be a busy one.
In the morning, with the Australian, Mr. Dicker, to translate, I went to
plead with the headman. He was polite but adamant. He had no intention
of permitting any Japanese to set foot in Kupang. He gave no reason, but
I assumed it was a personal matter. Perhaps he had unpleasant memories
of the Japanese occupation. He acknowledged that all our visas were in
order, but managed to bring out the fact that it is a long way from
Jakarta, where such permission is given, to Kupang, where _he_ was in
charge. A long way, both in miles and in authority.
I sent off a cable of protest to both the American and the Japanese
Embassy, but the Kingsleys warned me that even a cable exchange between
the islands would take at least three days at best. This effectually
killed any desire we had to linger in Timor, for we felt keenly how
infuriating it would be to have to stay aboard, in full view of such a
colorful port. Moreover, I had a strong hunch that no matter what cabled
instructions were received, there would be no change in local policy.
I decided to accept Mr. Kingsley’s offer to cash one of our stateside
checks for Indonesian rupiah so that we could lay in a few fresh
provisions and push on at once for Bali, where we hoped our cabled
protests would assure us of a friendlier reception.
Mrs. Kingsley sent her cook to help Barbara and Jessica shop. Ted and I
made the rounds of the port authorities to announce our change of plans
and clear for sea again. The cook was tiny—not just short, like Japanese
women, but small and fragile looking. She wore a white blouse and a
figured sarong and, like most women in Timor, even the poorest, she wore
dangling gold earrings through her pierced ears. She spoke almost no
English, but with the help of an Indonesian phrase book borrowed from
the Kingsleys, Barbara managed to do very well.
Off they went, along the street that curves beside the harbor, past the
bombed-out shells of what had once been substantial brick buildings, to
the market—a miscellaneous collection of mats beneath a single thatched
roof. The stallkeepers squatted cross-legged on the ground or, if they
boasted counters, on the counters behind their wares. In neat piles
arranged upon banana leaves were chunks of meat, hands of tiny green
bananas, fish, eggs, Chinese cabbage, bean sprouts, and bright red chili
peppers. Barbara’s guide seemed to know the going price of everything
without asking. Eggs—all tiny and without any guarantee of
freshness—were six rupiah for eight—one rupiah being worth about nine
American cents on the official exchange. Potatoes, sold in heaps of ten
or twelve, cost one rupiah per pile, the catch being that each potato
is, literally, the size of a marble! Tomatoes were the same size and
about as costly. Bananas, however, were cheap—only five rupiah for a
good-sized stalk—and oranges were one rupiah for four.
The final purchase, and one for which the phrase book had to be called
into play and a special expedition made, was bread. The bakery, at a
considerable distance from the market, had a complete stock of ten
loaves of bread, each loaf consisting of a length of five to eight
bun-sized segments which sold for a half rupiah apiece. The very idea of
any one customer buying the lot was staggering, but once Barbara had
managed to persuade the cook—and the cook had reassured the baker—he
became very businesslike. He wrapped each loaf separately in a fresh
green banana leaf and laid it on the counter, where it promptly
unwrapped itself while he worked on the next one. The individual
segments began to come apart as he worked, but the baker, nothing
daunted, produced more leaves and showed a willingness to wrap each bun
if necessary. The market basket was already overflowing and the cook’s
arms were full, so Barbara scooped up the whole lot, leaves, buns, and
all, and made her way back to the beach where we were waiting by the
dinghy.
Ted and I, for our part, had been enjoying another aspect of Kupang. Our
official business disposed of, we had wandered up and down the streets
of the city trying to register everything in a short time so that we
could share it with the others on board. For the first time since
leaving Japan we had the impression in Kupang of teeming life, of
countless people, of bustle, color, movement—and above all poverty,
grinding poverty. Many people were clothed in nothing but patches, one
upon another. Faces were gaunt, arms and legs were nothing but sinewy
muscle laid upon bone. Most noticeable of all were the toothless, gaping
maws of the betel chewers, men and women alike, their mouths stained red
and drooling fungus-like shreds as they chewed. It was a sight, we felt,
that would take a bit of getting used to.
There was wide variety in the costumes of Timor. The most common form of
dress seemed to be a tubular length of bright cloth which served equally
as a skirt, a shawl, or a complete costume à la Gandhi. Fierce-looking
banditti from the hills strolled around with bright scarf turbans on
their heads and sheathed knives stuck in their sashes; Muslim in
black-velvet fez worked side by side with nearly naked Malays whose
headgear dress was an amazing replica in woven pandanus of the
fifteenth-century flat-crowned velvet hats worn by the early Portuguese
explorers.
This latter style, in fact, had for centuries been the traditional
headgear of the Timorese but when Ted, who has few wants, demanded
excitedly to know where he could buy such a hat, Mr. Kingsley assured
him that none were ever offered for sale. Any man who needed a new hat
would design and create his own and there is no tourist trade in Kupang
to create a demand for mass merchandising.
Nothing daunted, Ted borrowed a phrase book, memorized a few words,
touched me for a handful of rupiah, and began to scan every hat that
passed with a critical and speculative eye. In the end he succeeded in
buying an almost new hat right off the head of its surprised—and
delighted—wearer.
A few more enterprising visitors like Ted, and mass production of
Timorese hats will revolutionize the economy of Kupang!
At the waterfront there was plenty to see while we waited. The freighter
was loading with passengers for its return trip to Jakarta and the beach
was turbulent. Bedrolls, bundles of goods wrapped in matting, fighting
cocks in bamboo cages, and eating chickens tied by their feet into
bundles were all being carried down to the shore and loaded onto the
backs of porters, who waded out with them into deeper water where the
lighters were waiting, followed by the passengers themselves. Just
beyond the shallows, the boats would stand by while the oarsmen held
them steady and passengers scrambled over the gunwales and helped to
load the cargo aboard. At last, with only inches of freeboard, the
lighter would move off ponderously in the direction of the freighter.
When the family finally assembled at the waterfront, I loaded our
purchases and the girls into the dinghy and then shook hands with
everybody, including Mr. Ndonoe, who had come down to see us off. Mr.
Ndonoe, however, simply kept hold of my hand and used it to steady
himself as he climbed into the dinghy and settled himself comfortably. I
tried to explain that we were ready to sail as soon as we got to the
_Phoenix_, but he indicated that he would go along. Mr. Dicker had the
impression that the visit was official, so there was nothing to do but
make the best of it.
Once on board, however, it appeared that Mr. Ndonoe had come with us for
the same reason a pup jumps onto the seat of a car—because he enjoys the
ride. I’m afraid we were a bit abrupt as we packed him into Flatty
again, since Moto had to row him all the way to shore and return before
we could load our dinghy aboard and get underway.
Boatwise, it is a pleasure to leave Kupang: just up anchor, drift slowly
seaward as you make sail at your leisure, and you are on your way. No
tricky channels, no coral, no adverse tides, no shifting winds, no held
breath.
Much as we had looked forward to a leisurely trip up the Indonesian
archipelago, we decided to make no more stops until Bali, where we felt
more certain of our welcome. We had no desire to cause incidents, and
were afraid that the feeling against the Japanese which had been
evidenced in such a relatively large port as Kupang might cause even
more trouble in remote spots, even farther removed from central control.
Accordingly, we set our course for Benoa, the port of entry to Bali, 500
miles to the west. On this hop there was much leisure for reading and
relaxation. Books were always a special joy at sea, partly because we
had time to think about what we read and partly because, in the hours
when we gathered in the cockpit, we found pleasure in sharing what we
had been reading through discussion or by reading bits aloud. Life at
sea was teaching us the joys of conversation, of propounding a theory,
of following an idea to its logical conclusion. We all increased our
knowledge painlessly and almost unconsciously as we compared impressions
of the people and places we had left behind or tried to learn a bit
about the ports that lay ahead.
In route to Bali we talked, among other things, about our brief
experience in Timor, about Mr. Ndonoe and his almost childlike
eagerness, about the unreasonably prejudiced and stubborn senior
immigration officer; about the very young immigration officials; and
about the Italian port doctor who had come out for a two-year term
“because not enough doctor for all the place they need.”
For the first time, as we read something of the history of this very new
republic, we realized what terrible obstacles Indonesia was facing in
her struggle to achieve a place in the community of nations. She had no
background of gradual education and preparation for self-rule, as had
the Philippines. Having thrown off a very paternalistic colonial rule by
sudden revolution, she found herself without enough experienced leaders,
professional men, and trained government officials. No wonder so many of
the officers we met had seemed young. They were! And as for the older
ones, like our senior official in Kupang, he had perhaps worked in a
minor capacity under the Dutch and, on the basis of such slight
experience, had been quickly kicked upstairs. Perhaps his overbearing
and dogmatic attitude was simply a reflection of the treatment he
himself had received or observed under the hated colonial rulers whom he
had replaced.
Our periods of companionship in the cockpit were never scheduled and
sometimes burgeoned at an hour that would have been unthinkable ashore.
For example, from Barbara’s diary:
July 13. Woke up about 3 A.M. and realized by the wallowing of the
ship, the slatting of sails, and the banging of blocks that the wind
had left us. Went up to sit with Ted on watch. The wind was beginning
to tease us, coming in little puffs and then falling off—but each time
returning a little more strongly, until gradually we began to move and
the water aft began to gurgle a bit. The phosphorescence of our wake
was spectacular—we could trace the curve of the rudder deep down and
bubbles of light like sparkling champagne were kicked up behind.
At four, when Earle came on watch, Jessica heard us talking and she,
too, came up and joined us, just in time for a thrilling display of
phosphorescent dolphins! They gamboled and disported about us in
luminous streaks and splashes. We could follow them beneath the
surface, a moving river of cold, greenish light, until they broke the
surface in a shower of spangles accompanied by the characteristic
“whoof” of expelled air.
Our entrance into Bali was one of the most trying and difficult that we
had yet experienced. The currents that sweep down between the islands
are fierce in these areas and the monsoon wind pours down through the
passes. The year previous, a yacht larger than the _Phoenix_ had been
blown down the strait while attempting to reach Bali and it had taken
her a month to work her way back against the winds. We had no desire to
emulate that experience!
The log tells of some of our difficulties:
Last night set course to reach Bali—allowed 1 knot westerly current.
When estimated distance run at 0500, sailed N and at dawn saw outlines
of land. Rainy, misty, visibility poor.
Thought this point of land was S.E. Bali and set course to run up
coast to Benoa. No visibility in frequent showers. Lost land, picked
up _another_ point, and decided we were in the middle of Lombok
Strait. _Terribly_ rough—roughest we’ve had yet—high, steep waves,
from all directions. (Displaced all the boxes tied in the back of the
cockpit—first time _that_ ever happened.)
Finally saw small island S. of Nusa Besar, and thus positively
identified position. Cut south of island, across both Lombok and
Bandung Straits.
Very rough, tough trip. To cross straits logged about 25 miles to make
10 good.
Finally located Benoa, in a relatively clear moment, got the leading
marks in line, when a heavy shower washed out all sight. Since the
entrance involves a right-hand turn and various tricky meanderings, we
put about and lay off one hour until the weather cleared a bit.
When we entered, we found _buoys were completely changed_ from the
pilot book and our up-to-date chart. Had to put man at masthead and
con our way through the reef.
The village of Benoa turned out to be a picturesque cluster of houses
and brightly painted fishing boats drawn up on a spit of land to the
left of the harbor, but the port of Benoa, on the other side of the
water, was less interesting. It consisted of a few large and, at this
hour, quite deserted buildings beside a large dock. We drifted in, tied
alongside just at dusk, and gathered on the deck wondering what to do
next and whether anyone from the village should be notified of our
arrival.
Across the water a few early fires flickered in the town. On the dock,
high above, a half dozen men began to congregate, squatting to look down
at us with friendly curiosity. I decided to see what I could find out,
but when I climbed up the ratlines and so to the dock, I met with no
success. Phrases I had memorized in Dutch—in Indonesian—in Malay—nothing
seemed to arouse any understanding. At last, in desperation, I tried a
few words of Japanese—and suddenly we were off! Only then did I remember
that Bali had been held by the Japanese from 1942 until the end of the
war. Their Japanese was not much better than mine—but different. Anyway,
it served and through an exchange of very halting questions-and-answers
I learned that all the officials had gone for the day, that it was quite
all right for us to remain at the dock overnight, and that Den Pasar,
the main city of Bali, was 11 kilometers away and could be reached by
bus.
I returned to the deck, where we had a leisurely supper and turned in
early. To tell the truth, I was utterly exhausted. The family took a
short walk, but came back to report nothing of interest on our side of
the harbor except the dock buildings, a long, deserted causeway
stretching into the distance across tidal flats, and a stack of long
wicker baskets like porous sausages, each of which contained—a real,
live pig!
Even this news failed to arouse me. However the Balinese arranged to
package and store their bacon for export, it could wait, I decided,
until morning.
10 BALI, JAVA,
THE KEELING-COCOS
“A sense of uneasy anticipation....”
Bali was worth all the trouble it took to get there. Not only is it
spectacularly beautiful, with its rugged mountains, its misty vales, its
crumbling temples, and the glossy green of its rice paddies, but the
people are beautiful too. Outside of Den Pasar, where the tourists
congregate and create understandable disruptions and where it is
considered “rude” for women to go about unclothed above the waist, the
Balinese serenely follow their age-old customs, practice the Hindu
religion, which is the hard core of their society, and preserve their
independence and integrity.
In contrast to other countries we had visited, even the more remote
islands, we saw little influence of the West in Bali. No American
movies, not even in Den Pasar; no Cokes or chewing gum. Music could be
heard as one strolled the streets of a village at night, and it was not
rock and roll but the hauntingly compelling music of Bali, played on
drum and gamelin.
Our first act, after officially entering the next morning, was to take
the bus to Den Pasar to meet Barbara’s mother. Minnetta herself was on a
trip around the world, traveling by a somewhat faster means and at a bit
higher altitude, but the motivating aim of her entire junket had been to
meet us in Indonesia!
No one seemed to know the bus schedule, but all were happy to show us
where to wait for it. Eventually, a dilapidated bus pulled up, so we
climbed on and waited. And waited. And _waited_.
Several praus with wishbone sails pulled up to the sea wall and willing
hands began to unload. Stalks of bananas, bunches of coconuts, matting
bundles were all unloaded, carried up the sloping sea wall to the road
and thence up a narrow ladder to the top of the bus.
The driver returned, carrying a woven banana leaf tray on which were a
few carefully arranged yellow flowers and a few leaves. He placed this
in a niche above the driver’s seat and stuck a stick of burning incense
into a holder on the dashboard. (There’s an extra that American models
don’t have!) We wondered if he was exorcising whatever demons may have
gotten aboard with us.
A little later the people began to get on. Soon the bus was full, but
still we waited. Down at the waterfront another prau came in. This one
was loaded to the gunwales with large turtles and Barbara scrambled out
with her camera.
“Don’t let them go without me!” she warned, stalking her photographic
prey.
She didn’t have to go to the shore for her pictures, however. Her
subjects were being brought to her, each turtle borne upside down on the
shoulders of a man who walked with it easily up the sloping ladder to
the top of the bus and there deposited it neatly.
The last two turtles were too large to be carried by a single man. These
were slung from poles and brought up to the road by two men each, who
shoved them inside the bus where they just filled the aisle and made an
excellent footrest for the passengers, who sat in long seats facing one
another. At last we started.
Once we were rolling, we passed beautifully irrigated rice fields,
villages with walled compounds, and temples which looked centuries old,
with carved elephants or boars guarding their narrow gates. Everywhere
we saw evidences of the rice harvest: rows of workers in the fields,
seemingly bowed over beneath the weight of huge mushroom-shaped hats as
they cut the ripened grain; men and women carrying sheaves to be
threshed, the men with two full shocks swinging from each end of a pole
across the shoulders, the women with a single, larger bundle balanced on
the head.
Throughout the Balinese countryside women apparently have not heard of
the regulation, promulgated in Java, that they must be “properly
clothed” or, if they have heard of it, they pay it the same attention
that the Balinese, through the centuries, traditionally have paid to the
directives of their alien rulers: they ignore it. In the dooryards the
lovely bodies of the women, clothed only in a sarong of patterned batik,
moved in graceful rhythm as they bounced an upright pole first with one
hand, then with the other, to thresh the grain which had been spread on
mats to dry.
In Den Pasar we got off at the wide dirt lot which is the bus terminus
and transferred to a doh-ka, the pony-cart-for-two which is the
picturesque means of travel through the city streets. The driver whipped
his tiny horse to a gallop, the plume of bells on its head jingled
merrily, and in no time at all we were deposited in front of the Bali
Hotel, where Minnetta was waiting on the porch.
She was far too travel-wise to be living at the Bali Hotel, however.
Already she had found lodgings, at one-fifth the tourist rate, at a
small Balinese hotel on a side street. That night Barbara stayed with
her there and, on the way back from seeing the rest of us off at the bus
terminal, she managed to get herself completely lost. Through this happy
accident she made the acquaintance of Igusti Rai Suwandi, a charming
young Indonesian of Ted’s age who had been studying English in school.
Rai (Igusti, we learned, is a title of caste and not a proper name) was
happy to show Barbara back to her hotel and practice his English.
“Tomorrow I come again,” he promised. “I will meet your son. I will show
him many things. If he will come by me for two days I will show him fete
of young girl who become big.”
This event, which took place _in_ two days, turned out to be the
coming-of-age ceremony for a young cousin, and Rai invited our whole
family to attend. At the appointed time he took us to the outer
courtyard of his “oldest brother’s wife’s father’s home.” We found it
overflowing with milling tourists from the Bali Hotel who were busily
taking pictures of suckling pigs turning on a spit and lovely girls
passing through from the street to the inner courtyard with trays of
food on their heads.
Our hearts sank. We had hoped for more than this, colorful as it was.
But we needn’t have worried. Rai led us through the crowd, up some stone
steps, through a narrow doorway in the brick wall, and down to the inner
courtyard—and another world. All about us were open buildings with
thatched roofs, their floors raised above the ground. Each of them was
gaily decorated with lengths of bright cloth, flowers, and woven palm
leaves. The guests, sitting cross-legged upon the floor of each
pavilion, were all wearing native Balinese costume—magnificent sarongs
of red or green or blue cloth with designs of gold thread and turbans of
batik. They eyed us with curiosity and reserve and, for one horrible
second, I wondered if Rai had brashly invited us without consulting his
elders. Almost immediately, however, we were greeted warmly by Rai’s
brother, who told us to make his home our own and led us to one of the
detached buildings which had been, apparently, assigned to us for our
own use.
In one of the houses, discreetly curtained off with gay hangings, the
young girl for whom the ceremony was being held was being adorned for
the main event of the day: the ritual of filing down her canine teeth.
The reason for this operation was cheerfully given us by Rai: “So she
not be like animal.”
When all was ready the maiden—a pretty, frightened-looking girl of
seventeen—was borne out on the shoulders of two men, for on this day her
feet must never touch the ground. She was clothed in a sarong of green
and gold lamé, with a gold scarf bound around her breasts and wearing a
tall crown of beaten gold, heavy with ornaments.
In the center of the courtyard was the most gaily decorated pavilion of
all and here she was deposited on a raised couch in full view of all the
family and guests. Women attendants removed her headdress and helped her
to lie down. A priest then took over, intoning prayers and throwing
petals of flowers around and over her with a ceremonial gesture. Having
induced at least semihypnosis, he began the task of filing down her
teeth. Throughout the proceedings, the chants of a dozen handmaidens
provided a moaning background, in which the girl herself joined at times
as if in fear or pain. Several times she sat up long enough to rinse her
mouth and spit into a yellow coconut shell. The business had just enough
of a suggestion of the dentist’s chair to lend it a slightly incongruous
note.
When all was over, she was again lifted to the shoulders of her bearers
and carried, wan and red-eyed, back to the privacy of the dressing room.
“Soon,” Rai promised Jessica, who was visibly upset, “she be more happy,
_you_ see. This afternoon, many food—everything play.”
For us, too, there was “many food”: trays heaped high with molded rice,
both plain and highly seasoned; a wide variety of curries and
condiments; succulent roast pork; sate—bits of spicy meat on thin
skewers; bananas, mandarin oranges, and various other dishes that I
preferred to eat without identifying.
In the afternoon, as Rai had promised, the girl—now a marriageable young
lady—was again carried among us, glowingly triumphant. Dances and a
Balinese puppet play were presented for the assembled guests.
Also thanks to Rai—and because it was an auspicious time on the Balinese
lunar calendar for ceremonial occasions of any kind—we had the
opportunity of viewing a cremation. The remains of a number of deceased
persons had been “saved up” for months, waiting until the bereaved
families could prepare, and afford, a properly grand celebration. I use
the term “celebration” advisedly, for a cremation in Bali, coming many
months after the sorrow of death has faded, is not a time of mourning
but a joyous release: release of the soul of the departed and, one
presumes, release of the family from a heavy burden of obligation.
The procession accompanying the crematory tower itself was long and
colorful. It included groups of musicians who played on the melodious
Balinese drums, gongs, cymbals, and flutes; men who carried bundles of
rice straw and others with cords of firewood; and a lengthy file of
women with offerings of all kinds which they bore upon their heads.
Everyone, it seemed, contributed food or goods, according to his means
or ambition, and everything was to be consumed—by fire.
The main attraction, naturally, was the tall and elaborately decorated
cremation tower, which carried the mortal remains of the dozen or so
individuals who were being honored. This was borne upon the shoulders of
some eighteen or twenty men, who plunged it from one side of the road to
the other, splashed it with water from the drainage ditches along the
way, or spun it about in erratic, zigzag patterns. This, we were told,
was to confuse the spirits of the dead so they could not find their way
back to haunt the living.
At the cremation grounds all the carefully wrapped bundles of bones were
removed from the tower and placed, each in its own wooden coffin,
beneath a long shed. The offerings were piled, as if for lavish display,
upon a low platform covered with mats, nearby, and then the whole was
set ablaze.
Only one development marred our enjoyment of this happy island. This was
an illness which laid Jessica low for several days. On the night after
the cremation—which had been a swelteringly hot day filled with
excitement and topped off by a meal of strange and exotic foods—Jessica
complained that she “didn’t feel good.” I wasn’t too surprised, but we
decided to spare her the long bus ride back to Benoa and arranged for
Barbara and Jessica to take a room at Minnetta’s hotel for the night.
Gradually Jessica’s vague symptoms seemed to localize in a stiff neck
and I set off for Benoa with Ted, sure that all she needed was a good
night’s sleep to put her back on her feet.
Early the next morning, however, Barbara turned up at the boat, having
left Jessica with her grandmother and caught the first bus from Den
Pasar.
“She must be running a high fever,” she told me, with a slightly wild
look in her eye. “It was like sleeping with a hot pad, but I didn’t have
my thermometer or even aspirin with me!”
She dived below to consult her medical bible, _The Ship’s Medicine Chest
at Sea_, which she had not, so far, been called upon to use. Now,
however, she was in no way reassured to discover that both polio and
meningitis may start with the symptoms of “stiff neck and fever.” Armed
with thermometer, textbook, and an overnight case stuffed with every
medication she thought she might need, Barbara set off again for the
hotel.
By the time she got back Jessica’s fever had turned into a chill and
Minnetta, finding no blankets available at the hotel, had commandeered
every coat and sweater she could lay hands on and piled them all on top
of her shivering charge. Jessica insisted that she had no headache, so
Barbara gratefully scratched meningitis as a possibility but the dread
of polio still lingered. Rai, as deeply concerned as the family, had
been hovering around anxiously and Barbara now dispatched him on his
bicycle to look for a qualified physician who could speak English.
Jessica, meanwhile, slept fitfully. Occasionally she woke up to report a
new symptom or a change in one of her old ones, whereupon Barbara flew
back to her “do-it-yourself” medical text and started her diagnosis all
over. The stiff neck turned out to be “more of a sore throat, really”
and the “buzzing in the head” was tracked down to a vagrant bluebottle
fly.
The climax came when Jessica, her temperature soaring again, began to
toss off sweaters and shawls and disclosed a stomach covered with bright
red spots! “Sore throat ... fever ... and a rash!” At last Barbara felt
that she had it pinned down. “Scarlet fever!”
She began the indicated medication. It was getting dark now, and
Jessica, in delirium, began to talk wildly. Barbara’s nerve was just
about to break when Rai returned to report that he had “heard of a
doctor” who could speak English. The women bundled Jessica up, summoned
a doh-ka, and off they started across town, escorted by Rai on his
bicycle.
Dr. M. Muhamad Angsar Kartakusuma left his supper to see them. He
listened gravely as Barbara outlined the symptoms. Then he took a tongue
depressor (the one item Barbara hadn’t thought to bring) and made an
easy diagnosis—tonsillitis.
“A shot of penicillin”—he administered it almost before Jessica had time
to flinch; “and these pills every four hours”—he handed an envelope to
Barbara—“and I think you have nothing more to worry!”
“But—what about the rash?” Barbara protested.
Dr. Kartakusuma examined it briefly. “From heat,” he said, and added a
box of medicated powder to relieve the itch.
The charge: nothing!
As Dr. Kartakusuma expressed it, “You are strangers in my country—and in
trouble.” He shook hands all around and returned to his supper.
After several days of medication—complicated by the discovery that she
had a penicillin allergy—Jessica was recovered enough to pour into her
Journal a hundred pages of impressions of Bali, which she has since
epitomized in a single word: eerie! The street noises outside her hotel
room; a flute and the weird cadence of a gamelin; an old sow who
splashed her way up the drainage ditch every morning; the startling cry
of a gekko lizard in the night—these apparently had merged in her
delirium with distorted memories of ceremonies she had seen, such as the
tooth filing and the cremation. Most haunting of all, she and her
grandmother had had an experience the rest of us did not share. One
night, escorted by a fellow guest at the hotel, they had ridden many
miles into the country to witness a kris dance at a village temple. The
dancers had gone into trance and ended by plunging the twisted blades of
their daggers into their own bodies “right up to the handle!” as Jessica
insisted. People near her had fallen to the ground, “invaded by
spirits,” and Jessica could actually feel the ground shaking.
As she summed it up, “It was enough to make _anybody_ get tonsillitis—or
something!”
We could have spent much longer in Bali, but if we were to get another
sampling of Indonesia, the capital, we had to push on. In Jakarta,
Marjorie Harris—a childhood friend of Barbara’s—and her husband Mike, of
the Ford Foundation, were waiting for us, and Jessica was looking
forward to meeting their thirteen-year-old Susan.
Remembering our violently rough entry into Benoa, I put my foot down
firmly on Minnetta’s proposal that she return to Jakarta on the
_Phoenix_. No matter how indomitable the spirit, the bones of a woman in
her seventies are liable to be brittle and the ways of the sea,
especially in interisland channels, can be rugged, as we had cause to
know. And so, using my authority as captain, I sent her back to Java by
plane, to wait for us there.
Actually our passage out through Lombok Strait was gratifyingly easy
and, once in the Java Sea, we had fine sailing. Jessica, contentedly
convalescent, was busy getting caught up in her Journal or sunning in
the cockpit while Ted reeled off fabulous stories on his watch. I, tired
for the moment of serious reading, turned to a tale of high adventure at
sea. So overloaded was it with drama that I fell to considering the
whole difficult problem of trying to communicate a very meaningful
experience. How, for instance, could I convey to a reader the wonderful
adventure of just _being_ at sea; the thrill I sometimes felt, lying in
my bunk and listening to the whisper of water flowing past, in thinking,
I’m _doing_ it! I’m actually sailing around the world, just as I planned
and dreamed! This is my ship, my life, my adventure, and nobody can take
it away from me! Perhaps it is necessary to “juice up” a story, or
nobody would ever read it, but although I felt sorry for the hero on the
night he _crashed_ into a reef—my _own_ memory of a similar mishap was
that it is more like a sickening crunch. And yet, _crash_ or _crunch_,
how is it possible to get across a _feeling_ to one who has never been
there? More and more I was grateful to Barbara because she had known
instinctively that this experience was one that we had to share, since
no words of mine could ever have made this vital part of my life real or
meaningful to her if she had stayed behind.
That night on watch, still struggling with the problem that
confronts any writer, of trying to capture and share an experience
through words, I was led to speculate on the subject of sounds at
sea. Some are ominous, such as the snap of a jerking anchor chain
at an uneasy anchorage or the wind rising and beginning to whistle
high in the rigging; others are merely annoying, like the slapping
of halyards or the banging of a block on a quiet night, if one is
restless. While musing over sounds, it occurred to me that by now
I had classified every sound my boat made (I had spent hours
tracking down each one in the first months when every noise was a
possible harbinger of trouble). At that precise instant, from the
darkness of the cabin below, I heard what can only be described as
_thump_—pause—_plump_—pause—_plop_—pause—_thud!_ That was a new
one! I shone a light below. Nothing. Now I did have something to
occupy my mind throughout the rest of my watch.
The next day, during lunch, there was a lull in the conversation.
Suddenly Manuia appeared at the porthole. She leaped lightly down to
Jessica’s desk—_thump_—then across to the table—_plump_—then down to the
plastic-covered couch cushion—_plop_—and finally to the floor—_thud_.
At least one mystery of the sea had been solved!
All along the coast we passed numerous praus. I was always conscious of
the possibility of being hijacked by pirates, and whenever one changed
course and came over to take a look at us, we mustered all hands—and a
couple of rifles—and waved heartily. Invariably, they waved back and
shouted cheery greetings and we each went on our way.
A more real danger turned out to be that of running down, at night, an
unlighted prau at anchor. On the night of the 29th we had two narrow
escapes from such a collision, the second one literally by inches. This
shook us quite a bit and I debated following the local example and
simply stopping for the night to anchor in the shallow water along the
coast. Finally I decided to carry on, stationing a man forward with a
searchlight in addition to the man at the helm. Naturally, having made
the decision, I began to question my own judgment, with the result that
there was still another man on duty for the rest of the night—me!
The next day we were far enough along the coast to hope to reach Jakarta
before dark, but the day was misty and, although we were close to shore,
it was difficult to tell where the water met the land. We could find
nothing that looked like a harbor of the size we knew must be at
Jakarta.
At last we spotted a channel through which small-boat traffic was moving
toward shore and we worked our way in, sounding as we went. At four
fathoms, while still fairly well out, I gave orders to drop the anchor.
“Why we don’t go in until eight feet?” asked one of the crew with sweet
reasonableness. “Then anchor?”
Since we draw almost eight feet, that would hardly have left enough
margin for error, tide, or rapidly shelving bottom.
“We’ll anchor _here_!” I repeated firmly.
There was such obvious dissatisfaction with my decision and so many
allusions to “toi”—with the emphasis meaning _very_, _very_ far, that I
picked Ted alone to accompany me in to the shore. We started up the
channel, but were quickly hailed by a soldier at a guard station. He
spoke no English, but had an efficient-looking gun which spoke an easily
understandable language. We rowed over and struggled with a Malay
dictionary but were unable to communicate. Finally, soldier-plus-gun
piled into the dinghy with us and waved us on up the channel. We started
rowing again.
On the way we passed several hundred seagoing praus, brilliantly
painted, all very real and all very much lived on. In this corner of the
world, at least, the age of sail is far from over. As we toiled up the
narrow canal, several of these ships passed us on their way in. It was
truly thrilling to see them drive boldly for the entrance, fly up the
channel, shedding canvas as they came, to reach their berths with sails
neatly stowed and just enough way on to come snugly up to their dock.
Such skill, however, doesn’t come from sailing even ten times around the
world, but from generations of experience in a vessel which is not just
an avocation but one’s whole life.
In the course of an hourlong trip we passed several check points before
we reached the inner sanctum and were taken in hand by an
English-speaking official. We explained the situation, showed our
credentials, and blessed the lucky day that had given us the director of
the Ford Foundation in Indonesia as a character reference. We were given
permission to telephone Mike, who further cleared up the difficulties
and gave us an explanation of what we had done.
We were, it seems, in Jakarta, all right—but in _old_ Jakarta, formerly
known as Batavia. Only sailing ships were permitted in here, many of
whose crews were not entirely sympathetic to the existing government.
During their stay in port all these ships were made to observe a rigid
curfew and were kept under close observation. It seemed that _our_
proper port was Tanjung Priok, the large new harbor for overseas
vessels, five miles along the coast. Now we could understand the reason
for the suspicious treatment, the guards, the frequent check points, and
the barbed-wire fences. For all they knew, we were the vanguards of a
revolutionary force, come to overthrow the regime.
By the time we got back to the _Phoenix_ it was well after dark and
Barbara was frantic with anxiety. Jessica was already asleep and Nick,
Mickey, and Moto, quite unconcerned over our prolonged absence, also had
retired. Had we been set upon and carved up by pirates? Were we
languishing in some moldy Malay jail? Or were we having dinner with
President Sukarno, as honored guests of the government? Any of these
might have explained the delay, and I’m not sure which possibility
caused her more anguish.
Actually, the only danger we ran was on the return trip when, with no
flashlight, we were in constant danger of being run down by belated
praus charging past in the dark to reach the channel before curfew.
The next morning, under power, we moved to Tanjung Priok in a foggy
calm, groped for the entrance, and were met and escorted to a dock
within easy rowing distance of the Tanjung Priok “Jachtclub,” one of the
few holdovers from the colonial Dutch regime. There the Harrises,
Minnetta, and cold drinks were waiting to welcome us, and we were made
to understand that all the facilities of the club, including _free_ use
of restaurant and bar, were at our disposal!
The location at Tanjung Priok had little beside the hospitality of the
yacht club to recommend it. It was steamingly hot, noisy, and odorous.
The nights were made miserable by mosquitoes and by the hourly clangor
of the night watchman, who punched his time clock every hour by beating
a length of pipe upon a metal ring.
Thanks to the Harrises, some of us were spared this discomfort for all
or a part of our three weeks’ stay, for they whisked Barbara and Jessica
off to Jakarta. Barbara shared the guest room with her mother and
Jessica moved in with Susan and began to gain back a bit of the weight
and color she had lost during her illness.
I did not feel the same compulsion the girls apparently felt, to desert
ship at every opportunity; in fact, I always felt uneasy when I did not
sleep aboard. Yet in Java I, too, took a holiday from the sea by
accepting the Harrises’ offer of their mountain retreat as a place to do
some very necessary writing. (Unless Barbara and I mailed off a couple
of salable articles before we left Java, there would be no checks
awaiting us in Durban—and no Christmas for the _Phoenix_.)
Our trip into the pundjak, the pass through the mountains of Central
Java, was an invigorating change from the fetid city. Each morning we
awoke in the crisp, cool air of the hills and were greeted by a
magnificent vista of twin mountain peaks thrusting against the sky.
As Barbara expressed it: “Imagine! A view like that just by opening your
eyes! What luxury! No getting dressed, no going up on deck—and not a
speck of water in the foreground to muck it all up!”
There are times when I suspect that Barbara is just a landlubber at
heart.
In these surroundings our writing flourished and almost before we knew
it the Harrises’ car had arrived to take us back to the city with our
completed manuscripts. Here we rejoined Ted and Minnetta, who had also
managed to squeeze in an overland trip, to Jogjakarta, seat of Javanese
culture. There Ted, exploring the vast archaeological ruins in the
vicinity, had the experience of being accompanied by an armed bodyguard.
Being an American, he was obviously a millionaire and a rich prize for
kidnapers! (Little did they know!) At night, through the solicitude of
his hosts, the bodyguard had slept across the threshold of Ted’s room,
but whether such protection is conducive to better slumber Ted didn’t
reveal.
Our last few days were divided between laying in last-minute supplies
for our crossing of the Indian Ocean and accumulating memories of a
diffuse and very confusing place. Jakarta is vast, sprawling, and
amorphous. It is a city of beautiful residential areas with red-tiled
houses set well back from shaded streets—and of squalid kompiangs where
hundreds of families are herded together without sanitation, light, or
even air. For these crowded thousands, the canals that traverse the city
are laundry, swimming pool, public bath, social center—and privy.
From the deck of the _Phoenix_ we could see, in one direction, the
beautifully appointed yacht club where a constant procession of
limousines drew up to discharge members and their friends who came to
swim, sail, or water-ski, or just to relax with a drink on the shaded
veranda. In the other direction, just across the road, a procession of
another sort moved slowly from dawn to dark—a long line of tired, ragged
women, each waiting with a pail or a battered old kerosene tin to get
water at the single faucet which served as the sole drinking and bathing
supply for hundreds of people in the dock compound. It was a desperate
imbalance, which obviously could not endure for long.
Generally speaking, the officials in Indonesia were very helpful and
pleasant. One of them, Commander of the Navy, Jakarta, presented each of
us with an imposing document which called upon “Whom It May Concern” to
give us all possible aid and assistance. I flashed mine several times in
the course of my shopping expeditions, until an old-timer pointed out
that, in the present state of the government, there were almost as many
to whom a letter from Major Lie would be an invitation to shoot me as
there were those to honor it!
[Illustration:
A Voyage around the World—October 4, 1954–July 30, 1960
]
[Illustration:
_Werner Stoy_
Yacht _Phoenix_ in full sail off Hawaii, after maiden voyage from
Japan
]
[Illustration:
Drying Sails—Wellington, New Zealand
]
[Illustration:
The Reynolds Family
Ted, Jessica, Barbara, and Earle
]
[Illustration:
Buying scrap iron in Japan to use as inside ballast
]
[Illustration:
Shaping up the hull by eye and by hand
]
[Illustration:
A solemn little man, armed with an enormous saw....
]
[Illustration:
Full-size patterns for the ribs
]
[Illustration:
The skipper and his ship—even the ladder is curved
]
[Illustration:
Launching the _Phoenix_
The skipper, as new as his ship, makes a speech
]
[Illustration:
Bora Bora, French Oceania. Earle Reynolds with Schoolmaster Sanford;
in front of schoolhouse
]
[Illustration:
The skipper and Mi-ke
]
[Illustration:
Sextant shot on a quiet day
]
[Illustration:
A seasick sailor Mickey wishing he weren’t there
]
[Illustration:
Galley scene, April, 1955
]
[Illustration:
Jessica and her Journal
]
[Illustration:
The sea at her best
Lassoing albatross on a calm day
]
[Illustration:
The sea at her worst
A stormy day on the Tasman Sea
]
[Illustration:
Repairing sails, L. to R.: Moto, Mickey, and Nick in Sydney harbor
]
[Illustration:
_UPI_
Staten Island Marina. Ted lost no time heading for the joys of New
York
]
[Illustration:
_Judith Belisle_
Ted painting the figurehead, Rowayton, Conn.
]
[Illustration:
Jessica sewing on Girl Scout badges
]
[Illustration:
Safe in port
Captain Reynolds, Jessica, and Mrs. Reynolds
]
The highlight of our stay in Indonesia, and one for which we laid over a
few extra days, was the eleventh anniversary of the founding of the
republic, on August 17. The entire city was decorated for the occasion
with archways of greenery across the streets and parades and festivities
in every district. We had received invitations from President Sukarno
himself, beautifully embossed with the Indonesian emblem in gold, to
attend a program of dances at the palace that evening. It was a splendid
affair, staged on the floodlit grounds, beneath the high branches of
enormous trees. The variety and fascination of the dances, representing
many of the islands of the spread-out archipelago, kept us enthralled
until well after midnight.
On August 20 we set out once more, bound for the Keeling Cocos Islands,
740 miles out in the Indian Ocean. It was not by chance that we were
crossing this ocean in August and September, but because, as I always
tried to do, we had chosen the season when, according to the pilot
books, cyclones are “unknown.” As far as we were concerned, they could
remain that way. We had had our bellyful of typhoons in Japan and we
knew that by any other name—whether cyclones in the Indian, hurricanes
in the Atlantic, or typhoons in the Pacific—these tropical revolving
storms are nasty customers and nothing to fool around with.
Our first two or three days out of Jakarta were quiet, with little wind
and frequent rains. The second evening, after passing through the Sunda
Strait between Java and Sumatra, we could see the volcanic cone of
Krakatoa with a trailing cloud, like a plume of smoke, rising from its
tip. As we ate our supper on deck, Ted read aloud the encyclopedia
account of that tremendous eruption, source of such widespread
devastation, and Jessica eyed the now somnolent peak uneasily.
“Shouldn’t we turn on the engine and go a little faster till we get
past?” she suggested, in a whisper.
“Better not,” Ted whispered back. “The engine might wake it up!”
Jessica, who showed a regrettable tendency to “put down roots” whenever
she had been given shore leave, was finding it particularly hard to
leave the land—and Susan Harris—behind, but she was not the only one who
felt a continuing malaise.
From Barbara’s diary on the third day:
Everyone feels unaccountably under the weather. No active seasickness,
but depressed and broody. Hard to carry out resolutions for making
good use of my time at sea when each trip seems to involve this period
of adjustment after life ashore. By the time the incipient mal de mer
and the regrets of leave-taking have subsided, the pattern of lazy,
do-nothing days has already taken hold.
Part of the mood was caused, I am sure, because the expected trades
never settled down, the seas remained high, and the weather was vaguely
threatening. There was a sense of uneasy anticipation which could not be
pinned down by any instrument. This is not aftersight, as I noted in my
log that on the fourth night I felt so strangely ill at ease that I was
awake most of the night and during my early-morning watch Barbara, who
also was wakeful, came up to keep me company as she frequently did at
sea.
Barbara’s own diary continues to reflect the unusual atmosphere:
A miserable, rolling, wallowing night with alternate rains and high
seas, followed by dropping winds. Rolled violently in my bunk from
side to side and dozed fitfully. The swift dropping sensation as the
boat rolls down, down, goes against one’s most basic instinct, the
fear of falling. A queer shuddering seems to have entered the picture,
giving rise to night fancies involving a loosened rudder or working
keel bolts! What terrors can suggest themselves and become rapidly
convincing in the dark!
The day before we were due to sight the islands, Ted and I spent a
number of hours checking the charts and making our plans. The Cocos are
low islands, with an altitude of only 10 feet plus the height of the
palm trees. If the day continued overcast so that we could not get a
good position, we might have quite a job finding them. If the weather
was bad, we would have to decide whether to attempt an entrance, to lay
off until the weather improved, or give the islands a miss altogether,
which would mean continuing on to Rodrigues, 2,000 miles to the west.
That night the barometer began a slow, ominous fall. The next morning
the seas were high and the wind at gale force. It was time to heave to.
With the wind out of the southeast, we lay under mizzen alone, facing
south, with a westerly drift of about two knots. The barometer was by
now at about 1000. We were riding well, and I hoped that the worst would
soon be over and we could continue on our way to the shelter of the
lagoon at Keeling-Cocos.
But the worst had just begun. By the afternoon, the barometer fell
sharply to 991, and for the first time in our trip we were in conditions
that I could honestly call “storm.” The peak hit at 1400 with solid
rain, blown horizontal by the wind. I couldn’t see the mainmast from the
cockpit and the seas were enormous. The wind, especially at the height
of the gusts, had a strength and fury I had never known before, on land
or sea.
Faced with this, we at once changed our strategy. The last thing we now
wanted was to be anywhere near the reefs of Cocos, especially with night
coming on. What we needed was plenty of sea room. The wind by now was
out of the northeast and shifting to north. The current in this area,
according to the charts, was about 18 miles a day, generally northwest,
but there was no telling what the storm had done to the pattern. Our
estimated position, about 25 miles east of the islands, was too close
for comfort and, if we remained hove to, it was not at all impossible
that we might drift down onto the reefs.
In spite of the weather, I decided we must try to make some easting. We
set up the storm jib and mizzen and headed east, managing to make good
southeast at about four knots even under this scrap of canvas. It was a
very bad night and my log book at this point is almost illegible, for
the following reason:
1930. Tremendous dollop of water through afterhatch—wet
everything—including this book. Gallons and gallons—worst _inside_
wetting I’ve ever had—bunk a shambles.
Barbara’s diary was spared, however, and she describes the same incident
with a bit more gusto:
In the early evening, after we had started to sail, a _huge_ wave came
aboard and _poured_, steadily and by bucketsful, down the afterhatch
on top of poor Skip who had been trying to snatch a brief rest. He
landed standing in the middle of his cabin, looking as though he’d
just been in for a swim with his clothes on. Even the folded blankets
_under_ the mattress were soaked and his pillow and bolster were
hopeless. With the patience of Job, he unloaded everything; wiped and
blotted his books and instruments; remade his bed—using dry wool
blankets on top of the wet mattress; got into dry clothes, and climbed
back to continue his sleep. What a man!
Throughout the night I arose frequently and kept an anxious eye on the
barometer, which was now slowly rising. By morning it was up to 1004 and
our spirits were obviously climbing right along with it. There is a real
lift in knowing that the worst is over and I feel sure it is no accident
that we refer to spirits, as well as barometric pressure, as being
“high” or “low.”
I felt we had made enough easting during the night so we could afford to
give everyone a rest by again heaving to. This time we tried a new
maneuver—lying atry: that is, taking down _all_ sail and letting the
ship take its natural position. It seemed to make little difference to
the _Phoenix_, other than that she lay a little bit more in the trough.
We rode quite comfortably.
The seas and wind were down considerably, but this is a relative
statement as they were still very high. With a constant drizzle,
visibility was poor and there was no chance to get our position. I
estimated that we were about 35 miles southeast of the islands, but that
could be only the merest guess.
During the next day the skies began to clear, with the wind still strong
and gusty. We could now be sure that the worst was really over and began
to check our damage. It was not too bad: four or five clips had pulled
loose from the foresail; the main downhaul block was broken at the end
of the gaff; the mainsail had chafed through in one spot where ironwork
had rubbed against the furled sail. Otherwise we were in good shape.
That afternoon the mizzen flag halyard, which had worked loose and had
been flying straight out and beyond our reach for the past two days, at
last allowed itself to be captured from the deck. I took this as a sign
that we were ready to carry on, so we set sail again to the northwest
under mizzen and foresail. In a couple of hours we had the main repaired
and ready for action.
Now our problem was to find the islands. The next day we were able to
get a hasty sun shot. Barbara took the tiller while Ted and I went below
to plot it. Suddenly she let out a whoop.
“Land ho!”
“Where?”
“Off the port bow!”
“Right where it’s supposed to be!” said Ted, with satisfaction.
We felt a tremendous sense of triumph after four days of storm and
aimless drifting—to have been able to find our low island after all,
almost by dead reckoning alone.
As we approached it, however, we began to have doubts. It was too small.
And where were the other islands of the group, some twenty or so, which
encircled a reef-enclosed lagoon?
Moto went up the mast and came down to report no other islands visible.
Ted, unwilling to take another’s word, went up next, with binoculars,
and reported that he _thought_ he could see other islands beyond this
one.
Nick went up last and announced, in his positive and dogmatic way, that
there was no other island. By this time we were close enough to make
further debate unnecessary. What we had picked up was North Keeling, an
isolated, seldom-seen island 15 miles from our destination.
At least we knew where we were, which was a great relief, but we also
knew we had one more night at sea with a very hard beat ahead of us, for
the main group of islands was dead upwind.
That night Barbara challenged Jessica to a game of cribbage, but both of
them were rather subdued and in the midst of the game Jessica began to
drip quiet tears and soon decided to crawl into her bunk “to keep Manuia
warm.”
Ted and I were up most of the night, trying to plot a course that would
keep us within a day’s sail of the islands without getting too close to
the reef in the dark. The only navigational light mentioned on
Keeling-Cocos is a “sometime thing” hung in a palm tree, so there was no
question of coming in close and standing off and on as we had done on
other occasions.
All night, with passing squalls and a high and confused sea, we worked
our way south, but by daylight there was no land in sight. As soon as we
could we got a sun shot, hasty and unsatisfactory though it was, and
estimated our position as being south of the main group. We turned
north.
At 0800 I sent Mickey up the mast, giving a specific order this time
instead of asking for a volunteer. It was a very tough job and the first
time he had ever done it, but the rest of us had taken our turns and I
felt that, for the good of the ship, he must not shirk the assignment.
He came down, looking green—reported nothing in sight.
I frankly didn’t know where we were, in spite of having had a good
departure from North Keeling the day before. I decided to look for the
islands one more day and then, unless the weather cleared so we could
get a definitive position, to stop flirting with the low reefs of Cocos
and carry on for the high island of Rodrigues.
It would not, I knew, be a popular decision.
However, by 1100 the welcome sight of palm trees shimmered dead ahead
and during the afternoon, with the weather improving rapidly, we
gradually closed the islands and rounded to the north entrance.
Never did water look so calm and clear and _blue_! Never did a beach
gleam so white and welcoming! We were eleven days, a thousand miles of
sailing, and one humdinger of a storm out of Java and very, very happy
to be here.
11 ACROSS THE INDIAN OCEAN:
COCOS TO DURBAN
“You have seen people of all sorts. Makes my mouth water....”
The Keeling-Cocos Islands are the perfect model of a South Seas atoll.
About twenty small, low-lying islets, of coral and sand topped with palm
trees, form an oval about a lagoon of some 5 by 10 miles. Only three of
the islands are inhabited: Direction Island, off which we had dropped
anchor, which exists solely for the purpose of operating the British
Cable and Wireless establishment; West Island, five miles away across
the lagoon, where a colony of some 200 Australians maintains the Qantas
airstrip and meteorological station; and Home Island, where some 500
natives live under the benign but feudal patronage of the Clunies-Ross
family, hereditary owners of all the Keeling-Cocos Islands since the
days of Queen Victoria.
During our ten days’ stay we were to learn more of the rather intricate
relationships and frictions between these three groups. At the moment,
however, we were just happy to have arrived.
On shore we could see a bustle of activity. Figures dashed here and
there, into buildings and out again, but nothing constructive seemed to
happen. At last a small native boat was launched and started out under
sail, bringing Chris Bartlett, manager of C. & W., some half dozen of
his group, and a couple of native boatmen.
As we helped him over the side, Mr. Bartlett’s first words were “Well,
how did you like the cyclone?”
This was the first time the word had been spoken aloud. I had secretly
_thought_ that this storm bore all the earmarks of a typical Indian
Ocean cyclone but had pushed the idea aside, because of course they just
didn’t occur at this season!
Jessica’s eyes grew round. “Was it really a cyclone?” she breathed.
“It certainly was!” Mr. Bartlett assured her. He handed us a copy of a
cablegram he had received from Perth, Australia:
28/8/56. HEREWITH CYCLONE WARNING AREA
AFFECTED LATITUDE 10 AND 25 LONGITUDE 90 AND
105 CENTRE BELOW 985 MILLIBARS MOVEMENT
INDEFINITE FORCE 10 TO 12 WINDS WITHIN 70 MILES
Jessica eagerly took the cable and rushed below to record the momentous
fact in her Journal. Later, at the weather station, we were given more
detail. Except for one other ship, on the edge of the disturbance, West
Island and the _Phoenix_ had been the only ones in a position to report
the out-of-season cyclone. Several hundred miles to the south the
freighter _Hollywood_ had reported rough seas, confused swell, and a
barometer of 1003. Mr. Lardi, meteorologist at Qantas, showed us all
their records and was delighted when I turned over the data from my log
so that he could round out the picture. The eye of the cyclone had
passed between the _Phoenix_ and the islands, coming down out of the
northeast. At the height of the storm, the Qantas rain gauge measured
seven inches in 75 minutes, and the barometer dropped to 988 millibars.
Peak winds were over 70 knots, or almost 80 miles an hour.
Barely within cyclone range but, as Jessica pointed out, “It was a
_real_ cyclone, even if it was a little one—just the way even a _baby_
dragon would be a real dragon!” Even with my dull adult mind I was able
to follow her logic.
Locally, damage had been considerable. All the powerboats in the lagoon
had been sunk or put out of commission—an embarrassing circumstance for
the Air and Sea Rescue Service. Both power and water had failed on West
Island; a number of houses were damaged, and several score palm trees
were blown down or decapitated. The roof of the passenger terminal at
the airstrip had been blown away. The schoolhouse was completely
demolished, the walls knocked down, and even the books blown away. Only
the blackboard had been left unharmed but this, as the schoolmaster put
it, had been “well and truly washed.” There were no serious injuries.
The Keeling-Cocos have one distinction which will always stand out in
our minds: never have so many parties been given so often by so few. Any
occasion, it seemed, was sufficient reason for a whingding: the 21st
birthday of one of the C. & W. “Exiles,” the arrival of a yacht, the
miracle of having survived a cyclone—or “just because it’s Thursday, you
know.”
Parties to welcome visiting yachts are rather rare, to judge from the
visitors’ book in the C. & W. office. I counted only five yachts, from
1952 until the arrival of the _Phoenix_ in 1956.
Supply ships, we were told, came almost as rarely and the Cable and
Wireless people, who must order everything out of Singapore, have to
provision almost as far in advance as we of the _Phoenix_. Qantas
employees, on the other hand, were receiving fresh fruits and vegetables
and frozen meats by air twice a month, which made for a certain amount
of envy on the part of the Exiles, who had to “make do with tinned
goods.”
On the other hand, the Australians on West Island were envious of the
luxurious standard of living enjoyed by C. & W., who could import Malay
help from the Straits Settlements, a privilege Qantas did not accord to
its employees, in conformity with the “whites only” policy of Australia.
Furthermore, both groups felt a certain resentment against the
benevolent dictatorship of John Clunies-Ross, from whom both Direction
and West Islands were leased, because he would allow none of his natives
to work for, or even to visit, the installations from which he derived
profit.
It was also forbidden to set foot on Home Island, except by express
invitation, which was rarely forthcoming. In the case of the
Australians, in the wake of some unspecified incident, such an
invitation was categorically denied. There was, however, some social
interchange between Clunies-Ross and the C. & W. personnel, another
cause for complaint.
As visitors, we were sought after by all three camps and exposed to all
three points of view. We were careful not to take sides, but it did seem
to us pitiful that, in such a remote and potentially peaceful paradise
as Cocos, it was not possible to escape the discord and the rivalries of
the outside world.
John Clunies-Ross and his wife were in England at the time of our visit,
but we spent a most interesting day on Home Island at the invitation of
the Keegans, caretakers and baby-sitters-in-residence to two-year-old
Linda, the crown princess of the Cocos.
The natives of Home Island, so far as we could tell from a superficial
visit, were happy, healthy, and content, although they are entirely
dependent upon the Clunies-Ross family for employment and subsistence.
All necessities are provided, so that their nominal wages for working in
the coconut plantations are needed only for such individual luxuries as
may be desired from the local store. The predominant religion is Muslim
and no attempt has been made to convert them. On the contrary, they took
great pride in showing us a newly completed mosque, simple but
attractive, which had been built to supplement an earlier one. All of
the houses were well built and in good repair, but the older buildings
are gradually being replaced with modern units with concrete floors and
fluorescent lighting.
Little “Princess” Linda accompanied us on our tour in her royal carriage
(pram, that is), standing up and waving in semi-regal fashion to her
subjects. Crowds followed us wherever we went, whether out of devotion
to their blonde, blue-eyed princess or out of curiosity over the
presence of a strange family, it was hard to say. Certainly, they seemed
genuinely happy and if, as we were told, they are being “ruthlessly
exploited,” they don’t seem to be aware of it.
Before our departure from Direction Island, and in honor of the American
and Japanese visitors, an event was scheduled which will forever stand
out in my memory: a baseball game, pitting the Exiles of C. & W. against
the Outcasts of Qantas. Naturally, it took place on the cricket field
and, as a special honor and because none of our hosts knew the rules, I
was appointed umpire.
The players, once the game had been explained to them (“Rather like
rounders, wouldn’t you say?”), took it very seriously indeed, but added
a certain exotic element that I never could have imagined. Pitchers were
changed every inning and, under the influence of cricket, threw overhand
with a stiff arm. Runners slid into _every_ base, regardless. And not a
single decision of the umpire was questioned—although many of them,
under the circumstances, were questionable.
Between the sixth and seventh innings a break was called and players and
spectators knocked off for a cup of tea. I happened to make a comment
about the polite restraint of the gallery, comparing it to the more
typical behavior of a baseball crowd at Yankee Stadium. In the midst of
the next inning there floated out over the field in the sweet voice of
Mrs. Bartlett, one single, gentle recommendation: “Please kill the
umpire!”
The game lasted the full nine innings and the score, for the record,
was: Exiles, 22—Outcasts, 14.
We sailed on September 9, with regrets as always, but this time with the
guarantee of further friendships to come, for we had entered into the
magic network of the far-flung Cable and Wireless system. Henceforth, we
would be passed along from one island outpost to another, introduced in
advance by the cable grapevine.
As if to make up for our unseasonable cyclone, the elements combined, on
the passage to Rodrigues, to give us some of the finest sailing we have
ever had. With a following wind and under full lowers, the _Phoenix_
racked up the best record of her trip to date—2,023 miles in 13½ days,
or better than 6 knots all the way.
There was little to record in the log other than good weather, good
progress, and good times. From my bunk, where I had leisure to spend
many lazy hours, I could catch scraps of Ted’s stories drifting down
through the afterhatch, as he kept himself entertained on watch by
amusing Jessica.
“Once there was a small kingdom—” such a story would frequently begin.
“Oh, goodie!” says Jessica, settling herself comfortably. “I _love_
small kingdoms!”
“—with a _very_ small king,” Ted continues. “About two days old, in
fact.” And he’s off.
On another occasion, I made record of a typical exchange:
Ted: “—a lady of stupendiferous bearing—”
Jessica: “_What_ bearing?”
Ted: “North by west.”
On the afternoon of September 22 we sighted the peaks of Rodrigues just
off the port bow. By 1750 we were at the port of Mathurin, but still
outside the reefs. A launch, loaded with officials, local residents, and
boatmen came out to meet us. They undertook to pilot us through the
intricate channel—and promptly dumped us on a reef. For the next half
hour, in the growing dark, there was a certain amount of confusion, with
mingled orders and oaths in English, French, Japanese, and various
Creole dialects. Finally we worked clear and were secured in mid-channel
by divers, who personally went down to set our anchor firmly in the
coral.
No harm was done to the boat, aside from a small rubbed spot at the turn
of the starboard bilge. There was also a small rubbed spot in the temper
of the Skipper, but after I had pouted a bit, we ushered our guests
below and exchanged introductions. Entry formalities were quickly
cleared away by Christian Belcourt, medical officer, and Claude
Rouchecouste, chief magistrate. Before we knew it, all seven of the
_Phoenix_ crew were in the launch, along with the reception committee,
and heading in to shore for baths, drinks, and dinner with M. and Mme.
Rouchecouste. (_Monsieur_ because, although Rodrigues belongs to the
British Crown Colony of Mauritius, it is predominantly French in
language and culture.)
On the way in we passed the only navigational light of Rodrigues—a
one-candlepower beacon marking the edge of the inner reef. We knew it
was one candlepower, because we could see the candle itself, flickering
fitfully behind its glass shade. As Ted summed it up, “If you can see
this light, you’re too darn close!”
Now began ten of the pleasantest days we have ever spent anywhere. As on
Keeling-Cocos all invitations and activities included all of us. The
veranda of the magistrate’s large house near the landing was the
unofficial clubhouse where we were made to feel at home and where good
conversation, cold drinks, and numerous newspapers and magazines—both
French and English—were always available. In the course of many
convivial afternoons and evenings, we began to feel that, through the
interest of our hosts of Rodrigues, we were learning more about our
Japanese companions, their backgrounds and their impressions, than we
had ever been able to elicit during the two years of our relationship.
Rodrigues itself is an island of unusual attractions, not the least of
which is its inaccessibility. There are only two practicable ways to
reach it: you can go on the supply boat from Mauritius, which makes the
trip three or four times a year and stays about three days, or you may
visit the island on a private yacht.
Although the island is only 42 square miles in area, it is densely
populated. Most of the 16,000 people are of African or Malagasy racial
stock, many are descended from slaves brought in from Mauritius by the
French, while others trace their ancestral lines back to Breton or
Scottish families.
Mauritius is the hub of their universe and the supply ship, also named
_Mauritius_, is the connecting link. “Have you ever visited Mauritius?”
Barbara asked one of the teachers in the Port Mathurin school.
“Oh, yes!” she answered eagerly. “We go on board every time it comes!”
There are no newspapers on Rodrigues, no telephones, no radio stations,
no banks, no movies; there is no airport or commercial shipping, no
harbor, no railway, no buses, and no taxis. There were, however, five
horses (“three cobs and two mules”), a number of bicycles, and two
jeeps. The jeeps, one of which belongs to the magistrate and the other
to the Catholic priests, are recent acquisitions and have already
accounted for one traffic fatality. Within the first week a cyclist
tried to go _between_ the headlights of an oncoming jeep, in the
mistaken impression that they were the lights of two bicycles. By the
way of instilling caution and avoiding further accidents, there is now a
large, hand-lettered sign over the gate that leads from the schoolyard
onto the road. STOP! LOOK! LISTEN! JEEP!
Each night we had dinner at a different house, but always with a nucleus
of the same group: the magistrate and his wife, the two doctors, the
meteorologist, and various members of the Cable and Wireless
installation on Rodrigues.
As they came to know us better, the Rouchecoustes in particular became
more frank in their eagerness to learn all they could about America and
Japan while Exhibits A and B were available. M. Rouchecouste confided
that, although he had studied for several years in Europe, we were the
first Americans, as well as the first Japanese, that he had ever met—and
the first of either, to his knowledge, ever to visit Rodrigues.
“Tell me, Madame Reynolds,” he asked, “would you say you were a typical
American woman?”
Barbara, obviously nonplused, looked helplessly at me.
I came to her rescue. “I should imagine,” I stated judicially, “that
she’s certainly the typical American woman who goes around the world on
a Japanese-built yacht.”
This response seemed to be entirely satisfactory.
By contrast with our first week on Rodrigues, which was peaceful and
relaxed, the last three days gave us a taste of the furor that surrounds
the rare visits of M.V. _Mauritius_. The sleepy town of Port Mathurin
woke up. From all over the island, people converged on the town. Boats
from villages along the shore began to arrive, piled high with produce
and livestock. Impromptu pens were knocked together and the waterfront
was transformed into a squealing, bleating, and cackling open-air market
where traders, who came over from Mauritius on the boat, could wander up
and down to inspect and bid on the available stock.
The day the boat arrived was given over to landing the cargo, including
two mares to swell the equine population. Letters and packages were
distributed in a daylong ceremony of mail call from the porch of the
administration building.
The second day saw hundreds of empty oil drums ferried out, to be
refilled and brought back on the next trip. The produce of the island,
principally garlic and dried octopus, was sent aboard in a never-ending
procession of lighters that were towed out through the channel in
strings of three or four to deliver their cargo and then return, under
sail, at their own convenience.
On the final day, with a proficiency obviously developed from much
practice, the animals were loaded. The cows, lassoed expertly and forced
onto their sides by the seemingly painful expedient of twisting their
tails up between their legs, were trussed up by their four feet and
loaded upside down into the open boats. Eight or ten were carried at a
time, rolling their eyes in patient misery until they had been hoisted
aboard the _Mauritius_ by crane and released into the hold.
The goats were all driven out to the end of the dock, their retreat was
blocked off with movable barricades, and then they were relentlessly
herded off the edge into the waiting lighters, some of the recalcitrant
ones being tossed in by a couple of legs. Arrived at the ship, a huge
wicker basket was lowered by crane, ten to twenty goats at a time were
tumbled in and lifted aboard to be dumped into deck pens.
Last of all went the pigs—and the passengers. The pigs, “who always get
seasick,” according to the captain, were stacked on deck in the same
kind of tubular wicker container we had seen in Bali—with a snout
protruding from one end and a tail from the other. For the sake of the
passengers, we hoped their bloodcurdling shrieks and squeals as they
were rolled down to the boats would eventually diminish.
We sailed a few hours before the _Mauritius_, knowing she would pass us,
probably during the first night, and would be waiting when we reached
Port Louis. The only unusual circumstance of our departure was our
decision, on the advice of the pilot, to slip our hawser rather than
risk maneuvering among the reefs while attempting to get it aboard.
“We’ll take it out to the supply ship,” he assured us, “and you can get
it from them in Mauritius.”
The trip to Mauritius, 400 miles to the west, was routine and we made an
easy entrance into the inner harbor of Port Louis at 1000 on October 5.
By 1130 we had been cleared by the harbor office, doctor, and
immigration officer and were free to explore the homeland of the now
extinct dodo.
Our first impression of Port Louis, even before going ashore, was of a
harbor more bustling and colorful than any we had yet visited. Work
began early in the morning and lasted, with much attendant shouting and
seeming confusion, until late at night. A procession of Indians in brief
loincloths, coifed like Egyptians of ancient tomb paintings, marched
back and forth like industrious ants between the docks and a
never-ending succession of barges. The coif arrangement was formed by
heavy material wound turbanwise around the head and hanging down the
back in a thick pad, making it possible to distribute the immense weight
of their loads evenly between head and shoulders.
The island itself is a beautiful sight from the harbor. A range of
deep-green mountains, dominated by the distinctive peak of La Pousse
(The Thumb), forms a dramatic backdrop to the low red roofs of the
warehouses along the shore. We anchored well out hoping to ensure a bit
of privacy, but it did us very little good. Local water taxis, flitting
about like bugs, were all too available and many curiosity seekers came
out for the ride and boarded us with no advance warning other than a
hail as they clambered over the gunwales.
One of our first callers was M. Appavou, the Indian ship chandler who
has earned for himself a well-deserved reputation among yachtsmen. He
gave us a bottle of the local rum with his compliments, and urged us to
make use of him in any way. His representative would call daily to pick
up our shopping list and our orders would be delivered on board in the
afternoon. “No extra charge.”
I warned M. Appavou that he could expect little profit from us, but that
didn’t seem to worry him. _Anything_ we might need, he would be happy to
get. Barbara decided to test him out and ordered a fez. (My birthday was
coming up.) That afternoon the fez was delivered, a handsome one in
maroon felt. Its cost, we discovered, was less than we would have paid
in the market.
Thereafter, we made full use of M. Appavou’s advice and services. In
addition to keeping us supplied with meat and vegetables, he guided us
to the best barbershop, arranged to have a suit made for Ted, gave us
tips on the races (we broke even), located beautiful saris for the
girls, and contracted for the building of a new small boat. Moreover, we
became very good friends. At New Year’s, in South Africa, we were both
pleased and touched to receive a warm personal response to the
mimeographed letter we had sent out to announce our arrival.
No doubt you must be proud of accomplishing such a cruise, and you
must be thankful to God for your luck of what I call a trouble-free
track, but for a few odds. You have seen oceans, seas, countries, and
peoples of all sorts. Makes my mouth water, so to say. You have made
friends everywhere, because sympathy is not merchantable: it is born
in Earle, Barbara, Ted, and Jessica; you are such a charming group,
you are.
Well, Capt., God give you en famille, His gifts in galore—which spell:
HEALTH, BLISS, HAPPINESS, and most happy conclusion of the marvellous
cruise of the gallant “PHOENIX.”...
During our stay in Mauritius we met a number of yachtsmen, both cruising
and local. One of them, planning a cruise shortly, came aboard “for
advice.” It seemed strange to have another asking advice of _us_ and
making eager notes of such bits and pieces of hard-won experience as we
were able to pass along!
Another small-boat sailor was Jacques Rousset, an eager young chap who
appointed himself our guide and mentor. Piling us into his car amid
cases of soft drinks and hampers of lunch, he set off at top speed along
the narrow, winding roads of his island. Cows, goats, chickens,
children, and ox-drawn cane carts kept appearing unexpectedly around
curves and kept all of us, who had just come in from weeks on the
uncrowded ocean, in a constant state of nerves. In vain we hinted that
we would much prefer a more sedate pace. As Jessica put it, “We want to
see everything—but we want to be able to _remember_ it, too!”
Perhaps Jacques thought we were old fuddy-duddies, but I managed to take
the sting out of my eventual ultimatum by rhapsodizing over the charm of
Mauritius, not only its beauty, but the novelty of the sari-clad women
we passed along the road; the rows of sugar cane that alternated in the
fields with rows of rock; and the two-wheeled carts pulled by
broad-horned oxen.
“Don’t you have those in America?” Jacques demanded, astonished. From
then on he drove circumspectly, deriving wonder and pleasure from our
comments about his homeland and plying us with questions about our own.
Three yachts arrived while we were in Port Louis, rather more than
usual. First was _Jeanne Mathilde_, a 40-footer out of Singapore, with
“Rex” King aboard. In our yacht register King merely notes that he left
Great Nicobar with a crew of one and “arrived alone.” The actual story
is dramatic. While at sea, his companion developed acute appendicitis.
By rarest good luck, they met a passing ship and Rex was able, by means
of flares, to attract their attention and have the ill man taken off. In
the process of signaling, however, one of the flares exploded and King
was badly burned. He refused to leave his ship and sailed on alone. When
we met him in Mauritius his face still bore scars and powder burns.
The second yacht to arrive was _Marie Thérèse II_, with singlehander
Bernard Moitessier, a very likable Frenchman. He, too, had known the
rigors of the sea. In his own words, written in our log, his first
_Marie Thérèse_, a Chinese junk, was “lost in a reef in the Chagos
Archipelago during her attempt to reach the Seychelles Islands from
Indonesia. Reason was no chronometer, no radio, lost, no binoculars, and
probably too much cheek from the skiper” (sic!).
King and Moitessier, obviously, were not usual types, but the third
arrival was the most bizarre of all, as well as the least communicative.
This was a lone Australian on _Kate_. His brief entry in the register
says merely: “Best wishes and regards from Bill Geering of _Kate_, 21
ft. L.O.A., and 60 days out of Fremantle to Mauritius. Bon Voyage.”
The voyage, as we were able to piece it together, was less routine.
_Kate_, on a coastal cruise from Fremantle to Darwin, had been caught
offshore and blown out to sea. With the strong trade winds and westbound
current against him, Geering had no choice but to carry on across the
Indian Ocean. He had tried for Christmas Island, but missed it. He had
tried to find the Keeling-Cocos, but without success. At last,
fifty-three days out, he had made a landfall at Rodrigues and then
sailed on to Mauritius. He was not in too good shape when he arrived,
having been on short rations of food and water for several weeks and
without standing room in his tiny ship. In addition, he had managed to
injure his back. When we asked him how long he expected to stay in
Mauritius, he replied succinctly, “Maybe forever!” Shortly thereafter he
sold _Kate_ to a local resident and flew back to Australia.
Mauritius, rather pretentiously known as “The Crown and Pearl of the
Indian Ocean,” proved to be a fascinating island but with a social and
economic situation that is highly confused and potentially explosive. It
is made up of many racial groups: English, French, Malay, African,
Indian, Chinese, and many admixtures—and these groups are further
divided by religious or social prejudices. The Hindus feud constantly
with the Muslims; the Chinese are divided into Communist and Nationalist
factions; while the 15 per cent that make up the remainder of the
population include a scattering of British, who come on temporary
government appointments and feel superior to the locals, and a residue
of French-Mauritians, who regard themselves as the entrenched
aristocracy.
A single observation summed up, to my mind, the self-consciousness of
the entire racial scene. As in other countries, Jessica made contact
with the Girl Guides and found them, as in Fiji, divided into mutually
exclusive troops on the basis of race. The daughter of a British civil
servant thus explained it, “We don’t even call the younger Guides
‘Brownies’ here—because of the Indians, you know. We call them
‘Bluebirds.’”
In almost every port we received applications from would-be
adventurers—of all ages and several sexes. I always listened to their
pleas with sympathy, for I have never forgotten the day I spent at the
yacht harbor in Honolulu on my way out to Japan, too timid to ask if I
might take a look aboard a yacht. It must be admitted that the vast
majority of applicants had little to offer aside from a vague desire to
get away from it all. Moreover, I noticed that the peak of these
requests always came on a beautiful Sunday afternoon when a gentle
breeze ruffled the waters of the bay. I have yet to have an applicant
row out to offer his services in some dark predawn at the height of a
williwaw, while we’re bouncing all over the place and trying to get a
second anchor out.
Many of our applicants, of course, were under the impression that we
employed a paid crew. The fact that Nick, Mickey, and Moto were yachting
companions rather than hired hands was a source of constant
astonishment, although we never failed to emphasize the relationship. As
for us, we took increasing pride in the fact that after two years and
more than 25,000 miles, the original _Phoenix_ crew was still together
and still, we felt, good friends.
There was one type of applicant, however, whom we sometimes signed on
for a short hop. Such a one was Jean de St. Pern, an ebullient young
French-Mauritian who begged to sail with us as far as Durban. He
volunteered to help Jessica in her struggles with beginning French and,
the clincher as far as Barbara was concerned, expressed a willingness,
nay, an _eagerness_, to cook. We took him along.
We sailed from Mauritius on October 19, bound for South Africa. Though
our visas had been granted without difficulty, we were more than a
little dubious about our visit because of the government’s well-known
racial policies. Our relations on board had been pleasant and
increasingly friendly since leaving Indonesia and we rather dreaded
entering an area where color and nationality would again assume false
values. However, it is difficult to go around the Cape without calling
somewhere in South Africa, so we hoped for the best.
Once again our life fell into that routine which is so difficult for
landsmen, day sailors, or even passengers on an ocean liner to
comprehend. The land one has left falls behind, the pleasures and
friendships that await are in some indefinite future. All that exists is
the present—the sea, the ship, the ship’s company, and the little
happenings of each day. Local events, such as the loss of a whole bunch
of bananas over the side, become tremendously important, while world
events recede into the background. Intellectually we could comprehend
and keep these things in perspective, but emotionally the here and now
has more impact than the there and then. From the log:
Listened to five-minute summary of news. First sentence, trouble in
Hungary; 2nd, trouble in Singapore; 3rd, trouble in Tunis; 4th,
hydrogen bomb test.—Angrily, I turned the radio off.
On the seventh day out, when far south of Madagascar, we could smell the
land, literally. Suddenly all eight of us were on deck, breathing
deeply. There was a different quality in the wind—a warm, dry, slightly
dusty odor, faintly spiced, like the scent of a distant campfire.
Manuia, too, sniffed deeply upwind, her front paws on the bulwarks. Moto
grinned appreciatively. “Maybe mouse on Madagascar,” he observed.
Jean, true to his promise, showed great prowess in the galley. He had
brought aboard a mysterious carton of bottles and jars, and from these
he added a spoonful of this or a dash of that to whatever he had on the
fire. No matter what the contents of a jar _looked_ like—a spinach-green
paste, a catsup-type sauce, or something lumpy and yellow like mustard
pickles—it was all, according to Jean, called “piment” and was
invariably _hot_. One or two of us acquired a taste for this fiery
seasoning of Mauritian cooking (in moderation), but the rest found it
hard to be too unhappy when a sudden roll of the boat sent Jean’s carton
of condiments crashing to the floor in a welter of broken glass.
Desolate, he picked over the mess and scooped up spoonfuls, insisting
that a _little_ glass wouldn’t hurt anyone, but the Skipper was firm and
insisted that all food thereafter must be seasoned by the individual.
Jean could really cook, but in the tradition of great French chefs. His
talents ran to directing, concocting, adding, stirring, and tasting.
With one of us to hand him utensils, another to cut up onions, and the
Skipper to restrain his too lavish use of piment, he turned out a number
of delectable dishes. As he explained seriously, “Eef I cook eet, eet
_has_ to be good!”
Like his condiments, Jean added interesting variety to our shipboard
life. Although a British subject, he was completely French in language,
personality, and gestures. He delighted the family and both delighted
and bewildered Nick, Mickey, and Moto.
His effervescence rose to a crescendo on the day we ran through a school
of whales. Prancing all over the deck, scrambling up the rigging, he was
beside himself with excitement, relapsing entirely into French
punctuated with staccato bursts of “Ooo-la-la! Ooo-la-la!” One whale, of
impressive size, came up for mutual inspection less than a boat’s length
away. We all felt, a little nervously, that that was quite close enough
and were relieved when he apparently felt the same, and sounded.
We hove to once on this passage, in a heavy thunderstorm, with driving
rain and incessant lightning. The wind oscillated between dead calm and
terrific gusts, so we thought it better to strike all sail and wait for
the weather to make up its mind. Early next morning, with the wind still
strong and the seas high, we could see the loom of Durban’s lights on
the horizon just before dawn. Throughout the day we worked our way in
but the wind was dead against us and after taking several long tacks,
each of which put us only slightly nearer our goal, it became apparent
that we could not make it before dark. I wanted to lay off, but my crew
had land fever and I finally compromised by trying to raise the harbor
officials by radio telephone.
Five miles off the harbor entrance, I made contact and a pilot boat was
sent out to meet us. The seas were much too rough for them to take us in
tow, but they stood by for the next three hours while we labored along
under sail and engine, against wind, heavy seas, and the outgoing tide,
at the magnificent speed of one knot. Inside the channel, well after
dark, they finally came alongside, put a pilot aboard, and guided us
briskly into the completely landlocked harbor, where we were put on a
buoy for the night.
On our way up the channel, with Nick at the tiller, my crew were given a
lesson in how to answer orders. Over and over on the trip I had
emphasized the need for repeating an order aloud, in times of stress or
noise, so there could be no misunderstanding. The Japanese had been very
reluctant to cooperate, perhaps feeling that it put them in a
subservient position. Now, on our way up the channel, the pilot called
an order to the helmsman and Nick, as usual, obeyed silently. In no
uncertain terms, though quite politely, the pilot directed Nick (through
me) to repeat every order _as given_.
I thought it a salutary lesson and was human enough to see the culprit,
thus reprimanded, squirm. And yet I wish I could report that the lesson
had been learned. On the contrary, perhaps because of the loss of face
involved, the issue became sharper than ever before.
It was a baffling situation. A couple of years earlier I would have
dissolved the relationship summarily, exercising my right to demand
compliance even though it forced a parting of the ways. Now, however,
the desire to succeed in our trip, to keep our original group intact,
had assumed an importance that made the question “Who is boss?” seem a
bit childish. In addition, I believe I was gaining in patience and
understanding, in desire to understand the point of view of my
companions. Their deep insecurity in the many situations they had to
face around the world gave them a real need to re-establish constantly
their status as equals. Untrained in democratic procedures, they at
times withdrew from responsibility and left the entire weight of
decisions to me; and at times reasserted their independence by refusing,
in unimportant details, to accept any suggestion of authority.
Perhaps, I told myself, I was demanding a subservience to which I was
not entitled. Perhaps the matter of repeating orders should be relegated
to the same category as saluting the bridge or piping the captain
aboard, observances of rank and authority that were perhaps correct in
their proper place but not aboard a small boat. And yet, balancing all
this rationalization was the knowledge that, in a tight spot, an order
not heard or perhaps misunderstood could mean the loss of the ship. I
didn’t give a damn about salutes and pipes, but I cared a great deal
about my family and the _Phoenix_.
At any rate, by 2130 we were snugly moored with the lights of Durban all
about us. Barbara, who had not wanted to miss our entrance, now went
below to whip up a late, hot supper, and everyone visibly relaxed as I
broke out a bottle of rum. I brought my log up to date: our last lap of
16 days at sea had added another 1,756 miles; another ocean crossed,
another continent, another milestone on our voyage. We were in Africa!
12 SOUTH AFRICA:
BEAUTIFUL, UNHAPPY LAND
“What will you do when that day comes?”
In the morning we were again picked up by the pilot and escorted to a
mooring in the small-craft harbor.
“There will be no charge,” he told us.
“None at all?” I was incredulous, remembering that they had come out at
our request and stood by for three hours while we crawled in.
“No charge,” he repeated. “We’re happy to serve you.”
It was luck we arrived when we did, for by the next week they could not
have served us at any price. The pressure from the Suez crisis was
beginning to be felt and every pilot was working almost around the
clock. Even so, many ships were obliged to stand off and wait before
they could be brought in for refueling, and their lights at night
stretched along the coast like an offshore roadway.
Our next contact with South African officialdom was not so hospitable. I
hit a snag when I reported to immigration officials and tried to clarify
the position of the Japanese. There are few Orientals in South Africa,
most of them transients aboard ships, who never leave the ports. Upon
learning that we _all_ planned to take a trip to Kruger National Park,
the officials became disturbed and downright uncooperative. The Japanese
were “urgently advised against” using public transportation; we were
“strongly urged” not to travel as a mixed group. And, in any event, the
Japanese could not leave Durban without permission. When I requested
that permission, they said they would “take the matter under advisement”
and that it would be necessary to “clear with Pretoria.” In the meantime
Nick, Mickey, and Moto were restricted to the city.
A reporter got hold of the story and asked me about it. I pointed out
that I had obtained, at a cost of £5 apiece, valid visas for these men
and that no travel restrictions had been mentioned. I added that had I
known of conditions here I would have entered at Portuguese Lourenço
Marques and given Durban a miss altogether.
Since Durban is one of the largest holiday and resort centers in South
Africa, this blast, delivered primarily to get a gripe off my chest, was
given a big play in the papers. Just at this time the men received an
invitation from the Japanese Ambassador to visit the Embassy in
Pretoria. I was summoned back to the immigration office and told that a
special pass would be issued (at the cost of an extra pound apiece) so
that the Japanese could make a trip to Pretoria and Johannesburg, said
trip to take no more than four days, including travel time. It was not
until I got back to the boat that we discovered that the pass had been
dated as of the day of issue and therefore the first day of the allotted
time period had already elapsed. Since it takes twenty-six hours to get
to Johannesburg—and an equally long time to return—it didn’t leave much
time for visiting the Embassy or doing any sightseeing. Nevertheless,
two of the three elected to go anyway. On their return they replied,
briefly, to our questions, that they had had “a nice time,” whatever
that means. They never elaborated except that once, many months later,
Barbara asked Nick, “How did you like your trip to Johannesburg?”
Nick replied, “Terrible!” and that closed the conversation.
The situation for the three M’s throughout our stay in South Africa was
anomalous in the extreme and the above is only a sample. The government
itself seems confused as to who is who, and their definitions of racial
categories do little to clarify the situation. The official definition
of “European,” as stated in a government publication, is as follows:
“European” means a person who in appearance is, or who is generally
accepted as a white person, but does not include a person who,
although in appearance obviously a white person, is generally accepted
as a coloured person. (A “coloured person,” under the same edict, is a
person who is “neither European nor a Native.” “I guess that means
us,” Jessica decided. “We’re American.”)
So confused is the terminology that one of our “European” acquaintances
reacted with horror when I described a friend as a “native of New
Zealand.”
“Oh,” she cried, “I didn’t think they allowed natives there!” To her—and
to many in South Africa—“native” is synonymous with “black man”—nothing
else. So accepted is this double talk that newspapers actually referred
to a visiting diplomat from Ethiopia as a “foreign native”!
Japanese may be officially regarded as “European,” but the ruling meant
nothing to the man on the street. Each waiter or box-office clerk, was
forced to make his own decision, to serve or not to serve.
Early in their stay, before they had become so sensitive that they
refused to go out by themselves at all, Nick, Mickey, and Moto were out
seeing the town and decided to stop at a pub for some beer. They entered
a “European” bar, but the bartender, albeit courteously, referred them
to another place just around the corner.
“That’s where you boys belong,” he told them. “This is the European
bar.”
Rather than argue their status, they went around the corner as directed.
Here, too, the proprietor, an Indian, was most polite and helpful. “Just
what _are_ you men?”
“We’re Japanese.”
“I see. Well, I’ll tell you—you go just around the corner—”
At this point Mickey leaned forward and said confidentially, “We don’t
want European beer. We want _non_-European beer. We don’t _like_
Europeans!”
“You don’t!” the proprietor exclaimed, in pleased amazement. “Gentlemen,
the drinks are on the house!”
Not only the barkeeper, but every patron in the establishment insisted
on setting them up, until the three M’s had consumed all they could
hold. They came back to the boat considerably cheered, so much so that
Nick volunteered the story, which we would otherwise certainly never
have heard.
The tension between “European” and “non-European” is by no means the
only conflict in this unhappy country. There is a deep and ever-widening
schism between the whites themselves, between those of British
background and those descended from the early Boers. The latter speak
Afrikaans, are fantastically conservative, and are doing everything they
can to break all ties with the English. The few we met seemed to us to
have a pathological sensitivity to criticism. On one occasion, in the
course of a very enjoyable afternoon’s ride through the countryside, I
saw a sign painted in Afrikaans beside the road: SKOOL. Beneath it was
the same word in the second official language: SCHOOL. I made a joking
reference to the first spelling, something like, “If at first you don’t
succeed, try, try again!”—only to be blasted by an outburst from the
lady in the party, who apparently came from an Afrikaner family. Her
tirade included charges that foreigners always acted superior, were
always looking for things to criticize, and didn’t do any better in
their own country! There was much truth in what she said, so I made a
shame-faced apology and took the lesson to heart. She, too, apologized,
but her last remark was almost desperate in its intensity: “You just
can’t understand the situation here!”
To me the most remarkable thing about the incident was the fact that
such a trivial and relatively meaningless jest should have brought on
such a disproportionate response. Tensions are great in South Africa and
very little is required to bring them to the breaking point.
We ourselves were by no means immune. There was poison in the very
atmosphere and doubts and dissensions began to work insidiously within
our own group. Nick, Mickey, and Moto rarely left the boat, although
they had many visitors, mainly from visiting Japanese ships. More and
more they drew into themselves and there was a subtle atmosphere of
brooding and dissatisfaction. Finally matters came to a head. Some small
incident released the pressure and we had another “blowing off” session.
“Why you call us ‘boys’?” Moto, usually the peaceable one, demanded.
“You think we are your servant!”
Shocked, we re-examined the term we had often used with reference to our
companions as a group. We had always regarded Nick, Mickey, and Moto as
a part of our extended family and just as we had referred to our two
sons as “the boys” (and as I had often spoken of my wife and daughter
collectively as “the girls”), so we had unconsciously stretched the
terminology to include all the junior males of the _Phoenix_ family. It
had seemed less pompous than referring to them as “the Japanese” and
more accurate than “the crew”—since all of us were crew together. Now,
however, we realized that in many countries “boy” is a peremptory form
of address used by a white man toward a colored person of any age, from
one to a hundred. By speaking to outsiders of “the boys,” we had
obviously given the wrong impression to many.
Thereafter we made a real effort to change our habits and began to
substitute the term “men”—although we felt that our relationship lost
something of its warmth and intimacy in the process.
Fortunately for our crew relations—and for the reputation of the white
man in South Africa—there were those who extended friendship and
hospitality to our entire group. Outstanding among these was Lindsay
Moller, a South African “European” whom we had met fleetingly two years
before when he had been vacationing on the Kona coast of Hawaii. He had
given me his card and told me to look him up when we got to Africa—an
eventuality that had seemed highly remote and problematical at that time
when my main concern had been the next hop, around to Hilo. Yet now,
miraculously, we had arrived on the far side of the globe. I had kept
Lindsay’s card—and I dropped him a note.
He came down promptly and took us all in hand. The Mollers were
heaven-sent for our needs, for they had a long list of assets over and
above their warm hearts: two daughters, Christine and Vicky, who
bracketed Jessica in age and quickly adopted her for the duration of our
stay; a town house, which was convenient; a farm 22 miles up in the
hills, which provided, in addition to an ultramodern piggery for 2,700
pigs, a swimming pool, riding horses, miles of walking trails, and an
unsurpassed view of the mountains. Lindsay drove up to the farm every
weekend and always had room for any and all, for a day or for the week.
During our two-month stay in Durban, all of us took him up at least
once, and Jessica, once the Moller girls were out of school for the
“long vac,” became a permanent resident at the farm.
For the men, as was always the case in major ports, work on the boat
came first. We made arrangements to haul out, to paint the bottom, and
catch up on the many small jobs that had accumulated since Sydney. When
we were put back in the water and the bill presented, we found there was
no charge for the service and that all materials had been sold to us at
cost (or “nett,” as the British have it). The bill was marked
“Compliments of the Country.”
Jimmy Whittle, manager of the boatyard, and his wife Jean showed us many
kindnesses, including inviting us for a memorable Christmas dinner along
with all their visiting relatives from Griqualand East and Natal, a
traditional English celebration with crepe paper hats, “crackers” to
pull, and plenty of sixpenny bits in the flaming plum pudding for the
young people to find.
Christmas shopping at the height of summer was an exhausting experience
but full of interest and surprises in Durban. We found the big
department stores in the center of town rather depressing than
otherwise, with their mixed crowds of irritable Europeans and apologetic
Africans (whose money was accepted graciously in any store, apartheid
notwithstanding), but we never tired of browsing in the Indian and
native markets, which somehow managed to remain off the beaten tourist
track.
In the Indian market were hundreds of small stalls beneath one roof
where importunate salesmen of curios tried to waylay the visitor with
“cut rate” ebony or embroidered fans, while dark-skinned women in
graceful saris measured out curry seasonings from brilliant piles of
brown, yellow, orange, and saffron-colored powders.
Next door to the Indian market, on bare dirt behind a corrugated iron
fence, was the native bazaar. Here tribesmen, just in from the
hinterland, wandered barefooted, wrapped in bright blankets, to inspect
racks of used city clothing. Women, their hair fashioned into elaborate
headdresses held in place with red clay, their arms and necks and waists
encircled with heavy ropes of magnificent beadwork, squatted beside a
counter full of scrap metal and suckled their infants while searching
for treasure: a usable flashlight, a rusty knife, a discarded kerosene
stove. In the bazaar one could see lion or zebra skins being stretched
and dried; could watch Zulus fashioning medicine wands with leopard-tail
tassels or stringing necklaces and breastplates with thousands of tiny
colored beads; could see Xosa and Basuto and Swazi and Zulu and hear the
babel of their many tongues. And one could see the swiftly veiled glint
of distrust and hatred when one of them looked up and recognized a white
face.
We had been forced to give up our ambition to get to Kruger National
Park, both because of travel restrictions for our entire group and
because of finances. Nick and Moto, as I have mentioned, settled for a
trip to Pretoria; Barbara and Jessica seemed quite content to relax at
the Mollers’ farm. But Ted and I would not give up so easily and we
looked about for a less-distant goal.
On the advice of Bill Sinclair, a wild-life photographer for the
national parks service whose spectacular color shots had even further
whetted our desires, we chose the Hluhluwe (shloo-shloo-way) Game
Reserve in Zululand. The variety of game there, he assured us, was quite
as impressive as at Kruger—if we didn’t mind missing the elephants and
lions. We did mind, but we had long since learned that our trip was of
necessity a long series of compromises, and we settled for Hluhluwe.
Actually, we were not at all disappointed, for we were able to see not
only the African interior, with its characteristic highlands, its Zulu
villages of kraals and beehive-shaped rondevals, but also a fine
selection of native animal life. We saw, in their native state,
wildebeest, zebra, kudu, impala, and warthog—and, the highlight of the
trip, the ponderous but amazingly swift rhino.
We have reason to know how fast a rhino can move. We found out on the
day we trotted down a narrow path through the bush, in hot pursuit of a
white rhino lumbering on ahead. Suddenly he became aware that he was
being trailed. Swinging around abruptly, he reversed his course and we
had barely time to take to the trees before he crashed blindly past us
through the undergrowth.
Two days after the New Year we left Durban, bound around the Cape of
Good Hope to Cape Town. Although this was considered the best season for
the trip, we had no guarantee that the passage would be quiet and I’m
sure we all had mentally crossed our fingers. A number of yachts
accompanied us through the harbor and the Sea Scouts, among whom Ted had
made many friends, continued for a short distance outside in their
launch. Then we were on our own.
On our own—but we did not lack for company, much of which we could well
have done without. Because of the Suez blockade, there was scarcely an
hour of the day or night when we did not have at least one ship in
sight. On the very first day a freighter changed course and came bearing
down on us, a frightening sight to one who is maneuvering under sail. We
tacked and headed out, but the freighter too changed course. I was
becoming more and more uneasy. Obviously, they were merely interested in
looking us over, but what if they overestimated our maneuverability
under sail? What if they came too close upwind and blanketed our sails
so that we lost steerageway? What if—It is impossible to describe how
small and vulnerable a yacht can feel when forced to play tag with a
large and relentless freighter!
The ship approached closer and at last Barbara was able to make out the
name on her hull: _Sulu_. It was a cargo ship from the Philippines,
whose captain had visited us on board and had later taken us all out to
dinner. _Sulu_ approached very close, far closer than I cared for,
sounding her whistle repeatedly. We broke out our compressed-air hooter
and returned the greeting, waving heartfelt permission for our jovial
escort to go on his way. At last he did, and the _Sulu_ carried on out
of sight.
For the first six days the breeze was light and the weather fair, but on
January 8 things took a turn for the worse. The radio was giving out
gale warnings, so we took down the main and were prepared when a
thunderstorm hit in the early-morning hours, bringing heavy rain and
strong winds at its peak. By dawn the breeze had fallen off enough so
that we were banging around considerably in very heavy seas.
This was the worst spot in our rounding of the continent, however. We
drifted past Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa, in quiet seas
and with the lightest of airs, as if on a sail in the bay. On our last
afternoon, while under bare steerageway, we narrowly missed being run
down by the tanker _Kongstank_, which passed us just to port, running at
a good clip and with no one visible anywhere on the ship. So far as we
could see, the bridge was quite empty and we could only assume that they
had set the automatic controls and gone below for a cup of coffee or a
nap. It was a sobering thought to realize that they might have sent us
to the bottom without ever knowing what they’d hit!
Throughout that day, as we cruised slowly northward, we were skirting
the Cape Peninsula, which well deserves its reputation as one of the
most beautiful sights in the world. The dramatically eroded pinnacles,
rather like a cross section of the Grand Canyon taken out of context,
run down to the sea, with deep-purple gorges between. The Twelve
Apostles, the Lion, and, finally, Table Mountain were all formations we
had seen in photographs, but now we were seeing them for the first time
in full color. Dusk settled over the sea. A pale moon gradually deepened
to rich yellow as we drew closer to Cape Town and, behind the mountain
peaks, the sky grew dark. Lights of the city began to flicker on around
the base of the hills, sparkling like fireflies. The air grew colder. We
were in the Atlantic now, and the water in this new ocean was frigid to
the touch. For the first time since 1954 in the North Pacific I could
see my breath, and the fur-lined parkas were dug out.
During the night we lay off, merely keeping our position. With an almost
constant movement of shipping in and out, we had no desire to attempt a
strange and crowded harbor after dark.
Next morning, finding ourselves blanketed by Table Mountain, we turned
on the engine and motored in. Following the chart, we proceeded down the
entire length of the harbor, inside the breakwater, past several dozen
freighters and tankers and passenger ships, until we reached the area
marked “Small Boat Harbor” at the extreme end. A number of frolicking
seals came out to greet us and Jessica was enchanted when two little
penguins drifted by, sitting demurely side by side on a floating board.
Near the inner entrance we were met by a motorboat filled with members
of the Royal Cape Yacht Club, who showed us to the mooring that had been
reserved for us. By midmorning all was secure, we had been cleared, and
Cape Town lay before us.
Cape Town, spread out at the foot of Table Mountain, has a spectacular
setting, but the city itself, from the narrow viewpoint of the
yachtsman, is somewhat less than easily accessible. The small-boat
anchorage is at the far end of a long, unfinished, and unshaded road
within the commercial dock area where no public transportation is
available. Going out and coming back it is necessary to check with
guards at the customs gate, some of whom were pleasant and some of whom,
like human beings everywhere, were officious. It was at this gate that
another of those incidents occurred, during our stay in Cape Town, which
had far-reaching consequences in terms of misunderstanding. I recount it
merely to illustrate from what a small scratch a festering sore can
develop, particularly if the scratch occurs when poisons are in the very
air.
One evening we were driving out of the dock area in a friend’s car.
Barbara and I were in front with our host; Nick, Mickey, and Moto, in
the back.
As always, we stopped and made the usual report to the guard: “We’re
from the yacht _Phoenix_.”
Usually this was enough to give us clearance, but this time the guard
came over and peered in the rear window. “What about those chaps?” he
demanded.
“They’re from the yacht, too.”
“Seamen?”
“No, yachtsmen.”
There was a pause—and then the guard waved us on. I thought nothing more
of the incident, but many months later Moto rather sadly brought the
incident up.
“You never on our side,” he accused us. “Never—really.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like Cape Town—you let policeman call us Japs.”
Only one who knows the fierce pride of the Japanese can understand how
they hate and resent being called Japs. I was completely in the dark.
“_When_ did anyone ever call you Japs—without my correcting them?”
Finally, after much digging and probing, we pieced the story together.
Moto described the circumstances at the Cape Town docks and suddenly the
scene came back to me. I recalled the guard, peering in the back window
and asking, in quite neutral tones, “What about those chaps?”
The Japanese didn’t know the word “chaps” and had thought they were
being insulted. Almost a year later I was given a chance to explain, but
it was too late. The damage had been done.
The walk to town is long, even after one has left the dock area—and it
is even longer coming back with supplies. And the wind! Here is one
place where it _blows_—and rarely, it seems, in a direction to give the
tired pedestrian a needed boost. One afternoon I was coming back from
town, leaning against the wind at every step, with my eyes slitted to
protect them from the grit that stung my face. Arriving at the club, I
understandably felt the need of a rest and nourishment before attempting
the trip by dinghy to my ship. The anemometer on the clubhouse wall was
registering 60 knots, but no one seemed to be paying it any particular
attention.
“Is your wind gauge accurate?” I asked a member.
He smiled sheepishly. “As a matter of fact, I’m awfully afraid it’s not.
Underregisters a bit, you know—five or six knots, actually. Must have it
fixed!”
In a wind such as this, just getting out to the _Phoenix_ became high
adventure. The method was to drag Flatty around the harbor until well
upwind of the _Phoenix_, then get in and take a sleighride down to the
boat, making very certain not to miss! The approved method of rounding
up into the wind and coming up alongside would have got one
nowhere—except into the most remote corner of Duncan Dock at the other
end of the harbor.
Cape Town, we were happy to find, was more relaxed than Durban. The
Royal Cape Yacht Club extended a welcome to our whole party and gave us
the freedom of their facilities, while the press also played up the
interracial composition of our group and ran a story that resulted in
bringing us many rewarding contacts we would not otherwise have had.
Among these visitors were three representatives of the African magazine
_Drum_, who came down to judge for themselves an intercultural
relationship that would be impossible in South Africa. Two of them were
“Colored,” one Indian, and they stayed for several hours.
“How many of us can you squeeze in your sail locker?” one of them joked,
with a serious undercurrent that was pathetic. “You could drop us off
anywhere—Brazil—the United States—even Mississippi!”
“You wouldn’t like Mississippi,” I said, speaking with some knowledge,
since I had spent much of my youth there.
“Man, just try me and see!” exclaimed one, a big Cape Colored. “I’d
trade places with any Negro in any part of your ‘Solid South’! At least
there I’d know my children and grandchildren would have a future.”
At last, with obvious reluctance, the Indian reminded them that they had
a deadline to meet.
“Just a few minutes more!” the big fellow pleaded. “Let me stay here
just a little longer—on free soil—and dream!”
On another occasion a South African—a Negro—came aboard after writing us
a note. Obviously well educated, a born leader, he was polite but wary.
When he came aboard I offered my hand as a matter of course. He
hesitated, then took it briefly.
We went below and spent a long afternoon. He told us, vividly, quietly,
and without ranting, of the situation that existed in South Africa—from
the black man’s point of view—and tried to explain why it could not
last.
I remember what he said: “A man who drives a truck can drive a tank; a
man who handles a shovel can handle a gun; a man who can read the Bible
can read a sign telling him to rise up in revolt. They cannot use us as
their tools without giving us some education; they cannot educate us
without losing us.”
“Will there be an uprising?”
“There will be. There will be killing and destruction. There will be a
return to barbarism—on both sides—in spite of all we can do. For the
moment,” he added in measured tones, “the barbarism is on only one
side—the government’s.”
“What will you do when the day comes?” I asked.
He looked at us calmly. “I will kill as many white men as I can, before
I am killed myself.”
I rowed him to shore and when he got out he paused a moment—and then
offered his hand to me.
“Today,” he told me, “was the first time in my life that a white man has
ever shaken hands with me! Thank you—and do not stay in this unhappy
place.”
That same week at the home of the American representative of Coca-Cola,
we met the Commissioner of Education—a white man, of course. We found
Mr. De Plessis to be witty, urbane, and well informed, a delightful
dinner companion but, like almost every other “European” we spoke to,
defensive and uneasy on the subject of apartheid. He expressed sympathy
for the condition of the natives and readily acknowledged the dangers
and inequalities of the existing government policy. Nevertheless, he
defended it, refusing to admit that there was any alternative. He
emphasized (as did everyone else, as if it were a lesson they had
learned by rote) that “South Africa’s problem is very different from
yours in America,” and repeated the inevitable statistics: eight million
nonwhites; only two million whites.
Of course, if one accepts his thesis that the white group is innately
superior (citing, among other authorities, the Bible) and must maintain
ascendancy, there does seem to be no alternative. De Plessis’s only hope
seemed to be that during his tenure at least he would be able to
maintain the status quo.
This philosophy, however urbanely expressed, seems to be prevalent in
many countries today including, I am ashamed to say, our own. It can be
expressed crudely as: “Get yours, keep the lid on, and leave the mess
for your children to clean up.”
It is not a philosophy that tends to make for secure or stable children!
While we were in the country, several hundred prominent citizens,
including Alan Paton, were rounded up in a single night and thrown into
jail on the blanket, undocumented charge of “treason.” Treason, in South
Africa, can be attributed to anyone who disagrees with the Nationalist
party or criticizes its policies, with the result that more and more
troubled individuals are leaving the country or, against the dictates of
conscience, letting themselves be lulled into doing nothing.
We met one very brave man, a professor at the university, and a group of
his friends whom we would never have met if it had not been for the
unusual composition of our crew. Professor Maxwell and his wife (that is
_not_ their name) daily expected the ominous knock on the door, the
summons to appear—or to disappear. And for what heinous crime? Only that
they refused to choose or reject their friends on the basis of race.
They have continued to entertain in their home men and women of whatever
ancestry and by this personal defiance have cut themselves off from most
of their “European” associates, who are afraid to continue a
relationship with such dubious characters. Already the professor’s
classes had been cut, his salary reduced, his membership canceled, in an
effort to force him into line. The next step, of course, which he
anticipated momentarily, was outright dismissal from the university—and
jail.
The Maxwells’ courage was a revelation to us and a profound inspiration.
Through them, for the first time, was brought home to us the realization
that blind obedience to the laws of one’s country is not always the
highest duty of a conscientious man. The actions taken by the
Nationalists, such as the disenfranchisement of the Coloreds,
restrictions on travel, the “pass laws” for Africans, curfews based on
race, curtailment of job opportunities, and other encroachments on human
rights have all been done quite legally—that is, in accord with the
existing laws in South Africa. And yet the disparity between law and
morality is so great that even those who have helped to make the laws
seem to feel an impelling need to explain and justify.
What does a scientist do when confronted with such a situation as exists
in South Africa? I saw one man’s adaptation, when I visited another
university near Cape Town. My host was a fellow anthropologist, a
specialist in early man, who very kindly spent the afternoon with me,
showing me his laboratory and materials. Later, over tea, I commented,
as one anthropologist to another, on the obviously erroneous racist
policy of the government. My host froze instantly.
“That is not my field of interest,” he said coldly.
“But as an anthropologist—”
“That is not my field of interest,” he repeated, and the discussion was
ended.
All of us were beginning to look forward almost desperately to setting
sail again, as though we, too, were in danger of being imprisoned if we
lingered. When the Brazilian Consulate stipulated that we must all
present a doctor’s report from a complete physical examination before
visas for that country would be issued, I felt a ridiculous premonition
that something, some symptom, would be discovered which would make it
necessary for us to linger. Let sleeping dogs lie was my feeling—but
there was no way to secure our visas without the doctor’s report—and
Brazil was a “must” on our itinerary because of our Japanese. They had
had slim pickings in many ports, but in São Paulo or Belém, where there
was a very large Japanese population, they could look forward to an
overwhelming reception such as they had experienced in Hawaii. They had
it coming to them—and so I made appointments for our physicals.
I needn’t have worried. The doctor did little more than fill out and
sign the official forms, after asking such general questions as “Do you
feel all right? Any complaints?”
The only complaint I had was the cost—a pretty stiff fee for such a
cursory going over. (I carefully filed the expensive documents away with
our other official forms, but no one in Brazil ever examined or even
asked for them. Needless to say, however, had we neglected to get the
papers, they would have been the first thing we had to produce upon
arrival in Brazil.)
A few days before leaving we moved to Fisherman’s Harbor, where there
was a commercial slip, and once more we hauled out to give the bottom a
check and add an iron brace to the rudder, which had begun to work a
bit. Two nights before our departure I was coming back from the Flying
Angel Mission for Seamen, carrying an armload of books they had
generously donated to the _Phoenix_. While crossing over a couple of
boats to get to our own, I made a miscalculation in stepping from one to
another. Instead of putting my foot on solid deck, I walked off into
air, with the result that I fell heavily, knocked all the breath out of
me, and injured my ribs.
Barbara, as ship’s medical officer, immediately attempted to invalid me,
which I naturally resisted violently. She wound me around with an
elastic bandage and begged me to delay departure until I was “out of
danger,” but I had already announced the day and hour of leaving and,
being a determined sort, I continued with preparations for departure.
(At this point Jessica has just reminded me of the conjugation of “I am
determined.” According to her, it continues: “You are stubborn—he is a
pigheaded fool!”)
In any event, I had no intention of letting South Africa keep us in her
clutches.
Barbara’s diary has something to say about the last hectic day before
sailing:
Usual rush of shopping, this time with the help and company of Mrs.
Maxwell and Mr. T——. (Mr. T——, an African of the Xosa tribe, speaks
flawless English and is highly educated and intelligent. He is a
leader among his people—for which reason his pass has been
confiscated. For five years he cannot leave Cape Town, nor attend any
meetings or speak to any gathering. With dogged determination, he is
trying to get his message across through the written word, but there
is no outlet for his articles, no money to have his books privately
published.)
When we wanted to pause in the middle of our hectic day for a cup of
tea, we had to return to the _Phoenix_, as there is no public place in
all of Cape Town where we could have sat down and been served
together.
While we were relaxing and chatting over our tea, Mr. W—— (a white
man) of the yacht club came aboard. We introduced him to our friends.
Noticed that he did not shake hands with Mr. T——. Stayed only a moment
and did not look directly at him as he made his farewells. Awkward. A
pity, as Mr. W—— is a fine man and has been wonderfully kind to us.
(He even took Nick, Mickey, and Moto to his club one Sunday to sail
with him in an 18-footer event. This took a bit of courage; as he
admitted later: “I didn’t know if I’d get away with it.” But
apparently there is all the difference in the world between a visiting
Japanese yachtsman and a resident African.)
I’ll be glad to leave South Africa, but some of the friends we have
made I’ll carry always with me. The Maxwells, Mr. T——, the rest of
their group—these people I will never forget. How fine they are in
every way—and under what terrible pressures. I wonder how many of us
would have the courage they have if we were put to the test as they
have been—every day, every hour.
At last the final day dawned. Manuia, who had produced one small, black,
and completely tailless kitten in Durban (Hobson’s Choice—or Hobby, by
name), was already in the mood for trying again and had spent the night
out. All day we watched anxiously for her return, but the hour of
sailing drew near and there was still no sign of her.
“We _can’t_ go without Manuia!” Jessica protested tearfully.
I had spent the morning going through the red tape of clearing port, had
handed in our exit visas to the immigration authorities, and had spent
my last few South African coins on a few extra “sweets” for the trip.
Besides, my ribs hurt and I thought Jessica’s tears were misplaced.
Surely my condition justified a few of them!
“Manuia knew we were sailing today,” I pronounced. “Besides, that’s why
you’ve got a Spare Cat.” That didn’t seem to comfort her.
I went below and started the engine.
“Okay—cast off!” Ted, in the cockpit, relayed the order to Mickey on the
foredeck. We drifted slowly away from the dock, Barbara waving to
friends ashore and Jessica still looking despairingly for a glimpse of
the errant Manuia.
Suddenly we heard a hail. “Hold on!” Someone on the dock was waving a
slip of paper. “Here’s a notice from the post office—a package is being
held for you to clear it through customs!”
“Our Christmas package from Minnetta!” wailed Barbara. “It’s finally
here. We’ve _got_ to go back!”
“Manuia!” Jessica called piteously. “Manuia! Please come back!”
At this moment Ted spoke up. “Skip, I don’t think the water’s coming out
right.”
I looked at the engine exhaust. He was correct.
That settled it. Ribs, cat, package, engine—we had four valid reasons
for postponing our departure. There was only one thing to do, and I did
it.
“Get up the sails!” I directed.
The men got up foresail and mizzen and, with a fair wind, we sailed out
of the harbor while I got to work on the balky engine. I knew that if we
turned back we might _never_ get out of South Africa.
We set the course for St. Helena, an isolated dot, 1,700 miles out in
the Atlantic, and by nightfall the beautiful, unhappy land at the tip of
the African continent was fast falling astern.
13 ACROSS THE ATLANTIC THE
LONG WAY: CAPE TOWN
TO NEW YORK CITY
“Beautiful night, new moon, slow progress, who cares?”
For the rest of the day I was very unpopular with the female members of
my crew, and that night Jessica cried herself to sleep with our last
remaining cat, three-month-old Hobby, in her arms.
By the next morning, however, Barbara was able to record:
Feb. 9. Everyone in better spirits now that we have left S.A. and its
creeping poisons behind.... The Japanese seem very friendly and
willing again and I have a hunch that Cape Town was the low point as
far as group morale was concerned. Brazil should be far better.
Our track lay close to the great-circle route between South Africa and
New York, so that we were not in an empty part of the world as we had
been in the North Pacific and the Indian Ocean. On this trip we saw
several ships.
For the first week we worked our way through light variables, with
generally fair weather, until we picked up the trades at about 25°
South. For the rest of the trip the wind for the most part was almost
dead aft, and we sailed with the main on one side and the foresail or
genoa swung out on the other, wing and wing.
On the morning of February 23 we rounded the north end of St. Helena and
dropped down to St. James Bay. As we approached, the wind became strong
and gusty. Several mild squalls made maneuvering difficult, so we
anchored well out, and moved in later after the wind had dropped.
By 1400 we had been cleared and were free to go ashore to look over our
first Atlantic island. St. Helena is rugged and beautiful—not at all the
“barren fortress rock” we had imagined. Perhaps our views had been
shaped by our awareness of St. Helena’s chief claim to world fame, as
the place of Napoleon’s last exile. Certainly it is remote enough, and
we could understand how, to Napoleon and later prisoners, it might well
seem like the end of the world.
On our first expedition to shore we had a few bad moments. A native boy
in a largish dory came alongside and offered to row us in. Since we had
not yet launched Dodo (our new ship’s boat from Mauritius) and the seas
in the roadstead were too high for our Flatty to carry more than two,
Barbara, Jessica and I accepted the offer. We had only gone a few
hundred yards when our oarsman somehow lost one oar, and we began
drifting rapidly out to sea. He attempted to scull with the other oar,
but with little success. Fortunately Ted was on deck and, seeing our
predicament, rowed out in Flatty, rescued the oar, and overtook us. If
he hadn’t acted quickly, we would have had the alternatives of jumping
out and swimming for it or of continuing our seaward drift, with no help
to be expected from shore. The nearest leeward land was South America,
2,000 miles to the west, which would have been quite a trip without
food, water, compass, or sail.
Jamestown, the only settlement on the island, is a clean and fascinating
village huddled in the deep cleft between two rugged mountains. The
streets are narrow, winding into the valley, with dignified houses of
fieldstone painted a yellowish cream and fronting directly on the
pavement. Loaded burros, with or without masters, wander through the
village and sometimes (as we found out) stop to poke their noses into a
conversation. The people—a mixture of European, East Indian, and
African—are friendly, dignified, and self-confident. There is
undoubtedly, as elsewhere, a certain degree of stratification and
snobbishness, but it is refreshingly minor.
Sir James Harford, Governor of St. Helena, invited us to the Residency
for tea, and later Lady Harford, learning that Barbara was planning to
move into the local hotel for a few days in order to finish a book,
invited both her and Jessica to Plantation House, where they could work
in a “breakfast-in-bed” atmosphere—an invitation which the girls wasted
no time in accepting. They returned with a completed book manuscript and
countless anecdotes about the island.
Jessica described the ponderous antics of Jonathan, the 200-year-old
giant tortoise from the Galápagos who makes his home in the Governor’s
front yard and can cross it (all 250 feet) in 33 minutes when moving at
top speed, as officially timed by Jessica.
And Barbara told of the near-disastrous visit of Prince Philip which had
taken place only the month before. (So rare are the visitors to the
Residency that we were the next guests to sign the book after the page
that had been devoted to the single imposing signature: “Philip.”) It
seems that the Prince and his party had created a minor crisis on
arrival, for they had been conducting a beard-raising competition, and
Philip, with “a face full of rather scruffy whiskers,” bore no
resemblance to the official photos that hung in every island home. Thus
many islanders did not realize they had actually seen him until he had
passed, and a number of Girl Guides who had been waiting for hours broke
into mass tears.
During our stay the fortnightly Castle Line ship called, and we saw an
amazing transformation take place when 500 tourists were decanted for
the day. Shops which had been locked and shuttered threw open their
doors to display tables covered with beautiful lacework, weaving,
basketry, and art. The streets were crowded. The visitors undoubtedly
carried away the impression of a bustling port town where hundreds of
people milled and bumped into one another day after day in a frenetic
pursuit of souvenirs. Only we, who remained after the boat had gone and
peace again descended on the somnolent village, knew the truth.
It was amazing how much there was to do on so small an island. For one
thing, there were the 699 steps of “Jacob’s Ladder” to climb, a
morning’s undertaking in itself. This almost perpendicular flight of
steps mounts steeply from Jamestown to a cluster of houses on Signal
Hill, saving a trip by road of several miles. We found the short cut to
be literally breath-taking and made the grade only by pausing every
hundredth step to “admire the view.”
We had planned, of course, to pay our respects to the most historic spot
on the island: Longwood, the last home of Napoleon. Jessica’s lessons
after leaving Cape Town had leaned heavily toward the Napoleonic era
and, needless to say, what Jessica studied we all studied. Always our
readings and discussions in the cockpit gained meaningful focus as we
looked forward to seeing the places we were reading about. (Yet, over
and over, we are asked, “But what did your children do for their
education?”)
But when we were driven up into the hills to see the rambling
house—painted a startling raspberry pink—the gate was locked. The French
Consul, whom we were told to telephone, was most cordial, but we somehow
failed to make connections, and we finally had to sail, reluctantly but
on schedule, with the dubious distinction of being the only visitors who
have spent more than a week on St. Helena without visiting Napoleon’s
tomb.
On March 3 we departed for Ascension, 700 miles to the northwest. There
had been rumors that because of the American missile installations being
erected on this British island, we might not be allowed to land.
However, with the cooperation of C. & W. contacts, we received a cable
from the Resident Magistrate granting us permission to visit, but adding
that “access to certain areas ashore, details of which will be advised
upon arrival, is prohibited.”
Our passage was quiet—almost too quiet. It took eleven days, including
two of flat calm right in the middle of the southeast trades. On several
nights the sea was so quiet that the stars were clearly mirrored on its
surface. My log says, “Beautiful night, new moon, slow progress, who
cares?”
On the tenth night we sighted Ascension just off the port bow. We kept
it in sight all night in the moonlight, and dropped anchor in the
morning just off Georgetown. The roadstead was very rough, which we were
told was the usual condition. Our trips to and from the land were made
in the shore boat, with skilled local boatmen at the long sweeps. The
passengers must have a certain degree of skill, too. Arrived at the
landing steps, one must wait for the proper moment, then grasp a hanging
rope and swing quickly to the shore. If you fail to connect, you are
left either swimming or dangling, depending on just where you made your
mistake.
C. & W. has for many years been the principal installation on the
island, which has no indigenous population. Now, however, all is
overshadowed by the busy and highly secret activities of the U.S.
military. Although we were in Ascension for only three days, it was long
enough to become aware of a certain amount of friction between the
British and American factions, one reason for which lay in the fact that
the American installations have a superfluity of luxuries while the
British are obliged to live a rather austere life. For example, there
was the matter of water.
The British were dependent upon rain for their water supply. Cement
watersheds high in the hills trapped moisture deposited by the trade
winds and carried the water to storage tanks which, at the time of our
visit, were almost empty. British water consumption, therefore, was
strictly rationed. For the Americans, however, there was a whole ocean
full of water distilled in practically unlimited amounts at a cost, we
were told, of some 10 cents per gallon to the American taxpayers.
We sailed on March 16 for Belém, Brazil, which we had given as our next
mailing address. The family would have preferred to set a course
directly for Barbados and so back to the States by the most expeditious
route, but the detour was made for the sake of our Japanese crew
members. They wanted to investigate the possibilities for emigrating to
Brazil and had chosen Belém because there was a Japanese Consulate
there, as well as a Japanese newspaper and more than 2,000 Japanese
emigrants, and they had reason to expect a more cordial reception there
than they had had in South Africa.
Our course was laid to pass south of Fernando de Noronha and around the
bulge of South America. The breeze continued light and fluky, although
the weather was fine. On the fourteenth day a series of squalls hit. The
first, which was the heaviest, caught us with the genoa up and ripped it
thoroughly. Fortunately, we had enough spare canvas to replace the
ruined panel, but Moto—who had quietly taken over most of the sail
repair chores—had to settle down to a three-day sewing job.
As we closed the coast the weather grew more and more uncertain, with
frequent showers and many wind shifts. We had done much reading en
route, in an effort to learn something about the conditions we might
expect, but could find nothing to indicate that any other yachts had
ever called at Belém, 70 miles up the Pará, a branch of the Amazon.
However, Frank Wightman of _Wylo_ had been aboard in Cape Town, and had
mentioned Fortaleza, about 600 miles east of Belém. According to him,
the port was easy of access, so we decided to put in there first, in the
hope of getting some of the information—and the hospitality—that the
Japanese were looking for.
On March 31 we sighted our first land and two hours later we spoke a
sailing schooner out of Alagoas, heading down the coast. In our best
Portuguese (culled word by word from a dictionary and strung together in
what we hoped was the proper order) we asked, “Onde está Fortaleza?” and
were loudly reassured by gestures and unanimous voice vote that we were
on the right track. By afternoon we could see the breakwater and the
city beyond.
Having no harbor chart, we entered carefully, just at dusk, and dropped
anchor off the main part of town. Soon we were sitting on deck, eating a
hot dinner and admiring the view of a new continent. Fortaleza, as seen
from the harbor, is a clean-looking city with a few large white
buildings and many modern-appearing homes with colored roofs. The bay
was full of sailing craft, most of them of the jangada type—a raft of
balsa logs with a mast and a sail, so that the boatmen sail standing up
and often have water swishing around their knees. One by one, as night
fell, the fishing boats sailed right up to the beach and were pulled
beyond the tide line, where they lay with their sails still up, like a
flotilla of stranded butterflies.
Morning came and still no one paid any attention to us. Finally,
becoming a touch impatient, we upped anchor and made our way to the
corner of the harbor where the breakwater joins the land and where the
greatest activity seemed to be concentrated. Again we anchored and
waited, flying our Q-flag and a skillful facsimile of the Brazilian
ensign which Nick had painted on white cloth, its design and colors
being too complicated for the materials and ingenuity of the girls.
Still nothing happened. At noon I rowed ashore, only to be motioned by
the officer on the dock to go back on board.
Shortly thereafter an official boarded us: the port doctor, who spoke
practically no English, but chattered along most sociably in Portuguese.
He showed us pictures of his house (Spanish type) and of his six
children (Brazilian type), and managed to convey that there was no
American or Japanese Consulate here, and no Japanese emigrants. He was
not in the least interested in our expensive and hard-gotten papers and
health certificates, but he inquired, by gestures, if we happened to
have a few spare cigarettes. We did, and were duly cleared.
Later, from a German national working in Fortaleza, we learned the
reason for the long delay in acknowledging our presence. Since our
arrival we had been under constant surveillance. To the Fortalezan mind
there could be only one reason for a foreign yacht to enter this port:
smuggling. They had held off boarding us in order to see what moves we
would make, and who would try illegally to contact us. Throughout the
night they had been watching us, until finally they had concluded not
that we were innocent of smuggling but that we were too smart to try it
in _their_ port!
We spent four days in Fortaleza. It was a unique place. In Brazil more
than in any other country we ran into communication difficulties, for
practically no one spoke English. Not shopkeepers, nor police, nor bus
drivers. We were forced to make sign language go a long way and had
quite a time locating essential supplies. Because of a severe drought in
the islands of the South Atlantic we had been unable to lay in fresh
supplies and had arrived in Fortaleza completely out of many of the
basic comestibles upon which the cook depended: onions, potatoes, eggs,
cheese. Worst of all, we had less than a cupful of rice aboard. Through
the help of English-speaking clerks at Brooks Bros. we were able to
obtain some of these items.
From our anchorage it was a five-mile bus ride to the center of town,
the road curving along the shore of the bay or through narrow streets a
block or two inland. The city, which had looked so clean and modern from
our first anchorage, turned out to be a strange combination of squalor
and a rather down-at-the-heels magnificence. The bus stopped frequently
to allow herds of goats to move to one side or the other of the road or
waited while passengers who were about to get on or off bade lingering
farewells to the friends they were leaving behind.
Fortaleza, though interesting, was no substitute for Belém, as far as
Nick, Mickey, and Moto were concerned. Instead of 2,000 Japanese
emigrants, there was only one family of Japanese ancestry—and they
couldn’t speak Japanese! As to conditions in Belém, and the practical
problem of taking a yacht up the Pará River, we could learn little. We
did find out that there was a pilot station at Salinas, just east of the
mouth of the Pará, and that because of shoals and unpredictable currents
all ships were required to stop there to pick up a pilot. Whether this
regulation included yachts, no one knew. What the charges might be, no
one knew. What the river was like, no one knew. There was only one way
to find out, and that was to go and see.
We moved on up the coast, staying well offshore. On the sixth day we
edged back toward land, and the following evening identified Japerica
Island. That night we could see Salinas Light faintly off the port bow.
We sailed cautiously and sounded at intervals, getting between 8 and 11
fathoms at a distance of some 10 to 15 miles offshore. The area is
cluttered with shoals and banks and there is little comfort to be
derived from the chart, which says, “This chart cannot be regarded as
trustworthy. The buoys cannot be depended upon.”
Next morning we dropped anchor in six fathoms, about five miles
offshore. Many jangada were flitting about and we hailed one. After a
session in sign language, Ted and I were taken aboard for a trip to the
beach. We made a wet landing in the surf and then walked the mile or so
to the small village where the pilot station is located. Here we were
lucky enough to find an English-speaking pilot, so that my soaked and
pulpy phrase book was not needed.
He strongly advised us to remain at anchor, rather than attempt the Pará
without a strong engine, and assured me that our delegation to Belém
could travel the ninety miles overland “by bus.” He himself was
scheduled to leave for Belém at once as pilot on the freighter now
waiting well offshore, but he would drop us at the _Phoenix_ on his way
out and leave orders for the pilot boat to come out in the morning to
pick up those who wanted to take the bus. It seemed a very sound plan.
Ted and I returned to the _Phoenix_ and called a conference. Nick,
Mickey, and Moto, of course, would form the core of the overland
expedition to Belém. That meant that Ted and I must both remain aboard,
as I had no intention of leaving my ship in such an uneasy anchorage
without two able-bodied men to sail out in case of need. This made it
necessary for Barbara to head the expedition to Belém, so that she could
pick up our mail, cash some travelers’ checks, and lay in the necessary
provisions for our next hop, to the West Indies. Jessica, anxiously
expecting stacks of birthday mail, elected to go, too.
Well before dawn the next morning the pilot boat came alongside,
signaling its arrival with a chorus of frantic shouts in Portuguese,
followed by a solid crash which left deep gouges in our rubbing strake.
The pilot boat was entirely devoid of fenders or mats and the sea was,
to put it mildly, rough. While they maneuvered to stay alongside in
darkness and drizzle, we somehow accomplished the tricky transfer of our
five travelers and their duffel. Ted and I watched them go and then
settled down for an indefinite period at an anchorage which was, without
any close competition, the worst we had ever been in.
We stood watch and watch, spending most of our waking time together
playing chess. We held ourselves ready to sail out at a moment’s notice,
if necessary, and to cruise on and off until the pilot boat brought back
our ship’s company. Rough waters, heavy tides, and numerous squalls kept
us company, and the imperative clank of the anchor chain was an ominous
and constant sound. Meantime, during the heavy and frequent showers, we
filled all the water tanks to overflowing, and, on Jessica’s birthday,
we whipped up and frosted a birthday cake for her, which we put away
against her return.
We had estimated that the trip to Belém would take three or four hours
each way, and allowing one or two days for business and pleasure, we
looked for the travelers’ return any time after the second day.
Actually, four long days had to drag by before the pilot boat came
alongside again, to return a bedraggled and exhausted bunch of
excursionists. They had brought with them all the supplies we needed for
the next leg and Barbara, guessing correctly that no one would want to
make another trip ashore, had attended to the formalities of clearance.
Within half an hour we had everything stowed and, deciding that the
mail, the wild tales, and the delayed birthday celebration could wait, I
ordered the anchor up and we headed out.
I have never been quite clear about what happened to the rest of the
gang during the trip ashore, but twenty-two pages in Jessica’s Journal
gave me some idea and Barbara tried to fill me in on the rest. The “bus
to Belém,” which I had thought was standard transportation, had turned
out to be a private car, for which the driver expected to be paid 40,000
cruzeiros (about $90), in advance. Barbara tells me she had no
difficulty in making her emphatic “No!” understood, but after the car
had been driven sadly away, she found her phrase book quite inadequate
to ask the bewildered but eager-to-help villagers who crowded around,
“How do _you_ travel when you want to go to Belém?” The only
interpretation she could make from their baffled shrugs was that no one
ever wanted to go there. There certainly was no regular bus service, and
the railroad, mentioned in the pilot book and shown neatly on the map,
had never been developed beyond the ten miles of track laid in a flush
of enthusiasm ten years earlier.
By some intricate process I never fully understood, Barbara got her
entire gang to Belém, and back. They traveled by truck, by local bus, by
passing jeep, and by a number of other unnamed means. In Belém they
managed to pick up the mail and supplies and, in the case of the men, to
get a smattering of the information for which we had come so far out of
our way.
We now set a course for Barbados, 1,100 miles to the northwest. Our
route led us across the Great Amazon Bight, a region of dirty brown
water and uncertain weather. For the first two days it rained almost
continuously, with mean rip tides and cross swells. Our progress
alternated between a drift and a fast run, depending on the squalls.
Each burst of wind and rain carried us along a few miles and then passed
on, leaving us wallowing behind to wait for the next boost. They were
not too violent, so we kept up our four lowers throughout.
On the afternoon of the second day, however, we could see a squall
approaching which obviously meant business, and we thought it prudent to
reduce sail a bit. My log tells what happened:
Biggest squall we’ve ever had, hit suddenly just as we were downing
foresail. Ripped main and jib to pieces. Rain torrential and flat out,
stung like hail. Continued under foresail and mizzen until things
quieted.
The main was a total loss but the canvas scraps, as Slocum
philosophically observed under similar circumstances, made good material
for pot rags. The foresail was saved, with only minor tears, but the jib
was badly damaged and required a complete overhaul. It was an amazing
sensation to see a full, billowing mainsail disappear in an instant, and
Ted, who was at the tiller, confessed that his first instinct was one of
helplessness because bits of canvas were carried out of reach so fast
there was no chance to grab and save them!
We bent on our spare mainsail and carried on, working our way across the
bight under the three lowers. Frequently we passed boiling patches of
confused waters, bubbling in turbulent rips. The water was dirty brown
in color and brackish in taste, although closer to shore it may well
have been completely fresh, as the stories of travelers claim. Sometime
during all this—we could not take sights because of overcast skies—we
passed the equator and entered the Northern Hemisphere, but we didn’t
feel in the mood to make a celebration of it.
At last, toward evening of the third day, we saw blue water ahead. The
line of demarcation was surprisingly abrupt, and as we passed out of the
discolored area of the Amazon current the weather, too, settled into an
ideal trade-wind pattern. We had left behind one more region of
unpredictable conditions which had been considerably on my mind. That
night we saw the North Star for the first time in two years.
We made the rest of the trip in good time and even better spirits,
reaching Barbados early in the morning of April 23. We stayed a week at
this very British isle, not so much because we fell in love with its
charms as from the necessity for awaiting the arrival of funds. The
authorities in Salinas had managed to extract from Barbara every cent
she had, as fees for the trips made by the pilot boat. When she had
turned out her purse and pocketbook, and showed that was all the money
she had in her possession, the total charges proved to be, by an amazing
coincidence, exactly the amount she had.
On our first evening at anchor, while we were eating on deck, we heard a
splash alongside and a voice hailed us from the water. “Ahoy, _Phoenix_!
May I come aboard?”
Permission being granted, a sunburned face with a white nose (zinc
oxide) appeared over the gunwales. The wet and burly stranger introduced
himself as Larry Foley, New York correspondent for the Sydney _Daily
Telegraph_, now on vacation in the West Indies. He had scented a story
in the _Phoenix_ and had swum out to interview us.
We became very friendly with Larry and on our departure from Barbados
invited him to island-hop with us for a bit, so he could see how the
other ten-thousandth of one per cent lives.
Early on the morning of the 30th we passed between St. Lucia and
Martinique, an island of magnificent mountain peaks reminiscent of
Hawaii and the high islands of the South Seas. By noon we had put
Diamond Rock astern and rounded Cape Solomon. In midafternoon, less than
twenty-four hours from Bridgetown, we dropped the anchor in the lee of
an imposing gray stone fortress. Fort de France, the port city and
capital of Martinique, spread out along the waterfront, looking very
much like Papeete in the French Societies. A park along the shore was
embellished with an edging of city dump and the buildings facing the
harbor bore large signs, in English: “Buy your Perfume from us! Free
Port Prices!”
We spent a couple of busy days in Martinique, some of us going overland
to visit Saint-Pierre, the site of the tremendous volcanic eruption of
1902 in which some 40,000 lives were lost. Ted decided to spend the
night ashore, to get the flavor of the place. What flavor he found, we
didn’t learn, but he dragged himself aboard the next morning muttering
something about walking all night, deserted roads, and a solitary fellow
pedestrian, and spent his second day in Martinique sleeping.
I don’t always know how these things arrange themselves, but on our
second afternoon we discovered that we had annexed, for a few hours, a
French teen-ager of solid dimensions and stolid personality (and no
English) whom we knew only as Mlle. Petite. The arrangements were
Barbara’s and had something to do with an exchange visit, Mlle. Petite
being traded for a couple of our men. I rowed them out to the _Phoenix_
and had to shove her up the boarding ladder, as she was quite
incapacitated by fright. We tumbled her onto the deck, where she
promptly became sick from the motion at anchor. Each time she recovered
slightly and attempted to go below, the mal de mer returned, which,
combined with her embarrassment, reduced her to a state of mute despair.
Barbara’s halting French was inadequate to reassure or comfort her, and
at last it appeared that the only remedy was to get her back to shore.
Reversing ourselves, we tried to get her into the dinghy. The bay was
choppy, and she again petrified, this time clinging desperately to the
ladder even when her feet were in the dinghy. The edge of the dinghy
caught under the bottom of the ladder and promptly swamped, swamping
with it two rather irritated people—the Skipper and Ted, whom we had
turned out of his bunk to help us. We clambered on deck, righted and
bailed the dinghy, brought it around again, unclenched Mlle. Petite’s
fists from the ladder, and dumped her with scant ceremony onto the
center thwart. With firm instructions to “Restez la!” Barbara rowed her
ashore, to await the exchange of hostages.
Four hours later Barbara returned to the ship, minus Mlle. Petite but
with the rest of our crew.
“What did you do all that time?” I asked her.
“Walked!” she snapped, showing some very convincing blisters.
“Did you improve your French?”
“Improve it!” she said bitterly. “How could I? I couldn’t understand a
word she said, and she couldn’t understand me!”
We decided to stop the next day in Dominica, a British possession just
50 miles upwind, which is not too accessible to the tourist. It promised
to be a good day’s sail, so we weighed anchor at Fort de France at dawn,
passing Saint-Pierre Bay by 0730. Crossing the Dominica Channel in
moderate seas, we passed close up the west coast of the island and
anchored in Roseau Road by midafternoon. Since the bottom slopes steeply
here, it was necessary to come close in. By 1500 we were cleared and on
our way ashore.
It was obvious, from the attention we commanded at Roseau, that visitors
are much less common here than in Barbados and Martinique. A herd of
small boys waited at the dock and vied for permission to “look after”
our dinghy—which they did by overloading it almost to sinking point and
rowing happily around the harbor. A sizable crowd followed us around as
we wandered through the narrow streets where we heard our first West
Indian calypso singers—on a jukebox. When we returned to the dock we
crossed thirteen eager palms with copper in order to ransom our dinghy.
Several older boys applied eagerly for a berth on the _Phoenix_. “I work
for you _cheap_,” one pleaded.
“I work _more_ cheap!” another countered.
Ted grinned at them as we shoved off. “We’ve already got a crew that
works _most_ cheap,” he told them. “For nothing!”
Though we found Roseau attractive and worth exploring further, we
decided to move on the next day to Portsmouth, another 20 miles up the
coast. That evening, after dropping the hook, we had a swim in the
beautifully clear water of Portsmouth Bay and then spent a wonderful
evening aboard, playing Hawaiian and Tahitian records.
The next morning we went ashore. It was market day, which meant an
unusual bustle in town, or so we were told by the young Britisher in
Barclay’s Bank, a one-room, clapboard shack at the end of the dock. We
visited the open-air market and had the pleasure of buying an entire
stalk of bananas for “30 cents Bee-wee” (B.W.I.), or about 24 cents
American. My most vivid memory of Portsmouth is of three young girls,
with shining black skin and kinky hair, strolling home from market, each
wearing a hand of green bananas on her head, like a hat.
During the day we stopped frequently to drink “punch,” which turned out
to be made with the local rum. Punch, at 10 cents B.W.I., was by far the
most economical drink, as soft drinks cost 14 cents, gin and brandy 18
cents a shot, and beer a prohibitive 42 cents.
A couple of little girls attached themselves to Jessica and followed her
about all day. Instead of asking (or demanding) “few cents,” as children
had done during our tour of Roseau, they asked, wistfully, if we had “an
old dress.” When we said we could probably find something, their faces
lighted like a sunrise.
“I bring you something!” one promised. “I bring you coconut!”
Sure enough, when Barbara came ashore later with several worn and
outgrown garments, the two little girls met us at the docks with a
coconut, three limes, and five nutmegs—all that they had.
Our next port was the British island of Antigua (pronounced an-tee-ga,
and not, to our dismay, a rhyme for “what a pig you ah,” as we had been
fondly chanting). We were looking forward to spending several days at
Nelson’s Dockyard, in famous English Harbor, so Larry Foley, whose
vacation was running out, decided to do the rest of his island hopping
by air.
We sailed from Dominica about sundown, setting a course which would take
us up the west coast of Guadeloupe during the night. By 0600 we had put
that island astern, in spite of a light and fickle breeze in the lee,
which kept up most of the night nursing us along, and Montserrat was
almost abeam to port. We were finding that Caribbean cruising, as many
yachtsmen had discovered before us, has much of beauty and fascination
to recommend it. Almost never were we out of sight of at least one
island, mountainous and green, each one unique in itself. Only a growing
eagerness to reach our own shores, after six years in foreign lands,
kept us from stopping everywhere and lingering indefinitely.
The entrance to English Harbor is not too easy to spot from the sea, and
even after we had identified its landmarks and knew from the charts that
a harbor would open up sharply to port after making the narrow entrance,
it took an act of faith to approach what looked like certain disaster.
The directions had also been quite right in saying that a head wind
usually blows through the pass and that an engine is desirable. It was.
At English Harbor we found a spot so hospitable, so historic, and so
quietly relaxing that, for the first time in our mad rush homeward, we
were tempted to linger. As Jessica said, it was like _living_ in a
museum, for we were surrounded by buildings which had been erected at
the time of the British-American “incident” of 1776. A few hundred yards
from the _Phoenix_ was the Admiral’s House, where the commanding officer
resided when English Harbor was the naval fortress of the British West
Indies and Nelson was a young lieutenant.
Jessica had a wonderful time scraping around in the dirt of the ruins
and coming up with likely-looking coins and buttons. One coin turned
out, upon polishing, to be a beaten-up halfpenny of 1954, but a brass
button, bearing a crown and anchor, looked sufficiently authentic to
have dropped from the cuff of Nelson himself.
There is no village at English Harbor, no stores, and no accommodations
for overnight guests. A single family, the Nicholsons, live in what was
once the “Pay Office.” They had arrived nine years earlier in their own
yacht, _Mollihawk_, from England and stayed on as “squatters” in the
ruins. Now, with their tenure officially recognized and their untiring
contributions to the restoration of a historic site commended and
encouraged, they remain the sole permanent residents.
From English Harbor we made another overnight hop, this time to St.
Martin (or St. Maarten, as the Dutch spell it), an island which is
amicably shared by two European powers. The apocryphal story goes that a
Dutchman and an officer from a French ship set foot on the island
simultaneously. Each laid claim to it, but they agreed to settle the
argument by walking in opposite directions from a given point, meeting
on the other side of the island. The Frenchman, who walked faster, had
secured the larger northern section, but the Dutchman gained the land
containing the salt flats, which yield the principal staple of the
island.
There is a sand bar across the entrance to the bay fronting Philipsburg,
so we entered cautiously, watching the color of the water and sounding
as we went. Once inside, we anchored just off the town and were quickly
and efficiently cleared by officials who spoke absolutely correct
English. We found Philipsburg an exceptionally clean and attractive
little town. Jessica and Barbara, who went off for a walk by themselves,
claim they even saw women sweeping the beaches. The rest of us were
somewhat more interested in looking for a cold drink, but found that
because we had arrived on a Sunday no cafés or shops were open. So we
strolled the streets, greeted the villagers—who always smiled and gave
us a hearty “Good day” in English—visited the salt flats, and wandered
back to the beach to meet the girls.
The next noon we left St. Martin, bound for the American Virgin Islands.
Twenty-four hours later we had covered the 120 miles and dropped anchor
just off King’s Dock in Charlotte Amalie, the port of St. Thomas. With
the national ensign and our yellow quarantine flag flying briskly, we
waited to be cleared.
Two hours later we were still waiting. There was plenty of activity
ashore and we could see officials moving about, but none of the activity
seemed to be directed toward us, nor did we get any signals. Finally we
upped anchor and motored over to Long Bay, where we could see many
yachts at anchor. No sooner had we arrived and anchored within happy
hailing distance of the Carstarphens, of _Shellback_ (fellow members of
the Seven Seas Cruising Association whom we had long been waiting to
meet), than a peremptory message was sent out from shore: “Return to
King’s Wharf and go up to the dock!”
With our quarantine flag still flying, we headed back across the bay and
nudged our way in among a flotilla of interisland boats, a very tricky
procedure. There was less than a foot of clearance between the _Phoenix_
and her neighbors when we finally tied up at the dock.
Eventually we were boarded by an immigration official, who seemed
extremely irked because we had not come in at once. Being in an
irritatingly mellow mood for once, I did not get my back up but only
pointed out mildly that a ship entering from a foreign port does not
usually dock until told to do so. We had been waiting to be boarded.
“How could we come out?” the official responded angrily. “We don’t have
a boat!”
This seemed a good reason, but I wondered why the Coast Guard, which had
three boats tied up alongside the dock, could not be induced to offer
the services of one of them to Immigration. Meanwhile Barbara joined
with me in applying the soothing treatment to our visitor, by serving
tea and cookies, and although he made it difficult, we remained almost
unbearably pleasant. At length he was sufficiently mollified to say that
we might consider ourselves officially entered.
Once again we motored over to Long Bay and this time were allowed to
stay.
Charlotte Amalie combines the bizarre tourist atmosphere of a Waikiki
with the indolent, quaint flavor of an old Danish town revamped for a
modern age. The stores, remodeled in what used to be warehouses, are
deep, cool caverns with great steel doors that fold back by day and
close to form a solid wall at night. Inside are subdued lights, tasteful
decorations, and a display of wares from all over the world. Because St.
Thomas is a free port, it is possible to buy luxury items at substantial
saving: perfumes from France, clocks and music boxes from Switzerland,
Swedish crystal, Danish silverware, tweeds and cashmeres from Britain,
and of course liquor and tobacco from any country you care to name.
At the invitation of our fellow yachtsmen we spent one evening in a
night-clubbing expedition to hear the renowned “steel bands” of the West
Indies. The instruments themselves are ingenious—being fashioned from
the cross section of a large steel oil drum, open at the bottom. Some
drums are shallow, some deep, and each is made by the individual player,
who tunes it by heating the drum until the metal is soft, and then
pounding it until he acquires the exact tone he desires. The actual
musical quality of such an instrument is a matter of opinion, but the
combined effect of a number of them playing in concert is certainly
unusual.
It was fun for an evening, but for me once was enough. The pleasure
seemed highly artificial, and I suspected that most of the people packed
into the room were there not because they actually enjoyed the heat and
the noise and the crowd but because they had never learned how to find
pleasure in themselves as individuals—only as members of a swarm. By
contrast, I found myself recalling (and looking forward to) our peaceful
evenings at sea, with familiar constellations wheeling overhead, the
soft slap of the waves against the side, and a game of Twenty Questions
or an animated discussion to unite my family in a contented,
self-sufficient whole.
We sailed on May 20, bound for NEW YORK CITY, as Jessica announced in
very large letters in her journal. Ever since leaving South Africa she
had been getting more and more impatient to reach “home,” to renew
contact with friends whom she had not seen in six years but who remained
as dear to her as her family. One of them, indeed, Joan Clark, was her
avowed “blood sister”—they had pricked their fingers and exchanged red
smears by mail to prove it; and the first six months of 1957 had been
designated, by Jessica: “January, February, March, April, May, JOAN!”
Our first four days were pleasant and we made good distance but as we
worked our way out of the friendly trades our speed fell light. The
sixteenth day marked our smallest run, when we recorded 16 miles made
good. Most of the night was spent in slatting around, which is most
unpleasant, as the wear on the gear and sails is excessive, due to the
constant motion, and the noise is irritating.
We were sailing slightly to the west of the Sargasso Sea area and a new
problem arose—keeping the rotator log free of floating Sargasso weed,
which we passed in great patches. Another annoyance that was becoming
well-nigh unbearable was bugs. We had gradually accumulated every kind
and variety known to man: cockroaches, small, medium, and huge; biting
ants, ants with wings, and ants without wings; moths; borers; fleas and
bedbugs; weevils; and an infinitesimal insect which Jessica dubbed “red
mouths” because they were all red and all mouth. But I am exaggerating;
we did _not_ have mosquitoes, sand flies, or hornets—although, as
Barbara said, “We hardly miss them.”
The girls, not to put too fine a point to it, were getting fed up. Land
fever was undermining their morale, but they nobly kept their feelings
to themselves and it was not until long afterward, when I read their
very outspoken journal entries, that I realized with what eagerness they
were straining toward home and the reunion with family and friends.
Barbara, on June 4:
The combination of sleepless nights (thanks to BUGS), becalmed days,
and a diminishing larder makes it difficult to keep one’s spirits
aloft. We are now out of potatoes and all other vegetables except one
(1) onion. We have four cups of rice left (our usual allowance for a
single meal being six!); and only enough tea for today’s tiffin; we
are completely out of oleo and canned butter; ship’s biscuits (except
for the emergency supply lashed in the life raft); and baking powder
(I’ve been souring milk with vinegar and using baking soda for
pancakes and dumplings, but now the flour is also gone and only the
weevils are left). Eggs are down to three which, supplemented with
(ugh) egg powder, will be sufficient for tomorrow’s scrambled
breakfast.
We have one more “weekly sack” but it would go fast if we had only the
canned goods it contains to fill us. The spaghetti is gone—and the
last of the macaroni (without cheese) will be our supper tonight.
Dehydrated soups, which usually eke out the canned variety, have also
been finished, so lunches will begin to be a problem.
At any rate, we shan’t starve, for we have plenty of dried peas, beans
and apricots; vacuum-packed cans of oatmeal; tins of pineapple juice;
and lots of evaporated milk. A monotonous diet, but loaded with
vitamins and calories. If only the wind would do us right, we could be
there in two days!
However, the wind did not do us right, and on the morning of June 5
fog—a condition we had devoutly hoped to avoid—overtook us. As it
gradually cleared, rain set in. We were now making three knots after
sixty hours of mostly calms. For two days we had been unable to get a
good position because of overcast and had to rely on dead reckoning.
During the night we passed many boats. The most baffling encounter is
recorded as follows:
Small boat, dead ahead, showing green side-light, green masthead
light, and all-around white light same level as side-light. As we
approached, he turned off green light and headed directly for us.
Could clearly hear engines. No running lights. He stopped several
hundred yards away. We altered course and finally left him behind.
Mysterious!
The next day we were again in fog, with cold rain and only a very light
breeze. Our foghorn, hand operated, sounded small and insignificant, but
we pressed a mournful wheeze from it every two minutes, in response to
the hootings from ships around us, and hoped that the sound would carry.
Eyes and ears have little relaxation in a fog. The known world contracts
and all beyond the narrow range of vision becomes intangible and full of
menace.
We had begun to feel that the small circle of visibility in which we
moved was the only clearing in an otherwise opaque world, when suddenly
a distant foghorn metamorphosed into a very large and close ship. It
seemed to erupt full blown from the curtain of fog, complete with
navigation lights, and passed us to port. Silent as a ghost ship it
glided by and vanished gradually like the Cheshire cat, on the other
side of our tiny circle, until only its stern remained, glowing more and
more remotely. Yet, as the ship disappeared, the bellow of the foghorn
doubled in volume, because its warning was now being carried to us from
upwind, with far more urgency now that the danger was past.
We stood double watches, sounding our bellows continuously all night,
but even when I was off duty I got precious little sleep.
In the morning we altered course to north-northwest, to pick up the
Jersey coast, still operating by dead reckoning. We passed Scotland
Light at 1000 and started the engine to go up the channel.
Just after noon we pulled up to the dock at the U.S. Quarantine Station
at Staten Island, 19 days and 1,500 miles out of St. Thomas. I don’t
know about the crew, but Barbara tells me she had a lump in her throat
at the sight of the U.S. flag waving over the buildings—and I felt
pretty lumpish myself.
14 EVERY KIND OF CRUISING:
NEW YORK TO PANAMA,
BY THE CORKSCREW ROUTE
“A man must stand up for what he believes.”
At Rosebank, the Quarantine Station for the Port of New York, we were
given another example of the unreliability of hearsay predictions. In
St. Thomas we had been warned that it would be foolish to enter at New
York City, since it was not only dangerous for sailing craft (a point we
were now willing to concede) but because the treatment given yachts was
high-handed and arbitrary.
On the contrary, we were cleared in less than half an hour, and invited
by the officials to move to a more secure spot inside the docks where we
could relax for a day or two before going over to Manhattan. We were
happy to accept, especially since it included showers and a chance to
get in touch with family and friends by telephone.
In no time at all representatives of various “communications media” got
wind of our arrival and began beating a path to the main hatch. Also,
the families at the Quarantine Station, which is a surprisingly isolated
community, were interested in the _Phoenix_, and most of them came on
board to pay a visit, sign the guest book, and more often than not,
leave a youngster or two behind to climb the masts or chin themselves on
the ratlines.
Our first act was to get in touch with Tim, who had come into New York
to await our arrival and now lost no time in joining us. It was our
first meeting with our older son since he had left us back in Japan in
’53, and naturally we had a great deal of catching up to do.
In spite of the bustle, the weekend at Rosebank was most pleasant. As
the reports of our arrival began to appear, friends sought us out and
telegrams and letters of congratulation poured in.
We had an overflow crowd as we set out on Monday for the momentous trip
across the bay. It was a sparkling day and lower Manhattan was a
spectacular sight, especially as seen from the deck of the _Phoenix_. We
were under both power and sail, but the breeze was too light to do us
much good and it took four hours to inch our way up the Hudson, against
the outgoing tide, to the small-boat basin at West 79th Street. On the
way we tried to stay on the fringe of the busy harbor traffic and did
not forget to make our bow to the Statue of Liberty, as we passed her
very close on the port hand.
At the commercial dock we settled down to ten days or so of combined
business and pleasure in Manhattan. The dockage fee was higher than in
any other port we had visited—5 cents a foot per day—but we had
Riverside Park at our bow, a view of the Palisades across the river, and
fast connections to midtown within a few minutes’ walk. There was no
need to remind ourselves that a cheap hotel room would have cost even
one of us several times what we were paying for all seven.
It was a hot and hectic time. Just a list of the things we did would be
exhausting, but they included many of the rubbernecking activities that
Barbara and I had experienced before, but which were new and exciting to
Ted, Jessica, and the three M’s. In addition we had a good deal of
business to attend to, including a series of conferences with Lurton
Blassingame, our indefatigable agent, and a number of radio and TV
interviews.
One of these—a half-hour interview-type program called “Night Beat” on
which I was interviewed alone—was particularly interesting to me and, in
retrospect, perhaps crucial, as it served to crystallize some hitherto
rather amorphous thinking. I had no idea which of the many subjects we
had discussed before going on the air would be emphasized, and was
completely surprised when John Wingate, the interviewer, chose to ignore
the yachting and travel aspect entirely and concentrated instead on my
scientific work in Hiroshima and on the problem of radioactivity and our
government’s foreign policy as a whole.
The program was well known for its controversial nature but Barbara,
watching with friends, was as unprepared as I was for the series of very
direct questions regarding my attitude toward nuclear testing and
disarmament. She told me later that she actually had not the slightest
idea what my answer would be when Mr. Wingate brought up the issue of
the recently announced “clean bomb” and asked what I thought of it.
My first remark was almost instinctive. “A ‘clean bomb’ is like an
antiseptic bullet. It kills you just as dead.” I went on to amplify my
feelings, pointing out that even the “ideal” clean bomb described by Mr.
Eisenhower, 96 per cent “clean,” would be twice as radioactive as the
bomb dropped on Hiroshima, from which victims were still dying of
long-term effects of radioactivity.
Questions followed in quick succession. I didn’t resent the fact that
they were “loaded,” since I had come on the program of my own free will
and was intent only on answering as honestly and frankly as possible.
“Dr. Reynolds, would you unilaterally stop the testing of nuclear
weapons?”
A host of thoughts crowded into my mind. To have given the audience a
fair and comprehensible survey of the thinking and knowledge that
determined my answer would have taken at least an hour. Anything less
than that would have seemed equivocating. I simply answered, “Yes.”
The interviewer continued smoothly, “You realize, of course, that
President Eisenhower has stated that people who express that point of
view are giving aid and comfort to the enemy?”
This, of course, was the climax of the show, and the spot toward which
the interviewer had been building. Strangely enough, to me it seemed an
anticlimax. The President’s statements were his, my statements were
mine. I answered briefly that a man must speak and act as _he_ believes
and not tailor his thinking with no view but to oppose the enemy. The
United States would be in a sorry state indeed if our only reason for
saying “No” is because Russia has said “Yes.” This merely plays into the
hands of an antagonist.
“A man must stand up for what he believes.” I finished, “even if this
occasionally means agreeing with the enemy.”
Following the broadcast we were quite unprepared for the reactions it
caused. Within the next few days I was (a) hailed as an individual of
heroic courage, (b) regarded with suspicion as a fellow traveler or dupe
of Communists, (c) chided for being so foolhardy as to “stick your neck
out.” Frankly, I was amazed. I had been asked certain questions and I
had answered them as honestly as possible. I didn’t think I knew all the
answers but, on the other hand, neither did I consider myself completely
uninformed, and in the area of radioactivity and human well-being I felt
I could speak with some authority. I felt that I had the interests of my
own country at heart as well as did most Americans, and better than
some. Why all the fuss?
On June 22, after checking the tide tables carefully, we rounded the
foot of Manhattan and started up the East River, with the tide in our
favor. The trip was quiet and uneventful. In the late afternoon we
dropped anchor off the west end of City Island, outside a small cluster
of boats. Curious yachtsmen soon boarded us, and after dinner we spent a
fine evening ashore as guests of the Stuyvesant Yacht Club, off whose
pier we had chanced to drop our hook.
The next morning we had a good day’s run among the Sunday sailors on
Long Island Sound. In the afternoon we were met by Barbara’s cousin,
Dave Dorn, and his family, in their cruiser _Grand Slam_, and with a
convoy of boating friends were escorted to an anchorage off the Sprite
Island Yacht Club near Norwalk.
There we were introduced to the sociable custom of “rafting.” With the
_Phoenix_ in the middle and our anchor responsible for the entire
flotilla, we found six launches tied alongside, to port and starboard.
Hampers of food were unpacked, and ice and drinks materialized, and
people began to drift back and forth from one boat to another. Without
more ado we found ourselves in the center of as cheering a welcome party
as I have ever experienced.
After several days here we moved to a small shipyard in Rowayton, up the
Five Mile River, where it had been arranged that the boat would spend
the summer.
Here Ted left us temporarily to join Minnetta in Madison and enter
summer school at the University of Wisconsin, where he was accepted, in
spite of his unorthodox schooling, on the basis of entrance exams. Tim,
too, checked out in early July to enlist in the army, while Jessica and
Barbara made a semipermanent home ashore at the invitation of the Dorns.
The rest of us embarked on an extensive haul-out, including the
installation of a new engine, courtesy of Universal Motors, who had
offered to replace our doughty kerosene-burning model with a gasoline
engine of the same type, even-steven. (Why they should want an old,
slightly beat-up engine which had been over 35,000 miles and across
three oceans is anybody’s—or maybe only an adman’s—guess.)
Using Rowayton as a base, we worked out a schedule which would permit us
to do the necessary boat work and still visit friends and relatives in
the Middle West. We planned to take Nick, Mickey, and Moto with us, so
they could see as much as possible of the United States. To do this, I
bought a very secondhand station wagon. But when we were ready to leave
for Wisconsin, we learned that Mickey and Moto had decided to remain.
Only Nick elected to go with us. To me it was another indication of the
chasm that was widening between the men, but we said nothing and set off
with Barbara, Jessica, Nick, and myself.
Back in Connecticut after this pleasant break (the longest time I had
been away from the boat since the launching), we found a number of
problems awaiting us. First, I had a bill from the shipyard for $914.92,
a figure which will remain engraved in my memory. I was aghast, for I
knew that the dockage had been without charge, the materials at a
discount, and we had done most of our own work. “Labor,” however, was
still the chief item on the bill, and I was forcefully reminded of an
incident I had witnessed earlier that illustrated most vividly how labor
costs can mount. While installing the shaft, one of the workmen happened
to touch a spot of wet green paint on the engine. He stopped work
immediately, with a curse.
“That does it!” he exclaimed enigmatically, eying the green spot with
disgust. Throwing down his tools, he left the boat.
Half an hour later I went from the boat into the shed and saw him still
sitting there, idly rubbing his fingers with a rag, while smoking a
cigarette. I said nothing, but later, while checking over the bill, I
figured that that little spot of paint had cost me about $4—the cost of
the time needed for the workman to recover his mental composure and
restore his fingers to their former pristine condition.
Under the circumstances, I was particularly interested in an article I
read about that time, by a yacht owner who had kept a record of the work
done on his boat over a period of thirty years. He pointed out that,
labor costs aside, _the time taken to do the same job_ had more than
doubled, and as I thought of the pouting workman, lounging in the shop
and contemplating a green smear on his finger, I could understand why.
Another problem was slower to become apparent, but no less real, and
couldn’t be solved by paying a bill. During our absence, Mickey and Moto
had become friendly with a very fine family in Rowayton, who on our
return immediately extended their hospitality to us all. It was the
first time in our travels that we had spent so long a time in one place
and achieved such an easy intimacy with any one group, and perhaps we
should have been prepared for the tragicomic consequences.
Mickey and Moto, quite unfamiliar with the camaraderie of American
girls, became enamored of the daughter of the family. Jealous of each
other, they promptly joined ranks against Ted on his return to the boat,
while he, completely unaware of the situation, began to compete for the
attentions of the young lady.
Not until the day before we sailed from Rowayton did we realize that we
had been sitting on a powder keg. Ted came home from a sail with the
girl, to be greeted with a torrent of loud and tearful abuse from our
usually quiet Moto, who had obviously been drinking. The unleashing of
this apparently long-buried hatred and resentment was an unnerving
experience, since we had come to like and respect Moto very much. His
very real torment was obvious, and although at this time we did not
fully realize the cause, it was impossible to write it off as the empty
rantings of one in his cups.
We took off the next day, September 7, with a rather subdued and
introspective crew. During the next several weeks, only gradually did we
fit the story together. Just how involved the various men of our crew
had been we will never know, but there is no doubt that bits and pieces
of a number of hearts had been left behind in Rowayton. How deeply
embedded were the suspicions and bitterness only slowly came to light in
experiences such as the following:
Weeks later, in the course of a violent outburst, Mickey accused me of
“spying on him.” It took considerable patience and much probing to get
at the origin of his belief, but eventually it was traced back to
Rowayton and an incident that had occurred during our stay.
One evening, arriving late, and looking for Barbara and our hostess, I
had wandered into the small sitting room reserved for television. All
was darkened except for the TV screen, and I had asked, referring to the
program, “What’s going on?”
Someone had answered and, not being attracted by the program, I had gone
on to another part of the house. Now, weeks later, it developed that
Mickey and the young lady in question had been watching TV together, and
Mickey had interpreted my commonplace remark as suspicion of his actions
and a desire to spy on him.
In any event, our trip up Long Island Sound, around Montauk Point, down
to the entrance of the Delaware, and on through the Chesapeake and
Delaware Canal into Chesapeake Bay was not noted for its jollity. Nick
was moody and Ted and Mickey unusually withdrawn, but Moto was
particularly pathetic. In complete contrast to his former cheerful,
wryly humorous self, he sat for hours in the bow, staring moodily at the
water, or wove rope into intricate designs with all the withdrawal
symptoms of a paranoid. We felt that he had lost so much face by his
outburst that he did not know how to get back to our former friendly
relations, and we did everything we could to assure him that we wanted
to let bygones be bygones. What we did not realize, yet, was that his
spirit was completely broken.
This trip was an introduction to a different type of cruising, where we
used the engine much of the time and measured our progress not by noon
shots but by markers as frequent as street signs in a city. By night we
anchored: at Reedy Point, Delaware; Sassafras River, Maryland; and
finally, in Whitehall Creek, near Annapolis, where we lay just off the
back yard of Bob and Billy Phelps, guiding lights of the American
Yachtsmen’s Association. If anything was calculated to repair shattered
morale and raise the drooping spirits of our crew, the two weeks we
spent with the Phelpses was it. Their instantaneous, homely welcome, the
freedom of their pleasant home, the effervescence of their two lively
dogs, and the easy exchange of yachting reminiscences were all fine
medicine.
During this period we made one more inland trip, to our old haunts at
Yellow Springs, Ohio. Once again we had intended to take the entire
group, but once again, at the last moment, plans were changed. Mickey
decided he would rather go to “see friend,” who lived near Schenectady
or Syracuse, or, at any rate, “somewhere in state New York.” And Nick,
at the last minute, announced that he would remain on board to “write
letters.” It seemed unlikely that he had enough letters to last a week,
but we accepted his decision.
Our return to Yellow Springs, although hectic and far too brief, was a
highlight of our stay in the States. We could recognize now how unique
was the community spirit we had taken for granted during our eight years
at Fels Institute and on the Antioch campus. When a public meeting was
organized to welcome us “home” and permit us to meet old friends, as
well as give a talk about our travels, we were very much moved.
Jessica and Joan had renewed their former friendship so completely that
nothing short of a major operation could successfully separate them, so
we postponed that problem by packing Joan into the station wagon with us
and taking her back for a short trip on the _Phoenix_ and a week of
sightseeing in and around Washington.
At Annapolis we took on fuel and supplies and I gave a slide talk to the
members of the Yacht Club. It was an enjoyable stay except for one
fierce day with torrential rain, and wind speeds up to 80 mph, which
shattered a large window on the club veranda. At the height of the
storm, poor Joan and Jessica finally had to part, and the weather
provided a dramatically satisfactory background as we put Joan on the
bus for Ohio, as per arrangement with her folks.
On October 9 we left Annapolis, sailing down Chesapeake Bay. It was a
quiet and pleasant interlude, during which we made four stops—at Oxford,
where we picked up our new genoa jib, and at Solomon’s Island, Indian
Creek and Horseshoe Shoals. At Hampton, Virginia, we stopped for a
slightly longer stay. Here we discovered old friends—Hugh Gloster and
his family, of Hampton Institute. Hugh had been in Hiroshima as a
Fulbright fellow at the university during our stay.
Also, I’m sorry to say that once again we found ourselves in an area of
segregation. When we visited the local Marine Museum, I was deeply
ashamed to see the look on my men’s faces when they saw “White” and
“Colored” on the rest-room doors, here in my own country.
The tension caused by such incidents possibly triggered another
flare-up, which developed just before our departure from Hampton. It
began as a fairly routine issue between Mickey and myself over one of
his derelictions but quickly developed into a confusing verbal
free-for-all. It was obvious even to the most obtuse that Nick, Mickey,
and Moto were badly divided. Mickey and Moto accused Nick of being
“troublemaker,” while Nick retorted that they did not really care about
the success of the voyage, but were always complaining—of the food, of
the routines, of the Skipper. Mickey and Moto demanded that Nick be sent
home, and I myself, remembering the many times he had been my outspoken
critic, wondered if he might not welcome an excuse to get out. When I
asked him, however, he maintained he wanted to finish the trip as
planned. It was a disturbing impasse. The three seemed to be at complete
loggerheads, and I could see no compromise.
At last, after a heated debate, we emerged with a temporary course of
action: (a) Moto, who confessed that he had not felt well for some time,
would be given a thorough medical examination at the first
opportunity—and here Mickey chimed in with “Me too! I not feel so good!”
(b) We would continue without any crew changes, at least as far as the
Canal Zone, at which time we would have another session.
Only after the conference had broken up did I realize, with a kind of
baffled double-take, that I had started out by taking Mickey to task,
and ended by putting Moto on the sick list and asking Nick if he wanted
to go back to Japan!
From Hampton we sailed past numerous naval ships at anchor and into
Norfolk Channel. At Great Bridge we pulled alongside a dock, told the
attendant to “Fill ’er up!” and then docked nearby for the night, a
procedure we were to repeat a number of times. Again we were
experiencing a new kind of cruising, along narrow channels, into locks,
and through drawbridges where maneuvering was quite difficult for our
underpowered boat. Our only safety lay in making plans well in advance,
knowing the chart perfectly, and anticipating problems. Even so, we had
several tense moments when a bridge seemed to lift with agonizing
slowness while we were bearing down on it, urged on by the current and a
following wind, with our puny reverse doing no measurable good. Also,
although we followed the channel faithfully, we ran aground three times
between Hampton and Morehead City, North Carolina. Each time we were
able to get ourselves off without help, using sail, motor, and kedge.
Our last grounding was, humiliatingly enough, right in Morehead City,
only half a mile from our destination. Going by the chart, which
indicated a sufficiently deep channel up to the Yacht Club, we entered
and immediately grounded. With a strong tide setting across the channel
and a fresh north breeze, we were unable to budge. While we relaxed and
waited for high slack, a Coast Guard vessel came alongside and offered
to pull us off. I admit I was tempted.
“Well ...” I said.
“You just sign these papers in quadruplicate,” the officer said briskly,
handing them to me.
“Well,” I continued, “I’ll tell you. So far we’ve never asked for
help—I’d like to try to manage by ourselves.” Somehow the sight of all
that paper work seemed to turn a kindly offer into a government project.
In Morehead City we tied up for two weeks at a gas dock near the center
of town while we made final preparations for heading back out to sea.
Also, we gladly accepted an invitation from our good friend, Dr. Warner
Wells, surgeon at the University of North Carolina Medical School in
Chapel Hill. I had written Warner from Hampton about our health
problems, asking about a medical checkup for Moto and Mickey. For
several years Warner had been on the research staff of the Atomic Bomb
Casualty Commission in Hiroshima, where he had been well liked and
respected by the Japanese community. He now had Japanese-speaking
doctors on his staff, and I knew that Warner, if anyone, would be
sympathetic with the psychology of our ailing men.
Moto and Mickey entered the university hospital, where for three days
they were given an exhaustive series of examinations. The results,
except for a slight vitamin C deficiency, were negative. The charges,
although I had written in my letter that I would pay all fees,
laboratory expenses, X rays, and the like, also were negative!
We in the family were enjoying a holiday with the lively and interesting
Wells family. We would all have been perfectly content if the
examinations had taken a week or more. But I had one more trip to make,
back to Washington. At the request of the National Academy of Sciences,
I attended meetings at which ongoing and future research programs in
Hiroshima were discussed. There it was finally decided that the
prospective follow-up of my studies in Hiroshima would not be
“reactivated,” due to a change in research emphasis and the presence of
a new director of ABCC in Hiroshima. My understanding that I would
continue my research program in Hiroshima, on our return, had been very
clear, and all our plans had revolved around this fact. However, I had
no formal, written contract to that effect, only a gentleman’s
agreement—and now, apparently, a new gentleman was in charge.
I was advised, however, to consult with the new director when we reached
Hiroshima, as he would be “most sympathetic” to my plan for a
continuation of my study on the effects of atomic radiation on the
surviving children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I appreciated the offer of
sympathy, but I would have preferred something more definite, as I felt
strongly that this promising line of research should be continued—if not
by me, then by someone else.
We sailed from Morehead City on November 15, happy to be on the way once
more. On a couple of mornings we had seen a light frost on deck, and the
evenings had become too chilly for our blood and our wardrobes, both
thinned by extended tropical living. Pulling away from the dock, we
waved to the handful of friends we had made and headed out the channel,
setting a course to the southeast as soon as we cleared the last buoy.
By midnight we were well away from land and on our way to Jamaica, by
way of the eastern Bahamas and the Windward Passage.
The two-week trip to the Bahamas was rather rugged, with a variety of
weather that ranged from glassy calm to winds strong enough to cause us
to heave to for half a day. The first part of the passage was mostly in
southerlies, and not until the thirteenth day out did we have what might
reasonably be called “trade wind” conditions. Even then, hesitating to
tempt fate, I made the notation in the log in quotes.
On November 28, at 0900, we sighted Mayaguana Island, dead ahead,
rounded the northwest point, and came to anchor just southwest of the
lighthouse in five fathoms. We were fourteen days out of Morehead City
and very glad to be back in the trades after a slow and vexatious
passage. The direct distance was 763 miles, but we had logged over 1,000
due to the large percentage of adverse winds.
We spent the day—Thanksgiving—at Mayaguana. Like most of the Bahamas, it
is low. The lighthouse, we learned, was automatic, with no sign of life
around it. A wide sand road had been cleared through the surrounding
growth of cactus and scrub trees, but our first shore party followed it
for several miles without seeing any sign of habitation. They
returned—having left me aboard to do some necessary work on the
engine—with their arms full of booty: yellow fan coral, marble-white
brain coral, a round fisherman’s float of blue-green glass, and numerous
shells to add to Barbara’s collection, which she had persistently been
building throughout our trip, in spite of our disinterest, gibes,
and—when an occasional uncleaned shell smelled to high heaven—active
protest. This time, however, no one said anything unkind, for we
remembered that it was Thanksgiving and wanted our cook to be in a good
mood.
She was. Relying entirely on canned goods, we had quite a feast,
including shrimp cocktail, glazed ham, asparagus tips, potatoes (both
mashed and sweet)—and, for dessert, mince pie! The prize dish, however,
was neither the pie nor the ham, but a loaf of honest-to-goodness
home-baked wholewheat bread which Barbara somehow managed to whip up in,
of all things, a pressure cooker.
The next day Barbara and I went ashore to explore in the other
direction, this time with more success. After following the road for
four miles or more, we reached a small settlement—ten or twelve boxlike
houses built of whitened coral stone, each with a wooden door and two
wood-shuttered windows painted in blue, green or pink. The place looked
deserted, but we could hear the voices of children at play and finally
found a group of them. They stared at us for a moment with awe and then
went tearing for the houses, yelling the news at top voice:
“Ooooooh—white mon! Oooo—white mon!”
We gathered that Mayaguana was not a tourist island!
We were very hot and thirsty, but although there were some coconut trees
growing in most of the dooryards, and all of them loaded with good
drinking nuts, we had no coin of the realm and had not even thought to
bring cigarettes or a candy bar. Several women came out to look at us
and smile shyly, but no refreshment was offered and, as we had no
bargaining power, we had to make the long walk back without refueling.
How nostalgically we recalled the islands of the South Seas, where
native hospitality had provided cool coconuts, open, ready and waiting,
by the time the stranger had arrived!
In the afternoon we weighed anchor and set out for Great Inagua, some 70
miles to the south, arriving in Mathew Town late the following morning.
It was Saturday, and the mail-and-supply boat had just arrived, so there
was a considerable stir in the village. Five of us rowed ashore and
spent several hours wandering around. As on most British islands, the
buildings on Great Inagua were neat and freshly painted. The streets,
paved with crushed white coral, were well laid out and carefully tended.
We found the one store overflowing with people who had just received
their monthly pay checks from the town’s No. 1 employer, Morton’s Salt
Company. We took our turn in line, and at last were permitted to
purchase seven tomatoes and one (1) loaf of bread, both items having
just arrived from Nassau.
On the way back to the dock we called—by request—at the office of the
sole government official on the island, and forked out $8 (American
money was graciously accepted) for “harbor and landing fees.” Clutching
our unexpectedly costly purchases, we rowed back out to the _Phoenix_,
and left for Jamaica the next morning.
The four-day trip, which took us through the Windward Passage between
Cuba and Haiti, was uneventful from a sailing point of view, but
climactic in terms of our crew relationships. Only a brief entry in my
log refers to the incident:
Mickey refused to obey order to steer by standing in cockpit while
boat was passing, so relieved him of duty.
The actual happening was somewhat less dry. In the afternoon while
Mickey was on watch and I was below, I could hear a boat’s engines. I
went up, and found Mickey lounging on the starboard side of the cockpit,
steering with his foot. Overhauling us rapidly from astern was a motor
vessel, probably a coastal trader, somewhat larger than we were. I spoke
to Mickey.
“There’s a boat coming,” I said, indicating aft. He paid no attention,
and did not move. “Mickey, stand up and steer.”
No movement. I repeated the order. Mickey said, without moving, “Why?”
I answered, “Because it’s dangerous and also it doesn’t look good.” No
move. “Are you going to stand up and steer?”
“This is a yacht and I don’t have to.”
“Are you going to stand up and steer?”
“No.”
I stepped into the cockpit. “I will take the tiller.” Mickey left the
cockpit, as I began to steer. The boat passed us close to port. I said,
“Mickey, you are through.”
He went below. In a short while Nick appeared. “What is trouble?” he
asked.
I explained the circumstances. “Unless Mickey is willing to apologize
and make some effort to cooperate from now on, he is through,” I added.
This time I felt, and the family agreed with me, that the time had come
for a showdown. Mickey knew how earnestly we hoped to finish the voyage
with our original crew, but we felt that, more and more, he was taking
advantage of this knowledge, confident that we would condone anything
rather than break up the crew. Usually, however, his behavior took a
more subtle form, such as shirking in his work, coming up late for “all
hands on deck,” calling his relief watch five minutes early, and so on.
He had seldom been, like Nick, openly in opposition, but on the other
hand, I knew where I stood with Nick, although I didn’t welcome his
spots of defiance. At least they cleared the air.
For the first time in our entire relationship we determined that Mickey
must admit his error, apologize, and make some gesture of
reconciliation. (In private I decided that even a very small gesture
would suffice—but I, too, had my face to save.)
We completed the trip to Jamaica, with Mickey relieved of duty. By noon
on the fourth day out we were off Kingston harbor but, rather than enter
the busy harbor, we decided to pull in to the docks at Port Royal. We
were still well out when a launch approached and we were boarded by
officials who efficiently went about clearing us while we were still on
the way in. By midafternoon we were safely tied up, had been cleared and
given such a cordial welcome that we never did get around to moving the
_Phoenix_ over to Kingston.
But casting a shadow over the friendly ministrations of Sir Anthony and
Lady Jenkinson, who were living aboard their yacht _Fairweather_ while
operating the hospitable Port Royal Beach Club, was the uncomfortable
knowledge that the “clearinghouse session,” which I had put off until we
reached port, would have to be held that night, and would be definitive.
We all dreaded it, but unless Mickey was willing to meet me halfway,
admit his error, and make a genuine promise to mend his increasingly
insolent ways, we would have to part company. I said as much to Nick,
who was doing what he could as go-between, but Nick brought word that
Mickey would not apologize, that he considered it an “insult” for me to
tell him what to do.
The meeting that night was brief and bitter. I stated my position, in
clear and simple words. Mickey stood firm. I told him that in that case
I would have to send him back to Japan.
He said, “Good!”
As had been the case in Hawaii, it was the other two who went to bat for
Mickey. Their argument was that Mickey’s defection was harmless and
that, since we were so near the end of our trip anyway, we should simply
ignore the whole thing. I refused, saying it was neither safe nor
prudent to continue with someone in whom I could have no confidence and
who continued openly to defy me. As we talked, it developed that Mickey
had given Moto a completely inaccurate version of the episode: (1) I had
made an unreasonable demand; (2) he _had_ complied with my order, but I
had sent him below anyway, for some unknown reason.
There was only one flaw in Mickey’s account: Jessica, who had been in
her cabin below, had heard the whole incident and remembered it
perfectly.
I could only repeat that, under the circumstances, I had no other choice
than to send Mickey home, by the first available ship.
There was a dead pause. Moto then said, in a low voice, that he would
go, too, if Mickey went; then Nick, not looking at me, said he also
would have to go. I said I was sorry that was their decision, but that I
would make the arrangements. I left the boat and went ashore.
I walked aimlessly in the dark, in the vacant lot by the docks,
trembling with frustration and disappointment. In a few minutes I saw
dark forms approaching. It was the family, and I called out in blind
anger, “I suppose you’re going to desert me too?”
They came over. “We just wanted to tell you,” Barbara said quietly,
slipping her hand into mine, “that you were right and we’re with you all
the way.”
“There was nothing else you _could_ do,” said Ted, who had always been
our mediator and balance wheel. “You’ve always put the safety of the
voyage first and you mustn’t be influenced now by that dream of
finishing the trip with the same crew. Even if we did give in, and take
the boys back, it would be a kind of lie to pretend we had succeeded in
finishing the trip as friends.”
“We’ll get along all right,” said Jessica. “I can take a watch.”
With tears in my eyes, I embraced them all.
The next morning, while I was making ready to go over to Kingston with
Sir Anthony to see about boat schedules for shipping the men back, Nick
approached me. “Skipper,” he began hesitantly, “if you would have me, I
have changed my mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to finish voyage. I want to stay on _Phoenix_.”
“I’ll talk to the family.”
I did, and we decided to accept Nick’s offer. So Nick stayed on with us,
and from that moment an entirely new relationship began. Having thrown
in his lot with us, breaking completely with his mates, Nick now came
over wholly to our side, giving us unswerving loyalty and warm
friendship. It was an amazing transformation.
Moto’s role in the case was a strange one. We still liked him very much;
we felt strongly that he didn’t _want_ to go but that some force
stronger than himself compelled his action. He brooded for long hours,
obviously miserable; and yet he either would not or could not revise his
decision.
I learned in town that it would be almost impossible for me to send
Mickey and Moto back from Kingston, as ships bound for Japan rarely
called there. It would be far easier, I was told, to carry them on with
us as far as the Canal Zone, where arrangements could easily be made.
Mickey objected so violently to this suggestion that I told him he had
full authority to go to town and make his own arrangements for the
passage. He and Moto spent several days in town, but Mickey finally had
to admit that my information was correct and they agreed to go on with
us to the Panama Canal.
However, I made it very clear that they would travel as passengers and
would have no hand in sailing the _Phoenix_. The family and Nick would
handle the boat alone.
While here, it seemed wise to haul out once more, making use of the
rather primitive (but cheap) marine railway in the old Naval Dockyard,
instead of waiting until the Canal Zone, where prices, under American
administration, were likely to be high. Sir Anthony enlisted the
services of about twenty men from Port Royal to lend us a hand for a
day—at 10 shillings apiece—and we all turned to on the huge cranks of
the massive, hand-operated winch, taking an entire day literally to inch
our thirty tons up the incline.
During our stay in Port Royal we went into the city only two or three
times. There was no bus service between Kingston and Port Royal, and the
tiny ferry-launch ran only one trip each way a day. The town was hot,
dirty, and not too colorful. Although the Christmas season was in full
swing, we found little that tempted us to buy.
Port Royal, however, we liked very much, and after a day’s work on the
boat we would often take a stroll through the old town, with its ancient
stone houses, narrow streets, and vital air of history. We knew that in
the waters just off the dock, buried in the earthquake of 1692, lay the
remains of most of the town, with its warehouses still full of booty
taken by the pirates. Here, in the middle of the seventeenth century,
was the city acknowledged to be the wickedest in the world.
Old Fort Charles was still active, now the training ground for the
Jamaican constabulary. We recalled that Nelson was in command here
briefly in 1779, and his quarterdeck, where he was wont to pace and
watch for French ships, is still preserved.
At the church we had a chance to see a Jamaican wedding, which is often
solemnized only after many years of preconnubial bliss and large
families. As a matter of fact, the two little flower girls in flouncy
white dresses, who escorted the bride with her magnificent ruffled train
dragging in the dust as she came up the dirt road to the church, were
daughters of the bride and groom. This state of affairs is due not to
lack of morals but lack of funds, as a wedding must be celebrated in
proper style. If the length of the procession that accompanied the bride
was any indication of the length of the guest list, the financial outlay
must have been staggering.
The party following the ceremony went on all night, just beyond the wall
that separated the dockyard from the village of Port Royal, but the
music, unfortunately, was not calypso or West Indian, but a particularly
penetrating selection of canned American hit tunes.
We sailed for the Canal on December 18, hoping to make it in time to
pick up our Christmas mail. Nick, Ted, and I shared watches, two on and
four off, while Barbara and Jessica, between them, accounted for three
hours during the day. The system worked very well.
Our two passengers remained below decks most of the time. Nick was
patently being ostracized by them, but he refused our suggestion that he
join the family at meals, stolidly eating in silence in the main cabin,
ignoring and being ignored by his former companions. We all felt the
strain. Since it was now too late to go back, and even surface
formalities had ceased to exist, we looked forward to the time when we
could part company.
On the morning of the 22nd we sighted land, very faintly, off the
starboard bow. Later in the morning a number of ships passed in the
early mists, all heading in the same general direction, so we knew we
couldn’t be too far off course. We headed south-southeast to pick up the
coast more firmly, then turned south along the coast to the harbor
entrance. By midafternoon we had passed the breakwater, noting that the
four buoys at the entrance, shown on our “up-to-date” chart, were not
present.
Dropping anchor in the merchant anchorage near the channel, we flew our
flags and awaited developments.
15 GALÁPAGOS:
HOME OF THE LAST PIONEERS
“Those delicate souls whose coffee must be just so....”
We were at anchor, awaiting further orders, by 1530. Five hours later we
were still waiting. During this time, ships arrived, were boarded,
cleared, and allowed to move on toward the entrance to the Canal.
Several times official launches passed, the officers gazing curiously at
us and sometimes waving.
Finally, just as we had decided to turn in for the night, we were
boarded by a very cheerful Canal officer. He said quite frankly that the
central office just hadn’t noticed us out here, and none of those going
back and forth on official business had thought to report us. He didn’t
look at our papers, passports, liquor, or cigarettes (all laid out for
inspection) but merely told us to move over to the “East Flats” and gave
us some forms to fill out. Then he shook hands briskly, got into his
launch, and shot away.
We checked the chart, located East Flats, weighed anchor, and worked our
way over there, across the Canal channel, dodging the harbor traffic
which was moving busily even during the night. It was almost midnight
when we reached the Flats, and dropped the hook. I got to work on the
papers at once, but we were boarded again before I had finished. This
time we had two visitors who took out the tape measure and solemnly,
using flashlights, began to take measurements, inside and out, for all
the world as if they were going to give our _Phoenix_ a new suit—of
sails, I hoped!
Because of their industry, I now have official figures on the size of
our “Engine Room”: 3 ft. × 3 ft. × 3 ft. 6 in. They told me, while
working, that they had just come from an eight-hour job of checking a
tanker (which they had also measured with a tape measure). Surely there
must be an easier way to do these things!
We were told that I should report, in the morning, to the port captain,
Immigration, and Customs. It was already well into tomorrow by this
time, and when the instructions for arriving at the protected anchorage
off the yacht club began to involve getting permission from the Port
Captain to request permission from the yacht club, whose permission must
then be reported back to the port captain, I began to get a bit fuzzy.
By the time the measurements had been completed, I had the forms
properly filled out and was able to hand them over. The two officials
waved us a cheerful good night and took off—on their way to another
boat. Work here goes on around the clock.
The next day we put the dinghy over the side, and Barbara and I went
ashore. It was a stiff 40-minute row, and the harbor was choppy, so we
arrived in a rather soggy condition. However, we started our rounds of
the offices while we were still drying. After getting permission, etc.,
we walked the mile to the Panama Canal Yacht Club, where a very friendly
manager received us and said it would be quite all right to anchor off
the club, but had we asked permiss— I said that we had. “Then go back
and tell them it’s okay with us!”
We motored at once to the yacht club, where we found a berth in quiet
and protected waters only a lifebuoy’s throw from cold drinks and good
old American hamburgers!
There we remained over the holiday season. We found that arranging
passage for Mickey and Moto, contrary to our expectations, was a
difficult and time-consuming task. Day after day, I made the rounds of
various agencies, went on board Japanese ships—of which there were
many—and talked to various officials. We got nowhere. At last I
contacted Governor Potter, in charge of the Zone, to whom we had a
letter from friends back in Yellow Springs. He very kindly put us under
the full-time protection of Jim Barrett, who immediately put into motion
wheels I had been unable to budge. Very shortly we had secured two
reservations on the _Eishin Maru_ due to pass through the Canal on
January 6, bound for Yokohama. It was the earliest available date, but
the men would have a private cabin and first-class accommodations.
During this period relations were strained on board. It was bitter for
us all to face the knowledge that one of our aims—to complete the voyage
with our original crew intact—had failed. But, as Ted so logically
remarked: “Suppose we did complete the trip with all the men. If you
ignored all the troubles, evaded all the issues, and kept secret all the
fights, just so we could boast we had completed the voyage with the same
seven people—just what would we have proved?”
I located a nice hotel in Cristobal for Mickey and Moto and was willing
to underwrite their expenses while they were waiting for their boat, but
the Canal Zone officials had other ideas: the men must stay on the
_Phoenix_ until transferred to the _Eishin Maru_.
Christmas was quietly observed by the family, with none of the gaiety of
previous years. However, we did have our Christmas mail, which had been
piling up for us on the other side of the Isthmus, and we had a most
interesting introduction to the Canal when we went across by train—“Span
a Continent, Atlantic to Pacific, in One Afternoon!” Skirting the Canal
and Gatun Lake, we could catch glimpses of great steamships which seemed
to be moving sedately through the jungle. Occasionally, as the track ran
closer to the Canal, we saw them pausing at one of the locks, to be
raised or lowered, or wandering as if along an inland stream, looking as
lost as if they had been cast up from the Flood.
Back in Cristobal—the narrow American strip which borders the sprawling
Panamanian city of Colón—we went ahead with arrangements for making
transit of the Canal as soon as Mickey and Moto were on their way. On
the day after Christmas I went “across the tracks” to Colón, to order a
new foresail from a sailmaker whose address I had been given. It was
depressing to walk through the narrow, dirty streets, which contrasted
so markedly with the solid buildings and clean, broad streets on the
American side. Only the children were out as I wandered through the
seemingly deserted town; the elders presumably were still recovering
from Christmas. In the alleys, as I passed, little boys were futilely
snapping silent cap pistols guaranteed only yesterday to give forever
five thousand bangs a day; while little girls were mourning over the
cracked heads of their unbreakable plastic dolls.
On January 6, early in the morning, the _Eishin Maru_ arrived and Mickey
and Moto transferred themselves and their belongings under the eye of
the authorities. The log makes the final entry:
Jan. 6, 1958. Mickey Suemitsu and Moto Fushima sailed today for Japan,
on _Eishin Maru_. All family agreed Mickey must go, but feel sorry
Moto went along. However, for months he has been in very poor spirits
and losing weight, though thorough medical examination shows nothing
wrong, so perhaps all for best.
Now only five in party.
On January 9 we made our transit of the Canal. We were told we would
need extra “linesmen” aboard—either hired or volunteered—and Jim
Barrett, who with his family had given us help and friendship far beyond
the call of duty, promptly offered to take a day off and lend us a hand.
In addition, the pilot himself, when he reported aboard in the drizzly
predawn darkness, brought along a companion, an apprentice pilot getting
his first experience of taking a yacht through the locks. The weather
was rainy and windy—the worst we had had since our arrival. At 0600 we
got away from the anchorage and headed for Gatun Locks in a driving
rain.
Well padded with fenders, and with one line forward and two aft, we
entered the first lock, slipping in just behind the freighter _Santa
Olivia_. We had elected to go through by tying alongside the walls,
rather than tying to another boat or being held by lines in the middle
of the lock. The walls stretched high above our heads. It was much the
worst lock, but even so, when the water started pouring in, I was
surprised at the turbulence. With a man on each line, we strained to
keep our position. Suddenly a heavy surge hit us, and with a loud
popping sound the two after lines snapped. Out of control, the ship
plunged almost across the chamber, with only the forward line still
holding.
At once our pilot, Captain Torstenson, blew a whistle and the incoming
flow of water stopped. We hauled ourselves back toward the starboard
wall by our remaining line, fending off as we came in, and leaving a
slight mark where our bowsprit ground a light patch in the slimy
discoloration of the lock wall. Fresh lines were broken out and made
fast, and we tried it again, this time with the water coming in at a
more sedate rate. The lift proceeded without further incident, and soon
we were floating on a level with the men who had peered down on us a few
minutes before. A great chain was dropped across the lock behind us, the
heavy double gates ahead swung open, and we proceeded cautiously behind
_Santa Olivia_ into Lock No. Two. Each succeeding lift became easier,
but because of our lack of power, the closest attention was required
throughout the transit.
From the third lock we emerged into Gatun Lake, and a completely new
type of sailing—in a fresh-water lake 90 feet above sea level where our
course, marked by buoys at regular intervals, led past the skeleton tops
of long-submerged trees and the peaks of hills which had learned to be
islands. _Santa Olivia_ moved rapidly out of sight, and many other
vessels passed us going in both directions during the day. All the way
across the lake we had unsettled weather, but the wind was fair, so I
suggested using the sails to help out in the open areas. Captain
Torstenson was a power man, however, and vetoed the idea. He seemed to
be in no hurry. In fact, he and his assistant, Captain Fetherston, were
both amiable, easygoing chaps who seemed to consider this job as a sort
of picnic. They regaled us with lively stories of the Canal and its
operations, and their relaxed attitude was infectious. We all took it
easy and enjoyed the trip.
Our only other tense spot was at the second, and last, Miraflores lock,
where the current is fast. Here we had to be out and away under full
power even before the gates were fully opened, in order to beat the
surge of the incoming sea.
By 1830 we were anchored off Balboa Yacht Club. The pilots and Jim left
to catch transportation back to Cristobal and the rest of us settled
down to savor the knowledge that we were once again in the Pacific—our
own ocean.
The next morning we went ashore to check in at the Balboa Yacht Club and
once again were accorded a friendly welcome and taken in tow by one of
the old-timers. Our ten days in Balboa were taken up with preparations
for the 6,000 miles of Pacific which lay between us and the Hawaiian
Islands. We planned to make two stops, in the Galápagos and in the
Marquesas, but in neither of these places could we expect to get
supplies or provisions, so it was necessary to be completely
self-sufficient for an indefinite number of months. Like Cristobal, on
the Atlantic side, Balboa is attractive, self-contained, and completely
American, catering only to government employees. We were distressed to
learn that, contrary to advance information, we were not permitted to
shop at the American commissaries in the Canal Zone and as for “free
port” shops, such as those we had found so tempting in St. Thomas, they
don’t exist here.
Adjoining Balboa is Panama City, capital of Panama, sprawling, colorful,
and very Latin. Lovely old cathedrals front on verdant squares; wide
main streets peter out into winding, thin alleys; Moorish-type
architecture and free-flowing, highly expressive Spanish reminded us
constantly that Panama has been and will remain far more simpatico to
Latin ways than to the often-irritating American influences which exist
in the Zone. While we were there, there was considerable grumbling,
especially among the university students, at the control of the Canal by
the United States; and there was a constant agitation for a greater
share of the profits. It was easy to see that here, in times to come,
will be one of our country’s trouble spots, and it is not impossible
that the time will come when the Panama Canal, along with the Suez and
others, will have to be internationalized.
Our most difficult job here was getting permission to enter the
Galápagos, which belong to Ecuador. Marie and Jerry Trowbridge, on
_White Seal_, had been quoted a dollar a foot and had reluctantly
decided to skip those islands. We knew, however, that there was no hard
and fast rule for getting a permit, or the amount of the fee, so we
again pulled rank and asked Governor Potter to put in a word for us. He
kindly contacted the Ecuadorian Ambassador and we obtained permission
with remarkable ease, at a very modest fee.
While we were getting ready for sea, a number of visitors called because
they had “heard we were going to the Galápagos.” Each would start out by
extolling one particular island in the group, and when we had been sold
would casually remark, “I wonder if you’d be willing to drop off a few
things for us”—packages, letters, foodstuffs—even a sizable
wood-and-coal stove, which we had to lash on deck. We were happy to take
all we could carry, because we knew that the passing yachtsman was a
major factor in supplying the pioneers on these isolated islands. Also,
on the advice of old-timers, we took reading matter for the
islanders—books, magazines, and newspapers—as much as we could collect.
We sailed on January 18, bound for Wreck Bay, San Cristóbal, the port of
entry for the Galápagos. The islands are on the equator, about 860 miles
southwest of Panama, and we were warned to expect a slow passage. Yachts
have taken as long as three months for the trip and some have managed to
miss the islands completely. This had, in fact, happened to the Carrs,
on _Havfruen_, who had preceded us by a couple of months and had also
been carrying a respectable load of supplies for the colonies. They had
carried on to the Marquesas, where they had unloaded their cargo to be
shipped to Tahiti. From there, eventually, it would have to travel up to
Hawaii, over to California, and back down to the Panama Canal, there to
await another yacht bound for the Galápagos and willing to take on the
mission of good will. The entire circuit would take upward of a year and
we could only hope that none of the cargo had been perishable!
We had no intention of missing the islands, no matter how long it took
us, and to our delight we started out as if we were going to make a
record passage. On the second day out, we made a noon-to-noon run of 197
miles, better than eight knots, which we knew was accurate because we
could check our position with Malpelo Island. This delightful state of
affairs was soon over, however. We ran into the area of light
southerlies, where we had to work our way alternately west and
southeast, slowly making good our course. My log on the ninth day out is
representative:
Midnight. Very quiet. Moon just down. Two knots, course west. Many
dolphin about, snorting and leaping. Phosphorescence all around.
We weren’t worried about our slow progress. The peace on board was so
wonderful that I personally felt a two-month passage would have given me
just that much more time to soak it in. We three men continued our
two-hours-on-four-off system, with the girls sharing three daylight
hours, thus shifting the watch each night. Nick ate his meals with us,
sat with us in the cockpit, joined in our discussions, entered fully
into our family life. It was a happy ship.
On the tenth day out Ted and I tackled a navigation problem that had
been baffling us for several days. Obviously we weren’t making all the
distance we were sailing. In the past two days, for instance, we were 62
miles short of the spot where we estimated we should be. We knew there
was an adverse current in this region, but the loss seemed excessive.
Ted and I set to work studying charts and books, and found a clue in a
footnote of our _Ocean Passages_. It mentions “The Holy Child Current,
which runs from January to March, but is not equally definite in all
years.” It certainly seemed to be definite this year, and our position
on the chart was right on the dotted line that represented this
inconstant current, called “El Niño” in the pilot books.
The weather was generally fair and the seas light, but we had one sudden
blow which caught Barbara on the tiller. I had hesitated to give her a
night watch, knowing it would not result, as she fondly hoped, in giving
me more rest. Actually I had learned to snatch needed sleep at any hour,
day or night, and in fact slept more soundly during the day, when the
others were awake, than I did at night. But she wanted to try it, so we
compromised, and I gave her an hour after supper, from 1900 to 2000, so
that she could learn to judge weather conditions after dark.
It was during one of these evening watches that she gave me a call:
“Squall coming!” She was absolutely right. It hit us at once, the wind
changing in an instant from south to west, accompanied by heavy rain. We
took down staysail and genoa and tacked to the south under mizzen, main,
and foresail. For the first time Barbara had the experience of keeping
the tiller during the passage of a “front” and was very proud,
afterward, of “her squall.”
Two days later, another incident was worth recording:
Jan. 29. Terrific bubbling all about, like a giant kettle. Can hear it
quite easily—like crossing Amazon Bight, but in Amazon bubbling was
bigger and color brown.
On this same day I had the bad luck to break my reading glasses, the
spares—having already lost the originals over the side—and faced the
poor prospect of a long passage, with plenty of time for reading, and
broken lenses. However, I patched them together with transparent tape,
and became quite adept at reading through the chinks in the patches.
On February 1 we knew from the number of birds about that we were close
to land. Our morning shots seemed to indicate that we were south of the
island, so we edged a bit to the north. At 1123 Ted sighted land through
the haze off the starboard bow, and soon we were rounding the southwest
corner of San Cristóbal, keeping well out because of swells and the
onshore current. We passed Freshwater Falls, on the south side of the
island, where the old-time sailing ships were wont to water. On an
exposed shore, with heavy surf and a square-rigger to handle, this must
have been a feat that demanded real seamanship, not to mention plenty of
nerve.
At 1900 we entered Wreck Bay. Coming up to the anchorage, we pulled in
our log line and discovered that there were barnacles on it. If so many
had attached themselves to us in two weeks, how many, we wondered, must
have signed on with those ships that have drifted two or three months
between Panama and the Galápagos!
Within half an hour we had been boarded and cleared by very efficient
officers, and I had brought the log up to date and summarized the
passage.
We had eagerly looked forward to our visit to the Galápagos, having read
everything we could about the islands, from Darwin on. We had been
intrigued by the accounts of the weird geological formations, of unique
and strangely fearless animal life, of rugged individuals who had
pioneered here. But too often the accounts that one reads are of a
bygone era and do not accurately describe islands as they exist today.
Now we would have a chance to see for ourselves.
Puerto Chico, the settlement of some 200 people at Wreck Bay, is the
port of entry. It is a naval base (navy: 1 launch), and the center of
population for all the Galápagos—an island group inhabited by fewer than
2,000 people. Water is the limiting factor, and only four of the islands
provide enough water to sustain permanent colonies. The names of the
various islands can be most confusing, as each boasts of at least
two—Spanish and English—and usually more. Santa Cruz, for example, is
also known as Chavez, but the English gave it the sturdy name of
Indefatigable—a name which the people there obviously find tiresome, as
it is never used (except in articles in the _National Geographic_).
We spent only a couple of days at Puerto Chico, long enough to get our
breath, stretch our legs, and deliver a letter. The latter job took all
one day. While in the Canal Zone we had been entrusted with a message to
Mrs. Karin Cobos, who had come over as a child in a Norwegian colonizing
expedition which eventually petered out. She had married and remained in
the islands and was now, we were told, living “up in the hills.” Ted,
Nick, and Barbara expressed their willingness to look her up.
They started walking early in the morning up the fine, broad road which
leads from Puerto Chico to Progreso, a tiny settlement five miles up the
mountain. This fine road lasted for two miles. Beyond that it was still
under construction. Each working day the road is pushed forward a foot
or so, and there is universal confidence in the islands that someday,
within the lifetime of many now alive (the younger ones), a fine highway
will run all the way to Progreso and a jeep will be imported to use it.
Just beyond the end of the completed section the party left the parched,
sandy, cactus-strewn slopes and began to climb into the hills where
low-lying clouds were constantly dropping moisture. The cleared track
soon degenerated into a muddy path, but there were still plenty of rocks
so that the travelers could step from one to another and so hope to keep
their shoes reasonably clean. As they plodded on, however, the drizzle
changed to a downpour, the rocks and lava hunks became fewer and the mud
thicker. Soon the path was merely a trace winding through dense
undergrowth and knee-deep in mud. Long before the gang reached Progreso,
they were unrecognizable and hoping only to keep the mud out of their
hair.
In Progreso, which is a cluster of tiny houses scattered about in a
(muddy) clearing, they learned that (a) Karin Cobos—well known, of
course, throughout the islands—lived somewhere up beyond the village,
indicated by a vast and indeterminate sweep of the arm, and (b) not a
soul in Progreso spoke a word of English.
They were ushered to the Catholic priest, a Franciscan, whose rope belt
dangled behind him tied in two neat knots, as if he wanted to be sure
not to forget some important commissions. They spoke to him in English,
French, fumbling German, and fluent Japanese (courtesy of Nick), and he
answered in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and—presumably—Latin. Anyway,
he _did_ understand their mission, and made a sortie through the village
to return with Chico, a lad who would serve as guide and who was “bueno
muchacho.”
Meanwhile they relaxed on the veranda of the priest’s house and sampled
some very uplifting brandy and cups of Galápagos coffee—native grown and
very strong and good, which is made by adding hot milk ad lib to thick
coffee essence. There was also a basketful of fresh rolls, which made a
great hit, being the first fresh bread they had eaten since Panama.
At last, in spite of the priest’s dubious warnings that the journey
ahead would be “malo _malo_,” they pushed on, with their young guide
loping barefooted ahead. They were confident that the going couldn’t
possibly get worse—but they were soon disabused. As they struggled on,
Barbara confesses to having cheered herself up with fantasies of their
reception:
I conjured up the picture of a large and gracious hacienda with a big
living room and deep, comfortable couches and cold drinks and
efficient servants who would lead us off to bathe and provide us with
clean dressing gowns while other servants, somewhere in the back of
the house, set to work washing and pressing our miserable clothes. And
then, after a civilized lunch of crisp, fresh salad and perhaps more
hot rolls with our hostess, we would be sent back down the mountain on
horses so we could keep clean and neat all the way home.
Barbara felt she had some foundation for her daydreams, for we had all
read accounts of Karin Cobos, written by successive yachtsmen. We knew
she had married the son of the most prosperous plantation owner of the
Galápagos, who had later been killed by his own peons, and we had read
descriptions of their huge ranch house, their riding horses, and the
ease and luxurious living with which the family Cobos were surrounded.
At last Chico stopped and pointed across the valley to the ridge of the
next hill, seemingly miles away.
“La casita de la Señora Cobos!” he announced proudly.
They saw a lonely, bleak shoebox sitting foursquare against the skyline,
and between them and it a sea of water in which cattle splashed up to
their bellies. Obviously, to get to the “casita” they were going to have
to swim.
At last they reached the house, wrung out their pants, peeled off their
sodden shoes and socks, and were ushered in. Karin turned out to be a
dark-haired and dark-eyed Norwegian woman, who looked a handsome
thirty-five, but must have been in her fifties—Robinson, for instance,
visited here and was smitten by her in 1926. She didn’t seem at all
surprised to see them, but accepted her letter graciously and read it at
once, while her guests cleaned themselves up, using a pitcher of water
and a wash basin. Then they sat down to a plentiful lunch of rice, fried
eggs, plantain, and more of that strong, good Galápagos coffee.
Karin spoke surprisingly good English and was happy to talk about former
yachtsmen she had met, but not about her life on the island. Barbara
gathered that she had divorced her Ecuadorian plantation-owning husband
and moved high into the hills, where hers was the only house for miles
in any direction. Apparently she liked it that way, and certainly it
lessened her former loss of cattle by theft. She made her living by
exporting beef to the mainland (Ecuador), where her oldest daughter was
at present at college.
This was our first encounter with the rugged and independent breed which
is the Galápagos pioneer—but we were to meet quite a few more when we
got to Santa Cruz.
The trip down the mountain was considerably faster, though no less
sticky, but with the advantage that conditions got progressively better.
In Progreso, they dropped off their guide with a gift of some cheese and
a couple of cans of V-8 (all they had left), and staggered into Puerto
Chico just at dark. Mission accomplished.
When I checked out with the San Cristobal authorities, I was handed a
bill for $10 U.S.A. (American money specifically demanded—they did not
want Ecuadorian.) The special assessment was for “entering at an
extraordinary hour”—namely, 6:00 P.M. local time. When I protested, the
port captain shrugged and said, “It’s the law.” I had a strong hunch
that had we entered at 10:00 A.M., another law—fresh from the port
captain’s desk—would have charged us $10—American—for entering “in the
forenoon.” I got part of my money’s worth by delivering an oration of a
few well-chosen words. Part of my behavior was normal irritation, but
part of it was an act: I hoped that by a vigorous protest and a threat
to report the matter to Officials in High Places I could at least keep
the shakedown market stable, so that the next yachtsman wouldn’t be
faced with a bill for $20—U.S.A.
We left Wreck Bay by the light of a brilliant full moon at 0200, hoping
to cover the 50 miles to Santa María (also known as Charles and as
Floreana) before dark. By suppertime we were anchored in 4½ fathoms in
Post Office Bay, renowned, obviously, for its post office—but one that
is a bit different from most and with a special history. Since the days
of the whaling ships, a barrel has been maintained here on the beach,
where ships outbound for two or three years could deposit letters to be
picked up by other ships on their way home.
In recent years this tradition had been carried on by passing yachts,
with the help of the sole white family on the island, the Witmers. Mrs.
Witmer collects the letters that have been deposited, cancels them with
an official rubber stamp marked “Post Office Bay,” and leaves them to be
picked up by the next yacht. We had heard that mainland postal services
all over the world honor this cancellation.
We had been given a number of letters and packages for the Witmers and
were told that they would sight us at once from their “plantation of
sorts” in the hills and would come down to the beach to receive us. When
no one appeared throughout the next day, we decided that they might be
down at their “seaside cottage,” around the island at Black Beach, and
in the afternoon we climbed several miles up into the hills, following
an old trail and hoping it would lead us to one establishment or
another. There are only two or three families living on Santa María, as
the population is stringently limited by that vital element—water. The
one permanent spring—a slow drip from the rocks—provides an assured
source of water sufficient to maintain a very limited group.
Our hike was very different in character from the soggy expedition to
Karin’s. Santa María is not high enough to catch much rain. The terrain
is rough and sandy, covered with low brush and with frequent volcanic
outcroppings. Near the beach at Post Office Bay are evidences of an
early attempt at colonization, in the form of neatly laid-out foundation
stones and possibly old corrals of lava rock, but the experiment failed
before it had progressed very far due to the lack of water. Beyond the
abortive settlement a couple of trails had been cut through the scrubby
undergrowth and we set off hopefully, but one after another they petered
out into goat tracks and then into nothing. At last we gave it up and
returned to the beach.
We dropped our own mail into the white post office-barrel, which has
been kept painted and in good repair by the crew of Irving Johnson’s
brigantine _Yankee_, and added a small signboard with the name _Phoenix_
to the other names which had been recorded through the years. In the
process we disturbed a big and lazy seal sleeping in the sun nearby. He
was not afraid of us, merely indignant at our disturbing his nap, but
when poked with a stick he obliged by cavorting clumsily down the beach
with Ted and Jessica in excited pursuit.
Our next call was at Academy Bay, on the south shore of Santa Cruz, 40
miles to the north. Following the directions we had been given back in
Balboa, we anchored just off the stone house on the point, which we knew
belonged to Carl and Marga Angermeyer. We put out a stern anchor to
prevent too much swinging and here we stayed for eight days—among the
most enjoyable days of our entire voyage. The settlers we met in Santa
Cruz came nearer to fitting our ideas of true pioneers than any other
group we had seen. No easy tropical paradise for them—no bananas and
breadfruit dropping from the trees, no coconuts. Life is lived very
close to the subsistence level and everything has to be done the hard
way. Their salt is collected from saltpans; fats and cooking oils must
be rendered from giant green turtles that the men go out to catch; bread
is “sourdough,” and at each baking time a bit must be kept back as a
starter for the next batch; coffee is grown in the hills and prepared by
the individual housewife as needed.
Those delicate souls whose coffee must be just so would be interested in
the virtuosity required to get a good cup of coffee in the Galápagos.
First, you get the beans from where they are grown in the mountains, a
round trip which takes a full day. Let them dry for a few days. Then
shell and pound them until the hulls are free. Separate beans from
chaff—a tedious process unless you do it outdoors in a strong breeze—and
roast over a kerosene fire at low heat, stirring constantly for a long
time, until properly brown. Grind through the coffee mill. Then make
your coffee—and by now you’ll be ready for it.
The principal problem is water, for although there is sufficient
rainfall in the hills, the ground is porous, and the water percolates
through. At sea level rain is rare, and every drop must be caught and
treasured, so that the first step in constructing a new house is to
build the cistern, and the second is to erect a properly guttered roof
above it. Walls, floor, and any desirable divisions into rooms can come
later. Washing and cooking are always done in brackish water collected
from shallow wells. In times of drought this is also drinking water. To
us, it tasted impossibly salty, but we were assured that one could get
used to it.
Of course, there are no doctors here, and no dentists; and certainly
nothing resembling a corner drugstore. Whatever supplies must come from
outside arrive by yacht, or by infrequent supply ship from Ecuador. On
this ship they send out their only cash crop, and it is a skimpy one:
fish which they have caught and salted down. The boat also brings their
mail—when the captain thinks of it. On his most recent trip, just before
we arrived, he had forgotten to pick up the sacks of mail waiting on the
dock at Guayaquil, and seemed to think it a great joke. Also, Marga
showed us a 100-pound sack, filled with sand, which had been delivered
in lieu of the sugar they had ordered. The captain disclaimed any
knowledge of the substitution and since there was no way of tracing the
theft there was nothing to be done about it—except go without sugar and
hope for better luck next time.
There is a strange dichotomy on Santa Cruz: those who have settled at
sea level and those who live on the mountain. Only a narrow, rugged
trail, impassable in the rainy season, connects the two settlements, and
it takes four hours of hard climbing to reach the first of the houses
“on the hill.”
The people here live a very isolated and completely agricultural life.
They grow vegetables and raise cattle, trading their produce for
sea-food products, or for a little cash, with the colony along the
shore. Each week, Alf Kastdalen, only son of the most enterprising of
the Norwegian settlers in the hills, comes down to shore with a train of
burros and distributes the sacks of potatoes, the carrots and onions,
bananas, and freshly killed meat for which he took orders the week
before. On the return trip the burros carry an equal weight of
supplies—anything from sacks of flour to rolls of barbed wire—which must
be ordered from Ecuador, stored in a locked shed near the landing, and
packed up the hill little by little as needed.
Because we hoped to get some fresh vegetables to take with us, Barbara
and I took a trip up to visit the Kastdalens, who have been on Santa
Cruz for twenty-three years, having come with one of the first
resettlement groups from Norway. The trail into the hills ran for six
miles almost straight up and could have been quite as bad as the one on
San Cristóbal, except that it was not raining. We took about four hours
for the ascent, trudging behind and beside Alf’s string of six tiny
burros who were well loaded with supplies. On a later trip these same
burros hauled up our small kerosene refrigerator, which we had
mistakenly bought in Sydney. As I had feared, it turned out to be
useless on the boat, smoking even in a quiet anchorage, but worked fine
when absolutely stable. Now the Kastdalens, for the first time, could
enjoy the luxury of iced drinks.
We spent the night at the Kastdalens’, where we enjoyed good
conversation and a meal of wild pig (plentiful in the hills, along with
wild cattle), potatoes, avocados, fried plantain—and plenty of fresh
milk, butter, and home-baked bread. It was an amazing contrast to the
scanty fare of the equally hospitable Angermeyers on the shore, but in
talking with the elder Kastdalen women we realized that they felt keenly
their isolation from friends in Academy Bay. Mrs. Kastdalen asked
wistfully for news of Marga Angermeyer, whom she had not seen for over a
year—the last time being on the occasion of a wedding on Santa María of
the Witmers’ son. This event had been a gala affair, attended by almost
every European on the islands, all of whom seemed to feel as close to
one another’s affairs as if they had been members of a single family.
A few days later Ted and Jessica also made a trip into the hills, this
time as the guests of another Norwegian family, the Hornemans. Old Mr.
Horneman seemed a gentle and scholarly sort, not at all the type to
wrest a living from a complete wilderness, yet it was he who was the
first settler on Santa Cruz; with his own hands he had built the solid
house, raised on stilts, in which his wife and his teen-age son and
daughter lived; and by his own efforts he had reclaimed and fenced in
and cultivated many acres of land. He had captured and redomesticated
cattle gone wild, and bred a new stock. Now, after many arduous years,
he was taken with a very unusual hobby: using selected gourds of the
proper shape, he sketched in, painted and decorated remarkably accurate
globes of the world.
The Hornemans’ two children, Friedel and Siegvart, were mature beyond
their years in responsibilities, but they had a joyous enthusiasm for
life and a thirst for knowledge that was challenging. Both of them spoke
five languages: English—which was the lingua franca among the European
settlers; Spanish—the language of Ecuador; and German and French, in
addition to their own Norwegian. Siegvart explained the French as
follows: “Mamma and Mrs. Angermeyer used to speak French when they
didn’t want us children to know what they were talking about, so of
course we learned French!”
Friedel also made a remark which impressed Ted and Jessica deeply. “I
had ice cream once,” she told them, obviously savoring the memory.
“During the war, when there were Americans on Baltra, they took me to
visit the camp one day and I had ice cream!”
“We rode in a truck too,” Siegvart added.
The American Army, during the war, had had a base on Baltra, a small
island just to the north, which guarded the Pacific approaches to the
Panama Canal. After their departure, the buildings and supplies left
behind had gradually found their way to the islands and to Ecuador.
Salvaged items are, of course, very important in the Galápagos, and near
the Angermeyers’ house, down on the coast, I saw the remains of Joe
Pachernegg’s yacht, _Sunrise_, wrecked on the west side of Santa Cruz
and brought over piece by piece.
Two yachts called at Academy Bay during our stay—a rather unusual
concentration of visitors. The first was _Cle du Sol_, a French yacht,
which had the distinction of having a grand piano in the one large
cabin, around which the boat had evidently been built; and the day
before we left, an American motor yacht, the 110-foot _Valinda_, out of
Los Angeles, pulled in. We met the owner of _Valinda_, who planned to
return soon to the States and arranged to rendezvous with him at James
Bay, on uninhabited James Island, on the morning of February 16. He
promised to pick up any mail we had ready and give quick delivery back
to California, a wonderful opportunity to get messages home a couple of
months earlier than we had expected.
On the day before our departure we had a community party ashore, and
with the help of the men rigged up a 12-volt generator, with a 110-volt
converter, so that we could give a slide show. This was our farewell
gesture to the people of the Galápagos, for although we planned to see
more of the islands as we cruised to the north, Academy Bay was the last
human outpost.
16 BACK TO HAWAII
“How come change ya mind?”
From Academy Bay, on February 13, we made a short hop around to the east
side of Santa Cruz, where we anchored for the night between two tiny
islands just offshore, the Plaza Islands. It was dusk when we arrived
and we lost no time in launching the dinghy, in order to take a closer
look at the multitude of seals that were crowding the banks and
disporting in the water. As we drew closer to shore, more and more seals
slid from the rocks and swam out to circle about us, yelping excitedly
as though urging us to join them. Suddenly we heard a fearful roar and
turned to see a large bull seal who had reared himself out of the water.
With open mouth and a truly terrifying bellow, he came charging toward
our cockleshell. Giving up our vague intention of perhaps landing and
kidnaping a baby seal to take along as a pet, we turned and rowed a
dignified retreat. We were allowed to depart in peace, but found that
any attempt to return from any angle whatsoever would be violently
challenged. Reluctantly we returned to the _Phoenix_, swinging gently at
anchor in our tiny cove.
All night our sleep was interrupted by the continual bleating, barking,
yelping, and roaring of the dozens of seal colonies, which seemed to
keep the watch in turns.
The next morning we set out at dawn and sailed on up the coast and
across to Bartholomew Island, just off James. The scenery here is rugged
and grand. We anchored just off a most distinctive pinnacle of black
rock, several hundred feet high, and went ashore to explore a completely
arid, sandy, volcanic, cactus-strewn terrain. In a cave in a nearby
hill, following directions given us by the Angermeyers, we found the tin
can cache in which Robinson, in 1932, and a few others since, have left
messages. We entered the _Phoenix_ in the select company and, in the
valley beyond, spelled out the name of our ship in rock letters, to add
to the other names we found there, including _Yankee_, _Inca_,
_Thunderbird_, _Arthur Rogers_, _Nellie Brush_, and _Windjammer_ (soon
to be wrecked on Easter Island).
From Sullivan Bay we sailed up the coast of James and around to the lee,
in order to spend the night in Buccaneer Bay before proceeding on to
James Bay and our rendezvous with _Valinda_. We dropped anchor right in
the middle of the bay, in seven fathoms, and Ted and I went ashore with
guns to try our luck at varying the diet of canned corn beef. There was
no need to hunt for goats here, as we had done on the Barrier Reef—they
came to us. A large herd on the beach merely looked curiously at us as
we dragged the dinghy up on the land, while on the ridge above, about
200 yards away, a herd of cattle peered down. We walked over to the
goats and murdered one. They were standing in shoulder-high grass, and
it wasn’t until we had made the kill that we discovered that we now had
an orphan on our hands, a very young kid which nevertheless gave Ted
quite a run before he was able to chase it down. We carried the carcass
to the boat and tethered the baby nearby, while we completed our
explorations.
Up the large gully we found plenty of iguanas, so tame they had to be
shooed aside. We knew how ubiquitous these creatures were—back at
Academy Bay we had once counted twenty-one, sleeping on the porch of
Angermeyer’s house, while a couple more had sneaked into the living
room! In the shallow caves under the banks we flushed a mother goat and
twin babies, who reluctantly rose and made a token retreat until we
passed. When we got back to the dinghy, where the kid was tied up, we
found a large hawk had alighted on a branch just a few feet away. I
picked up a rock and tossed it at him. He shrugged. I tried again, this
time from a range of six feet, and hit the branch on which he was
sitting. He ruffled his feathers, gazing balefully at me. Then I went up
and pushed him off his perch with a stick, at which indignity he
squawked angrily and flew to another tree 50 feet away.
Buccaneer Bay is the site mentioned by Heyerdahl, of _Kon-Tiki_ fame, in
his monograph on the archaeology of the Galápagos, and it was our desire
to get a surface collection of pottery shards to take back to the Bishop
Museum in Honolulu. We got the collection, all right, and it was a fine
one—but it never got out to the _Phoenix_. While we had been busy
ashore, the surf had risen and was now breaking heavily. We loaded our
knapsack of shards into the dinghy but left guns, goat and kid for a
second trip. It was lucky we did, for our first attempt to launch the
dinghy resulted in our prompt capsizing. Before we managed to get the
boat and ourselves back to shore, we took a considerable beating and
finally crawled up onto the sand exhausted. The knapsack full of pottery
ended up on the bottom, as did my last pair of glasses—even though I had
worn them on a cord around my neck in approved fashion.
The oars were eventually washed within reach and, after tying them in
securely, we managed to get the boat launched. I kept it steady beyond
the breakers while Ted waded out with the kid held high above his head.
Before he was able to deposit it in the boat, a swell went over his head
and even the baby was dunked, momentarily. However, Ted kept his feet—as
well as his head—and soon we were on our way back to the _Phoenix_ where
the girls and Nick had been anxiously watching our activities through
binoculars. The girls promptly took charge of the soaked kid, while Ted
and I, this time with Nick following in the inflatable rubber lifeboat,
returned to fetch the rest of our belongings. By keeping the dinghy out
beyond the surf while we loaded goat and guns into the rubber boat and
hauled it out on a long line, we were able to get everything safely
aboard. We examined the beach several times during the evening and again
the next morning before we sailed, but the pottery—and my glasses—were
not returned from the sea.
The poor baby goat did not look long for this world. She spent the
night, more dead than alive, in a corner of the cockpit, wheezing and
gasping painfully for air. Barbara dribbled milk, with a few drops of
brandy added, between her reluctant jaws with a medicine dropper, but
very little seemed to go inside. We expected every moment to be her
last, but she survived the night—and the next—and the next. In fact, she
not only survived, but thrived, and eventually became (Skipper’s
version) a blamed nuisance as time went on, as well as (ladies’ version)
a novel and joyous little companion—named Goatie-Goat—for all of us on
our long trip to the Marquesas.
The kid and the cats were not our only livestock at this stage. Before
leaving Academy Bay we had taken aboard a living souvenir—and a family
heirloom-to-be—in the form of a young Galápagos tortoise. Jonathan
Junior, named after the venerable fellow who had supposedly hobnobbed
with Napoleon back on St. Helena, had become ours by virtue of barter:
six packages of instant powdered milk; one can of shortening; and two
bottles of hot pepper sauce, which was apparently the going rate in the
Ecuadorian settlement at Academy Bay. This, of course, was a
comparatively small specimen, measuring only ten inches across the shell
in each direction, but we had every confidence that a few hundred years
would make a noticeable difference. Incidentally, we obtained him quite
legally, as we had a permit, issued in Ecuador, which gave us the right
to take “two of every kind” of animal.
We had one more reluctant passenger who was stowed in the bilge. Fritz
and Carmen Angermeyer had returned from a successful sea turtle hunt
with enough meat to provide the entire colony on “Angermeyer Point” with
several good meals. When we left, they gave us not only a sizable hunk
of fresh turtle meat, but a specimen “on the hoof.” This green turtle
fitted neatly beneath the floor boards in a niche near the mainmast, and
there we carried him for quite a while, sloshing him down frequently
with a bucket of sea water, until we all felt the need for fresh
turtleburger.
We would gladly have spent much more time in these islands, but we had
been at sea for three and a half years and now the end was in sight.
After only one more stop—in the Marquesas—we would be closing the
circle. Soon, instead of the perpetual routine of “hello—good-bye” which
was one of the most difficult aspects of extended cruising, we would be
meeting old friends again. In Hawaii we would be able to relax a bit and
settle down for a while in familiar haunts while we overhauled our
faithful _Phoenix_. After a bit of rest we would undertake the last leg,
back to Hiroshima.
Only one thing remained before leaving the Galápagos—our rendezvous with
_Valinda_ in James Bay. On the morning of February 16, we got underway
early and rounded the point from Buccaneer Bay into James. It was empty.
We crossed to the south side and anchored, going ashore during the day
in two groups for exploration.
Throughout the day we kept an eye on the expanse of James Bay, expecting
at any moment to see the big power yacht appear. We had a stack of
letters ready to hand over and we felt more than a little put out when
darkness fell and it became apparent that _Valinda_ had not kept our
date. By noon the next day we reluctantly put away our envelopes full of
news, and started off for the next post office on our route—3,000 miles
away.
Out of fairness to her owner, this might be the place to tell what
happened to _Valinda_. Months later (while leafing idly through a back
issue of _Life_ magazine) we learned that _Valinda_ had been there to
meet us. She had reached James Bay the night before and anchored to wait
for us. Just at dawn, while we were all asleep aboard the _Phoenix_,
five miles away around the point, _Valinda_ had been boarded by
twenty-one escapees from the penal colony on the neighboring island,
Isabela. They had mutinied the night before, raided the arsenal, stolen
a couple of small boats, and by chance had come across _Valinda_ in the
course of their escape flight.
The convicts forced her to sail for Ecuador, a trip of sixty-three hours
under power. At Puna they took the ship’s boat and went ashore, leaving
the yacht to sail north to the Canal Zone, where they gave the alarm.
No wonder they had not been there to meet us, when we arrived in the bay
some four hours later! And as I read the account, even months after the
fact, I wondered what would have happened if it had been the _Phoenix_
rather than _Valinda_ that had reached the rendezvous first.
Entire books have been written about voyages far shorter than ours from
James Island to the Marquesas, but my own memory of the 26-day passage
is of quiet seas, light breezes, and peaceful company.
Once we had rounded the north end of Isabela and put tiny Redonda Rock
astern, we knew we would see no land for 3,000 miles, and the chances
were remote, in those empty waters, that we would see another ship. Yet
that one in a million chance did happen, at midnight on the sixth day
out. Ted, on watch, saw lights and called me. We put on our masthead
light and a large ship came close to hand. We exchanged signals and I
flashed our identity. Then the liner, in a wonderfully thrilling
gesture, turned on all its lights, including the system that outlined
the name of the ship—_City of Brisbane_—in enormous glowing letters.
Although we could only turn a flashlight on our sails in reply, the
moment was deeply heart-warming, as two ships that passed in the night
made brief contact across the dark sea.
This was the only even remotely exciting event of the trip. The weather
remained constant, the trade winds steady, and my notes in the log are
the briefest of our entire voyage. During our watches Ted and Jessica
took turns reading Melville’s _Typee_ aloud, and we all looked forward
to seeing Nuku Hiva and the beautiful Typee Valley (Taipi Vai), changed
though we knew it would be. In addition, we were longing for baths in
some isolated mountain stream, for we had had no fresh-water showers
since leaving the Canal Zone, water in the Galápagos being far too
precious for such indulgence.
By noon of March 14 we were just off the entrance to Taiohae Bay, on the
south coast. We took in our log line and started the engine—which quit
on us just at the entrance. With light and baffling airs coming down
from the surrounding mountains, we continued in under sail alone and, at
1415, dropped anchor in eight fathoms off the settlement at the foot of
the bay, with 3,193 miles logged in a refreshingly relaxed passage of
twenty-six days.
Taiohae Bay is a dream anchorage. Deeply indented into the coast,
cradled by high hills, it offers perfect safety, and with a sandy coast,
groves of palm trees, and scattered huts, a setting of unequaled charm.
Nuku Hiva itself is a perfect example of a high island in the South
Seas, than which nothing is more verdantly beautiful.
The French government maintains a small office here, so we went ashore
to present our credentials. All was quickly taken care of, and once we
had mailed our long-delayed letters we were free to explore at will. As
English-speaking visitors to the island have done for decades, we
gravitated to the unofficial clubhouse of the renowned trader, Bob
McKittrick, a Britisher who had jumped ship in the Marquesas some forty
years before and had never left. He operates a small store, but the
commodity for which his trading post is most famous is sociability. We
spent many hours on Bob’s front porch, swapping yarns with other
visitors or, better, listening to Bob’s own tales, of which he had an
endless store.
Also on the island were Bob and Rae Suggs—archaeologists on a field trip
out of Harvard, who had been working up in Taipi Vai and were now
waiting for their boat to go home. Bob, who spoke Marquesan, took me on
several trips into the surrounding bush, trying to buy examples of
Marquesan wood carving, for which the island is justly famous. However,
we found that the bitter laws of economics worked here as elsewhere.
Recently a visit had been made by a ship from the U.S. Fisheries
Division, and the crew had traded ship’s stores for wood carvings—at an
unrealistically inflated price which they could easily afford, since the
ship’s stores were paid for not by them but by the U.S. taxpayers.
Moreover, the ship had promised even more lavish “trade goods” on their
next trip. As a result, all the old carvings—bowls, tikis, turtles,
ornamental swords—were being saved up and new and hastily worked objects
were being turned out as fast as possible to await the return of these
extremely generous men off the Fisheries boat. My private pocketbook
could not begin to compete.
Ted, however, had better luck. With Nick he took a trip for twelve miles
over the mountains, carrying a knapsack filled with shirts and skirts.
In Tai Oa, a quite unfrequented spot, they spent a day with the chief
and his family and presented their gifts. Before they left, the son of
the chief gave Ted a splendidly carved wooden tiki, or little man, a bit
over a foot high. The wood was magnificent and the carving perfect. Ted
didn’t want to take it, as he had nothing of comparable value to give,
but the chief insisted, stuffing the tiki into the knapsack. In addition
he gave Nick a fine carved wooden knife.
On the day before departure we planned to motor around to the adjoining
valley, Taipi Vai, and spend the day in Melville’s Typee. Word of our
plans spread like magic and by the time we were ready to hoist anchor we
had seven or eight deck passengers, including a lovely young Marquesan
woman with two small children and a six-day-old infant. Since the
engine, in spite of several hours of tinkering, again quit on us, and as
I didn’t want to crowd our luck by trying to sail in, we reluctantly
abandoned the projected side trip. We off-loaded our passengers, and
with a smile and a wave they philosophically set out along the trail
which, after a good stiff walk, would eventually get them over the
mountains to Taipi Vai.
We left two of our passengers in Nuku Hiva. Goatie-Goat, who had been
growing rapidly and eying the charts hungrily, remained behind, the
proud possession of a Marquesan family. And we bequeathed Duchess, our
disdainful Spare Cat, to Bob McKittrick. During all her months at sea
she had never learned to adapt to us or to boat life but she took to
Bob—and his plethora of unwanted rats—at once.
We sailed on March 21. I estimated about twenty days for the trip and
made Jessica a half-promise that I would have her back in Hilo for her
fourteenth birthday, on April 12. I kept my promise but the trip,
contrary to our expectations, was in sharp contrast to the peaceful
passage to the Marquesas. The log is filled with notes on torn sails,
squalls, rain, and heavy seas. We started quietly enough, but after the
first week the going began to get heavy. On the seventh day we crossed
the equator for the sixth time and celebrated by catching a 47-inch
wahoo—a member of the mackerel family—rather an unusual event for us on
the high seas, although we usually trailed a line.
Two days later we lost another rotator from our taffrail log—about half
a dozen had been taken in all—and spent a couple of days without one
while I fashioned a spare from bits and pieces of several sets. The new
rotator, when I put it into the water, worked fine—but backwards—so that
our mileage on the dial registered in reverse. Far from being
discouraged, we all thought this provided an interesting challenge, and
Ted worked out tables which made it possible for us to record each day’s
distance even with a rotator subtracting the miles.
Day after day went by with passing squalls and heavy weather. A major
part of our spare time was taken up with sail mending. The truth is that
our sails had just about reached the end of the road and required
constant repair.
On the seventeenth day out I noted: “For the first time in ten days, a
nice day—trade wind type, fresh. An Easter present?”
The next day we set the clock on Hawaii time and the following night we
saw the loom of a light to port. The following morning we sighted Hilo
and headed in.
But we were not to finish the trip without a bit more work. The engine
had given up entirely and now the sails all went on strike at once.
First the foresail split, and while we had it down and were making
repairs, a rip appeared in the main. With so much canvas spread out
useless on the deck, we made little progress even before the wind
dropped almost to nothing. Drifting idly in full view of our
long-anticipated goal, we passed out the leather sailmaker’s palms, the
thread and beeswax and sail needles. As we set to work to sew our way
in, we were cheered by a brief glimpse of that majestic landmark, Mauna
Kea, which appeared for a moment between the clouds. Twice a Coast Guard
plane flew low over us, which Jessica interpreted as “Going back to get
the leis ready!” The Skipper, however, suggested that it was more likely
that they were going back to tattle about the rotten state of our sails.
And so we spent the morning shoving needles back and forth through the
heavy canvas and fighting down our impatience. By noon the job was done,
enough to get in. The sails were again hoisted, and the wind was up a
bit. With clearing weather and an arching rainbow lying low over the
cone of Mauna Kea, we entered the bay and rounded the breakwater, making
a neat two knots.
Two hours later we dropped anchor just off Kaulaiaiwi Island in almost
the exact spot where we had anchored when we first arrived in Hilo after
our hard beat around the Kona coast. With great solemnity Jessica filled
in the red ink-line that completed an erratic circle around the
inflatable globe which had been given her for her birthday in Lahaina
three years before. The _Phoenix_—and five of her original crew—had
completed a voyage around the world—Hilo, Hawaii, to Hilo, Hawaii.
Best of all, we had got ourselves into no trouble that we couldn’t get
out of by ourselves.
We shook hands rather solemnly all around, but I don’t recall any
particular sense of jubilation, only a sense of deep and abiding
satisfaction. As we had done in over a hundred other ports, we unlashed
the dinghy and put it over the side. When entry formalities had been
completed and we finally rowed over to the dock, again we found
representatives of the Hiroshima Ken Society waiting to welcome us. It
felt wonderfully familiar. Later we took a walk. The town looked just
the same. We wandered a block or so from the dock, to the little
Japanese market center where we had done much shopping before setting
out. In the fishing tackle store the same reels, lines, and hooks seemed
to be on display in the window; behind the counter sat the same Japanese
proprietor, his grin as friendly as ever. Nothing had changed.
“You on boat?” he asked.
“Yes, on _Phoenix_.”
“Ah—_Ho-O-Maru_,” he said, giving her Japanese name.
“That’s right!” We were surprised and flattered. “So you remember us!”
“_Sure_ I remember! You came here while ago.”
“That’s right!” _Quite_ a while ago, I thought: 2 years, 10 months, and
15 days.
“Say—” the proprietor said suddenly. “You folks say you gonna sail
rounda world.”
“That’s right,” I admitted, preening myself slightly.
“Okay. Why you no do it?” he said accusingly. “How come change ya mind?”
17 THE LAST LEG:
HONOLULU TO HIROSHIMA
“Of course, there were a couple of incidents.”
After a restful two weeks in Hilo, we moved on to Honolulu, stopping en
route for a week in one of our favorite spots, Lahaina. Here in Maui is
none of the frantic scrambling to be seen on the island of Oahu. In
Honolulu new buildings are rapidly cutting off the classical sight of
Diamond Head, while automobile fumes compete with the subtle fragrance
of mimosa. But on Maui—at least for the moment—there is leisure for rest
and contemplation.
I qualified that remark because plans are now afoot to make another
Waikiki out of a stretch of beach just outside of Lahaina, so the
present description may be a requiem.
We squeezed out of tiny Lahaina harbor about noon on May 1. Making the
sharp right-angle turn, we broke through the surf and crept under power
through the narrow channel against a head wind. It was a quick overnight
trip in fresh trades to Oahu, and by midnight we were once again laying
off Diamond Head, marveling at the lights and color. This time, however,
we were looking ashore at familiar landmarks and could identify the
myriad flashes and beams.
The next morning we entered the yacht harbor, and after a couple of
temporary tie-ups were assigned to a berth, where we began leisurely
preparations for our last long leg, to Hiroshima. The yacht harbor is
jammed with craft, almost all of which never have—or never could—go
outside. Unfortunately, most of the available harbor space on Oahu is in
Pearl Harbor, and not available to private yachts.
It was our plan to leave in about a month; it was not until almost two
years later that we were able to make the long haul back to Hiroshima.
The _Phoenix_ was not quite idle during this period—she sailed over
6,000 miles during 83 days at sea—but our sailing was of a different
nature than that of a casual family cruise and does not enter into this
account. In brief, we sailed into the Bikini nuclear bomb test area,
then to Kwajalein, in the Marshalls, and finally—without the Skipper and
Jessica aboard—back to Honolulu. But, as I say, that is another story
(told in _The Forbidden Voyage_).
On April 26, 1960, we set out again, ready in all ways for our long
passage across the Pacific to Japan. The weather was fair, the trades
generally moderate, and our hearts were eager to reach Hiroshima, which
we think of as home. Our route lay just north of one we had taken in
1958, to the forbidden zone near Bikini, but this time we were
unmolested, since the bomb tests had long since been concluded.
It was on the whole a quiet trip, although there were a couple of
incidents. Also, we did a lot of experimenting with the sails, partly
for the fun of it and partly because our sails were in such delicate
condition that ingenious adaptations were necessary. We very soon tried
the jib which Bill Huntington, of the _Golden Rule_, had given us, and
it worked fine. A little later we set up for the first time a spinnaker,
which we had bought secondhand in Honolulu. It also worked well, but we
were spoiled by long years of lazy cruising and just didn’t have the
racing man’s attitude. I’m afraid we never gave the spinnaker the
attention it deserved, and when it began to demand too much attention we
just took it down.
Log entries are meager during a fair-weather passage, and the entry on
the tenth day stands out prominently: “PHOENIX’S SIXTH BIRTHDAY!” A
couple of days later, we hit our first “bad” weather—a mild line squall.
Things were so quiet, in fact, that one morning I took a nap and
officially made Jessica the Captain—for a period of two hours. She
promptly took over the keeping of the log book, and her entries follow:
0700 Cap’n Blob takes over command.
0730 Cook mutinies, refuses to get out of bed.
0825 Wind from more or less aft.
0845 Former Cap’n refuses to do dishes. Ruled guilty by Majority of
One, will be thrown in irons, if any available.
0900 Took morning shot. Presiding Cap’n goofed.
0931 Cap’n turns over all responsibility to Skipper, and resigns from
active (or inactive) duty. Sigh.
One more entry:
1700 DATE LINE crossed. (Beep, beep! J.)
So we lost May 11 out of our lives. That night we saw what must be a
very rare sight, a “moonbow.” A full moon aft and a shower forward
combined to produce this phenomenon, with actual rainbow colors quite
visible.
Of course, as was the case all around the world, we had a Cat and Spare
Cat on board—Nos. 34 and 35, I believe, although I’m quite sure Jessica,
who kept complete pedigrees, has accurate statistics in this department.
Anyway, our present Ship’s Cat was named Daimyo—so called from the early
feudal Japanese lord whose distinguishing characteristic was an
overbearingly haughty attitude. Daimyo had one trick, and one only, but
he worked it into the ground. He had learned to ring the ship’s bell
when he wanted something—and he usually wanted something. In order to
get a little peace, it was necessary to muffle the bell at night. A
_very_ early-morning log entry on several days indicates that I
forgot—and paid the penalty by being awakened by Daimyo’s ringing for
his breakfast.
On the night of our twenty-first day out we could see the navigation
light on Wake to the north and began to think about edging up to the
northwest, on a slant toward Japan. We did so, and a week later I made
this sad note: “Good-bye, Trades!”—to which Jessica added in written
baby talk: “Sank oo for free sousan’ miles!”
But we were not to reach Japan unscathed. Typhoon No. 2 (they are
numbered anew each season) was churning up from the Philippines, and as
we plotted its path through daily weather broadcasts we liked the
situation less and less. My entry of June 1:
36 days out. About 430 miles SE of Hachijo-shima. Sudden shift of wind
to N. Present course likely to take us right _into_ Typhoon No. 2.
Decided to take down main and heave to. Only mizzen up, tiller lashed.
Breeze freshening, barometer dropping, rain ...
Squalls increasing in size and frequency. Riding well.... Winds very
strong.... Heavy confused seas.
By the next day No. 2 had passed in front of us, about a hundred miles
ahead, and the weather was rapidly improving. Winds at the center of the
typhoon were force 12—hurricane. Glad we weren’t in them—we had our
hands quite full enough where we were.
Incidentally, leaving the mizzen up was a mistake—it was blown to
ribbons, and this isn’t a figure of speech; nothing was left of it but
thin strips of frayed canvas, cracking like whips in the wind.
That didn’t bother us. We were on the home stretch now and could almost
smell the land. We broke out our _topsail_—Nick’s idea—rigged it upside
down in place of the mizzen, and carried on. Only two thirds of the
original area, and it looked rather lubberly, but the yacht club critics
don’t get this far out, so it passed without comment. The important
thing was, it worked.
One day after the typhoon had passed the wind was down to “light
variables, with no visible progress.” This is what keeps sailing from
being boring.
The next day we had a visitor: “Large whale has been playing tag with us
for last half hour, swimming along just in front of our course. Saw him
40–50 times.”
And on June 8, forty-three days out, we had our last “incident”:
0955. Buzzed 3 times by U. S. Navy plane. Very low and close, once
knocking wind out of our sails.
No comment. Wait, I do have a comment. You have been at sea in a small
boat for over six weeks. During that time you have seen nothing but the
sea and the sky. Suddenly you hear a distant ominous roar, mounting in
volume. You look aft, and see a dark projectile overtaking you at
fantastic speed. It roars past you in a horrible crescendo of sound,
seeming to miss the mainmast by inches. The sails flap in the turbulence
caused by the sudden passing. The crew, startled out of their
somnolence, rush on deck. Before you can explain, they see for
themselves: again the plane dives at you, this time from forward. Almost
touching the waves, it passes just to starboard, lower than the mast,
banks sharply, and returns for a third pass, the closest of all. Then it
rises and rapidly dwindles to a speck and disappears to the northwest.
You have just been “buzzed” and your peaceful voyage is over. You are
back among men.
That afternoon we sighted land to starboard, long, low, and hazy. That
night we saw Nojima light, and by the next day we had felt our way
through a dense fog into Yokohama harbor. The weather reports were
warning of the imminent arrival of Typhoon No. 3. We decided to ride
this one out at anchor.
The fog lifted as we entered the harbor and we were met by a boatload of
Japanese reporters, so many we could hardly get them all on board. We
stopped near the outer breakwater in order to give them pictures and
stories. I was still ruffled by the buzzing incident, but I said nothing
about it, knowing it might be played up disproportionately. However,
later I wrote the navy in Yokosuka, asking them what gave with buzzing
small ships like that. Of course, I got no answer, but several months
later, while talking to an ex-navy man, he told me that it was “standard
procedure” to use small fishing boats as targets for buzzing practice.
This time definitely No Comment!
Our stay in Yokohama was extended one week beyond our planned schedule,
for reasons which I will merely enumerate: (a) Typhoon No. 3. (b)
Typhoon No. 4, which we rode out at an anchorage near the yacht club (we
drew too much water to go into the club anchorage). For thirty-six hours
we couldn’t get off the boat. (c) A berth up the river, where we
promptly grounded and lay on our side for six hours at low tide. (d) A
new berth at Dock 9, under construction, complete with dynamite blasts
at irregular and nerve-shattering intervals. (e) Broken bowsprit, after
being rammed by harbor boat, while we were sitting at the dock minding
our own business. Consequence—had to make a new bowsprit—quite a job.
However, we finally got away, after signing a waiver of liability and
obtaining a Permit to Cruise, which permitted us to poke our bow into
any place we wanted to.
We left Yokohama on June 23. I don’t know if any other foreign yacht has
ever made the coastal passage from Yokohama to Hiroshima or thereabouts;
I’ve never heard of any. However, for the convenience of yachtsmen who
might come this way, I list briefly the thirteen ports we touched at, in
the course of our 700-mile trip covering nineteen sailing days:
Hashirimizu, Self-Defense Force anchorage.
Aburatsubo, wonderfully hidden little spot.
Shimoda, big port, tied alongside Coast Guard boat.
Omae-zaki, small village, with breakwater.
Toba, town, tied alongside Coast Guard boat.
Katsuura, summer resort, good anchorage, many spas.
Wakayama, big city, much water activity, yacht club.
Sumoto, on Awaji Island, fishing village, small.
Takamatsu, on Shikoku, which you know.
Kinoura, bay, village.
Kurohama, lovely bay, small village, beautiful spot.
Eta-uchi, near Hiroshima, where we rode out Typhoon June in 1954.
The Japanese maritime agencies were very kind to us all the way down.
Obviously we were expected wherever we went, the word being passed along
in advance. We rounded Shionomisaki, the “Cape Horn” of Honshu, on July
11, without incident, and headed northward toward the Inland Sea.
This time, however, we did not tackle Naruto Straits, but sailed on past
Kobe and Osaka, then westward to Takamatsu.
At Awaji-shima, we paused for a day or so in the tiny fishing harbor of
Sumoto, while I took a flying trip (courtesy Japan Air Lines) back to
Tokyo, to participate in a very popular nationally televised show,
called “I Know a Secret.” I was the Secret of the Week—for about thirty
seconds. The expert panel guessed my identity without asking a question,
so we spent the rest of the time chatting about our trip around the
world, using big maps which had been prepared at the studio in advance.
Then back to Sumoto and on into the Inland Sea.
In Takamatsu, where we of course had many friends, we were given a berth
at the Coast Guard docks. The yacht club gave us a fine party, at which
we were presented with a lovely plaque. Also, as we had promised long
before, we paid a return visit to Kompira-san. Following the custom, we
took along tangible evidence of the dangers of the sea from which we had
escaped, and added our old broken bowsprit—suitably decorated and
identified—to the temple museum.
At this time we were approached by the Committee of Welcome from
Hiroshima, who asked us to give them the date and time of our arrival in
Hiroshima. I was a bit nonplused at first and then thought that, if the
Johnsons in _Yankee_ could set up a schedule of this nature, so could I.
I told them we would be in Hiroshima between 1400 and 1500 on the
afternoon of July 30. Now all we had to do was get there on time.
After five days in Takamatsu we sailed through Naka Passage, of
Kurushima Straits, hitting it (by design) just as the tide turned fair.
At any other time we wouldn’t be able to get through. Now we were back
in familiar waters, and our last two anchorages—Kurohama and
Eta-uchi—were old friends.
All in all, it was a rather enjoyable trip down, but I had my fingers
crossed, especially after committing ourselves as to an arrival date. I
tried not to let down my guard, lest some yacht-hating demon deal me a
nasty blow—and one almost did. Almost the last entry in the log says:
1122 _Petrolene_, Monrovia, a big oil tanker, changed course abruptly
to SB at No. 1 Buoy, cut across the ship channel, and almost ran us
down. Had to change course 90° to avoid collision. Vented my spleen by
blowing my horn vigorously—which was answered by happy waving from up
above, on the bridge.
On the morning of June 30, 1960, after a night in our old typhoon refuge
of Eta-uchi, we set out for Hiroshima, giving ourselves plenty of time.
Within an hour the first snipe from the Hiroshima Yacht Club had reached
us and soon we were the middle of a flotilla. At exactly 1425 we tied up
at our old dock in Ujina, the port of Hiroshima. The UPI reported:
HIROSHIMA WELCOMES REYNOLDS
Hiroshima, Japan, Aug. 1 (UPI)—Dr. Earle L. Reynolds, an American
anthropologist, who left here six years ago on a round-the-world yacht
cruise....
BIG EVENT
The yacht returned Saturday with Dr. Reynolds and the same crew that
left Hiroshima’s Ujina port six years ago. His return was a big event
here.
To welcome the “homecoming” of the American, more than 30 yachts of
the Hiroshima University and a score of motorboats sailed out of the
harbor to meet the _Phoenix_ and escorted it to the pier.
To add color to the welcome there was a display of fireworks and
multicolored balloons.
On the pier Dr. Reynolds was greeted by a crowd of Hiroshima citizens.
Later he was honored at a welcome back party at the Hiroshima Maritime
Safety Board.
I don’t recall any score of motorboats, and you know about the crew
situation—but there really was quite a bustle, and we couldn’t have
asked for a happier homecoming because that’s what it was to us—we had
come home to Hiroshima.
The next day there was a formal welcoming banquet, with Governor Ohara,
the honorary president of the Phoenix Supporters’ Association, as
toastmaster. We were given a very beautiful cup—a mounted replica of the
world, in gleaming black, with our track picked out in golden thread and
the details of our voyage inscribed in Japanese on the base.
For those who like figures, here they are: we visited 122 ports, spent
649 days at sea, and sailed 54,359 sea miles (about 62,500 land miles)
to make good a direct track of 45,516 sea miles (about 52,300 land
miles). We had been away for 5 years, 9 months, and 26 days.
One might think that was enough, but soon after that we sailed to
Russia ... but that’s still _another_ story!
INDEX
Aburatsubo, Japan, 302
Academy Bay, Santa Cruz, 281, 283–85, 286, 287, 289
Aitutaki, 104
Albatrosses, 116–17
American Yachtsmen’s Association, 66, 254
Angermeyer, Carmen, 289
Angermeyer, Carl, 281, 287
Angermeyer, Fritz, 289
Angermeyer, Marga, 281, 282, 283, 285, 287
Annapolis, 255
Antigua, 240
Antioch College, 2, 254
Appavou, M., 198
Arafura Sea, 155
Argod, Robert, 84
_Arthur Rogers_ (ship), 287
Aru (island), 156
Ascension, 228–29
Atherton tablelands (Australia), 144
Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, 3, 5, 35, 134, 257, 258
Auckland, New Zealand, 119, 120–25, 128
Australia, 100, 130–32, 133–46
Avarua, Cook Islands, 101
Awaji-shima, 302
Bahamas, 258–59
Balboa, Canal Zone, 272
Balboa Yacht Club, 272
Bali, 161, 164–68, 169–77
Baltra (island), 284
Bandung Strait, 166
Barbados, 229, 235, 236–37
Barranjoey Light, 130
Barrett, Jim, 269, 270, 272
Bartholomew Island, 287
Bartlett, Chris, 189–90
Bartlett, Mrs. Chris, 193
Batavia, 180
Bathurst Island, 156
Bay of Islands, 118
Belcourt, Christian, 194
Belém, Brazil, 221, 229, 230, 232–35
Benoa, Bali, 164, 166, 167, 174
Bewick Island, 147
Big Joe, 96–97, 98
Bikini nuclear bomb test area, 298
Black Beach, Santa María, 280
Blackfish, 76
Blassingame, Lurton, 248
Bonaparte, Napoleon, _see_ Napoleon
Bora Bora, 87, 94–99, 107, 141
Brazil, 221–22, 225, 229–35
British Commonwealth Occupation Forces salvage depot, 11, 78
British Samoa, 109
Brotherson, Charles, 93, 94
Browning, quoted, 3
Buccaneer Bay, 288, 289
Cairns, Australia, 141–46
Callander, Peter, 128, 129–30
Canal Zone, 265–66, 267–73, 290
Cape Agulhas, 215
Cape of Good Hope, 214
Cape Peninsula, 215
Cape Solomon, 237
Cape Town, South Africa, 148, 149, 214, 215–23, 225
Cape York peninsula, 151
Carpentaria Light Boat, 155
Carr family, 273
Carstarphen family, 242
Catley, Vice-Commodore, 126
Ceram (island), 156
Champion, Buz, 93
Champion, June, 93
Charles (island), 279
Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas, 242–43
Chavez (island), 276
Chesapeake Bay, 254, 255
Chico (guide), 277–79
Christchurch, New Zealand, 126
Christmas Island, 201
Christopher, Rev. Raymond, 36
City Island, 250
_City of Brisbane_ (ship), 291
Clark, Joan, 244, 254
_Cle du Sol_ (yacht), 284
Clunies-Ross family, 189, 191–92
Cobos, Mrs. Karin, 276–79
Cocos Islands, _see_ Keeling-Cocos Islands
Collins, Al, 70
Collins, Verity, 70
Colón, Panama, 269–70
Columbus, Christopher, 54
Connecticut, 250–51
Cook, Captain James, 71, 129, 146, 147
Cook Islands, 83, 100–3
Cook Strait, 125, 126, 128
Cooktown, Australia, 146–47
_Cora_ (ship), 154
Cristobal, Canal Zone, 269
Daimyo (cat), 299
Damar (island), 156
Darwin, Charles, 276
Davis, Clare, 134, 138–40, 143–44
De Plessis, Mr., 219–20
Den Pasar, Bali, 167, 169, 171
Diamond Head, 59, 297
Diamond Rock, 237
Dicker, Mr., 161, 164
Direction Island, 189, 191, 192
Dominica, 238–40
Dorn family, 250–51
_Drum_ (African magazine), 218
Duchess (cat), 293
Durban, South Africa, 204–5, 208, 212–13, 214
East Flats, 267
East Kauai Hiroshima Ken Association, 69
East River, 250
Easter Island, 287
Ecuador, 273, 279, 282, 284, 289, 290
Eisenhower, Dwight D., 249–50
_Eishin Maru_ (ship), 269, 270
Ellis Channel, 149
English Harbor, Antigua, 240–41
Eta Jima (island), 26
Eta-uchi, Japan, 302, 303, 304
Exton, Carol, 134
_Fairweather_ (yacht), 262
Falla, Dr., 127
Fare, Huahiné, 87–88, 93
Fels Research Institute, 2, 254
Fernando de Noronha, 230
Fetherston, Captain, 271
Fiji Islands, 109, 111–14, 115, 119
Five Mile River, 251
Flattypus (dinghy), 136, 139, 158, 159, 164, 218, 226
_Fleur d’Océan_ (ship), 84
Floreana (island), 279
Foley, Larry, 236–37, 240
Fort, Mr., 105
Fort de France, Martinique, 237, 238
Fortaleza, Brazil, 230–32
Freshwater Falls, 275
Fushima, Motosada (Moto), 25, 34, 41, 48, 50, 51, 53, 59, 64, 65, 66,
68, 69, 71, 75, 78, 79, 83, 95, 103, 104, 112–13, 117, 121, 142,
148, 160, 164, 180, 202, 203, 204, 208–11, 213, 216, 217, 223, 230,
232, 233, 248, 251, 252–57, 262–64, 268–70
Galápagos, 272, 273, 275–85, 290, 291
Gatun Lake, 269, 271
Geering, Bill, 200–1
_Gempylus_, 77–78, 127
Georgetown, Ascension, 229
Glass, Cap’n, 71
Gloster, Hugh, 255
_Golden Rule_ (ship), 298
_Grand Slam_ (cruiser), 250
Great Amazon Bight, 235
Great Barrier Reef, 134, 137, 138, 140, 147–150
Great Bridge, 256
Great Inagua, 260
Great Palm Island, 140–41
Guadeloupe, 240
Haapu, Huahiné, 89–93
Hachijo-shima, 41, 44–45
Haleakala (volcano), 70
Hampton, Virginia, 255–56
Hannah Island, 147
Harford, Sir James, 227
Harford, Lady, 227
Harima Nada, 37
Harris, Marjorie, 176–77, 180, 181
Harris, Mike, 177, 180, 181
Harris, Susan, 177, 181, 183
Hashirimizu, Japan, 302
Hatoyama, Mr., 67
_Havfruen_ (ship), 273
Hawaii National Park, 72
Hawaii Yacht Club, 66, 67
Hawaiian Islands, 57, 61–73, 290, 294–96, 297–98
Hazlehurst, Dr. George, 35
Heyerdahl, 288
Hilo, Hawaii, 71–73, 293–96, 297
Hiroshima, Japan, 2, 3, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, 64, 249, 258, 298, 302–4
Hiroshima Ken Society, 64, 67, 71, 295
Hiroshima University Yacht Club, 5, 15, 30, 304
Hiroshima Wan, 3
Hluhluwe Game Reserve, 213
Hobson’s Choice (Hobby; cat), 223, 225
Hokkaido, Japan, 27
_Hollywood_ (freighter), 190
Holy Child Current, 274
Home Island, 189, 192
Honolulu, Hawaii, 23, 28, 38, 50, 53, 57–59, 61–68, 70, 113, 288,
297–98
Horneman family, 283–84
Horseshoe Shoals, 255
Huahiné, 87–93
Hudson River, 248
Huntington, Bill, 298
_Inca_ (ship), 287
Indefatigable (island), 276
Indian Creek, 255
Indian Ocean, 182, 183, 190, 201
Indonesia, 134, 135–36, 165, 170, 176, 180–83
Inland Sea of Japan, 1, 2, 3, 28, 31, 32, 34, 36, 39, 63, 302, 303
_Inspire_ (trawler), 102
_Isabela_ (ship), 290, 291
Islands Under the Wind, 83, 93
Itsukushima, 30
“Jacob’s Ladder” (St. Helena), 228
Jakarta, Indonesia, 135, 158, 176–80, 181–83
Jamaica, 258, 262–65
Jamestown, St. Helena, 226–28
Japerica Island, 232
James Bay, 285, 290
James Island, 285, 287, 291
Japan, _see_ names of cities and towns
Japanese current, 38
Java, 135, 171, 177, 181
Java Sea, 177
_Jeanne Mathilde_ (yacht), 199
Jenkinson, Sir Anthony, 262, 263, 264
Jenkinson, Lady, 262
Johannesburg, South Africa, 208
Johnson, Irving, 281, 303
_Joyita_ (ship), 110, 115–16, 119
Kartakusuma, Dr. Angsar Muhamad M., 175–76
Kastdalen family, 282–83
Katsuura, Japan, 302
Kauai, 68–69
Kauai Yacht Club, 69
Kaulaiaiwi Island, 295
Kawau Island, 119
Kawau Yacht Club, 119
Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii, 71
Keegan family, 192
Keeling-Cocos Islands, 183–85, 188, 189, 191, 195, 201
Kii Suido, 39
King, “Rex,” 200
Kingsley family (Timor), 160–61, 163
Kingston, Jamaica, 262–64
Kinoura, Japan, 302
Kobe, Japan, 23, 25, 302
Kompira-san, 34, 303
_Kongstank_ (tanker), 215
_Kon-Tiki_, 77, 288
Koro Sea, 111
Kotohira, Japan, 34
Krakatoa (volcano), 183
Kruger National Park, 207, 213
Kupang, Timor, 156, 157–65
Kure, Japan, 11, 23, 78, 134
Kurohama, Japan, 302, 303
Kurushima Straits, 303
Kwajalein, 298
Lahaina, Hawaii, 71, 297
Lardi, Mr., 190
Lauli’i, Samoa, 105–8
Lawler, Jim, 120
Leonard, Minnetta, 36, 169, 171, 174–77, 180, 181, 224, 251
Lidgard, Irene, 119
Lidgard, Roy, 119
_Life_ magazine, 290
Linderman (island), 140
Lion, the, 215
_Little Bear_ (ship), 93
Lizard Island, 147
Lombok Strait, 166, 177
Long Bay (St. Thomas), 242
Long Island Sound, 250, 253
Longwood, St. Helena, 228
Lord Howe Island, 130, 135
Lourenço Marques, 208
Lowe, Governor, 104
Madagascar, 203
Madison, Wisconsin, 251
Makapuu Light, 59
Malpelo Island, 274
Manuia (cat), 155, 178, 187, 202, 223–24
_Marie Thérèse II_ (yacht), 200
Marlborough, Duke of, 118
Marquesas, 272, 273, 289, 290, 291–93
Marshall Islands, 298
Martinique, 237
Marugame, 38
Matahiva, 78
Mathew Town, Great Inagua, 260
Mathurin, Rodrigues, 194, 196
Maui, 70
Mauna Kea, 294, 295
Mauritius, 194–202
_Mauritius_ (supply ship), 195, 196, 197
Mayaguana Island, 258–60
_Mayflower_ (ship), 54
McKittrick, Bob, 292, 293
McQueen, Bill, 126
Melbourne, Australia, 134
Melville, Herman, 291
Melville Island, 156
Mickey, _see_ Suemitsu, Mitsugi
Middle Island, 139
Midway Island, 52
Mikami, Niichi (Nick), 5, 6, 15, 17, 23–24, 25, 26, 34, 41, 45, 46, 49,
50, 52, 53, 59, 65, 66, 69, 75, 77, 79, 83, 87, 90, 92, 95, 100–1,
103, 104, 112–13, 117, 120–21, 142, 145, 160, 180, 187, 202, 204,
205, 208–11, 213, 216, 223, 231, 232, 233, 248, 251, 254–56, 261–65,
274, 276, 277, 288, 293, 300
Mi-ke (cat), 18, 30, 42, 48, 54, 58, 62, 85, 127, 155
Misol (island), 156
Mississippi, 218
Mitarai, Japan, 32
Miya Jima (island), 1, 5, 30
Miyake-shima, 45
Moitessier, Bernard, 200
Molokai Channel, 59
Moller, Christine, 212
Moller, Lindsay, 211, 213
Moller, Vicky, 212
_Mollihawk_ (yacht), 241
Moto, _see_ Fushima, Motosada
Molokai, 38, 57, 59
Montauk Point, 253
Montserrat, 240
Moody Reef, 149
Mooréa (island), 86–87
Morehead City, North Carolina, 256–58
Mosher, Phil, 104
Nagasaki, Japan, 3, 258
Naka Passage, 303
Napoleon, 226, 228, 289
Napoopoo, Hawaii, 71
Naruto Straits, 37, 39
National Academy of Sciences, 2, 257
Nawiliwili, Kauai, 69
Ndonoe, Mr., 159–60, 164, 165
_Nellie Brush_ (ship), 287
Nelson, Art, 68
Nelson, Horatio, 240, 241, 265
Nevill, G., 102
New Guinea, 156
New South Wales, Australia, 138
New York City, New York, 243, 247–50
New Zealand, 100, 111, 117–28
_Ngaroma_ (ship), 120
Nicholson family, 241
Nick, _see_ Mikami, Niichi
“Night Beat” (TV program), 248–50
Night Island, 147
_Nippon Maru_ (ship), 42
Niuafoo (island), 110
Nojima light, 301
Norfolk Channel, 256
North Head, 130
North Keeling Island, 187
Nuku Hiva, 291, 292, 293
Oahu, 70
Ohara, Governor, 65, 304
Ohara Company, 23
Omae-zaki, Japan, 302
Osaka, Japan, 23, 302
Oxford, 255
Pachernegg, Joe, 284
Packer, Mr., 133
Pago Pago, 104–5, 109–10
Paipai Pass, 94
Panama, 272
Panama Canal, 265–66, 267–73, 284
Panama Canal Yacht Club, 268
Panama City, Panama, 272
Papeete, Tahiti, 73, 80, 81–86, 95, 96 98
Papetoai Bay, Mooréa, 86
Pará River, 230, 232, 233
Paton, Alan, 220
Pearl Harbor, 59, 298
Pele (volcanic goddess), 72
Percy Islands, 139
Pern, St. de Jean, 202, 203–4
Petite, Mlle., 237–38
Phelps, Bill, 254
Phelps, Bob, 254
Philip, Prince, 227
Philippines, 165
Philipsburg, St. Martin, 241
_Phoenix_, the
building of, 4–16
designing of, 3–4
launching of, 1–2, 14–15, 17–19
naming of, 12–13
Pidgeon, 148
Pine Inlet, 139
Plaza Islands, 286
Pooley, Alan, 70
Port Louis, Mauritius, 197, 198, 200
Port Mathurin, Rodrigues, 194, 196
Port Royal, Jamaica, 262, 264–65
Port Royal Beach Club, 262
Portsmouth, Dominica, 239
Post Office Bay (Santa María), 279–80
Potter, Governor, 269, 273
Pretoria, South Africa, 208, 213
_President Wilson_ (ship), 29
Progreso (Galápagos), 276–77, 279
Puckapunyal, Australia, 134
Puerto Chico (Galápagos), 276, 279
Puna, Ecuador, 290
Queensland, Australia, 140
Raïatéa, 87, 93, 94, 96
Rarotonga, Cook Island, 83, 100–3, 106
Redonda Rock, 291
Reedy Point, Delaware, 254
Reynolds, Barbara (wife), 2, 12, 15–18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 30, 31, 34–36,
40, 42–43, 47–49, 51–55, 61–63, 67, 68, 70–73, 77, 78, 80, 82, 89,
91, 96, 97, 102–9, 113, 117, 122, 128, 132, 134–37, 139, 140,
146–48, 152, 157–59, 161–62, 165–66, 169–71, 174–77, 180, 181,
183–87, 195, 196, 198, 199, 202, 205–6, 208, 213, 214, 216, 222–24,
225–27, 233–39, 241, 242, 244–46, 248–51, 253, 259, 263, 265, 268,
274–79, 283, 288–89
Reynolds, Jessica (daughter), 2, 3, 8, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 24–25, 26,
28, 29, 33, 34, 36, 42, 43, 48, 49, 54–55, 67, 70, 71, 76, 77, 78,
87, 90, 94, 96, 97, 105–08, 112, 113, 116, 122, 124, 127, 131,
134–35, 138–39, 142, 148, 150, 152, 153, 155–59, 161, 166, 173–78,
180, 181, 183, 187, 190, 194, 199, 201, 202, 209, 212, 213, 216,
222–24, 225–28, 233–34, 239, 240–41, 243–44, 248, 251, 255, 262–63,
265, 281, 283–84, 288, 291, 293–95, 298, 299
Reynolds, Ted (son), 2, 3, 15, 17, 20, 21, 24–25, 27–28, 32, 33, 35–36,
38, 41, 43, 45, 51, 59, 68, 70–72, 74, 75, 79, 87, 89, 101, 105,
117–18, 124, 126, 127, 128, 130, 132, 134, 145–48, 154, 158–59,
161–63, 166, 171, 174, 177, 179, 181–84, 187, 194, 196, 199, 213,
214, 224, 226, 233, 235, 238, 239, 248, 251, 252–54, 263, 265, 269,
274–76, 281, 283–84, 287, 288, 291, 293, 294
Reynolds, Tim (son), 3, 15, 248, 251
Robinson, William, 83–84, 278, 287
Rodrigues, 184, 188, 193, 194–97, 201
Roseau, Dominica, 238–39
Rosebank (Quarantine Station), 247–48
Rouchecouste, Claude, 194, 196
Rouchecouste, Mme. Claude, 194, 196
Rousset, Jacques, 199–200
Rowayton, Connecticut, 251, 252–53
Royal Cape Yacht Club, 216, 218
Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club, 126
Royal Suva Yacht Club, 111, 112
Rushcutter’s Bay, 132, 133
Russell, New Zealand, 118–20
Russia, 305
St. Helena, 224, 226–28, 289
St. James Bay (St. Helena), 226
St. Lucia, 237
St. Martin, 241
St. Thomas, 242–43
Saint-Pierre (Martinique), 237
Sakala, 156
Salinas, Brazil, 232, 236
Samoa, 83, 104–9
San Cristóbal, Galápagos, 273, 275, 279
Sanford, Francis, 94
Sanford, Lysa, 94–95, 98
Santa Cruz (island), 276, 279, 281–83, 286
Santa María (island), 279–80, 283
_Santa Olivia_ (freighter), 270, 271
São Paulo, Brazil, 221
Sargasso Sea, 244
Sassafras River, Maryland, 254
_Saturday Evening Post_, 139
Scotland Light, 246
Sermata (island), 156
Seven Seas Cruising Association, 66, 242
_Shellback_ (ship), 242
Sherwood, Bill, 115, 117–18, 119
Shionomisaki, 302
Signal Hill (St. Helena), 228
Sinclair, Bill, 213
Slocum, Joshua, 2, 143, 147, 149, 235
Society Islands, 45, 94, 97, 106
Solomon Island, 255
South Africa, 202, 207–24
South Island, 123, 126, 128
South Point, 71
_Spray_ (ship), 2, 147, 149
Sprite Island Yacht Club, 250
Staten Island, 246
Statue of Liberty, 248
Stuyvesant Yacht Club, 250
Suemitsu, Mitsugi (Mickey), 25, 32, 34, 47–48, 50–53, 58, 59, 65, 66,
67, 69, 75, 78, 79, 83, 95, 103, 104, 111, 112–13, 115, 117, 121,
128–29, 144–45, 156, 160, 180, 188, 202, 204, 208–11, 216, 223, 224,
232, 233, 248, 251–57, 260–64, 268–70
Suggs, Bob, 292
Suggs, Rae, 292
Sukarno, Achmed, 182
Sullivan Bay, 287
_Sulu_ (ship), 214–15
Sumoto, Japan, 302, 303
Sunda Strait, 183
_Sunrise_ (yacht), 285
Suva, Fiji Islands, 110, 111–13
Suwandi, Igusti Rai, 171–73, 175
_Svaap_ (ship), 83
Sydney, Australia, 115, 129–32, 133–37
Sydney _Telegraph_, 133
Table Mountain, 215, 216
Tahaa, 87, 93–94
Tahaa reef, 94
Tahiti, 72, 78–80, 81–86, 106
_Tahiti_ (ketch), 81
Tai Oa, Marquesas, 293
Taiohae, 291–92
Taipi Vai, Marquesas, 291, 292, 293
Takamatsu, Japan, 33, 36, 302, 303
Takemura, Mr., 5, 6, 7, 15, 17–18, 23–24, 25, 27, 35, 41, 63
Tanimbar (island), 156
Tanjung Priok, 180
Tasman Sea, 125, 128–31
Tau Island, 104
_Te Vega_ (schooner), 81
Telok Bay, 156
Tetiaroa, 78, 79
_Thunderbird_ (ship), 287
Thursday Island, 146, 149, 151–54
Timor (island), 136, 157–63
“Tin Can Island,” 110
Toba, Japan, 302
Tokyo, Japan, 303
Tomkies, Commodore, 126
Torres Strait, 151
Torstenson, Captain, 271
Townsville, Australia, 140
Trowbridge, Jerry, 272
Trowbridge, Marie, 272
Twelve Apostles, The, 215
_Typee_ (Melville), 291
Typhoons, 26–27, 37, 300, 301
Ujina, Japan, 304
Uturoa, 93, 141
_Valinda_ (yacht), 285, 287, 290
Venus Point light, 79
Virgin Islands, 242–43
Viti Levu, 111
Wailangi Lala Island light, 110–11
_Waitaki_ (freighter), 130
Wakayama, Japan, 302
Wake Island, 299
Washington, D. C., 255, 257
Watson Bay, 131
Watubela (island), 156
Weary Bay, 128
Wellington, New Zealand, 115, 126–28
Wells, Dr. Warner, 257
West Island, 189, 190–91
West Kauai Hiroshima Ken Association, 69
White, Claude, 139
White, Percy, 139
_White Seal_ (ship), 273
Whitehall Creek, 254
Whittle, Jean, 212
Whittle, Jimmy, 212
Wightman, Frank, 230
_Windjammer_ (ship), 287
Windward Passage, 258, 260
Wingate, John, 249
Witmer family, 280, 283
Wreck Bay, 273, 275, 276, 279
_Wylo_ (ship), 230
Yamada, Mr., 12–13
_Yankee_ (brigantine), 281, 287, 303
Yasuda, Mr., 5, 6, 7–8, 14–15
Yellow Springs, Ohio, 234, 269
Yokohama, Japan, 23, 301–02
Yotsuda, Mr., 1–2, 5–9, 11, 13–14, 15, 19, 21, 32, 68–70
Zululand, 213
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Page Changed from Changed to
292 of the bay, with 3,193 logged in of the bay, with 3,193 miles
a refreshingly relaxed passage logged in a refreshingly relaxed
passage
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74535 ***