16 BACK TO HAWAII
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?”