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.