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.