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.