H HI HI MBBE HHHHHi ■ . ■ BHBH mm ran H HI H THE CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS . . And then the delectable 28-foot Hippocampus sailed into my life — *' and down to Panama THE CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS BY ALFRED F. LOOMIS ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1922 Copyright, 1922, by The Century Co. Copyright, 1921, 1922, by The International Magazine Company, (Motor Boating) PRINTED IN V. 8. A. AUG 24 1922 ©CI.A681505 To P. L. CONTENTS PAGM I The Preliminary Hardships 3 II Hippocampus Sees It Through .... 22 III Head Wind and Showers of Rain ... 44 IV Misfortune Overtakes Us 66 V We Touch Foreign Soil 92 VI Such Things as Waterspouts 112 VII Beating Up to Windward 136 VIII Divers Experiences . . . . . . .159 IX Rolling Down to Colon 185 X The Journey's End ........ 212 XI Concluding Thoughts on Sailing . . . 233 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ". . . And then the delectable 28-foot Hippocampus sailed into my life — " and down to Panama Frontispiece FACING PAGE Thanks to the camera's habitual generosity, the cabin of the Hippo looks even larger than it is . . . 16 In the days antecedent to launching the yawl the skip- per wore a look of worried determination . . 16 Underway in the East River the crew straightened up on deck in readiness for the official departure . 17 Chambers (at the tiller) was the only man of the crew of three who had prior knowledge of sailing . . 17 With her mainsail loosely furled, the Hippo motored down the coast, waiting for another slant . . 32 Squibb, commissary and Sea-Going Gadget, measures his length along the boom while under way . . 32 Viewed from any standpoint that you choose, the Hip- pocampus is a trim, able little vessel . . . .33 Loomis, in the dress uniform of tropical cruising, bags big celestial game with the sextant .... 33 Airing bedding after the battle of Fenwick Shoals . 64 Squibb had a bad habit of washing before breakfast 64 Photographed from a sea buoy, the Hippo seemed in- deed the smallest ship that has ever sailed to Colon 65 At Jacksonville Chambers varnished the mizzen, un- affected by the splendor of the new lift bridge 65 Drying clothes after the avalanche had hit the yawl and neatly divided the dink in two parts . . 80 Only three planks were crushed by the ten-ton rock, and they were readily replaced in Jacksonville . 80 On the few occasions that the wind was fair, the Hippo raced like the sea horse that she is . . 81 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGB The public and exceedingly efficacious baptism of a band of negroes in the waters of the St. Johns 81 Eagle 39 would gladly have given the Hippocampus a tow if she hadn't been in need of one herself . 96 So the yawl hooked on to the escorting navy tug and whiled away a hundred miles of utmost ease . 96 At the lowest estimate, 943,261 Americans have snapped Morro Castle since the dawn of prohi- bition 97 Havana harbor has come vividly to life in recent years, but sailing ships still give it color . . 97 Bahia Honda still drives its ox-teams, undisturbed by the frenzied Fordingos of Havana's streets . 112 At the entrance to Cienfuegos Hippocampus anchored, 250 years too late to be attacked by pirates . .112 Amateur equilibrists on the teetering pole of the Cien- fuegos sharkproof swimming enclosure . . .113 Breakfast eggs, at ten cents apiece, taste like molten gold when cooked with feminine finesse . . .113 Taking 'em over the bow, but undaunted, the yawl bucked the Northeast Trade of the Caribbean . 144 The lee rail awash, every stitch of sail drawing, and cruising life at the acme of enjoyment . . .144 One minute Chambers and Loomis trolled from a line astern, attractive bait for marauding sharks . 145 And the next the surface of the water was cut by dor- sel fins. But they were purposeless porpoises . 145 The diver wore a worried, thoughtful expression, for there are sharks also in Kingston Harbor . .176 Lying beside the salvage tug, Hippo revealed that it isn't mere inches that makes seaworthiness . .176 Hauled out on the United Fruit Company's ways at Kingston, all hands got busy with the paint brushes 177 Six hours later, her sides and bottom painted, Hippo took the water with something like a sigh of relief 177 Guests used to think that the dink although admirable in other respects, came a little short of dignity 192 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGB Two of the members of the crew striving to look pleased while raising a thirst on the Myrtle Bank lawn ........ 192 Only in Jamaica can one swim in the chill fresh water of a rushing river and float down into the briny sea * 193 Roaring River Falls, Jamaica, where the stream drops from the skyline to wind through a grove of cocoanuts 193 Already the masonry of the upper level of the Gatun Locks, Panama, wears an air of remote antiquity 224* The giant double gates of Miraflores, with the huge protective chain in place to avert accidents . .224 Squibb and Chambers enacting the comedy, "Why Boys Leave Home; or the Succulence of Banana and Sugar Cane" 225 Not a Fatu-Liva bird from the famous Filbert Is- lands, but a young toucan looking square at the photographer , 225 Native craft loaded with produce and stranded at market time on the gently sloping beach at Pan- ama City 240 In the middle distance lies Hippo, at her journey's end; beyond her the misty islands of Panama Bay 240 A United States cruiser approaching Culebra Cut, her ensign dipped in answer to the Hippo's salute . 241 Moored to a buoy in Gatun Lake, Hippocampus has the air of giving as good as she receives . . .241 THE CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS THE CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS THE PRELIMINARY HARDSHIPS FOR the last few weeks I Ve had a great deal of sympathy for Noah — not Noah Webster who wrote the English language and made it pos- sible for me to earn a precarious living, but the original Noah, who, as some of my readers are aware, made a historic cruise in a small boat. What his trials and tribulations may have been when he eventually got under way with a crew of griffins, dragons, dodos, and all the other parlor animals of his time does not concern me at the present moment; it fills me with gloom to think of the job he must have had getting them to re- port to the officer of the deck with their bags and hammocks. I can imagine a young rhinoceros, who up to the moment of sailing has been keen to make the 3 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS cruise, pausing ponderously at the foot of the gangplank, giving the architecture of the ark the once-over, and telling old Noah that his father won't let him go. What does Noah do ? Look up another rhino when he should be supervising the activities of the chimpanzees in the rigging? Or does he decide to go short-handed? And I can picture a sea-going lion presenting his regrets at the last moment because business at his lair won't permit his absence for even a few months. Captain Noah must have had his difficulties with every last member of the ship's company, and the fact that he finally got under way with two or more of each species is greatly to his credit. I dwell on the subject a little more than might be considered necessary because I 've had a trial or two and half a dozen tribulations getting together a crew for a cruise to Panama. Not that I plan to take a menagerie with me. My search was confined strictly to the human race ; but I know, nevertheless, how Noah felt. Offhand you would say that every American of the masculine persuasion who was n't tethered to the grave by one leg would jump at the oppor- 4 PRELIMINARY HARDSHIPS tunity of sailing a yawl from Hell Gate to Bal- boa. As a matter of fact, I have proved by adver- tising and by personal solicitation there are only two along the entire Atlantic seaboard who can cut loose and make the trip. Circumstances per- mitting, these two will be sailing down the coast with me on the twenty-eight-foot auxiliary yawl Hippocampus before the month is out. When an ex-navy friend wrote me that he was contemplating a cruise to San Francisco and was looking for a fourth man to make up a crew, I wrote twice, telegraphed once, and put in a long- distance call to say that he could count me in. And I remember telling him and reiterating in each communication that I was all the more keen about the cruise because it originated with him and his two friends and so would not be subject to the usual withdrawals of crew members. Those were idle words. A week later the four of us met in New York and enthusiastically discussed ways and means- ways of finding a suitable boat and means for paying for it when we had located it. That done, I developed a sort of formula which I pro- 5 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS pounded to each of the three in turn. I said: "I 'm glad you took the initiative in suggesting this cruise, because I know you won't back out before it starts. But are you determined to carry it through to the finish of the cruise or of the boat or of us?" Each said he was full of determination and we let the matter rest. It rested for two weeks while we corresponded about our adventures in boat-hunting, and then one of them wrote as spokesman for the three that they had had to abandon the idea. Money was tight and they were going to cruise overland to the Pacific coast. They were sorry, but business came before pleasure. I was sorry, too, for by that time I had contracted with the magazine "Motor Boating" to write a story of the cruise, and it did n't look like a single-handed proposi- tion. I might have backed out myself if the March issue of the magazine hadn't appeared with an announcement of the forthcoming cruise which put it distinctly up to me to find not only the boat but an entirely new crew. I called on my three friends in their home town to urge them to reconsider — and found them as much inter- 6 PRELIMINARY HARDSHIPS ested in road maps and a pair of patent tweezers which they planned to peddle en route to the Golden Gate as previously they had been ex- cited about charts and navigators' dividers. From that moment I commenced to sympa- thize with Noah. Everybody else to whom I broached the subject wanted to go, and nobody could go. Some had family ties, others business obligations, and still others legitimate causes for keeping them at home. Whatever the cause, the effect was the same, and I was no nearer to getting my ship's complement. Two or three who really could have gone unfolded the novel idea of writing a story about the cruise, and these I had to reject because of professional jealousy — my own. My search was complicated by reason of the fact that I am more a motor-boatman than a sailor; and this is to be a cruise with sail and power combined. I had to find at least one man of a crew of three who knew sailing from A to X, so that my deficiencies in the gentle art of wind- jamming might not prove fatal in a crisis. Had I listened to the advice proffered me at this 7 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS juncture I would have withdrawn myself from the list of possibilities and turned the cruise over to any three professional sailors who cared to take it up. One friend told me all the harrowing details of coming through a West Indian hur- ricane with nothing but a life-preserver to hide his embarrassment; another advised me of the suicidal risk of putting to sea in a sailboat with- out at least five seasons' experience behind me; and one and all gloomed so effectively that again I was on the point of giving up the cruise. But I kept in mind the good luck of other amateurs who have sailed the seven seas on faith and intuition, and I persisted to the end that I now have the ideal crew. The first mate is an ex-sub-chaser man with twenty years' experience in sailing large and small craft. He will keep me from jibing when I ought to luff, and in time may hope to teach me the difference between a yawl and a ketch. The second, who is co-owner of the Hippocampus, is no more a wind-jammer than I am, but al- ready he swings a wicked paint-brush, and there is that about him which tells me that he '11 8 PRELIMINARY HARDSHIPS be full of nerve and pep long after I 'm too tired to haul on a sheet or lean my weight against the tiller. When it comes to an emergency the crew will be there and the skipper may take his shut-eye with a clear conscience. My difficulties in obtaining a crew were coin- cidental with my efforts to procure a proper boat to put them in. At first blush it seemed an easy task to find a yawl of thirty- or thirty-five-foot over-all length, powered with a twelve or fifteen H. P. motor, and capable of holding together in a double-reef breeze. My friend who sug- gested the cruise had in mind a sloop that could be had for $300 or $400, and he argued that be- cause she had stayed afloat for thirty or forty years she could reasonably be expected to last through another season. But I preferred a craft with divided sail, and when he withdrew from the venture I did n't bother to inspect this ancient packet, Nevertheless I did spend a day in Newport, looking over a sloop of twenty summers that had been used successfully for pilot duty out of Nar- ragansett Bay. She was a work-boat with trim 9 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS yachty lines, and as she bobbed at her mooring in a swell working its way in from the sea she had a nice buoyancy that was fascinating. A recollection stole over me of the good old days on the sub-chasers when * we shot the heavens while holding on with our shoulder-blades or lay prone on the chart-house deck to pore through the tables of Bowditch, and I wondered if I could be happy at sea in any craft that was n't lively and frisky. On the point of signing along the dotted line, I was deterred by the suggestion of a friend that I give him opportunity to in- quire into her soundness. He made inquiry of a disinterested boat- builder, and I learned to my regret that the sloop was a whited and red-leaded sepulcher. She was good superficially, but her heart was false, and she could almost be guaranteed to open up when the nearest land was directly underneath me. That was enough. I have cruised the top side of the Atlantic and to some extent along both edges of it, but I have no desire yet to explore its shady side. Upon my return to Ntew York from this 10 PRELIMINARY HARDSHIPS fruitless expedition I began a tour of investiga- tion that was as disheartening as it was com- prehensive. Whenever I got wind of a yawl that was within my means I found that she had been sold the day before, and each time I lost con- sciousness at sight of photographs and specifi- cations of the ideal boat I was brought to with the intelligence that she could not be bought for less than five figures. As I went from yacht- broker to editor and from friend to philosopher my spirits ebbed and ebbed, and on a hot, sticky day of March I abandoned the idea of the cruise. More from force of habit than from any remain- ing vestige of hope, I dragged my ex-sea-going legs to the office of another yacht-broker and told him the story of my disappointed ambition. He listened sympathetically and agreed em- phatically that there was not an auxiliary on the market of the length of hull and pocketbook that I specified. "But," he continued brightly, "I have the disposal of a twenty-eight-foot auxili- ary yawl that answers your other requirements, and if you care to come down in length and go up in price there 's not another boat in America 11 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS that will better suit you." He reached into a drawer and withdrew plans, specifications, and photographs of the twenty-eight-foot Helenette II, and I knew from that moment that the cruise would go on. Details of inspection, of purchase, and of completing my crew would come later. I dated the history of my cruise from that moment. So now while Helenette II ', her name changed back to the original Hippocampus, lies at a yard in New Rochelle waiting for launching on a high tide that accompanies the next full moon, I come to a description of the craft to whose timbers and rigging has been entrusted the task of taking us to the tropics. Already, after only a month's acquaintance with her, she has taken a place in my affections that no other boat has occupied, and my appreciation of her is growing day by day. When she changes hands again — as she must at the conclusion of the cruise — I know that I shall mourn the passing of a tried and faith- ful friend. Hippocampus, as she was christened when launched by J. E. G. Yalden, of Leonia, New 12 PRELIMINARY HARDSHIPS Jersey, was built in 1916 and is as new to-day as she was when water first kissed her keel. De- signed by Fred Goeller, Jr., she embodies his ideals of what a small, sea-going yawl should be; and built by Neils Jacobsen, of Nyack, New York, she boasts a ruggedness and honesty in which any yachtsman must glory. Mr. Yalden put much of his own time and enthusiasm into the building of his yawl and personally satisfied himself that every stick that went into her was of the finest quality. After her completion he sailed her for a few months, and then, a multi- plicity of other interests engaging his attention, he sold her to William F. Caesar, of New York. If the origin of the Hippocampus was aus- picious, her ownership under Mr. Caesar was no less favorable; because he considered her the finest of the dozen or more boats that he has owned, and kept her at the top notch of her effi- ciency. He has sailed and lived aboard her for four seasons, and this spring she needed only paint, varnish, and a rearrangement of her fuel and water tanks to fit her for a trip around the world. 13 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS The Hippocampus, as has been said, is a twenty-eight-foot auxiliary yawl, but she is the biggest ship of her inches that ever put to sea and stayed there until her owner was ready to bring her in. She has a beam of nine feet eleven inches, a water-line length of twenty-three feet three inches, and a draft of five feet. A keel boat, with iron on her keel, and shaped iron ballast in- board, she is declared to be as steady as a rock and as able as a battle-ship. If this is so my first mate and I will miss that old sub-chaser roll, but my second, who never saw anything in the war more exciting than a few big advances with a battery of French seventy-fives, may re- joice that he won't have to learn to anchor him- self to his bunk by personal magnetism. She is laid out with a chain-locker and stowage space forward communicating without bulkhead or partition with a large trunk-cabin in which there are two full-length bunks. Between them forward is a yacht toilet, and on the star- board side aft is a narrow chest of drawers fol- lowed by a full-length clothes-locker. Tucked away in the clothes-locker is an acetylene gas 14 PRELIMINARY HARDSHIPS tank which lights a single jet on the starboard side. On the port side abaft the bunk is a minia- ture galley with a two-burner oil-stove, and be- hind and around and underneath that stove there is more plate and pan shelfage than would be expected in a boat of at least twice twenty- eight feet. Beneath the companionway ladder (and here we come to the part of the boat that reminds me of the Long Island Railroad slogan: "This may save your life to-day" ) is a two-cylinder, two- cycle, 8-10 H. P. Palmer engine connecting. to re- versing clutch and twenty by twenty-four inch Thompson feathering propeller. The motor has been used long enough in five years to wear it in thoroughly and remove its pristine stiffness, but the former owner was a sailboatman primarily and used his power only when going through ex- tremely narrow winding passages. The same procedure will be followed under the present ownership, but as I am unaccustomed to obey- ing the behest of calms and contrary winds I may turn more often to the flexible, controllable power of gasolene. 15 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS To that end the thirty-gallon water-tank on the port side of the narrow cockpit has been con- verted to a gasolene-tank, giving a total of sixty- gallons' fuel capacity and a cruising radius under power alone of about 200 miles. Two new forty- gallon tanks, especially made for the Hippo- campus, have been installed in the f orepeak, and with eighty gallons of water available we hope to struggle through a possible but unhoped-for tour at sea of as much as a month. If the boat were larger the tank capacity would be greater, but under the circumstances we shall have to control our thirst or satisfy it otherwise than with water. Aside from the tank rearrangement, the only change in the boat's equipment is the installation of a pipe-berth with kapok cushion. By this means the sleeping accommodation has been com- fortably increased to three ; and inasmuch as one man will always be on watch at sea, the pipe- berth will be required only in port. As a means j of insurance against future trouble rather than because of present necessity the yawl has been provided with a suit of new ten-ounce sails, 16 Thanks to the camera's habitual generosity, the cabin of the Hippo looks even larger than it is Photographs by M. Rosenfeld In the days antecedent to launching the yawl the skipper wore a look of worried determination Photograph by M. Rosenfeld Underway in the East River the crew straightened up on deck in readiness for the official departure Chambers (at the tiller) was the only man of the crew of three who had prior knowledge of sailing PRELIMINARY HARDSHIPS which we expect to break out and bend on when we strike the northeast trades. The cockpit is no more than a narrow well, but there is ample deck room on each side of it, while abaft it is a lazarette into which a two months' supply of provisions can conveniently be stowed. The Hippocampus is controlled by tiller, and under jib and jigger is said almost to steer herself. The navigational equipment is no more than is required for a trip of this nature, but is per- haps a little more inclusive than the average for a boat of the length of the Hippo — to give her at the outset her inevitable nickname. Most important is an eight-day chronometer purchased from the navy and of the type used on sub- chasers and other small naval craft. If it runs according to form it will have a losing rate for a week or so, a gaining rate for the succeeding two weeks, zero variation for the following nine or ten days — and so on. But if it does no worse and is abused no more than the chaser instru- ments it will see us through with satisfactory ac- curacy. 17 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS Next on the list in point of interest comes an octant which I purchased from an Austrian in Triest shortly after the termination of the war. Were it stamped with a Teutonic name I should have reason to distrust it, but as its point of origin was Cardiff, I believe it to have been taken from a submarined Britisher, and so respect it in- trinsically as well as sentimentally. It played its part in a chaser race from Bermuda to New York in August of 1919 and is accustomed to the kind of warfare that any precision instrument encounters in small-boat usage. In addition we have a four-inch boat-compass of the spirit type, barometer, log, hack watch, and the necessary charts and navigational publi- cations, and two of us are equipped with experi- ence in piloting and in deep-sea navigation. If memory, chronometer, octant, and Bowditch all go by the board, the order of the day will be to head west until a large continent is sighted. If the compass mutinies we shall try to distinguish sunrise from sunset and to some extent be guided by our bumps of location. For this cruise is n't going to be one of your 18 PRELIMINARY HARDSHIPS deadly serious, methodical, undeviating voyages. It will be a get-there cruise, but we shall not be committed to any itinerary except that we shall run down the Atlantic coast to the West Indies, jump from Jamaica to Colon, and pass through the Panama Canal. We shall welcome advice as to course and intermediate stops from experts en route, and if we are particularly advised to go to or keep away from any island or stretch of coast we shall stand off or head in as the inclina- tion moves us. We are not undertaking the cruise to prove anything or to establish any precedent in small- boat sailing. Having no old worries to sail away from we absolutely refuse to entertain any new ones regarding the strength of wind and treachery of currents ahead. We plan merely to take a voyage which in the aggregate is longer than the average but which is composed of a number of three- or four-day jumps, such as any well-found boat might take if its owner had the time at his disposal. If the experience stimu- lates the sport of yachting, or if the passage of an auxiliary through tropical waters spreads the 19 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS gospel of American motor-boating, others be- sides ourselves will derive benefit from the cruise. We, however, shall take the cream of the enjoyment. Some of the friends whom I have acquired since I started work on the boat have been a little skeptical about the success of the expedi- tion. They think, not without reason, that I 'm a landlubber who is biting off more than he can digest in a sea-way. But in my own defense I must say that I look a little less sophisticated than I am, even though my careless habit of speech sometimes betrays me. Yesterday, for instance, when I was rubbing down the hoops on the mainmast preparatory to varnishing them, I remarked casually that it would be awkward at sea to have to unstep the mast in order to re- place a broken hoop by threading the mast through a new one. My shipmate replied en- couragingly that we could use the power while this threading process was taking place, and we let the conversation lapse. But an old salt who was standing by overheard us and with a pitying look in his eye volunteered 20 PRELIMINARY HARDSHIPS the information that new hoops could be riveted in place without unstepping the mast. I ac- cepted the information meekly, but I know that that old salt thinks I belong to the class of sailors who in passing under a fixed bridge will cut a hole in the bridge to give them headroom. Per- haps I do; but as soon as the moon gets full (if it ever does in these dry days), the Hippo- campus will take the water and her crew will head away from fixed bridges and advice and into the roll of the deep blue sea. After that we shall see what we shall see. 21 II HIPPOCAMPUS SEES IT THROUGH PROMPTED by the kindliest feelings in the world, the unofficial board of relatives and friends of the tribe of Hippocampi warned us of adverse weather conditions along every stretch of the 3000-mile run to Panama except that in which she received her baptism of storm. Con- sequently, when the start was made from New York, the outer entrance to the Delaware River meant nothing to us. Now it marks the spot where the crew of the sea-going twenty-eight- foot yawl learned that she will take any zephyr that travels from here to there at no greater velocity than seventy-five miles an hour. Less than two days out of New York we bumped into a gale that sent the other small fry scooting for safety to Atlantic City, Cape May, and the Delaware Breakwater, and started our wherry on an uncharted cruise of its own; but 22 HIPPO SEES IT THROUGH we held our course and weathered it in man-o'- war style. When it comes to sailing in light airs or whole gales the Hippo is there. At the last writing, less than a month ago, Hippocampus was on dry land at New Rochelle, with the swish of paint-brushes filling the April atmosphere. But before the full moon brought its spring tides she was ready for the water, and on April 24 slid into her element with some- thing closely resembling a sigh of relief. In- spection revealed that except for a few open cocks and drain-plugs in various parts of the engine's anatomy she was tight. These valves I had neglected to close, and they merrily filled the bilge while we busied ourselves on deck. After the steady drip of water had discovered them to us, however, the accumulation was pumped out and her keel has remained virtually dry except on the night of the storm, to which we are coming by degrees. One other little oversight nearly marred the launching. Just after I had let go the anchor, the first and second mates, who were in a skiff at the business end of the tow-line, called my atten- 23 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS tion to an imposing sign which tardily informed us that we were over a cable crossing and were requested not to anchor. To remember every- thing all at once is difficult for me, and it was much more good luck than intelligence that saved me from fouling the cable. But no harm was done, and under the direction of Al Cham- bers, the second in command and the first in sail- ing knowledge, we sorted out the running rigging and got the blocks and lines in place. For the next few days we were favored by good weather which permitted us to clear up the odds and ends ; but on the sailing date, Thursday the twenty-eighth, so many were the pieces of equipment still to be collected from various sources that we were unready to start. We should have got under way the next day if it had n't been Friday and if the rain had n't pre- vented the taking of pictures, and Saturday saw us still lying at Port Washington, to which we had put from my home port of Huntington. As the preceding night was the first on which the whole crew had slept aboard, this becomes a pro- pitious moment for introducing them. 24 HIPPO SEES IT THROUGH John Albert Chambers, an ex-sub-chaser man and j . g. lieutenant in the reserve, may be recog- nized in the accompanying pictures by the busy expression on his face. He comes from Salem, Massachusetts, where they sail boats the day after leaving the cradle; and what he doesn't know about small-boat handling has yet to be discovered. Under the direction of George Le Sauvage, friend of all sub-chaser men in the World War, he saved New York from the sub- marines, and after that went across as far as the Azores, and with the conclusion of festivities re- turned to the West Indies to give the Virgin Islands and Islanders a treat. Three years of service in the S. C.'s endowed him with a roving foot, and now he is happiest when we are under way. Paul Squibb, second mate, engineman, and sea-going commissary extraordinary, has done all his boating in the Bay of Fundy and is only thoroughly contented when the tide is battling with the wind and lifting the waves higher than the main truck. When a gale tries to yank the sticks out of the boat and the combers rake her 25 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS fore and aft, Squibb lends his oilers to Chambers and stays below, reading aloud information about lights and buoys, and catching the silverware on its way from the galley to the bilge. Just one thing about nautical life perplexes Squibb. He can't savvy the barometer. Although he has studied it from every angle and made due al- lowances for the frailty of man-made instru- ments, he still believes that it is affected by the law of storms. But we are not with him. We saw it fall from 29.95 to 29.59 and bring a north- easter, rise again to 29.78 and bring another, re- main stationary for twenty-four hours and fetch a third; and we know that it is absolutely law- less. Introductions having been accomplished, we find all hands at their mooring stations off the Manhasset Yacht Club. Getting under way on the morning of Saturday, April 29, we sailed out of the bay with a fair wind and down the Sound to Throgs Neck, where the breeze died away and the little two-cylinder Palmer got busy. The hour of departure had been calculated for a rendezvous with Rosy, the sea-going photog- 26 HIPPO SEES IT THROUGH rapher, in his cruiser Foto, and it was anything but favorable for a quick run down the East River ; but, bucking a head tide, we slowly forged ahead, and by two in the afternoon were secured at the Twenty-third Street station of the New York Yacht Club. There in a damp and dis- mal rain, which had held off until the pictures were taken, we said good-by to ex-sub-chaser men of assorted sizes and to other friends and relatives and received the parting blessings of numerous kind-hearted citizens. These blessings took the very tangible form of items of ship's equipment and included the following valuable articles: One two-burner stove with enough canned fuel to keep us in fried eggs for a month of Sundays; one mechanical stethoscope for testing the heart-action of the motor; one boat-cushion which has already lightened the hours of duty at the tiller (but which, be it hoped, may never exercise its life- saving function) ; two seven-foot ash oars which at present repose in the hold mourtiing the lost wherry; and a mate's sextant. This princely bon voyage present is a ten-second instrument 27 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS that thrills the hand that holds it. With its full equipment of telescopes it promises to give me some of the happiest moments of the cruise; for, when all is said and done, the best part of sailing or motor-boating is deep-sea naviga- tion. With every square inch of stowage room filled until the rotund sides of the little hippopotamus seemed to bulge still farther, and with a rain- proof photographer standing by to catch a quar- tering view of us, we shoved off from the wharf at 5:55 and headed down the bay under power. Such wind as there was was contrary, but as the glass hadn't been doing much of anything for several hours we figured on the unheralded approach of a northeaster. So when we had passed through the Narrows we headed for Gravesend Bay to lie for the night in the lee of Bensonhurst, of blessed memory. In the morning the wind was blowing stiffly from the expected quarter, bringing with it a drenching downpour of rain ; and the day seemed inauspicious for a cruise that will take us through the tropics in the full drip of the rainy season. 28 HIPPO SEES IT THROUGH Wherefore we decided to devote Sunday to prayerful consideration of the last-minute de- tails which had been neglected, and first and fore- most hauled in to Andy's gas dock at Ulmer Park to replenish our various tanks. In making the landing the wind caught our bow at about the time the ship had more sternway than she could comfortably carry, and we shivered the mizzen boom on the unyielding exterior of a twelve-inch pile. Right away Al Chambers — (But here let me interpolate a word about the duplication of "Als" aboard ship. At first it was thought that when Squibb said, "Hey, Al," there would be confusion as to the identity of the Al intended. The difficulty has since re- moved itself, however, for when he says,"Al, get your chow," I know he means me, and when it is "Al, bear a hand here," I guess he means Chambers. So that is that, as the novelists are given to saying.) After the carrying away of the mizzen boom, Al decided not to go ashore for a required suit of oilers, and collectively we put in the day rig- ging a new spar. Staging a foraging expedi- 29 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS tion to the Marine Basin, where Chambers and I had mowed down countless hand-rail stanchions in the early days of the war, we met a person in authority who directed us to the broken radio mast of a sub-chaser and told us to take it when he was n't looking. Useless for its intended pur- pose, this stick of knotless Oregon pine was ideal for us, and with Andy wielding the draw-knife and plane while we looked on and marveled, we soon had a new boom that beats perfection it- self. Then we rigged and shipped it, and at five of a wintry afternoon called it a day. Monday morning, the second of May, offered every inducement for an early start, but sleep got the better of us, and it was seven o'clock be- fore we cast off from the dock of the hospitable Anderson and stood down the bay under sail and power. Arrived in Ambrose Channel we shut off the motor, and cutting across to Gedney Channel, the northwest wind died a lingering death and we slatted about in the swell from the preceding day's blow. Whereupon the com- panionway ladder was again moved aside to give access to the little ten H. P. mill, and we chugged 30 HIPPO SEES IT THROUGH off for Scotland Light- vessel to take our depart- ure for the long journey. The wind remaining virtually dormant, we motored down the Jersey coast for a matter of three hours with the jib and jigger just filling, and then a gentle southerly breeze sprang up and we hoisted the mainsail and shut off the power. Alternately reaching in toward the coast and beating out to sea, we tacked about all the afternoon, evening, and night, and in the morning, with Barnegat Light slightly abaft the beam, had made less than fifty miles for the day's run. But Squibb and I had acquired a little ex- perience in handling the ship under sail, and Chambers was not dissatisfied with our progress. Day dawned clear, but the sky was almost im- mediately overcast with a thin pall of clouds that boded no good for the next twenty-four hours' run. Then, although the wind hauled gradually to eastward, the clouds burned off and we doffed a few sweaters and prepared to enjoy life on the ocean wave. The little patent log which followed Typhoon on Bill Nutting's care-free excursion to the 31 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS Cowes Regatta, and which had been lent us for our coastal voyage, settled down to business and clocked us off at five knots, thereby establishing the first part of our prediction that Hippo is slow but sure. Atlantic City, Ocean City, and a few more of the Jersey coast resorts were gradually brought abeam and receded to the most attractive bearing — that of the starboard quarter — and at sundown we were abreast of Hereford Inlet Light, about four miles to lee- ward of us. That sunset is the one of all others that I '11 always remember. Having nothing about it to delight the eye of a Turner, it was calculated solely to trouble the mind of a navigator. At that, it was a sunset only by conventional appli- cation of the word, since the sun never showed his face after he had sunk below an angle of twenty degrees. But he cast an abortive rainbow in the eastern sky, and tinged the clouds to a dull bluish hue that reminded me of all the sea storms I Ve ever read about. Nimbus clouds scudded across the sky in two directions and rolled themselves into mares' tails, and slowly the wind swung more 32 With her mainsail loosely furled, the Hippo motored down the coast, waiting for another slant Squibb, commissary and Sea-Going Gadget, measures his length along the boom while under way Viewed from any standpoint that you choose, the Hippocampus is a trim, able little vessel iSX Loomis, in the dress uniform of tropical cruising, bags big celes- tial game with the sextant HIPPO SEES IT THROUGH into the northeast quadrant and gained in vigor. Just before dark we headed into it and doused the mainsail. Then, thanks to Chambers's fore- sight, we used the ends of the backstay sheets, the main-sheet, and a stray line or so to quad- ruple-lash the boom; and he generally saw to it that everything was snugged down for the night. For one sufficient reason or another I made no contemporaneous entries in the ship's log, but it was somewhere around nine o'clock when we sighted McCries Shoal lighted buoy off Cape May and laid a southwesterly course for it. The breeze was then blowing about five in the Beau- fort scale, and the wherry, towing at the end of a two-and-a-half inch painter, was -having a merry time. Alternately it sagged back on the line and charged down on us from the peak of a wave, and when it had once missed our counter by inches we lengthened its scope to forty feet to avoid a rear-end collision. At 10 :05 we brought our buoy abeam and headed away on a south by east course for Fenwick Island Shoals Light-ves- sel, and somewhere between that moment and the next Chambers called down the hatch that the 33 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS wherry had gone adrift. Even at that early hour the blackness of the night and the condition of the sea were such that search for it was use- less. Things were getting pretty thick. Although we had already shaped our course for the light-vessel I had remained below study- ing the entrance to Delaware Breakwater Har- bor, and concluding that with an ebb tide and half a gale I did n't like the looks of it. The loss of the tender now decided me that the night called for plenty of sea-room, and with Al's and Paul's concurrence we continued on our way. I may be hopelessly wrong in my opinion, but I believe that the difference between riding out a storm and scurrying for a strange harbor in the dead of night is just this: When you're get- ting a severe drubbing off soundings the worst has yet to happen; but when you miss the en- trance to a harbor and find yourself in the breakers your cup of misfortune is full and run- ning over. So, taking the wind and water heavily from a little abaft the port beam, we held our course for the light-vessel, twenty-five miles distant. 34 HIPPO SEES IT THROUGH The wind came without gusts but with an ever- increasing strength, and by 11 :30 I mentally put it down for seven in the Beaufort scale. Then, as the half -hours dragged by, I raised the ante one by one, and at the height of the storm figured that we were receiving all that a sixty-five-mile blow had to offer us. But the ship was taking it gamely — and traveling. When you log off seven knots under jib and jigger, displaying but little more than a third of your total sail area, you may say that the wind is blowing and that you are taking full advantage of it. So we traveled until the tiller trembled under the rush of water past the rudder and the boom vibrated from the transmitted strain of the wind in the j ib. And we dipped our lee rail under and took solid water alternately over bow and port quarter until the cockpit scuppers failed to carry off the accumulated inflow of water, and the light of the binnacle, wedged in a corner of the cockpit, was extinguished. But always we felt confidence in the ability of the Hippocampus to stand up under her punishment. Not always did we have this feeling of con- 35 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS fidence in ourselves, and when, two hours before we were supposed to pick up Fenwick Light- vessel, we saw a gleam on our starboard bow, we momentarily thought that we had erred in the course. The unwelcome light showed itself when we were crossing the southern end of Five Fathom Bank and the rollers were breaking over themselves until the whole sea was a smother of phosphorescence, and for a time we thought ourselves to be in the breakers. At this juncture we started the Palmer, which, despite greasy fly- wheel and dampened spark-plugs, kicked off with accustomed celerity, and let it idle until we had again become sure of our position. This assurance was given us by indirection when a green starboard light showed flanking the white light and we made it out to be a tug bound for the Delaware River with but one range light burning. So incessant and violent was our motion that the approaching light had the fixity of a shore beacon. Our own running lights had long since given up the ghost, and we had made no attempt to keep them burning. The height of the evening's 36 HIPPO SEES IT THROUGH performance came when Chambers, going below for a smoke, was followed down the companion- way by the fringe of a comber which extinguished the acetylene gas light. Both before and after that happening the binnacle-light puffed out, and continually, until dawn, spray slopped down the half-open hatchway until the bilge and cabin deck were an agitated pool of turbid water. Squibb, wedging himself in place on a pile of saturated cushions and remaining below because we were minus a suit of oilers and the need for Chambers on deck was great, established for himself the reputation of sea-going sailor. To Chambers belongs the credit of pulling us through a nasty situation, and to Squibb the storm-proof stomach. Mine is equal to any emergency on deck, but it does have its limits, and I kept the top-side. At a little before two we sighted Fenwick Light-ship dead ahead and felt a load lift itself from our shoulders. The wind still blew hard, being now accompanied by ominous periods of calm, and the spray still drove through our oilers, but we knew that upon sticking it out for only 37 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS one hour more, we could head off on a south-by- west course and take the sea at a better angle. At 2:50, our leeway carrying us down so that we were unable to round the light-ship, we brought it abeam on the port hand and squared away on the new course. In a lull a few minutes later the little ship lost steerageway and jibed on the reopening of hostilities. Having the tiller at the time, I thought that I had committed a nautical fauoo pas which would be fatal; but the spars, sails, and rigging stood the strain, and the doughty sailing-master of our crew brought her about on the proper tack without difficulty. From then on until dawn the wind continued stiff, but at sunrise it slacked off in strength and by 8 a. m. we were tumbling about in what would have been a flat calm if by any stretch of the im- agination the mountainous waves could be termed flat. At any rate, there was not enough air to keep the sails filled as we rolled, and again the motor was started. Squib had taken the morn- ing watch while Chambers and I indulged our passion for sleep, and so ably did he heed my 38 HIPPO SEES IT THROUGH injunction not to make anything to westward of the course that at eight bells when I came on deck we were twenty miles from anywhere. Laying a course in the general direction of North America we presently picked up Winter Quarter Shoal buoy and there altered to make the bell marking the southern end of Black Fish iBank. Meanwhile, Assateague Light had showed above the horizon and we welcomed the thought of hot chow and rest in the anchorage at its base. Still under power, but with a repe- tition of the preceding day's easterly springing up to fill the jib and jigger, we kept on our way until at 1:10 in the afternoon of Wednesday we lowered sail at the entrance to the anchorage. From there it was a run of a few minutes to a quiet mooring at the new plant of the Chin- coteague Fish Oils Co., where we secured and received a cordial greeting from the manager. Eriksen is a sea-going Swede of varied experi- ence, who, having heard bur story, corroborated our modest claim of a sixty-five-mile breeze, and said, "You boys ban salty. I knew it when I 39 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS saw you picking your way in between the shoals. And your boat ban salty too." When Eriksen said this we felt that it was praise indeed. That night we lay in, and the southeast wind only vaguely disturbed our slumbers. Nor were we bothered the next night when another north- easter, accompanying a mendaciously rising glass, swept across the anchorage and bobbed first our bowsprit and then our bumpkin under. Friday the sea still tumbled about outside and roared on the beach of Assateague, and the sky remained troubled; and on Saturday, when con- ditions for sailing seemed ideal, the mouth of the wind-bag closed and not enough air stirred to flutter our S. C. pennant at the main. But Sunday morning a fine sailing breeze from the northwest greeted us as we rolled out of our bunks, and with a great stir of activity we bolted one of Squibb's hasty breakfasts, singled our lines, started the motor, cast off, and headed for sea. If other amateur mariners put in to Assa- teague anchorage and are accorded half the cor- diality that we received from all hands at the fish plant they will look back on the sojourn 40 HIPPO SEES IT THROUGH there as a most pleasant one. We occupied our time between showers airing bedding and clothes (my clean whites, having been on the lee side in the storm, will never be the same again) and in turning sheets and halyards to lengthen the life of them. Rounding Fishing Point and taking our de- parture from the red and black spar marking a two-fathom spot at the entrance, we set all sail, shut off the power, and ran free under the im- pulse of a fine sailing breeze. Looking back, we saw how inaccurate is the lighted range sup- posed to mark the best water into the anchorage, and I made a note in the log to warn seafarers entering at night to give a wide berth to the light on the point. The spit has gradually crept northward until the light which formerly marked the best water now lures the stranger into an overland expedition. All that day we had perfect conditions for sailing, the sea being smooth with an offshore wind, and I employed the morning brushing up on my navigation. Working two St. Hilaire sights from my Brandis sextant and catching the 41 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS sun on the meridian at noon, I was able to check the accuracy of the instrument by objects on shore. It checked. By sundown, when we were bringing Cape Charles abeam, we had logged fifty miles and were all set for a quick run up to the Elizabeth River and a full day ashore in Norfolk. But the wind passed quietly out and in the succeeding twelve hours we made good less than twenty miles. Then, Monday morning, having breakfasted and put the ship in harbor trim — a process in- volving the stowal of wet shoes, trousers, shirts, and miscellany— we started the motor and pro- ceded to a quiet mooring in the Hague. During our short stay here automobilists, easing along Mowbray Arch, have exclaimed, "Oh, there she is," and pedestrians have done us the honor of coming abroad to inspect. As I started to write this, a big navy plane, which had flown from New York in about the time it took us to cover the last ten miles under power, flew overhead and one of her observers leaned over the side to sema- phore "Good luck" to us. We have been dined (and I almost said wined) 42 HIPPO SEES IT THROUGH by the most hospitable strangers, and now, be- ing freshly provisioned and fueled, we are pre- paring to get under way for Charleston, with pos- sible stops for breath at Beaufort, Southport, or wherever we catch the next drubbing from Father Neptune. The little hooker will stand it. 43 Ill HEAD WIND AND SHOWERS OF RAIN ONE of the most sea-going authors of the present day has written recently of the poetry of the night, the soft swish of the waves on the ship's bow, the occasional dash of spray (like nectar on the lips), and of how all these concomitants of a lazy mid- watch put one in tune with the universe. Brandishing aloft this emi- nent authority's story, I asked my valiant crew what they thought of during the graveyard watch. Subjoined are two veracious statements : Statement of "Joe" Squibb, ecc-Artilleryman "When I have the trick at the observation post and you fellows are sleeping in your funk-hole, I wonder what makes the flying fish fly. That starts me to speculating on how a swarm of house-flies can overtake a ship two days or fif- teen miles from port. In such cogitation I feel loath to call my relief, even after I have stood 44 HEAD WIND AND SHOWERS the middle and part of the morning watches and have refilled all the lamps and mopped up the floor before getting breakfast." Statement of "Joe" Chambers, eoc-Chaserman "When I have the deck all the pleasant images of a well-spent life pass in review before my closed eyes. I cork off peacefully, while Marble- head, Bensonhurst, Ponta Delgada, Santa Dom- ingo, and the malaria ward at the Key West hos- pital fight for my comatose attention. But when the stormy petrels start twittering around the log- line I snap out of it, put on my oilers, lash the barometer to keep it from falling any lower, and prepare for a wicked night. In all the years that I have been in service I have never yet stood a lazy mid-watch." As for me, I marvel not at the immensity of the universe and all the little stars buzzing dizzily across the firmament, but dally my thought with the slothfulness of time. At 12:05 I look at my wrist chronometer and find that I have two hours and fifty-five minutes to stand before call- ing Joe to tell him that it is raining violently and 45 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS blowing a gale from the northeast. At 12:10 I find that I still have two hours and fifty min- utes to go; and so on. And my subconscious mind continually asks me why I elected to do this sort of thing in preference to sleeping com- fortably at home in a bed. So the watch pro- ceeds. But the mention of the stormy petrels in Chambers' statement has reminded him of a story which must be repeated here before the answer to my subconscious questioning is woven into the log of the Hippocampus. Al is an im- aginative raconteur, and if ever we lie becalmed for a month one chapter at least of Hippo's cruise will be devoted to his probable stories. The one about the stormy petrels takes us back to the bold, bad days of the Eleventh Squadron of sub-chasers, which saved New York from the German submarines. He had just been commissioned and assigned to command S. C. 63. As he stepped aboard preparatory to accompanying a fourteen-knot convoy to sea, his eye fell on the wilted, weazened form of a warrant boatswain who had spent 46 HEAD WIND AND SHOWERS the last forty years of his naval life on shore sta- tion. The warrant piped up in a quavery treble : "I have been ordered to accompany you on this convoy to make you sea-going. You will remain in command, but I will stand by to give you the benefit of my experience. You may shove off." So they shoved, and before long the chaser had cleared Ambrose and was out on the billowing Atlantic. And before long the warrant was in possession of the skipper's bunk, much troubled in mind and stomach. Throughout a long and stormy night the chaser stuck with the convoy, and Chambers kept the deck, and in the morning reversed his course and stood back to New York. Then he went below and awakened the warrant from a fitful slumber. With palsied hands that experienced sea-dog raised his face to a port-light, looked through it at the tumbling waste of waters, and cried in a piteous falsetto, "My God, we 're at sea — we 're at sea!' Then, catching sight of a covey of stormy petrels, he turned his woebegone face to Chambers and added, "And them birds ain't fol- lowing us to no good purpose." 47 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS So it has been with Mother Carey's Chickens since the outset of the Hippocampus' s expedition. They Ve followed us to no good purpose and they have brought enough foul weather to estab- lish the name and fame of any young Joe Con- rad whose astral form happens to hover over us. We can promise him more of the same with an occasional calm thrown in to vary the monotony. Before leaving Norfolk on May 12 I inter- viewed the weather bureau— my first and only crime of that nature — and learned that an omi- nous low was developing over the Middle West and that fresh to strong southeast winds might be expected for several days. So I returned aboard and put the matter up to the crew. We might go inside Hatteras, burn a lot of gas, travel only by day, and go aground in Pamlico Sound, or we might run outside and take what the weather bureau thought it had promised us. Hence we chose the lesser of two evils and that afternoon dropped down to Lynnhaven Roads, there to anchor in quiet water in the lee of Cape Henry. We figured that if the wind did blow from the southeast we would have a snug berth, 48 HEAD WIND AND SHOWERS and if it blew from another quarter we could up anchor and away. Friday the thirteenth dawned fair with just a suggestion of a south- east slant, and, after stowing a breakfast where it would do the most good, we stood out between the Virginia capes, dipping our colors to an over- taking T-boat. Our first tack carried us past the sea buoy, ten miles to eastward, and put two fishing-schooners behind us, and the next reached us down the coast, a matter of five miles and within two miles of the beach before we again put about and headed for sea. So, fighting a contrary slant of wind, we spent the day, and by nightfall had picked up Curri- tuck Light and made good less than twenty miles. With the change of watch shortly after midnight came a squall of wind and the only ex- citement of the run to Beaufort. In lowering the mainsail to meet the squall, the mast hoops, which had become elongated through much use, stuck, and we consumed exactly as many mo- ments in stays as were needed to carry the foot of the jib away from the boom lacing. It then became my pleasant diversion to divest myself 49 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS of oilers, pea-coat, and other essentials of a cruise in the tropics, and lay myself along the bowsprit. Thanks to the jib downhaul which Al had rigged two days before, the torn jib came down easily and it was a matter of only half an hour, working by the sense of touch, to unbend the old sail and bend on our storm jib. Inas- much as the sea-water was warmer than the air I have taken worse duckings than the little Hippo gave me as her "sky- jabbing bowsprit" reversed the motion and immersed itself and me. Under her shortened suit of sails the Hippo- campus proved unwilling to come about when, with the storm jib filling, we tested it out. But we thanked whatever prudence we possessed that had put us fifteen miles from the lee shore be- fore the squall struck ; and being then on the port tack, headed back to Virginia. Paul, on the three-by-six watch, reported violent showers of rain with little wind, and at six o'clock it was unanimously voted to start the motor and ease the motion of the craft. The Palmer voted Aye along with the rest of us, kicking off merrily after a spasm or two, but the go-ahead position of the 50 HEAD WIND AND SHOWERS reverse registered a No, and it was eight o'clock before we had achieved an adjustment that would not slip when the propeller, after a short run up the back of a wave for a breath of air, returned to deep water. An hour later we sighted Currituck on our beam and learned that twelve hours of tossing about had netted us less than five miles of south- ing. Finding that the jib and jigger remained filled with the motor working we raised the main- sail, but it wasn't many minutes before the southeast wind gave the lie to the weather bureau and puffed out, never to revive sufficiently to give us steerageway until we had rounded Hat- teras and Lookout and were finally anchored securely off the entrance to Beaufort Harbor, North Carolina. All day of Saturday the fourteenth we plugged along under power, being convoyed by a school of seventy-five to one hundred porpoises, and at nightfall when we picked up Wimble Shoals buoy the sea was calm and Hatteras had lost its power to alarm us. That night we re- corded in the log the most vivid display of nor- 51 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS thern lights that we had ever seen, and concluded that Old Man Hatteras, being temporarily out of breath, was doing what he could to make our passage interesting. Yet we mentally noted that sentence in the "Coast Pilot" which relates that "two or three wrecks may usually be seen on the outer shoals." Paul, standing his usual rainy watch, brought Diamond Shoals Light-vessel abeam just before daylight, and we squared away for Cape Look- out. The Sabbath was an uneventful repetition of Saturday, except that in midafternoon, desir- ing to test the action of the boat under jib and jigger alone, we declutched and spent the next two hours in the bilge gazing blasphemously into the innards of the reverse gear. Eventually it took hold again in the go-ahead (and in justice to it it has given us no trouble since) , but the time lost reduced to nothing our margin of daylight which we had hoped would take us through the inner channel of Cape Look- out Shoals; so with darkness and the customary heavy rain we shaped a course for the southern tip of the shoals and prepared for another night 52 HEAD WIND AND SHOWERS of it. By this time the apple-pies of Mrs. Frederick Lewis of Norfolk (a stranger on our arrival there, but a most hospitable hostess before our departure) had gone the way of all trans- cendently delicious pastry, and we were anxious to make port and surround a chow cooked under favorable circumstances. But Old Man Hat- teras, to whom we had thumbed an impudent nose, had n't finished with us. He sent dizzy showers of rain which obscured Cape Lookout Light and sent us on a long de- tour around the shoals for safety's sake, and at 12 :30 of the morning of May 16, as we picked up the lighted buoy at Beaufort entrance, he drained the last drop of gasolene from our starboard tank and brought us up short. Knowing that there was less than a gallon left in the port tank we nonchalantly let go the hook in eight fathoms of water, extinguished running lights and lighted the rider, and turned in for some much needed shut-eye. Lest we be criticized for anchoring in the open ocean let me explain that it is my first offense and that the action was justified. The sea was 53 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS flat and calm with not enough air to flutter the match which lit the riding light. Before turning in we spliced the main brace, drinking to a favor- able slant of wind with the coming of daylight, and Squibb, who had had the watch below from eight o'clock on, slept with one ear open. At 5 :30 he awakened us with the pleasing news that a breath of air was stirring from the south- east, and, getting under way with all sail set, we made for Beaufort Inlet. Following the buoys, but with the sounding lead in play, and with AFs cunning hand on the tiller, we passed between the breakers and thanked the little god of gasolenedom that our starboard tank had drained when it did and not three miles later in our voyage into turbulent waters. Then, buck- ing an ebb tide and screening the chart from the matutinal downpour of rain, we rounded the bell, and stood up the harbor. But the wind, wearied of its well-doing, left us, and when less than a mile from the wharves we started the motor on what there was left in the port tank. It carried us to within four hundred 54 HEAD WIND AND SHOWERS yards of the gasolene dock and there the last drop followed the preceding sixty gallons out of the exhaust-pipe, and we came to anchor. Undis- mayed, we squeezed another carbureterful from the starboard tank, emptied the priming can, and were experimenting with kerosene and rain- water when a kindly gentleman of the African persuasion towed us to the wharf for value re- ceived. Having tanked up we dropped around a point to another wharf where we secured for a feed and a rest. Let us here leave the Hippo for a moment, her hatches battened against an all-day shower of rain, and get a more intimate slant at her per- sonnel and organization. As previously implied, we have Al Chambers, sailing-master and narra- tor extraordinary, and Paul Squibb, who, since his initiation in the famous battle of Fenwick Light-ship, has developed into the most ocean- going gadget that ever trod a deck. He found it inexpedient to say Al Chambers or Al Loomis when calling the respective hands to chow, and so calls us both Joe. Naturally enough, we call 55 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS him Joe, and there is now a complete unanimity of nomenclature aboard the yawl. Mistakes are impossible and profanity is useless. Under way, Chambers usually has the first watch from port while the skipper lies below and gets used to the motion of the craft, and Squibb wrestles with a meal. After that the dishes wash themselves in the rain, and the skipper takes a trick at the stick while the crew cork in antici- pation of a stormy night at sea. Once darkness has fallen out of a villainous sunset the watches come with some regularity, and we have found that three hours on deck is about all that a man can encompass with ease. The day after leaving port, when the seas are running high, two meals are thought sufficient to keep soul and body together, but with the mid- afternoon calm our spirits revive and there is a surprising amount of rifle-fire at tethered targets, and diving off the bowsprit to pick up a line trailing astern and give the sharks a run for their money. Harpooning porpoises with a blunt boat-hook and working Marq St. Hilaire sights with a blunt cerebrum are other sports until the 56 HEAD WIND AND SHOWERS conventional thunderstorm of eventide comes along and we start looking for a light-ship that is supposed to be somewhere along our course. Although we always steer courses from light- ship to light-ship it has chanced that since leaving Scotland Light-ship at the entrance to New York Harbor we have never sighted one by day. Always their cheery lamps wink at us between the hours of 8 p. m. and 4 a. m. Night follows day and day succeeds night with the allotted amount of rain and adverse wind, and eventually we reach port, where, after drying sails, bunting, and bedding, we make merry with the inhabitants. It's a gay life if you happen to like it — as we all do. But at Beaufort there is little jollity among the natives, and we employed our second day there rigging a makeshift boom for our spare jib, and renewing the hoops of the mainmast. Readers who had the temerity to glance over the first chapter of this yarn will remember that the possibility of having to renew the hoops by un- stepping the mast caused me no little worriment. Imagine my surprise and delight to find that this 57 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS was unnecessary, and that wooden hoops, when placed in the chowder kettle, become flexible and may easily be warped around the mast and their ends riveted together. I should warn other novices, however, not to cook chowder and steam hoops at the same time. There was a severe norther blowing in Beau- fort the second day of our stop there, the colors of the marine biological laboratory flying straight out in the wind, and on the advice of a local prophet we delayed our departure long enough to bust into a worse northeaster. On Wednes- day, May 18, we got under way bright and early after having emptied the cylinders of a quantity of salt water that had backed up from the muffler, and at 10 : 30 cleared the entrance buoy, shut off the motor, and set all sail for a run to Frying Pan Shoals Light-vessel, off Cape Fear. The wind was fair (our first extended expe- rience in sailing free) and by 7 p. m. we had logged fifty miles. In mid-afternoon a falling barometer and freshening breeze indicated that we would probably have a night of it, but as long as daylight lasted we kept all sail set and for a 58 HEAD WIND AND SHOWERS time logged eight nautical miles an hour. At first we ran with the mainsail and mizzen wing and wing (the jib not filling on this point of sail- ing), but, with a following sea picking up, the mizzen showed an increasing propensity for jib- ing and on a S. W. y% S. course with a northeast wind we made it an out-and-out starboard tack and did better. At 7 p. m.^ the wind strengthening, we pre- pared to shorten sail, and at this moment a larger wave than its fellows spilled the air from the mainsail and its running-mate heaved the boom. Thus it jibed while ten feet above our heads and luckily caught in the belly of the sail on a short- lived port tack. Chambers headed her into it immediately and we doused the mainsail, the new hoops working perfectly, thereupon to find that we could not carry our new jib with its cumber- some jury-boom. So we had to resort again to the storm jib. With this bandana handkerchief set, it was a question of sailing a course that the ship would steer, and this proved to be south-southwest, which, luckily enough, would carry us past the 59 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS lighted buoy on the outer extremity of Frying Pan Shoals, about twenty-eight miles from Cape Fear. Being then prepared for heavy weather, we asked Boreas to let her flicker, and he did, giv- ing us in twenty-four hours our best day's run of 140 miles. Meanwhile the wind continued to in- crease in force, and at 2 :40 a. m., when my eyes were gladdened by the sight of the lighted buoy abeam, we were logging seven knots under storm jib and jigger alone. In shoal water this night would have ranked with our hair-raising experi- ence off the Delaware Capes, but with fifteen or twenty fathoms beneath her, the Hippocampus rode the seas with the buoyancy of a tin duck in a bath-tub. Yet it was not a night for tempting the fates, and as we could only lay a course for Charleston Light- vessel by jibing the mizzen, I let her continue on her south-southwest course when at daylight I was relieved and took my watch below. Late in the morning watch the wind moderated and Chambers and Squibb jibed her over to the starboard tack on a course which, if continued, would have carried us to the light-ship. The 60 HEAD WIND AND SHOWERS wind spent the morning marshaling up a flock of wicked-looking nimbus clouds and employed itself during the early part of the afternoon par- ading them across the heavens from north to south and from south to north, and emptying them upon us with each passing. It seemed as if Capes Hatteras, Lookout, and Fear were deter- mined to punish us for passing them so easily, and the stormy petrels had a particularly sinister aspect as they picked imaginary crumbs from the water and sported with the waves. Yet at 3 p. m., in the middle of the most breath-taking downpour of the day, the wind died completely and for two hours while the sun battled with the clouds for supremacy we slatted in a dead calm, the mizzen-boom playing its anvil chorus until our nerves cried for peace and quiet. Then a slant of wind of equal strength hit us from the southeast and for two hours more bowled us along our westerly way. The Gulf Stream had set us during the day, and at mid- night we were not greatly surprised when on a dying breeze we sighted Cape Romain at some distance on our starboard bow. 61 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS Again the wind breathed out, and for the fol- lowing twelve hours we made nothing but lee- way and showed a hypothetical gain on the pat- ent log of five and a half miles. It then became time to start the motor to reach Charleston be- fore dark, and I made my first heinous naviga- tional error. I mention it as a warning to others, because, although no one else has ever done it, it might easily be repeated by the careless. I ap- plied a point of deviation the wrong way. Consequently, when we had overrun our dis- tance from Cape Romain to Charleston Light- vessel, there was no vessel nor any land in sight ; and we bore up to westward looking for land- marks. Presently the keen eyes of the exec sighted Charleston Lighthouse, a match-stick standing upright on the horizon, and we laid a northwesterly course for it, having erred in our landfall by a matter of ten miles. Naturally enough, I was deeply chagrined and promised the crew to set up the first round when we come to the countries where the setting is good. Thus mutiny was prevented and we squared away for the jetties with easy consciences. 62 HEAD WIND AND SHOWERS Upon Charleston we turn our backward glances with particularly tender memories. Ar- riving at the Carolina Yacht Club in the moon- light we were assigned a berth alongside the dock, and by no less than a dozen members were cordially extended the hospitality of the club, which included hot showers, shore food, and all kinds of elbow-room for writing letters. At Charleston, too, we learned that the Haig twins still fly their five-starred flag in the face of the enemy; and we took them into camp and were glad. The first day in port was devoted to drying everything which had become wet — which was everything aboard ship. And on the following day we painted the deck-house and varnished the hatches. But that afternoon we accepted the hospitality of Charles C. West, a member of the club, and with his two friends, Middleton and Dexter, took the road to Folly Beach with alarm- ing alacrity. On the hard sand of the beach, avoiding the waves of an oncoming tide, we watched the laggard hand of the speedometer work up to forty-five and knew that it undertold 63 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS the truth by twenty miles. Then we swam, re- turned to the club for food, and called it a ban- ner day. The next was somewhat like it, being a judi- cious mixture of work and play, and including ac- ceptance of the kind invitation of Squibb's friend Lieutenant Berwick Lanier to lunch with him aboard his destroyer Biddle. There on a tour of inspection Chambers was amazed to see on the fantail the identical Y-gun which had equipped his S. C. 63 during the war. With great re- straint no one remarked on the smallness of the world. In the evening we made poor shift to return the hospitality of Mr. West, and on the evening following Lieutenant Lanier paid us the honor of sharing our vesperal corn fritters. Over the cigarettes there was much anecdote of the navy in general and of the esteemed Captain "Juggy" Nelson in particular. He it was who won the war for the allies with the Adriatic de- tachment of sub-chasers, and we regretted keenly the orders which had despatched him and the U.S.S. Leonidas (with all speed possible) to New York ten days before our arrival in Charleston. 64 o CO a; bJD ^ d •■a ^2 T3 a* co Photographed from a sea buoy, the Hippo seemed indeed the smallest ship that has ever sailed to Colon At Jacksonville Chambers varnished the mizzen, unaffected by the splendor of the new lift bridge HEAD WIND AND SHOWERS The next day, May 25, having finished our ship's work, we lashed everything down and headed to sea, laden with much booty from the post and express offices. We have not yet caught up with an eight-foot dink which the Skaneateles people have expressed to Jackson- ville with their compliments, intending thereby to assuage our grief at losing our wherry in the storm of May 3. When we do we shall shun line-breaking, paint-marring docks, and anchor at will. Then our happiness will be complete. 65 IV MISFORTUNE OVERTAKES US IF a cruise in a yawl were all plain sailing there would be little to chronicle but the state of the sea and the color of the clouds at sunrise. Run- ning free before a breeze which obligingly shifted with the outline of the coast, she would diminish her latitude like a coastwise steamer, her log so barren of entry that her skipper would have to draw on his imagination for publishable material. Luckily, the Fates have provided that in the Odyssey of the Hippocampus there shall be no mention of halcyon days, hardly any record of fair winds, and almost a superfluity of unortho- dox adventures. Yet, after a month of cruising, no fatal accident has befallen. In a retrospect of what did occur on a night at Mayport, Florida, this seems a shade unusual. Much more in accordance with our expecta- tion was the contrary slant of wind which greeted 66 MISFORTUNE OVERTAKES US us, as, ten days in advance of the cataclysmic occurrence hereinafter to be described, we nosed our way between the jetties at Charleston and set sail for a run to Savannah. Between en- trances it is a distance that Gar Junior or an- other of the moderns would do in two hours, and the weather was of the sort that would delight the paddler of a thirteen-foot canoe. But the Hippo, indifferent to meteorological conditions, pointed her bowsprit as close as she could to a vagrant breath from the southwest, and in two hours was still visible from the entrance buoys. Twelve hours later, half a day of calms, spas- modic breezes, and rolled-up banks of cumulus that merely threatened sudden squalls of wind, we dropped the eighteen-mile beam of Charleston Light and called it our day of least accomplish- ment. Midnight found us totally becalmed, with the range lights of an approaching-steamer bear- ing directly down on us. A well-directed flash of our portable search-light called his attention to us, and we had the satisfaction of seeing him alter course to pass around us. Until mid-afternoon of the next day, May 27, 67 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS we fared but little better in point of mileage. Sights taken in the morning and at noon with the Brandis sextant gave me a fix that was ten miles northeastward of our dead reckoning posi- tion, and I gained a new idea of the leeway which a small boat will make tacking against light airs. We were becoming almost reconciled to picking up Charleston Light-vessel astern of us when at 3 :45 a moderate breeze sprang up from the north- east and we squared away for Martin's Industry Light-vessel. We picked it up at dusk, our usual hour for making such landfalls, and, the wind becoming gusty, shortened sail and scudded for Tybee lighted buoy, at the entrance to the Savannah River. Showers of rain came with the wind and blasted our hopes of completing a run between ports without donning oilers. At midnight, when we started the motor and picked up the first range of Tybee Roads, I em- barked upon an experience that was as new as it was interesting; that of entering a strange har- bor without adequate charts. In New York, when I made up my portfolio, Savannah was so far away that a difference in date of ten years 68 MISFORTUNE OVERTAKES US did not seem vital, and I included a few charts that had been used on a previous cruise. But when we were in the roads and I saw that almost every range and other navigational light in the vicinity had been changed within the decade I re- garded the matter differently. However, I took my data from the "Light List," and, cheered if not exactly aided by a moon which shone through the clouds and illuminated port-hand buoys on our quarter, the little Hippo worked up above Quarantine and came to anchor to await a fair tide. The turn came at 8 a. m., and under the heat of a sultry sun we started up the Savannah River, experiencing for the first time the sensation of stepping on red-hot decks with bare feet. The motor kicked us along busily to within three miles of Savannah, where we turned and followed the inside route to Thunderbolt, since, as every one knows who has cruised south, Savannah is to be shunned as a city of water-front smells and high docks. But this Georgian city is also a place of de- lightful hospitality and delicious "rebel" tend- 69 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS encies, and we were the pampered guests of men who had served in our late difficulty with Ger- many as well as of those who had fought in "the War." Squibb chased the ball around a links whose bunkers are fashioned from Civil War breastworks, and at one home we were invited to inspect round shot fired from Federal guns which had rusted in the soil for fifty years after they had missed their objective. At a dinner party — and this once more reminded us of the bad old days — we made the acquaintance of Mr. Tom Collins, and, listening to the clink of ice in the glasses, rejoiced that Savannah is still a rebel city. We had been at anchor some hours in Thunder- bolt when the owner of a V-bottom speed-boat came alongside and asked me (the crew having hit the beach in liberty whites) if I would like to explore with him the route which we would take on leaving. Inasmuch as my chart of Wassaw Sound, which lies to westward of Tybee Roads, was also superannuated, and since the day, Sat- urday, was to be followed not only by Sunday but by Decoration day and then Jeff Davis's birth- day, when all loyal storekeepers shut up shop, 70 MISFORTUNE OVERTAKES US I accepted his offer with much thanks. We shot down the Wilmington River and in but little more than an hour were arrived at the in- let where by observation and by instruction I learned the lay of the land. Since my host of this occasion, who is a thorough-going but inland boatman, asked for information on points which to the crew of the Hippocampus seemed self-evident, perhaps it will be well if I here interpolate a short catechism for the edification of readers : Q. "Did you come down inside?" A. "No ; we draw too much water to make in- side running enjoyable, and we have made the whole distance outside, including the fearsome trip around Hatteras." Q. "When you are outside, do you anchor at night?" A. "No ; when dependent upon sail one cannot rely on making harbors at dusk, and we run all night, standing regular ship's watches." Q. "Is it pretty dark out there at night, or do you use a search-light?" This is a difficult question to answer in tabloid 71 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS form. We do not use a search-light, because at times there is nothing to see but waves, and given the opportunity they will come aboard for close inspection. It is dark on overcast nights except when lightning illuminates the horizon for brief intervals; but on moonlight nights the sea is a huge cup of molten silver in which we float with the serenity of a gull and the buoyancy of a Por- tuguese man-o'-war. Porpoises dive torpedo-like beneath our hull, leaving a wake of phosphor- escence, and at a distartce other great fish leap up and fall to the surface in a shower of pearls. Lighthouses cast their benignant radiance upon us, and once in a great while a stately steamer, catching the red and green beams of our running lights, alters course to avoid us. Night follows day with even regularity, and is cut from pretty much the same cloth. A change is welcome, however, and doubly so when it comprises such a swimming party as we had at the home of Ambrose Gordon, at Beaulieu, Georgia. There on Sunday afternoon we exhib- ited our sunburn (which in the South is always the mark of the Northerner) and executed inept 72 MISFORTUNE OVERTAKES US dives from a lofty spring-board. In the cool of the evening we returned aboard and prepared with sleep for a day at the Savannah Country Club as the guests of Squibb's boyhood friend, Murray Stewart, the son of the mayor of Savan- nah. By Tuesday morning the sea fever was upon us again, and we weighed anchor and stood down the Wilmington River to Wassaw Sound, pass- ing through the inlet and leaving on either hand snow-white beaches where ancient sea-turtles land and lay hundreds of eggs in order that Georgians may know the gastronomic possibilities of gutta- percha. Once clear of the sea buoy off Wassaw we stopped the motor and hoisted sail, taking full advantage of a moderate breeze that had come up overnight from the northeast. All that day we ran free, now with the sheets to port and again, after a carefully executed jibe, with them to star- board, and by night we were abreast of Bruns- wick Light-vessel. With darkness came a ma- terial increase in the strength of the wind, and by midnight it was blowing briskly enough to log us 73 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS six knots under "forestaysail and spanker" — as our jib and jigger have been termed in Southern waters. At 3:30 of the next morning — June 1 — we rounded St. Johns lighted buoy and made for the entrance between the jetties. Again the dead of night found us entering a strange harbor with an antiquated chart, for our efforts to pro- cure a new one of St. Johns River had been un- successful. But this occasion was not the moon- lit excursion that we had staged at Tybee Roads. All night the wind had blown more briskly until at that hour it had developed into a full-fledged northeaster — one which was to continue, by the way, for ten whole days before the doldrums got the better of it — and to add to the merriment the tide was at its maximum flood and sweeping ter- rifically across the mouth of the river. In studying the sailing directions to acquire information which our chart could not give me, I learned that if a vessel becomes unmanageable here in a northerly wind and a flood tide she is almost certain to be a total loss on one of the jetties. This added zest to the early morning 74 MISFORTUNE OVERTAKES US hours and gave point to a sudden call from Cham- bers, clinging to the mainmast and peering into the darkness. "Jetty dead ahead." Strangely enough I was not alarmed. We were running under power with only the jigger set to steady us in the sea that was boiling in to- ward the jetties, and for some minutes I had been holding the Hippocampus on the first set of range lights. But to do so against the current I had been obliged to head four points to north- ward of the course. Hence it was that we seemed to be making for the north jetty and hence my reply to Chambers's call: "We couldn't hit that one if we tried. Do you see the south jetty?" In another minute the strain on the helm was eased, and although my eyes were held as by self- hypnosis on the white lights of the range I knew that we had passed between the converging jetties and would soon be in quiet water. A few min- utes later my assurance was entirely dissipated when I failed to distinguish a cross-over range from a dozen winking lights and nearly piled up on the south jetty; but after describing two full 75 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS circles (the mizzen flapping until Paul jumped to the halyards and doused it) I got my bearings again and we continued to be guided by the ab- breviated instructions in the "Light List." Day- light overtook us abreast of Mayport, and we carried the flood to Jacksonville, jib and jigger once more set to assist the engine. Arriving there at 8 a. m., we secured after a run which, though twice the distance from Charleston to Savannah, had been accomplished in less than half the time. We secured, as I say, and sent out a broadcast for Watson B. Donahue. Donnie was my first skipper aboard the S. C. 131 9 as trim a chaser as sailed the seven seas, and I Ve liked him ever since I stepped aboard his ship. I remember that I asked him with all the ardor of a new exec if he wanted me to turn out early the following morning to put the crew to work, and he an- swered : "Sleep until noon if you wish. The work aboard this packet does itself." How could I help liking such a commanding officer? The crew did, too, and when he left us 76 MISFORTUNE OVERTAKES US with the flu at Gibraltar they gave him a silver loving-cup. That was at a time when mighty few commanding officers of sub-chasers were re- ceiving tokens of affection from their crews, and he values it almost as much as he does his Navy Cross. But this is ancient history. Donnie picked up the broadcast and it was n't many hours before we were bowling over the brick highway to Pablo Beach. As it was Shriners' week in Jax the beach belonged to the red-fezzed gentry, but we visitors w r ere able to dash into the surf occasion- ally without interfering with the action of the moving-picture cameras. The northeaster blew with undiminished vigor, and it was with mingled feelings that we viewed the white-caps tumbling over one another as far as the eye could reach. As a change it was pleasant to be on the shore- ward side of the line of breakers, but it was some- what tantalizing to be marking time on dry land while a fair wind that would have blown us to Miami in short order was wasting itself on a de- serted ocean. On the beach at Pablo we asked Donnie to 77 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS attend a little council of war in which our future itinerary was discussed. Until our arrival at Jacksonville we had been minded to strike off from the States at Miami, making Bimini the first and most important port, and from there working to Nassau and through the Tongue of the Ocean or Exuma Sound to the Windward Passage, and thence between Cuba and Haiti to Jamaica. But just before our departure for the beach I had been studying charts and sailing directions with more care and had been brought face to face with the fact that the Bahama Banks is a hostile region for a sailboat with small power. Lighted aids to navigations are few, harbors are fewer, and the depths, unless wide detours be taken, are little better than a heavy dew. Moreover, there is little of interest along the route. These facts being presented to Donnie, sitting in extraordinary session with the crew, it was unanimously voted that we omit the Bahamas from our itinerary and make Havana our first foreign port. From there it was decided that we shall carry the counter-current along the 78 MISFORTUNE OVERTAKES US Straits of Florida to Cape San Antonio at the northwestern end of Cuba, beat along the south shore of that island republic and from a conve- nient jumping-off place make Jamaica, with Colon our next objective. Had we known what was to happen to us at Mayport in the night of the second day follow- ing we could have spared ourselves immediate worry over ultimate adventures. On June 4, with a liberal supply of peanut-butter, jam, and other necessities of a nomadic existence stowed beneath our decks, we cast off from our berth along the Jacksonville water-front and stood down the river. En route, Squibb, turning to in the galley with his accustomed vigor, cooked us up a chow that included among the vegetables a can of spinach. All went well until at 7 p. m. we came to the very mouth of the jetties and saw an ominous- looking pile of clouds backing against the north- east wind. Perhaps, like the Roman army of olden times, we had dallied too long at Capua, en- joying the fruits of the land. Perhaps we mis- read the weather indications. In either event we 79 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS put back to the town of Mayport and sought an- chorage. Finding after two attempts that the holding ground was poor we weighed again and moored with our starboard side to a barge loaded with boulders for the jetties. Two hours later the sky cleared and the night was perfect for sail- ing south, but when it was suggested to the crew that we shove off with the turn of the tide at mid- night, the little ptomaines which I believe are in- cipient in every can of spinach registered a pro- test and we remained where we were. I happen to have an old-fashioned horror of going adrift from a mooring at night, and so I stayed awake until the tide was well on the ebb, and then in addition to our bow and stern breast- lines and a spring, ran another spring to a nig- gerhead on the barge. Satisfied that nothing short of an earthquake would move us from our snug berth, I took a look around — at the new barge to which we were moored, at a second barge lying upstream, at the floating derrick above that, and at the lashings of the dink secured athwart- ship in our cockpit. This dink was the joy of our life. It replaced 80 Drying clothes after the avalanche had hit the yawl and neatly divided the dink in two parts Only three planks were crushed by the ten-ton rock, and they were readily replaced in Jacksonville On the few occasions that the wind was fair, the Hippo raced like the sea horse that she is The public and exceedingly efficacious baptism of a band of negroes in the waters of the St. Johns MISFORTUNE OVERTAKES US the one we had lost in the storm off Fenwick Is- land Shoals, and was the newly received gift of the Skaneateles Boat and Canoe Co. For nearly a thousand miles we had gone without a skiff and had moored to rickety, unsafe wharves because we were unable otherwise to get ashore at pleasure. Now that we had a new skiff, with "Hippo- campus" painted in gold on both bows, we were determined that it should not get away from us, come what might in the weather line. Patting its varnished sides affectionately, I climbed over it, went below, crawled beneath my mosquito- bar, and, following the example already set by Chambers and Squibb, passed out. Such is the effect of wind and sun upon us that we can never mahage to go to sleep gracefully. We pass out, not to awaken until in the normal order of events Paul's mental alarm-clock goes off inside his brain and he routs us out. But on this night at 1 :05 a. m. we awoke simultaneously and completely to the cacophonous tune of splint- ered wood, of falling crockery and tinware, and — most ominous of all — to the sound of inrushing water. The exact sequence of events succeeding 81 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS this babel of noise would probably be told differ- ently by each member of the crew, and I admit that I was too dazed by the shock to know what had happened or was happening. At first my only conscious act was to note the time told by the luminous dial of the watch strapped to my wrist — and that, I believe, was merely a reflex emanating from the days when as quartermaster in the navy I was trained to record events and the time of their occurrence. Chambers was first on deck. He had been catapulted from his pipe-berth to my bunk, the mosquito-netting proving no barrier to his flight. He landed in such a way that he suffered a con- tusion to one leg while I sustained a bruise on my breast-bone, and I believe that he ricocheted from me and was surveying the damage on the top-side before the ship had returned to an even keel. Squibb followed him out of the compan- ionway and I came third, neither of us noticing that the doorway was unobstructed until Cham- bers cried out, "Boys, the wherry is gone!" But he was wrong. The wherry had been moved from cockpit to waist-deck but it was 82 MISFORTUNE OVERTAKES US there — in two pieces. The larger piece was the keel, frames, and planking, and the smaller, the stern-piece, cut away as neatly as though it had been chiseled. Nevertheless my heart skipped a beat and I remember repeating over and over, "If we had only put to sea!" What had happened to us? I had n't an ink- ling of an idea, and Al and Paul admitted that they thought we had been cut down by a steamer. We were adrift, with our bow line dangling entire from the capstan, and one spring gone. The other, which had done duty also as the stern breast, was severed in one place and secured at its other end to the amidship niggerhead of the barge, bobbing in the water beside us. Around us there was a film of dust on the water, but the tide had already carried us out of sight of the barge and every other familiar object. It may have been seconds or it may have been minutes later that I found myself entering the cabin after a survey of the deck, preparing at Al's suggestion to start the engine. The noise of inrushing water had long since stopped, but as I stepped off the companionway ladder, a pool 83 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS gurgled around my ankles and I knew that pumping was a prerequisite to getting under way. Then I thanked my lucky stars that I had brought in addition to our ornamental brass pump one of those galvanized affairs with a three-inch dis- charge. Paul turned to with this life-saver, and in time the lower periphery of the fly-wheel was clear of water. At this juncture we still had no inkling of what had occurred. We knew that although we had been badly hurt our fuel-pipes were unbroken and that we were taking little more water. But we were uncertain of the condition of our power- plant, and we were rapidly drifting stern-first to ward the jetties. Al, after straigtening up on deck, hoisted the jib and jigger, but there was insufficient air to stem the force of the tide. To anchor in the deep water of the channel seemed unwise, since we were not yet sure we would re- main afloat. Within my own brain circum- stances and ideas were in a state bordering on chaos up to the moment in which, working auto- matically, I went through the preliminary mo- 84 : MISFORTUNE OVERTAKES US tions of starting the motor and placed my hands on the rim of the fly-wheel. With one turn she was firing, and I closed the compression-cocks and bounded to the deck. Taking the tiller I glanced at the radiolite com- pass, looked about me, and recognized one light of the many round us. Although embarked upon a sailing cruise I am still enough of a motor- boatman to feel the steadying effect of power, and the act of transmitting our motive force to the propeller cleared my brain and orientated me with respect to our position in the river. Then, despite the blackness of the night, it was a simple matter to buck the tide and make a landing alongside a tug secured to a wharf in Mayport. It was then after two in the morning and time for a chow and for a post-mortem examination and deductions, for we were still uncertain of the cause of our mishap. Chambers furnished the key from which the three of us worked out the details of the mystery. The stone barge to which we had been moored, falling with the ebbing tide, had caught its inboard side on a submerged pile 85 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS and canted over, spilling its deck load of boulders in our direction. One stone weighing — we were informed later in the morning — ten tons had carried away the eight-by-eight-inch niggerhead of the barge before striking us. The first shock of the impact against our craft had been taken up by our unfortunate wherry, lashed directly in the way, and had given the Hippocampus time to spring slightly away from the barge. The yawl had, of course, heeled over as soon as she felt the weight of the boulder, and as the dink crashed and was pushed to one side, the stone settled and nicked one corner of the deck-house before striking the starboard waist deck and falling into the water. Another boulder had left its mark on the planking under the forward shrouds, and a third had scored one of the mizzen chain-plates; but the major part of the 200 tons of rock with which the barge had been loaded passed harmlessly into the water. Arrived at these conclusions we pumped the bilge dry and examined more carefully the damage to our deck and side. With relief we found that no injury had been done below the 86 MISFORTUNE OVERTAKES US water-line, and that aside from broken coaming, deck cover strip, and three planks in the top- side which were crushed in part and would re- quire renewal, we were unharmed. The frames and knees were uninjured, and the seams being tight, we were taking water only in one place above the water-line where the small waves splashed up against a fractured plank. A can- vas patch battened over the damaged area kept out the water, and by eight o'clock we were under way for Jacksonville, a much-needed breakfast tucked beneath our belts and a measure of com- posure in our minds. Motoring up the river past the disabled barge, we had more leisure to congratulate ourselves on our escape and to conjecture what would have happened under slightly different circumstances of the accident. If, for instance, the boulder had landed three feet farther forward it would have crashed through the carlines of the cabin-house and pinned me to my bunk. Or if the wherry had not been lashed across the cock- pit the boulder might have fallen inboard and taken us to the bottom with it. If the barge 87 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS in canting over had not floated our bow-line clear of the niggerhead, and if the amidship bollard had not been carried away, the strength of our four lines would have held us close to in a position to receive the entire 200 tons of jetty rock. These were the major possibilities, and the minor escapes seemed no less miraculous. For example, our two compasses bracketed the wherry — one in its fixed position on the cabin bulkhead, and the other temporarily placed just abaft the small boat. Neither was so much as scratched. The shrouds, spars, and all the rig- ging, with the exception of one backstay runner block which Al easily repaired, escaped injury, and we lost overboard no equipment except an agate wash-basin, two rope fenders, and half a pound of butter which one of us slid on as he hit the deck. The extent to which Hippocampus rolled under the impact was shown in three ways : first by the opened cover of our chronometer box; second, by the high-water mark on the clothes-locker overhead, and third by a dent in the woodwork left by a falling fire-extinguisher. This ex- 88 MISFORTUNE OVERTAKES US tinguisher normally hangs from a hook on the port side abaft the galley, about five feet from the deck. It detached itself and struck the face of the clothes-locker opposite at a point only one foot lower. All this indicated that the yawl rolled nearly to seventy-five degrees, and we thanked our ton of outside ballast for bringing us back to an even keel. Chiefly, however, we thanked Hippocampus herself (and her designer and builder) for being the stanchest boat of her length afloat. Her two-inch oak frames and one-inch planking took the shock so evenly that when, upon our arrival in Jacksonville, a boat-builder looked her over, he promised that in four days she would be as good as new. This boat-builder was F. J. Davenport, of the Riverside Boat Manufacturing Co., to whose capable attention I take pleasure in referring other yachtsmen who may find themselves in trouble in Jacksonville. Without hauling us out he had two men at work on the side Tuesday morning, and by Friday evening only two patches of new canvas on our cabin-house and 89 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS deck told the story of the casualty. Three short lengths of plank secured with three-inch brass screws, an eight-foot section of the cover strip, a twelve-foot piece of oak coaming, and two or three pieces of half-round — these constituted the items of lumber that went to rejuvenate the Hippocampus. The dink was turned over to Andrews, another * Jacksonville builder, and before we were again ready to sail she was floating as saucily as before under our counter, a new stern-piece of cypress replacing the broken part. Priming and paint were applied to our side and deck, and on Sun- day morning, one week behind schedule, we were ready to renew our travels. Needless to say, if we had had the ordering of events apportioned us by destiny we should have omitted what Paul calls "rocking the boat." But having already learned in stress of weather what the little yawl is good for, we now know what she is made of, and we are more than ever confident that the stanchness of her timbers will carry us to the journey's end. One word more to close the episode of the ava- 90 MISFORTUNE OVERTAKES US lanche. As we were limping away from May- port on our return trip to Jacksonville a shrill- voiced lady of the port called after us, "Well, I guess you '11 know better next time than to tie to a rock barge." Indeed we shall. And when passing under draw-bridges of the lift type we shall expect them to fall on us. We shall be prepared for blizzards in the tropics and water-spouts in the Panama Canal, and on every point we shall try to meet the unexpected more than half-way. Anticipation is only one of the many joys of cruising. 91 WE TOUCH FOREIGN SOIL EVERY one who has cruised extensively is aware that itineraries are made only to be altered and that promises to gain or leave a port at any stated time are of the substance of gos- samer. Knowing this, I yet ventured to predict in print that the run of the twenty-eight-foot Hippocampus from New York to Panama would commence with a few rapid tacks down the east coast of the United States, continue with a meteoric flight through the West Indies, and conclude with a care-free sail across the Caribbean. Had I been Croesus and able to expend untold sums in gasolene we might have carried out this program, subject, of course, to the vagaries of all mechanical contraptions. But, being more comparable to a certain domestic fowl that was wont to scratch gravel in the portico of the late lamented Job, I am dependent upon the whims of the wind — and 92 WE TOUCH FOREIGN SOIL find that my predictions are less than worthless. We are now, eight weeks from New York, only ninety miles out of the shadow of the Stars and Stripes. For several weeks we Hippocampi were given to dating events from the night of the Big Wind off the Delaware Capes. Other circumstances shrank into significance by comparison with the occasion on which Joe Chambers, then known as Al, revealed his skill as a yachtsman extraor- dinary, and Joe Squibb, alias Paul, won the right to his designation of Sea-going Gadget. We endured other storms of wind and rain, wore our oilskins threadbare, and became inured to biting spray; but these supplementary affairs were unworthy of mention to the old and new friends we met en route. Then came the night at Mayport, Florida, which gave us a new topic of conversation. The storm is forgotten, except that we remark parenthetically that the Hippocampus has proved her seaworthiness, and we reckon all our good fortune and bad luck from the night of the avalanche. We are lucky indeed to be alive to 93 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS tell about it, but unlucky in being a bad two weeks behind schedule because of it. For by lying a week in Jacksonville to undergo repairs we lost the fine northeast wind that would have blown us in jig-time to Miami. When, on the morning of Sunday, June 12, we were finally ready to shove off, we delayed yet another hour to witness the public and ex- ceedingly efficacious baptism of a band of negroes in the waters of the St. Johns. These devout Baptists, indifferent alike to the clicking cameras of the white folks and the crude oil which floats on the surface of the river, underwent their services near the mouth of a sanctimonious old sewer to westward of the Hippocampus, chant- ing continuously a stirring baptismal hymn. So captivating were both refrain and music that the two Joes, waiting impatiently to cast off our mooring-lines, succumbed to their lure, and now we weigh anchor and haul halyards to the newest of sea chanties : Whosoever will, let him come, Let him come, And drink of the river of life. 94 WE TOUCH FOREIGN SOIL So, humming and whistling to memorize the air, we let go, waved good-by to my old ship- mate Donahue, and stood down the river of St. Johns. Past the scene of the avalanche we went, and through the jetties for which the invading rock had been intended, and when we were out- side and found the day fair and the breeze unfavorable, we thought it as good a time as any to photograph the Hippocampus under sail. The crew brought the yawl into stays and I jumped, camera in hand, into our rejuvenated dink, and for the first time gained an outboard view of the ship in action. She is every inch a ship, viewed from any angle, and I must say that I am proud to be one of three who are pointing her inquiring nose into new harbors and along strange waterways. Except for the short time that she was sailing before the eye of the camera on that day she had little opportunity to run her gait, for the wind was dead against us. During the evening and night we beat north by east and reached south- southwest, the closest we could come to our southeasterly course, and in so doing we began 95 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS a monotonous tacking contest that lasted for six whole days. The wind veered from east to southwest and back again, its shifts usually catching us in a poor position with respect to the beach to take advantage of them, and not for five days and twenty-three hours of the six did we sail with the wind abaft the beam. This is the discouraging part of sailing, but, to make it worse, we were frequently becalmed and at times were subject to the northward set of the Gulf Stream along the Florida coast. Contrary winds and calms we endured with some equanimity, the weather being otherwise perfect, but when, on the morning of the third day out of Jacksonville, we found ourselves somewhere off Cape Canaveral and the cobalt blue of the water told us that we were in the full strength of the stream, we lost our ample fund of patience and started the Palmer motor. Leaving all sail set to steady us in the seaway, and heading as close to the southwest wind as we could with- out luffing, we soon picked up Hetzel Shoal buoy on our port bow, and then lowered the 96 Eagle 39 would gladly have given the Hippocampus a tow if she hadn't been in need of one herself So the yawl hooked on to the escorting navy tug and whiled away a hundred miles of utmost ease At the lowest estimate, 943,261 Americans have snapped Morro Castle since the dawn of prohibition Havana harbor has come vividly to life in recent years, but sailing ships still give it color WE TOUCH FOREIGN SOIL mainsail and left the smaller sails flapping as we steered to pass it close aboard. In time the breeze died away and we decided to continue past the cape and keep the motor running until we had another slant of wind. By now we had had enough experience with the weather to forecast with some accuracy the di- rection of the wind, and we were off shore when a southeasterly breeze sprang up and sent us under sail alone on a long tack for the beach. Consequent upon some manoeuvering, a south- westerly sent us out to Bethel Shoal buoy and on the morning of the next day delivered us into the good graces of another easterly. By these tactics and a judicious use of the motor to give us an offing now and again we spent the day, but that night the wind completely forsook us and we ran all night under power, arriving off Palm Beach at eleven in the morning of Friday. Here the opportunity presented to step ashore and stretch our legs and to replenish our store of matches and cigarettes. So in fifteen feet of water we anchored a hundred yards or so north- 97 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS east of the pier, and I swam ashore, accompanied by Al in the wherry. Arrived on the beach we found it so hot to our bare feet that we gladly accepted a loan of two bicycles offered us by some workmen (who said they would take the yawl as security for their safe return) and we were soon pedaling down the deserted streets of Florida's winter capital. Those who have seen it in February, a glare of color and the essence of the continent's fashion, will be grieved to know that in summer Palm Beach boasts but one open establishment besides the post-office. Sun-dried lawns or boarded-up hotels met our glance on every side, and Al and I thought almost that we had come to an abandoned village until in the only store we bought some soda-pop and learned that Palm Beach prices prevail. Thus reassured, we mailed our post-cards, bought our smoking material, and returned by wheel and rowboat to the yawl. Paul, tending ship and swimming over side in our absence, had decided that a protracted 98 WE TOUCH FOREIGN SOIL view of the barn-like sides of the Breakers was sight-seeing enough for him, so we weighed anchor and under sail started to annihilate the remaining sixty miles to Miami. Here we had come to that stretch of Florida's mainland along which the Gulf Stream cuts the closest, and to avoid its current we ran almost within tossing distance of the beach. Al, standing the first watch that night, saw homebodies reading in the glow of their study-lamps, and vainly envied the speed of motor-cars flitting along the coastal road between Hillsboro Inlet and the Beach. But the setting moon took from him the ability to gage our distance from the beach, and morning found us fog-bound safely off soundings. The fog, liberally diluted with pungent smoke from some distant fire in the Everglades, burned off at six o'clock, and the increased visibility re- vealed us bearing down on Biscayne buoy, north of the entrance to Miami. For several hours we had been running by motor over a sea so calm that our booms, suspended from idle sails, scarcely left their amidship position, but now a 99 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS fair wind came into life and for the last five miles of our six days' run we sailed with free sheets. Entering the government cut under power alone we chugged up the new dredged channel to an oil-wharf «and there acquired misinformation that initiated us into the innermost circles of Florida cruisers. Within three hundred yards of Biscayne Bay Yacht Club we grounded in four and a half feet of water. But muscles, motors, and kedge anchors were especially fashioned for cruising in Florida's inland water- ways, and before long we were afloat and riding to anchor. Miami has changed miraculously since last I saw it eight years ago, but the hospitality of my old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Matheson, re- mains the same— kind and open-hearted. "Why think of going on," they urged, during an informal inspection of Hippocampus, "when there is no more wind than there has been? Come to Cocoanut Grove and rest awhile." So we locked up the little yawl and for three days knew the luxury of good company, real 100 WE TOUCH FOREIGN SOIL food, cool sheets, and fresh water in bath-tub quantities. Then, although there was little wind, we refused heroically to impose further on our hosts, and, gladdened by a small cargo of Mathe- son limes, set sail for Key West. We set sail, but hardly had we cleared the gov- ernment cut when we saw bearing down on us the knife-like prow of U. S.S.Eagle 39. She is one of those amazing war-time products of Ford car genealogy, all tin and angles, and as we had inspected her at her mooring at Jacksonville we recognized her from afar and knew that her desti- nation was Key West. So was ours. What more fair than that we proceed together? So, although we were out of signal distance, we tacked twice, thereby attracting the attention of her quartermaster, and with my ex-service semaphore flags I sent this unpresumptuous mes- sage : To Captain Strumm : Will you tow us to Key West ? By way of answer the Eagle-boat changed her course the better to intercept us, and presently we received a request to repeat our message. 101 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS That done we were ordered within hail and when, our motor now propelling us, we came within speaking distance, we learned to our immeasur- able sorrow that Eagle 39 was in bad straits and could not give us a tow. Captain Strumm added through his megaphone, "We have been four days coming from Jack- sonville, and there is a tug standing by to tow us in the event of another breakdown." The mention of a tug gave us new hope, and, thanking the captain for his honest regret at his inability to tow us, we squared off in the direc- tion of the tug and repeated our first message. This time the answer came as a wave of the hand and a long surveillance of us through a spy-glass. To forestall a possible negative reply I added the pleading words : "We are the yawl Hippocampus, bound for Panama, and we have been meeting head winds all the way." There came another wave of the hand, the clang of a bell in the engine-room, a stir of activ- ity on the tug's fantail, and — well, it seems in- conceivable to this day that in three minutes we 102 WE TOUCH FOREIGN SOIL were towing securely at the end of a four-inch line. We looked at one another in amazement and some one voiced the thought of all of us. "Did you ever see such nerve, asking a navy tug for a tow — and getting away with it?" None of us had, but Chambers and I thanked fortune for our training in the sub-chasers where the bold broke even with the game and only the downright brazen got what they thought was due them. The knowledge that the acceptance of a tow- line is considered ignominious by the yachting fraternity troubled us not at all. We congratu- lated ourselves on our good luck, hoped fervently that the Eagle-boat would not break down, and for the first time on our cruise prayed that the wind would die away and stay dead until we had reached Key West. No prayer more certain of fulfilment could be uttered in June along the Florida coast, and all day and until four the fol- lowing morning we swung at six or seven knots over a calm, limpid sea. Counting the lights as we put them behind us — Fowey Rocks, Carys- 103 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS fort Reef, and Alligator Reef — we at length sighted Sombrero Key and knew that in another three hours we would be past the zone of the three-knot northward current. Al had the watch when at 3 :30 he called down the hatch, "O boys, the Eagle has let go a rocket." Sleepy as Paul and I were we knew what that meant, and we clambered regretfully .to the top-side ready to cast off our tow-line and hoist sail. Megaphoned orders came almost im- mediately from the tug, and in a few minutes we were on our way again. But Sombrero Key was nearly abeam, the worst of the current was be- hind us, and, what was more to the point, a fair breeze from the northeast had come to our re- lief. Until two hours after daylight the wind held and we kept abreast of the tug, laboriously tow- ing the Eagle-boat, but then we fell astern and in time found it expedient to start the motor and speed our slow progress. We caught up with the naval vessels again as they entered Key West, and, politely standing by to give them access to 104 WE TOUCH FOREIGN SOIL the old submarine basin, followed them in and made fast to a wharf. A colored policeman promptly informed us that it was customary to secure permission before entering the navy yard, but on Al's hopeful as- surance that permission would soon be forth- coming we were allowed to remain where we were. Al, who knows the yard and some of its personnel from war-time days, scouted around and in short order we were invited by the commandant himself to select our berth and stay as long as we liked. Hence, we naturally gravitated to the side of a submarine chaser — the 190 — and there made our- selves comfortable. Our four days in Key West were compounded of heat, thunderstorms, and navy hospitality. We were invited to supper one evening in the wardroom of Eagle 39, where we ate good food and swapped experiences, and by the yard offi- cials we were tendered the privilege of buying stores and gasolene at cost prices. A representa- tive of the press visited us aboard and was re- sponsible in the "Key West Citizen" for the start- 105 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS ling news that one of our crew, Paul Squibb, would reenlist in the navy following his cruise in the Hippocampus. This was good journalism, being true except in the minor particular that the one of us who did improve his stay at Key West by reenrolling in the reserve was one Lieutenant ( j. g.) J. A. Chambers. Paul, who served in the artillery, still stands by his guns. Pleasant and profitable though our stay was in the southernmost and least American city of the United States, the terrific heat would have driven us away quickly if heat alone could have filled our sails. Finally, on Sunday, June 26, we awoke to a breeze that promised business, and with our good-bys and thanks expressed, we were soon under way and headed for Sand Key via the Rock Key Channel. Watching the color of the water to get a foretaste of the eyesight navigation that awaits us, we threaded our way around and over a coral reef or two, and in two hours were in the Gulf Stream, southward bound for Havana. We feel a little proud of the landfall we made in entering our first foreign port. The currents 106 WE TOUCH FOREIGN SOIL in the turbulent ninety miles of blue water sepa- rating the island republic of Cuba from her god- parent are numerous and swift, and it is not un- usual for vessels with greater speed and better navigational equipment than ours to err a matter of five or ten miles in sighting Morro Castle. Yet we, aided by luck and current information gained at Key West, ran our courses for eighteen hours and in the nineteenth found ourselves in danger of being run down by the Key West-Ha- vana ferry Parrot, so closely did her course paral- lel our own. Daylight came before we sighted O'Donnell Light, but in another six hours we sidled under the castle's ancient walls, buffeted by flaws of wind from the east. Presenting to the medical officer the clean bill of health which we had obtained from the Cuban consul at Key West, we were informed that we were free to land and make ourselves at home, but that since we had not been fumigated we must anchor in the bay. So we cast off from the port-officer's dock, passed over the historic spot where the U. S. S. Maine was sunk, and, after some searching for a likely anchorage, let 107 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS go near the utilitarian but picturesque Machinas dock. It is now time for me to ask the reader to guess what we did immediately after setting foot on foreign soil for the first time in many, many months. Perhaps, though, I should save him the trouble of guessing. We first telephoned to some friends of Cham- bers's and then inquired our way to the post- office, a huge building converted from an historic Catholic Church. Then, finding that for the first time in the course of our travels, we were ahead of the mail, we walked to O'Reilly Street, named for a Cuban patriot, and in an American shop left some films for development. Dodging the terrible Fording os (as Cubans term the familiar Ford, which, all decked out in gorgeous upholstery, taxies in great numbers along Hav- ana's congested thoroughfares) we next strolled about looking for a restaurant. When we had found one that seemed commensurate both with our fastidiousness and the leanness of our pocket books, we entered, sat down before a clean white tablecloth, and ordered a meal which in 108 WE TOUCH FOREIGN SOIL eluded Spanish omelet and an ice-cream flavored with the delicious tropical fruit mamey. All of this, which is long-winded in the telling, but was longer in the happening, we did before — We ordered a round of daiquiris. A daiquiri, be it known, comes to the table in a cool, dewy glass of the type used at home in the ancient, unregenerate heyday of the cock- tail. In color it may be a delicate shade of green or it may be the hue of claret. But it contains no such vinous admixture, being composed of lime, sugar, and the finest Bacardi rum. It was my treat, in expiation of the old sin of making an atrocious landfall at Charleston, South Caro- lina, and we drank to happy days. Were I a doctor I would universally prescribe daiquiris for parched throats and arid dispositions. Feeling much refreshed by the mamey ice- cream, we returned aboard to make up arrears in correspondence, and in the evening dragged aching feet, unused to the confinement of shoe- leather, down Havana's famous Prado to the Malecon. There on the sea-wall we watched the slowly revolving beam of the O'Donnell Light- 109 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS house on Morro Castle, or looked westward over the smooth, silent sea which we are to traverse in rounding the western end of Cuba. The next day as guests of an hospitable Ameri- can resident in Havana we motored to the Playa Marianao, where, near the anchored fleet of the flourishing Havana Yacht Club, we swam with- out fear of molestation by the sharks, and be- tween dips more firmly cemented our friend- ship with Bacardi. Chambers, glancing over the sonder boats hauled out or anchored off the yacht club's wharf, saw something familiar in their lines and later learned that among them are the old Marblehead racers Sprig, Ellen, Vim, and Har- poon. After dark we played hosts aboard, Paul serving a delectable supper of fried bananas and frankfurters, washed down by temperance drafts of the juice of limes from the Matheson groves. And now, having viewed the more accessible sights of Havana and employed the better part o another day securing the health papers necessary for clearance, we are ready to penetrate still farther into the unknown. We would stay longer in the picturesque capital exploring its 110 : WE TOUCH FOREIGN SOIL fortresses, admiring its parks and the shrub-em- broidered streets of its suburbs, and basking in the quaint beauty of its narrow streets and sun- baked buildings. But the West Indies lie be- fore us, and Panama is a long six-hundred-mile jump from Jamaica. Moreover, the "July- Stand-by' ' season of the hurricane is upon us, and there is a certain need for haste. So to-morrow, with the first daily breath of the northeast trades, we are off for the Isle of Pines. in VI SUCH THINGS AS WATERSPOUTS MONTHS ago when the cruise of the yawl Hippocampus was no more than an unre- lated idea I resolved to prepare myself for foreign' lands by the assimilation of Spanish. With characteristic application I devoted a day or two to the mastery of such words as agua, leche, and the Spanish equivalents of other vital necessities, little realizing that to get along in Latin America one need know only the words frias cervezas and dos mas. Being so ignorant of the Arcadian simplicity of life in Cuba, I struggled manfully with the language en route thereto, never succeeding, however, in surmount- ing the bristly barrier comprised by Habla Vd. espafiol? Try as I would, I couldn't pronounce Vd. Nor, after several weeks in Cuban waters, have 112 Bahia Honda still drives its ox-teams, undisturbed by the frenzied Fordingos of Havana's streets At the entrance to Cienfuegos Hippocampus anchored, 250 years too late to be attacked by pirates Amateur equilibrists on the teetering pole of the Cienfuegos sharkproof swimming enclosure Breakfast eggs, at ten cents apiece, taste like molten gold when cooked with feminine finesse SUCH AS WATERSPOUTS I heard any one else pronounce it. One hears listed frequently, which I thought at first was a surname as commonplace as Smith, but never the angular contraction. So I am forced to be- lieve that the abbreviation is designed solely to discourage foreigners from learning the lan- guage. Reacting from this discouragement I declined absolutely to learn Cuban customs, and am now in a position to inform other yachtsmen that by assuming an unsophisticated mien they may enter and leave the little republic without paying a single bribe. Health bills for a yacht as small as the Hippocampus are as free as air, and these, obtainable from the local port officer, are the only requisite clearance papers. On our way to pick up the documents, we weighed anchor in Havana harbor, waved good-by to two American motor-boats whose owners had cruised over from Florida for a holi- day, and stood out toward Morro Castle. For two reasons we were interested in these Ameri- cans ; first, because they had had the hardihood to cross the Gulf Stream in motor-boats of less than 113 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS twenty-five-foot length, and second, because of their evident unfamiliarity with long-distance cruising. They seemed typical of a class of American motor-boatmen who will go anywhere (and get back), knowing little and caring less for charts and other government publications. Their ignorance, if such it was, was revealed by their telling us enthusiastically of a fine "map" of West Indian waters that could be ob- tained free of charge at the American consulate. "It shows all the islands," they confided, "and the principal harbors, and little arrows tell which way the wind blows and how the currents flow for the month of July. You '11 make a mis- take if you try to navigate down here without one." Among our many mistakes this one was not included. We had long since provided ourselves with the chart they spoke of — "July Pilot Chart for Central American Waters" — and when, a month previously, we had decided to omit the Bahamas from our itinerary, we had let our new .plans be determined by the current information of this chart. From it we learned that a cur- 114 SUCH AS WATERSPOUTS rent running counter to the Gulf Stream would assist us along the northern coast of Cuba to Cape San Antonio and that another counter- current, flowing westward along the south shore, would speed us nearly to Jamaica. But in the days following our clearance from Havana we found that it is one thing for a gov- ernment to print current arrows on a chart and quite another to expect the currents to conform to the direction of the arrows. Hence, in the flat calm of the first night out, we drifted ten miles back along our course, and hence, in the ensuing doldrums south of the Isle of Pines, we were never able to assume a dead reckoning posi- tion that bore any close relation to our actual position. We have since been told that the minor currents of the Caribbean shift like the sands of the desert and that only the main streams are constant in their direction and intensity. These, worse luck, are all against the southward- bound traveler, whether he go eastward or west- ward of Cuba. The first afternoon along the Cuban shore was a tonic that pulled us up from the subnormal in- 115 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS duced by our many days of beating down the Floridian coast. We skirted close to the beach, hunting that elusive counter-current, and the soft wind blew from the land, sweet with the fra- grance of tropical vegetation. From midday on the mainsail shaded us from the rays of the westering sun, and we all, helmsman included, dozed on deck or watched with supreme content- ment the unfolding panorama of the shore. The busy log revolved unheeded, for we were in- formed of our position by the tall gray chimneys of the Centrales, where the Cuban sugar-cane is refined for the market, and by the mountain ranges that soon appeared through the haze to westward. Even the calm of that night was enjoyable, al- though each minute reduced our easting and helped restrict our twenty-four-hour total to only forty miles made good. In the morning when the breeze followed the sun over the eastern horizon we headed in high spirits toward the har- bor of Bahia Honda, there to stop for a few hours and see Cuba as it really is, divested of the cos- mopolitanism of Havana. Guided by informa- 116 SUCH AS WATERSPOUTS tion contained in the sailing directions and by the color of the water, we stood in past a point domi- nated by a romantic, disused castle, and sailed down a line of buoys arranged uniformly with the United States system. Before us and on each side as we drew close to the head of the bay arose clusters of peaks which might have been thrown there by the hand of an unpractised Creator, so jagged and precip- itous and irregular did they appear. But in the foreground the foot-hills were orderly enough, and I was quick to compare certain fea- tures of them with the Connecticut Berkshires. "Yes," drawled Squibb, taking in the land- scape through his captured German field-glasses, "You 'd say you were in Connecticut if it weren't for the royal palms silhouetted above their summits, or for the thatched-roofed cottage in the middle of that cane-field." I withdrew my comparison and pulled vindic- tively at the fish-line which Squibb had trailed over our counter a few minutes previously. To my surprise it resisted my pull. In great ex- citement I handed the line to Squibb and with 117 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS great precision he hauled it in, watching the glint of sunlight on silver scales. No science there, with a meal at stake. The hooked fish came in like nothing more nor less than five pounds of dinner, and in ten seconds he was flapping in the cockpit. There he stayed while under reduced sail we sounded our way beyond the innnermost buoy. Then, when we had come to anchor in less than two fathoms off a building euphemistically termed a warehouse by the hydrographic office literati, the first business of the noon-hour was to clean the fish and fry him in cracker-crumbs. Joe Chambers once had an experience with lob- ster which destroyed for him the palatability of all sea-foods, but he actually likes to skin, clean, and cook fish. I like to watch him, and it is my chief regret of this cruise that I have n't done so oftener. We have trolled over likely-looking reefs, fished when becalmed, and attempted to scoop up minnows in the canvas deck-bucket, but luck does n't favor our enterprise. Once a fish bit Joe Squibb's big toe (or so he says) when he was 118 SUCH AS WATERSPOUTS dangling his feet over the side, and often when becalmed we have seen zebra fish — to give them a descriptive name — playing in the shadow of our hull. Once also a shark fished for me, as may be mentioned presently, but only at Bahia Honda have we come to culinary conclusions with the aquatic tribe. Lunch over, we put on a few clothes, landed in the dink, and walked a country road between rows of mango-trees for a matter of a mile to the village of Bahia Honda. It is not metropoli- tan, nor fashionable, nor wildly exciting, but it satisfied our desire for a glimpse of rural Cuban life. From within a wooden barracks over which floated the lone star of the republic sounded the click of typewriter keys, and from a house fronting the grass-grown central square came the tortured lament of a tuneless piano. These were the only village noises, as even the dogs were taking their afternoon siesta. Turkey-buzzards wheeled over the weather- beaten square tower of the village church, or sat awkwardly on its balcony, and a military horse, tethered in the shade of a picket-house, 119 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS pawed the ground absent-mindedly. Other activity was notably lacking, except in the local department-store where a family of Chinamen sold everything from wine to straw hats, and where the two Joes drank their frias cervezas. Disliking beer, I had my refreshment from a keg of vino bianco, and hoped devoutly as I drank from a dirty glass that germs were as dormant as the rest of Bahia Honda. Laden with sugar and a few other necessities forgotten at Havana, we returned to the ship and were shortly under way. With gasolene at sixty-five cents a gallon we are sparing of the use of power and lavish of our time, and we were two hours beating the four miles to the mouth of the harbor. Yet it is ever a delight to sail Hippocampus in still water, and we did not be- grudge the time. Darkness overtook us as we neared the entrance — the darkness of a horde of mosquitoes swarming out from the near-by man- groves. And when by the use of citronella we had cleared the atmosphere, the flashing light of iGobernadora Point reminded us that we had ended another day. 120 SUCH AS WATERSPOUTS On the one following we were becalmed off an island known as Jutias Cay, from whose light- house I was able to check the accuracy of a sight taken for longitude. Nothing worthy of comment happened until early in the evening, when the easterly wind having again arisen, pick- ing up a rolling sea with it, our towing dink overtook us and stove a small hole in her bow. Then, as we should have done before, we hauled the dink aboard and lashed it athwartships across the cockpit, and not since have we towed it in a following sea. Another day saw us still to eastward of Cape San Antonio, but early the next morning we rounded it and entered on a new phase of cruis- ing life. From Bahia Honda to the western end of Cuba we had skirted a coast which, although bounded by a barrier reef of coral extending several miles from shore, is at least partially lighted. Up to Jutias Cay we had kept fairly \well inshore, drawn by the wild beauty of the high mountains of the Sierra Acostas. We had sighted an occasional passing ship or glimpsed native fishing craft threading the shoal water- 121 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS ways behind the barrier reef, and so we had felt somewhat in touch both with nature and with humanity. But now for a hundred miles to the Isle of Pines we were to be isolated from ship and shore, and again from there to Cienfuegos equally destitute of companionship. Moreover, the wind which had been for us was now against us, and the squalls that had dis- sipated themselves in the mountains were now to dash upon us. As we rounded Antonio and headed up into rollers which had come all the way from Haiti to greet us we realized that we could say good-by to idyllic cruising. Yet, as we were to learn later, we were particularly favored by fortune in making the Isle of Pines within two days of rounding the cape. All told, we were becalmed only ten and a half hours, and in the forty-eight met only two arched squalls and one bayamo. An arched squall, which appears to be native to Caribbean waters, is recognizable by a heavy black line of low cumulus clouds which, coming up or down the wind, brings a puff of great intensity, or a tropical shower of rain, or both. 122 SUCH AS WATERSPOUTS It usually sucks all the wind out of the sky and is followed by an indeterminate period of ab- solute calm. A bayamo, more or less indigenous to the south shore of Cuba, is more terrific in ap- pearance and in our experience more freighted with trouble. It may strike at any hour of the day, but appears to favor the twilight period when the crew of what Al calls "a corker little yawl" would like to be settling down for the night. Before describing it let me explain that in the Caribbean Sea we have seen more varieties of clouds and more combinations than the imagina- tion can encompass. I used to cite the region of the Azores as the unrivalled cloud factory of the Western Ocean, but I shall hereafter refer budding meteorologists to the south shore of Cuba. One sees here pitch-black masses that along the Maine coast would turn a hardened salt gray with fear, and thinks nothing of them. The sun- sets are often a nasty, wind-torn green that in the vicinity of New York would send crack Atlantic liners looking for shelter up the Shrews- 123 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS bury River — and the night is calm and starlit. The sun rises behind a bank of cumulus, covering the whole eastern horizon, and gleams wickedly through a small aperture in its exact centre, or does n't show at all until it has attained an alti- tude of forty-five degrees. The remainder of the day may be calm and cloudless. At times cirrus whips out in long streamers overhead, mackerel clouds stretch through an arc of 180 degrees, and all the forms of cumulus clutter up the heavens. Rain falls at half a dozen places from vicious-looking nimbus, and rainbows ap- pear when there is no rain in sight. All these manifestations of a cloud-mad region we bear with equanimity, but when we see a monumental mass of opacity collect all the little clouds to itself and bear down on us, we say "Bayamo!" and stand by for a ram. Joe Squibb puts the boom in the crutch, Joe Chambers pre- pares to ease the battens between the lazy- jacks, and I take my place at the halyards — and gen- erally before the wind hits us we are snugged down with only jib and jigger spread. The wind comes in a fifty-mile gust, the sea rises as 124 SUCH AS WATERSPOUTS if by magic and is as miraculously beaten down by a deluge of rain which, mingled with spray, strikes us horizontally. For an hour or less we make the course that the wind will let us, and then for a watch or more we slat about in an un- mitigated calm. That 's the average bayamo, but occasionally one packs a wallop that is not quite so pleasant. Yet on the run to the Isle of Pines we were ac- quainted with these freaks of nature by a squall that was virtually windless. Rain fell and wet us and the sun came out and dried us and we did not bother to lower the mainsail, although what little wind there was whipped right around the compass and reminded us unpleasantly of hurricanes. This was our happiest experience with the tribe, except in the instances when the bayamos missed us altogether. Luck was with us in our landfall on the Isle of Pines. At noon I had taken a sight for lati- tude which I distrusted, and in the afternoon I had worked a St. Hilaire sight for longitude which met with little better favor. But from a 10 p. m. dead reckoning position we laid a course 125 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS which, forty miles extended, should have brought us up to Point Francis, on the western end of the Isle of Pines. Standing the first watch that evening I re- called that the captain of S. C. 190 with whom we hobnobbed at Key West had told me that the Isle of Pines is seventeen miles away from the position indicated on the chart. Whether it is seventeen miles east or west I couldn't re- member, but when Chambers relieved me I re- layed the imperfect information to him and ad- vised that he be particularly watchful toward the end of his trick. He was. Moreover, his sea- going intuition stood by him, for at exactly 3 :20 he had a feeling that land was near and took a sounding. Fifteen feet of water, and ten minutes previ- ously we had been sailing in 1500 fathoms! With all hands on deck we hurriedly put about and then anchored in four fathoms to await the light of morning. When it came it revealed, bearing on our course, the sixty-foot skeleton tower by which the skipper of the 190 had told us to recognize Point Francis. So our luck was 126 SUCH AS WATERSPOUTS better than my navigation — which, under the cir- cumstances, was endurable. It was my intention during our two-day stop in Siguanea Bay, a large bight, formed partly by the encircling arm of Point Francis, to take several sights for determining the longitude of the point, but neither then nor in the following days in which we lay becalmed south of the isle could I get a decent sun from which to make my sights. So I can only advise others to be careful when navigating in the vicinity of the Isle of Pines. The southern side of the isle has little to at- tract yachtsmen, and we put in only to take the ground and scrub our sides with sand to cleanse them of the oil accumulated at Havana. A "town" shown as Los Indios on maps of Cuba and identifiable from the chart by the appella- tion Indian River is inhabited by a customs in- spector, two friends, and a small boy. Food cannot be bought, water is only obtainable by rowing three miles up the river, and gasolene is an unknown quantity. But we accomplished our purpose, slept in for two nights, and came 127 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS away enriched by a basketful of limes and man- goes which were given Paul by an American living at the head of navigation on the Indian River. With our bill of health vised by the obliging and underworked customs inspector of Los Indios, and with a present of thirty gallons of muddy water, we set sail on July 8 for Kingston, Jamaica. Thanks to calms and an occasional head wind we were still able on the mornings of July ,9, 10, and 11 to see the high peaks of the Isle of Pines. Three days of watch-stand- ing, of taking what the frequent squalls had to give us, of rolling about for hours with mainsail furled and jib and jigger flapping, had netted us fifty miles of easting. The log for these days is a monotonous record, with the words "Mended rip in mainsail" three times recurring. We were getting fed up on bayamos, and it is not surprising that on the morning of July 12 we decided to alter our itin- erary and make our next stop Cienfuegos, which lies in the Gulf of Cazones, Cuba, more than four hundred miles short of Kingston. Besides, we 128 SUCH AS WATERSPOUTS sounded our water-tanks and took stock of our larder and realized that we must make harbor within three days or subsist on reduced rations. Looking back on it, the twelfth of July was one of unusual interest, and it seems a fitting day on which to conclude this chapter. In the morn- ing we were becalmed from seven until noon and during this period we had ample opportunity to mend a bad tear in the jib resulting from the pre- vious evening's bayamo. We were favorably situated, too, to observe the formation of the largest bank of clouds that had yet worried us with its potential cussedness. But this monstros- ity passed to northward in mid-afternoon with- out giving us any trouble. In the morning before taking my daily swim — a thing I had many times resolved not to do south of the latitude of Miami — I looked over the side and saw, swimming far below us, a medi- tative shark. He was on the port tack, headed west, and I said to myself, " Shucks, he can't make the grade to the surface while I 'm diving in and out." So I took a shallow dive off the stern and in five seconds had hauled myself out 129 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS on the bumpkin and was eying the depths be- neath me. The shark was there, and he had come up from the depths. Given another second and he could have sampled man flesh. I called to Paul who came on deck with his Liiger automatic and a wad of paper with which to attract the shark to the surface. The shark rose, his dorsal cleaving the air, and Paul fired. It was a miss, and the shark turned nonchalantly on his tail and swam beneath the boat. Other attractions were cast over the side — cracker crumbs and an empty can which floated astern of us. The shark rose to the latter bait, and as it was my turn to fire I let him have Paul's ex-German medicine. I am probably the poorest pistol-shot in seven kingdoms, but I fired haphazard and hit the shark. He jumped part-way out of water and then dived down, down in the clear sea until he seemed no larger than the six-inch fish that had been swimming with him. He himself was a six- footer, not large as sharks go, but fully capable of inflicting damage to an arm or a leg. We 130 SUCH AS WATERSPOUTS thought at first that I had killed him, and we have always thought that sharks are cowards, but this one disproved both beliefs by returning fifteen minutes later to take up a vigilant sentry-go beneath our craft. There he stayed until the wind, rising, filled our sails, and we bore away to eastward. In the late afternoon of that day when calm again overtook us we were twenty miles south of Rosario Cay and still a matter of a hundred miles from Cienfuegos. We were plentifully supplied with gasolene and were commencing to entertain the idea of burning thirty or forty dollars' worth of the precious fluid to make port. To that end I had intended going over the motor a little, cleaning carbon from the cylinders and wiping a timer which I had reason to believe was too copi- ously lubricated. But with the procrastination that obsesses one when there is little to do and all the time in the world in which to do it, I had written letters instead. At about six o'clock, lying below, I heard one of the boys say "Bayamo!" The word sounds like a Spanish curse, and we mean it £or that 131 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS when, the cloudbanks forming, we see a squall approaching. There was desultory conversation about the bayamo which, as both boys agreed, was the most ominous that had yet been sighted. Then I heard Joe Chambers say, "See how the falling rain is twisting into a spiral, and how the sea seems to be rising up to meet it." That sentence was the most electrifying that had ever shocked my ears, or galvanized my limbs into action. It didn't need Joe's subse- quent exclamation, "My God! It's a water- spout!" to send me to the top-side to get our bearing from it. Nor did I stay long on deck to watch the sinuous, twisting, spiral of this phenemonon bear down upon us. In approximately fourteen and an eighth seconds following the formation of the spout the companionway ladder had been cast aside, the tank valves turned on, the cylinders primed, and the motor started. We wanted to get away from there. Joe Squibb took the tiller and headed south while Al and I dashed individually to the mizzen and jib (the mainsail being already doused) and 132 SUCH AS WATERSPOUTS made the record furls of the voyage. Then, with deck hatches closed and Hippocampus on her most seaworthy footing, we had time to watch the trumpet and speculate on the result if it should overtake us. All hands agreed that we would be a total casualty ; and we have since heard of a Jamaican fishing-schooner that was lost with all hands when a spout sent tons of water crashing through its deck. The moments were unpleasant and they were made more tense by the motor, which presently began missing in one cylinder. I went below to correct the mixture and switch the current from one set of batteries to the other, but I saw by the indisputable evidence of sparks issuing from opened petcocks that the motor was caked with carbon. She had not been cleaned in five or six hundred miles of operation and she was taking this time to show us my neglect. Yet, although she missed now in both cylinders, she plugged along. Presently I learned from the boys on deck that we were altering the bearing of the spout. This was now a mile or so to eastward of us, 133 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS moving slowly to the northwest and carrying with it the only air that was stirring. Directly to northward of it was a dense black cloud which sent shaft after shaft of forked lightning into the sea. To southward of the spout and of us was the characteristically overbearing cloud form of a bayamo into which we were heading as the lesser of two evils. Darkness was overtaking us with tropical swiftness, but we hoped with fer- vent intensity that the twilight would hold until the spout had broken or passed beyond us. Five minutes passed and it grew appreciably nearer. Another five and we again widened our bearing. Then, as the night set in, it seemed to merge with the thunderstorm and lose its pecu- liarly sinister form. Whether it fell, melted, or vanished into thin air we have no way of know- ing, but I am pleased to be able to record that we were not on hand at the moment of its dis- solution. After the tenseness of this escape the bayamo seemed like an old friend. Indeed, when we came within its zone of action we found that it was made up of bluster with but little rain 134 SUCH AS WATERSPOUTS and wind. But we looked to northward, saw the thunder-cloud sending its bolts of lightning into the sea, remaining almost stationary over the spot where we had been, and perhaps hiding within it a still active waterspout; and we thanked whatever gods there be that we have a motor in our craft. In the last few months I have grown cumula- tively fond of the sport of sailing, but I realize, if never before, that a marine motor is a charter member of the volunteer life-saving corps of America. 135 VII BEATING UP TO WINDWARD HAVING by the timely use of the motor dodged the waterspout which threatened us with destruction, we three members of the tribe of Hippocampus — the redoubtable Joe Squibb, the loquacious Joe Chambers, and my humble self — looked hopefully for better things in the weather line. It had taken us twelve days to cover but little more than 300 miles, and we had experienced every variety of calm from the flat, motionless kind to the sort that stands you on your beam ends and makes you gnash your teeth at the useless slatting sails. We had had our share of squalls and rain, we had found the wind an adept at shifting from northeast to southeast, depending on whether we wanted to sail toward these points — and we had come to the conclusion that the month to cruise in Cuban waters is not July. 136 BEATING UP TO WINDWARD But at the moment of avoiding the waterspout we thought only of putting greater distance be- tween us and the wicked-looking mass of clouds that had spawned it. To that end we shut off the motor and took steps to cure the missing that had given us palpitation of the heart while we were running away from the sea-monster. By experiment I learned that one set of dry cells was weak, and for these I substituted a new set ; by inspection I found that the timer had become fouled through the use of too great a quantity of oil. This also was replaced. At the suggestion of Chambers (whose words were lent greater weight by the parenthetical remark that the wind was then blowing toward us from the cloud bank) I squirted kerosene into the carbureter with the motor running and partially cleansed the cylinders of carbon. By these means and by the use of sanctimonious words judiciously misap- applied, we were presently under way to the tune of a rhythmic exhaust. The storm center, still sending its lightnings into the sea, receded into the distance as we motored east, and in time the moon emerged and 137 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS lighted us on our way. For two hours we con- tinued under power, and then, a gentle south- easterly springing up, we shut off the motor and made the best course we could in the direction of East Guano Cay, whose lighthouse is the first aid, coming from the westward, to the approach of the city of Cienfuegos. Luck attended our landfall of this light. Up to six o'clock in the evening of July 12 we had logged only thirty miles in twenty-four hours, and I had let the entire period of daylight go by without a shot at the sun. "What is the use," I thought, "of finding that we have n't moved ap- preciably since yesterday? Better to hope that the current has eased us on our way." Hence, when I went off watch at midnight my idea of our position was vague. But I diligently stepped off our various courses on the chart — nineteen miles south-southeast, seven north- northeast, three south under power, ten east under power, and finally nine north-northeast under sail again — and assumed an absolutely un- justified dead reckoning position. It placed us 138 BEATING UP TO WINDWARD twenty miles south of Jack Taylor Reef and thirty-five southwest of East Guano Cay. I was on the point of imparting this misin- formation to Chambers, who had relieved me on deck, when he sang out "Light-O." Al has the eyes of an eagle, despite the fact that he was nearly ejected from the navy because of de- ficient sight, and we expect him to make all our landfalls. This was the happiest one he has ever made, for a hurried observation of the light's bearing informed me that we were only two miles from Jack Taylor Reef and plowing directly for it. Not the light itself, but only its flash against the clouds w r as visible, and had we come up another mile to westward we should probably have terminated the cruise among the sharks of the reef. This experience has taught me one thing — never to let pass an opportunity for fixing our position by celestial observation, no matter how far off shore we are or how close to an unre- markable coast. Luck does n't always break for the small-boat sailor, and the currents, working 139 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS silently and unobtrusively, may set him on the rocks before he knows it. The wind had now shifted to the east, and we tacked about and headed away from the reef. Daylight found us still beating toward the Orient, the lighthouse then plainly visible; but a total of twelve hours slipped by before we had made good twenty miles and saw ourselves in a position to round the light and shape a course for Cienfuegos. Then we ran for it, taking the wind from slightly abaft the beam and with every stitch of canvas straining. It was our first ex- perience with the full strength of the trade wind in the Carribean, and although we kept all sai spread we watched the seams carefully and were prepared to lower on the first indication of fail- ure. But, barring a slight ripping along the seams of the mainsail where, in years past, the backstay had been allowed to chafe the canvas, everything held and we made knots. Banging across the shoal that extends east- ward from East Guano, and attended by some friendly gulls which took turns flying overhead to peck at our main and mizzen trucks, we en- 140 BEATING UP TO WINDWARD joyed for two hours the sensation of having ex- actly the right amount of wind while sailing on a bee-line for our destination. But presently the waves broke no more against our weather side, nor immersed the bowsprit, nor washed the lee deck from main shrouds to mizzen. We righted to a more even keel and prepared with resigna- tion to meet the afternoon's calm. It came, ushered in by an arched squall, which sent us to the main halyards in a hurry. "Poor," said the skipper, when the mainsail was furled and its boom rested in the crutch. "If we can't do better than that we '11 be out of luck when a real squall strikes us." "All right," said the exec. "Let 's run her up again for practice." He spoke ironically. "Shoot," said the first luff, rubbing the pelting rain-drops from his eyes; and in another thirty seconds the mainsail was again spread to the squall. "Now down with it," said the skipper when the halyards were in order; "and don't let us shame ourselves before that spic fisherman." Down she came, with creditable precision, and 141 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS up again the gaff traveled to the throat pendant as the squall passed by and the wind slacked off. But calm immediately overtook us and we low- ered away once more. "If we razzle-dazzle the sail up and down half a dozen times for every squall," drawled Squibb, as we went below to look for books and writing material, "we '11 be sailing under bare poles in about a week. Take the advice of an old sea- dog and put a reef or two in the mainsail." The ensuing night was one of the most un- comfortable we have ever spent, for we took a cross chop from the heavy sea thrown against an almost perpendicular coast. Spray came over in barrelfuls and twice Chambers was thrown bodily from his bunk to the cabin deck. Try as we would we seemed to get no nearer to Color- ados Point Light which marks the entrance to Cienfuegos Bay, for the wind shifted to frustrate every tack. Finally, at daylight, we doused all sail, started the motor, and put an end to tack- ing fruitlessly about. Squibb, whom I relieved at four, helped me with these duties, and then stayed on deck, one 142 BEATING UP TO WINDWARD arm clinched around the mainmast, to watch the miracle of sunrise. He, more than any other man I ever knew, takes supreme delight in nature's beauties, and in the latter days of this cruise he has gone without sleep for hours on end to absorb the charm of the West Indian islands. This, our landfall at Cienfuegos, was more than usu- ally appealing, for the sun arose tardily behind the lofty mountains of the Trinidad range, send- ing before it streaks of crimson and flashes of silver that illumined wind-torn cirrus or brought into sudden roseate prominence some upstanding mountain of cumulus. Near us the sea broke savagely on an outlying reef, but between the capes guarding the entrance to Cienfuegos Bay we caught a glimpse of the peace and security that was to be ours after six days at sea. Under power we passed by Colorados Point, and then, finding a favorable slant of wind, set all sail. At the moment of passing the station pilot-ship we broke our ensign to the breeze, and from the corners of our eyes, watched the antics aboard that craft. With the energy character- istic of a certain element of humanity when an 143 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS American dollar is seen to be slipping away, the pilots hallooed and waved and jumped in the air. We could not understand the words and feigned blindness as well as deafness, but I could imagine some such monologue as this issuing from every pilot's throat : "Carramba! An American yacht entering the bay without a pilot ! Stingy New York mil- lionaires unwilling to pay us what is due us. May bad luck overtake them and the nearest reef wreck them." But we entered the broad and beautiful bay without mishap and by seven o'clock were anchored off the city ready to receive customs and quarantine inspectors. They came out in small motor-boats, courteously put us through the f ormalties, and by nine we were on dry land voraciously surrounding eggs and coffee. We had intended remaining at the City of a Hundred Fires only long enough to take on food and water and to obtain a full night's sleep, but we had not reckoned on the delightful hospitality of T. W. Bibb, clerk of the American consulate. When Chambers met him and Mrs. Bibb at the 144 Taking 'em over the bow, but undaunted, the yawl bucked the Northeast Trade of the Caribbean The lee rail awash, every stitch of sail drawing, and cruising life at the acme of enjoyment One minute Chambers and Loomis trolled from a line astern, attractive bait for marauding sharks — And the next the surface of the water was cut by dorsal fins. But they were purposeless porpoises BEATING UP TO WINDWARD consulate, and they learned that we were the crew of the diminutive Hippocampus, nothing but Al's promise to stay another day and partake of regular American cooking would satisfy them. First of all, however, we must agree to accom- pany the Bibbs to the Cienfuegos Yacht Club and swim with them in the shark-proof enclos- ure. Al, returning aboard, found all hands as en- thusiastic as himself, and on the following morn- ing we arose at six — something of a wrench the second day in port — picked up our hosts at a wharf, and stood down the bay to the yacht club. A bay as magnificent as that of Cienfuegos if situated anywhere along the American coast would be literally dotted with sail and motor craft. Located in Cuba as it is, enjoyment of aquatic sport is hampered by the high cost of boats and gasolene; but it speaks well for the energy and sportsmanship of the Cienfuegans that they have a yacht club as fine as that of Havana. There are many high-speed motor- boats in the bay, and the art of rowing is prac- tised, although, according to the explosive Con- 145 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS stant Titus, American rowing coach of the club, not yet perfected. For an hour or so we swam in the shark-proof stockade — a most necessary feature of a bathing beach in these waters — and then breakfasted aboard, Mrs. Bibb presiding in the galley. Never was a day more auspiciously begun, and, since leaving the States at least, never more satis- factorily ended, for that evening we dined at the Bibbs' picturesque villa in the suburbs of Cien- fuegos and knew again the delights of home society and cooking. Come to think of it, the day was pretty satis- factory altogether, for we met various officials of the Ward Line who manifested a lively interest in our craft and showed us how to purchase stores at the lowest figure; and with one of them, Octavio Echemendia, we lunched at the Union Hotel. By him we were introduced to his uncle, the mayor. Alvero Suera, mayor of Cienfuegos, with whom we had a private audience at his home, is an energetic, upright public servant of the type that is conspicuously lacking in Cuban poli- tics. If there were more like him in insular 146 BEATING UP TO WINDWARD affairs there would be greater prosperity in Cuba and less cause for apprehension in Wash- ington. In mid-afternoon of the day following, being provided with copies of the local newspaper which spoke of our reception by the mayor and in extravagant Spanish extolled the "heroism" of Hippocampus' s crew, the able little yawl re- sumed her travels. Under sail she stood down the bay until she had brought us to the narrows, where, in the shadow of Jagua Castle, built gen- erations ago as a defense against the Jamaican buccaneers, she let go anchor. We rowed ashore in the waning daylight to inspect the disused castle, returned to shift an- chorage for the night, and then, at 10:30, sud- denly determined to get under way and take ad- vantage of a northerly slant of air. Drifting lazily down the narrows, our canvas just filling, we showed our heels to a native fishing-schooner and felt again the heave of the open sea. Then, rounding Colorados Point, we laid a course for Cape Cruz and resumed the regular watch order. I went on shortly after midnight to find the 147 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS descending moon picking out the peaks of the Trinidad range and to revel in the novelty of a fair wind and a smooth sea. But in twenty minutes conditions had changed and we were bucking close-hauled into a rapidly rising chop. The wind had come down from the mountains, unheralded by clouds, and in another hour it was blowing with the full vigor of the trade. Though we buried our nose deep in the sea and had to luff occasionally to spill the air from the the sails, we held on, and by eight of the morn- ing watch had put fifty miles between us and our point of departure. This, for the Hippo- campus, was traveling. At Cienfuegos we had been told that the at- mosphere gave every promise of an approaching hurricane, early in the season as it was ; but since leaving that city we had been aware of a change in conditions. The clouds were more orthodox, the sunsets better, the calms fewer, and the direction of the wind more constant. As to its strength, there was no kick coming. We took the precaution on the first afternoon out from port of putting a reef in the sail — the 148 BEATING UP TO WINDWARD first since leaving home — and the watch below slept more peacefully as a result. But in mid- morning of the next day when the trade really began to blow we doused the mainsail altogether and until late afternoon proceeded easily under jib, jigger, and a tri-sail improvised from our storm jib. That evening, during a period of calm which was not duplicated on the remainder of the run, we double-reefed ; and yet logged six knots in the early morning hours. In the fore- noon, having a more moderate breeze, we shook out first one reef and then the other, but we have not since started a night without reefing down. Midway of this voyage we again changed our plans and decided against proceeding direct to Kingston. Although we were adding greatly to our mileage with each passing hour, our dis- tance was not by any means made good, and it was not until daylight of the morning of the fourth day that Al sighted and brought abeam Cape Cruz Light, 200 miles from Cienfuegos. So we decided to make Port Antonio, Jamaica, our next objective. Late that afternoon, when we sighted the 149 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS precipitous island and knew ourselves to be within the influence of a contrary current, a breeze came like a gift from the gods, and blew us due east for four hours. Then, as it shifted to eastward, we changed our course to S. S. E., hoping against hope that when we again sighted Jamaica we would be within striking distance of Port Antonio. But — at first we refused to credit it — we made our morning landfall on Point Galina, thirty-five miles to westward. Hitherto I have not dwelt greatly on the difficulties of small-boat navigation or done more than intimate that dead reckoning positions are often rendered unscientific by the element of hope. But the time has come to be specific, to include the working of a sight for navigational sharks to pick to pieces. But first let me give a picture of navigating the Hippocampus as it is done, say, on the morn- ing of sighting Galina Point. We are sailing close to the wind on the port tack, under reefed mainsail, a heavy sea rolling and the spray flying so incessantly that the main cabin hatch is kept partly closed. I inform the helmsman, who 150 i BEATING UP TO WINDWARD happens to be Joe Squibb, that I am about to take a sight and hand him paper, pencil, and watch. This timepiece is not of great value and I have no hesitancy about stopping it, finger on the second-hand, to make it conform exactly with chronometer time. This, a lazy man's trick, eliminates "C-W" from my calcula- tions and so reduces the chances of error. After taking my sights I again compare the watch with the chronometer. Gingerly taking up the handsome sextant that was given me at the outset of the cruise, I call to Joe that I am ready and he changes course to run partly with the wind and keep the spray down. Then I crawl to the cabin-house on one hand and my knees and, standing upright, brace myself against the mast. The little ship tosses so violently that it takes minutes to bring the sun down to the horizon, but at length the trick is done and I call "Mark" to the helmsman. He records the time and I read him the angle. Two other sights are marked, preferably at equal in- tervals of time, and then, crawling back to the companionway, I descend, pausing in its com- 151 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS parative security to ascertain the index error of the sextant. The three sights are compared and if the al- teration of the sun's angle is logical — so many- seconds of arc for seconds of time — I proceed to work the one which seemed at the moment of taking to be the most accurate. They are never averaged, and if the progression does not seem logical they are discarded and new sights are taken. The patent log is read, and from that and a glance at the courses and distance made since the last fix, a D.R. position is assumed. This D.R. position, as every one knows who is familiar with the St. Hilaire system of naviga- tion, does not have to be accurate. A navigator, turned loose in the middle of the ocean, not know- ing his position within a thousand miles, could, by using the St. Hilaire method, determine his exact fix in two sights. On the morning in question, being about ten miles offshore, I assumed that we were in Lat. 18° 25' N., Long. 76° 36' W., one mile to east- ward of a straight line drawn between Cape Cruz and Port Antonio. Our good easterly run on 152 BEATING UP TO WINDWARD the night previous I had balanced against leeway and head current, but the fix showed that we actually were twenty-five miles W. N. W. of our course. The discrepancy must be ascribed to the difficulty of holding a small boat on her course, to sailing close into a wind that veers impercep- tibly to one's disadvantage, and to the human equation — which includes poor D.R. judgment. Here is the sight exactly as it was worked, with short cuts, mental interpolations of fractional parts, abbreviations, and all its crudities. July 21, '21. A. M. Sight CT 1-36-03 Obs. alt. Q 42-29-30 North of Jamaica CC+ 16-34 IC- 4f Pos. by D.R. Corr.+ 12-15 Lat. 18° 25' N. GMT 1-52-3T h 42-41-05 Long. 76° 36' W. Eq T- 6-10 6 H.E. 8 ft. Dec. 20-31-27 N. GAT 1-46-26.4 LoW -5-06-24 LAT 20-40-02.4 t 3-19-57.6 log hav 9.25173 L 18-25 ' " cos 9.97717 d 20-31-27 " " 9.97152 " hav 9.20042 8:30 A. m. nat * l .15865 Z 78° 30'. d-L 2-06-27 " " .00034 Line runs 168° 30'. P.l.r. 261^. z 46-59-52 ' < ' * .15899 Brandis Sextant Cal. h 43-00-08 153 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS Obs.h 42-41-05 Int 19-03-away FIX f Lat. 18° S6' N. ' \ Long. 76° 59' W. This, as will be recognized, is a sight worked according to the cosine-haversine formula of the St. Hilaire method. Two sights taken at differ- ent times, or at the same time of different celestial objects, are necessary for obtaining a fix, but in this instance our latitude was known by our distance from shore, and the single Sum- ner line located our position. In the accompanying detail of a chart of Jamaica it is interesting to note that the nineteen- mile intercept, or altitude-difference, when car- ried away from the sun on the true azimuth seventy-eight and one half degrees, cuts dry land. However, the perpendicular to the azi- muth, or the Sumner line, somewhere along jwhich the ship was positioned at the moment of taking the sight, extends into deep water. During the succeeding hours of beating against a boisterous trade wind whose accom- panying billows almost lost us to sight between crests we had only the minor satisfaction of not- 154 BEATING UP TO WINDWARD ing that as we approached the shore on the port tack the wind hauled to northward and permitted us to skirt the beach at a slowly converging angle. As we beat outward on the starboard The chart work by which we fixed our position in approaching Jamaica — an illustration for the accompanying St. Hilaire sight. The intercept of 19 miles, extended along the sun's azimuth at the moment of taking the sight, cuts dry land, but the perpendicular Sumner line, in conjunction with our calculated distance from the shore, gives us our fix tack the wind veered correspondingly to south- ward* thus permitting us to make easting on each 155 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS tack. Yet, so tedious is the process of beating into a wind almost directly, contrary to the de- sired course, it took us until daylight of the next morning to come abreast of Port Antonio Light, thirty-five miles eastward of Galina Point. Then, bowling in with the wind more than a little abaft the beam, we observed a curious trick of the air currents. One instant we were sailing free and the next we had encountered a land breeze that took our sails aback. There being none of the customary interval between shifts in which the air is stagnant, it seemed as if the wind were suddenly determined to keep us at sea. But we have a trump card that takes all tricks, and it was n't long before we were motor- ing in, sails furled. Port Antonio, dominated by Blue Mountain Peak which rises 7400 feet into the air, and en- circled by incredible hills that seem to be out of drawing in both their steepness and contour, was a sight at sunrise even more gracious than Cien- fuegos. Joe Squibb again kept the deck with me, reveling in the beauty of the tropical foliage and the absolute perfection of the land-locked 156 BEATING UP TO WINDWARD harbor, his occasional word of appreciation soon seconded by Joe Chambers, who came on deck in time to help us select our anchorage. Before the hour of six, C. H. Vidal-Hall, port collector, rowed out to inspect our papers and welcome us to Jamaica, and before the sun was very high we had been visited by half the whites and all the blacks in the vicinity of the port. Of the latter, one who was more than usually gifted in the choice of words presented us with a dozen grapefruit and we were relieved that, despite the difference in color, we were able to thank him in a common language. Over and above the natural attractions of Jamaica, it has an advantage that is almost im- measurable: its inhabitants all understand the English language. Having long since de- spaired of making of myself a linguist, I placed my faith in Joe Squibb while we were in Cuba, and hoped through him to obtain the simple ne- cessities of cruising life. But since an experi- ence that he had in Cienfuegos I have decided that we are all better off in English-speaking countries. 157 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS He entered a store, dictionary in hand, and paused in the doorway to learn that the Spanish equivalent of eggs is huevos. This word and no other he uttered, slowly and distinctly to the Cuban storekeeper, and that worthy, assuming a blank expression, replied, "I no spik English.' Of course, after Joe had described in the sign language what an egg is and how it is eaten fried, he was successful in securing the material for our breakfast, but I have not had the same faith in him since. Better for us to fatten up for a time on the grapefruit, bananas, and other staples which the kindly Jamaicans have given us. 158 VIII DIVEES EXPERIENCES MORE than one of the numerous relatives of the crew of the Hippocampus have written on receipt of a cable message: "So glad to know for the day at least that you are safe in port. Your cable gives me a feeling of security that I don't have when I know you are at sea." We never argue the point, but if any of us were so minded he could write a most harrowing epistle on the danger of being safe in port. Be- fore ever we put to sea we smashed our mizzen- boom against a dock in Gravesend Bay, and then nearly duplicated the experience in Nor- folk, being still unaccustomed to the amount of sternway that a heavily built yawl, reversing un- der power, will carry. One night in Charleston we parted a very necessary stern-line and only missed crashing because I happened to be ex- amining the line when it gave way. In May- 159 DIVERS EXPERIENCES port, Florida, we had our greatest disaster of all, when an avalanche of rocks descended upon us, and in Cienfuegos, Cuba, chancing to anchor in three fathoms on the very edge of a six-fathom hole, we averted dragging into danger by our ha- bitual good luck. And here in Kingston, Ja- maica, as will presently be related, we have had our troubles. But at Port Antonio, where we arrived on the morning of July 22, we actually were in perfect security. The harbor, a delight to the eye, is landlocked, and the trade wind, being stopped by Blue Mountain, does no more than carry showers of rain to streak fresh paint. So for three days we enjoyed untroubled minds and feared nothing. Not that we ever fear anything : to hear us talk to the swarms of visitors who came aboard while we were bending on our new suit of sails, one would have thought us the most insouciant and intrepid of mariners. We^were cruising the tropics in the hurricane season; but what of it? So we talked and puttied, and boasted and varnished, and danced ashore and ate the fruits 160 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS that were given us until the time came to move on for Kingston, the Hippocampus rather re- splendent in her new clothes and brightened woodwork. Another hour in port, I think, and one more boast, would have brought us retribu- tion. Even leaving at the psychological mo- ment which is familiarly known as the nick of time, we so narrowly missed a humili- ating smash-up that I still shudder to think of it. The excitement came at the close of a hard day in which we had bent on the mainsail, rove a new throat halyard from native line, and made all the last-minute preparations for departure. We had bade good-by to our new-found friends and promised to hail them once more as we rounded Titchfield Peninsula, which restricts the en- trance to Port Antonio and makes the western harbor the ideal anchorage that it is; and we were standing seaward in the lightest of airs, moving like a ghost through the placid dusk of late evening. It is little smooth-water sailing that we have enjoyed on this cruise, and when we do get an opportunity to test Hippo's lightness 161 DIVERS EXPERIENCES of foot we sacrifice time to take every possible advantage of it. So, drifting lazily with all sail set, we sighted the gleaming coal of a cigar on the near-by shore and called a last farewell. The ruby light dis- appeared and a calm voice, floating across the water, observed: "You have a motor. Why not start it?" Simultaneously Al Chambers, sitting serenely in the cockpit, tiller in hand, ex- perienced that helpless sensation which comes when steerageway is lost, and seconded the sug- gestion. I dropped into the cabin and awoke the little Palmer to life, but, being still enthralled by the magic of the quiet night, I throttled it down to its slowest and climbed once more to my perch on the cabin-house. Peace for another moment and then Al's ex- cited exclamation, "Gosh! [or a word to that effect] we 're being set stern first toward the rocks." "Give her a little more gas," I said; "there 's a current here that 's probably carrying us down." For an instant I was as unperturbed as I was 162 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS unaware of what had happened. But when I saw the shore of Navy Island looming more distinctly astern of us I apprehended that the motor had reversed itself, and lost no time in gaining the cockpit and shifting the gear lever from the go-ahead to the go-astern position, thus reversing again the rotation of the propel- ler. Paul, who had been admiring the beauty of the night from the bow, had the presence of mind not to let go the anchor, and when we were almost in scraping distance of the rocks, the yawl overcame her sternway and headed slowly into the channel. While this episode did not threaten us with physical danger it came within an ace of doing mortal injury to our pride. To have a docile, well-trained motor stop and start itself in the reverse motion, carrying one unwittingly toward a reef less than an hour after he has lightly pooh- poohed the dangers of the deep is more than the average mortal can endure, and I for one was glad when we had put the scene of our misad- venture far behind and were out in the broad open spaces. 163 DIVERS EXPERIENCES Once clear of the land we shut off the motor — which, previously, had been stopped and re- started in the right direction — and whistled for the wind. For two hours it came in strength barely sufficient to hold us against the westerly current, but then it fanned itself into a sailing breeze, and by midnight we were slipping along under a single reef. The wind was against us, of course, for we were still working to the east- ward, but as in a previous instance it had the kindness to veer slightly as we neared the land, permitting a longer reach on the onshore tack. It was our plan to make what easting we could under sail, using the motor if necessary to round the eastern end of Jamaica at nine o'clock, or before the trade wind had attained its morning strength; and to that end we made a long beat to the northeast until we could smell Navassa Island, seventy miles up the wind. Navassa, the historic home of millions of sea birds, is a lighted landmark sought by all navi- gators using the Windward Passage between Hayti and Cuba, and it is one of the few strate- 164 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS gic points in the Caribbean Sea which betray their presence to the olfactory nerves. At 3:15 of the mid- watch we were several miles offshore and abreast a cape known as Northeast End, from which the land falls away sharply to the southeast until it terminates at Morant Point; and there we came about, hop- ing rather hopelessly to round the point with- out further tacking. Toward daylight as we drew uncomfortably near the land the wind obligingly shifted a little to the north ; and Cham- bers, who had the watch, was able to hold his offing by periodically luffing her. So, when the watch below came on deck at eight o'clock, clamoring for breakfast, we were agreeably sur- prised to see Morant Point Light and the land's end a point or two forward of the beam. The first appearance on deck of a morning is generally an occasion of some repressed grumpiness mitigated by a keen interest in our surroundings and the things which concern the boat's sailing. A glance around and aloft to determine the present and future condition of 165 DIVERS EXPERIENCES the sea; a question of the helmsman concerning the course and log reading; a cigarette rolled in the lee of the dinghy and smoked with deep inhalations; a perfunctory application of fresh water to the face and teeth: all these things are necessary before we feel ourselves to be the equal of the one of us who has watched while we have slept. His inevitable superiority is the more keenly felt when, as on this morning, we look over the side and see the jagged bottom a few fathoms beneath us. Yes, he 's known about it all the time ; has taken soundings, consulted the chart, and de- cided that we can hold the course without les- sening the depth. And so we can, but at the expense of our aplomb. At 8:45 Morant Point Light bore abeam; and twenty minutes later, the wind freshening at the scheduled time, we had cleared the eastern ex- tremity of Jamaica and were heading south and west. This was an event which, had we been provided with Jamaica rum, would have been duly celebrated, for, contrary to precedent and our doleful expectations, we had rounded the 166 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS point without resorting to the motor. More- over, we were now sailing with free sheets for almost the first time in three weeks. One has to head into wind and sea for this period of time, being constantly wet with spray, sleeping on damp blankets, and navigating under excep- tional difficulties, to appreciate fully the exhilar- ation that we felt as we brought the wind behind us and squared away for Kingston. For the better part of the morning I lay below luxuriating in the long lumbering rush which is a characteristic of the Hippo when she is running free, enjoying the novelty of an even keel, and idly watching the spatter of drops whipped up from the sea by the main-sheet to fall in irides- cent sparkles through the open hatch. When in time it became my turn to take the deck I sam- pled another sensation; that of running before a forty-mile squall that overtook us with envel- oping blackness. Hitherto we have played extremely safe with squalls of wind, for the sails we wore were paper- thin from years of usage and we had no desire to see them whipping into shreds when most we 167 DIVERS EXPERIENCES needed canvas. But now, under our new suit of ten-ounce duck, cut up and down and rather short for just such emergencies, I felt minded to experiment, and when the wind with its ac- companying torrent of rain overtook us, I held her on her course. It was n't five minutes, how- ever, before the rain had dampened my ardor and it was all hands to the sheets to flatten her against the wind. Then the squall passed on, spending its fury against the mountainous shore of Jamaica, and we sailed once more with the wind one point on the port quarter and my eye glued to the telltale flying from the main-truck. This is a dangerous point of sailing, as any one who has jibed in a seaway will attest, and it is a careless seaman who will watch only the compass card. Toward mid-afternoon another squall assailed us, and this was of sufficient strength to make lowering the mainsail not only advisable but necessary. Many salty amateur mariners have told me that they like best to sail when the lee rail is six inches under water, but they are cut from tougher canvas than we of the Hippo- 168 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS i campus. We can stand an inch or two of salt water on the lee deck, but when Paul's Bible and my Bowditch go waltzing together from cabin book-shelf to the bunk opposite we have an in- definable yearning that is satisfied only when something has been lowered. This time the new throat halyard, rove in at Port Antonio, and swelled by the first shower, proved refractory, and it took the combined strength of Al and me, hauling on the luff, to reeve it through the blocks. But no damage was done beyond a ruffling of our tempers, and now the throat hal- yard does duty as a main-sheet and we have re- placed it with a new line of finer stuff. Twilight, when we wore in past Port Royal at the entrance to Kingston Harbor, saw us at the conclusion of the best day's run that we have made since leaving Key West. We had logged eighty-five miles in less than twenty-four hours, running for half the time against the wind, and we were full of satisfaction and ac- complishment. The sea toward evening had as- sumed such proportions that we could look back a hundred feet and up to the log rotator spin- 169 DIVERS EXPERIENCES ning madly on the crest above us, but we were taking it easily and without danger of being pooped. Early in the cruise I asked Al if he thought it advisable to take a leaf from the note- book of another long-distance cruiser and batten the cabin doors against any comber that might ramble aboard over our stern. Now that I have observed the little yawl under varying conditions of wind and sea I believe that his answer to my suggestfon, inclusive as it may seem, is yet the best one: "If it ever gets that rough I don't want to be aboard." Flying alphabet flag N from our starboard spreader to apprise the authorities at Port Royal that we had already been admitted to pratique (passed quarantine, that is), we stood in by the remnant of the city that in the days of Sir Henry Morgan was termed the wickedest on earth. Two and a half centuries ago — had the Hippo- campus then existed — we would here have parted company with all our gold plate and pieces of eight, but now the pirates no less than their stronghold lie buried beneath the sea, victims of an avenging earthquake, and we did not pay 170 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS them even the courtesy of listening for the mythical submerged church-bell that tolls their requiem. We were more practically occupied in following the lighted aids up the broad harbor to Kingston. The wind left us when we were within a few cable-lengths of our desired anchorage off the Royal Jamaica Yacht Club, and so at ten o'clock we ended the run as we had begun it, under power. It was the blackness of the night more than the stirring of a guilty conscience that led us to anchor off the state penitentiary, but there, when daylight came, we found ourselves, the objects of many longing glances from the trust- ies working in the prison yard. We awoke to find the water glassy smooth. What more natural than to assume that the hook we always use and the scope we always give would hold us while we trooped ashore to get our mail? At any rate, we did assume it, and nine o'clock saw us rowing blithely down the bay to the boat-landing of the Myrtle Bank Hotel, which is famed, I may add irrelevantly, for its rum punches. 171 DIVERS EXPERIENCES Ashore, there were calls to be made; on the British port collector, who would n't accept my word that Hippocampus is a yacht, entitled to yacht privileges, and had to be pacified with a letter from the delightful and hospitable Ameri- can consul, C. L. Latham ; on the consul himself, and on the secretary of the tourists' association, who was anxious that we view Jamaica through friendly eyes. And while these calls were being made the "sea breeze," as the landlubbers call the southeast trade, was sweeping up the streets of Kingston, blowing dust impartially into the eyes of the just and the unjust. Along toward noon I called up the yacht club to ask the care- taker whether he could see the Hippocampus and whether she was standing the gaff. "She 's all right now," he replied, and the qualifying adverb of time so disquieted me that I asked the two Joes to return aboard while I paid another call ashore. They, as I learned when I joined them on the tossing, quivering Hippo, received at the Myrtle Rank a belated message to return immediately to the ship, and, determining in one glance that they could not 172 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS row the dinghy up wind to our anchorage, piled into a hack and hurried to the yacht club. They were greeted there by Harry and Arthur O 'Toole, sons of the superintendent of prisons, who rowed them to the yawl, and related the danger that our careless seamanship had exposed her to. Hardly had we left the boat in the morning when the trade wind sprang up, and in a short time the Hippocampus was lugubriously drag- ging anchor toward the sea-wall. The O'Toole boys, accustomed to the strength and persistence of the wind, lost no time in gathering together a crew of prisoners and putting out in a motor- launch. For a moment they moored the yawl to a schooner under whose bows she drifted by the scantest margin of safety, but then, fearing that the weight of the two boats would drag the schooner's anchor, they hauled in our own, towed us farther out from shore, and moored us with our heavy hook and with another requisitioned from the prison launch. It sounds simple in the telling, but, feeling the force of the wind against my cheek and seeing the viciousness of the waves 173 DIVERS EXPERIENCES breaking against the masonry wall, I knew that the O'Toole boys had saved the Hippocampus from an untimely end. The chapter of our day's troubles was not yet written, as Al and I learned when we went in the calm of late evening to the Myrtle Bank landing to pick up our tender and row it home. The painter was where we had left it, but the dink was gone. Naturally enough, Hippocam- pus Minor (as a surgical friend has dubbed the dink) had followed the example of Hippocam- pus Major and started on a cruise of its own. Being now somewhat accustomed to the vein of good luck that streaks all our misfortunes, we were not in the least surprised to find that the first boat we hailed in the darkness belonged to the water-front police, who took us aboard and in less than five minutes of haphazard searching rowed us to the spot where, high and dry, some kind Samaritan had beached the dink. Thank- ing the police and crossing their colored palms wi' siller, we took possession of the truant and returned aboard. 174 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS Perhaps the northern reader, the navigator of civilized bodies of water like Long Island Sound and Buzzards Bay, will care to know something of Kingston Harbor and of the trade wind that makes it ideal for sailing and vile for anchoring. The bay, lying east and west, is about eight miles long and two miles wide, and is shaped somewhat like a race-track that has been distorted by an earthquake. Having at its southwest side a deep, narrow opening, it is otherwise separated from the sea by a long arm of sand known as the Palisados, where in years past grew a palisade of palm-trees. Now the Palisados is bare and in- terposes no barrier against the wind which sweeps in from seaward. Port Royal occupies the ex- tremity of this spit. Kingston's water-front is about midway of the bay, on the mainland, and the Royal Jamaica Yacht Club, where the local sailing craft assem- ble, is approximately a mile to eastward of the city, and three and a half miles from the upper end of the Palisados. Before the last hurricane a partly submerged hulk formed a breakwater 175 DIVERS EXPERIENCES for the club anchorage, but that slipped into deep water under the buffeting of wind and wave, and now there is no shelter. The morning after the dragging of the Hippo- campus we were all on deck, basking in the still- ness of the bay and air, and talking with the OToole boys, who had swum out bearing gifts of pineapples and cocoanuts. Little Guineth was there, too, a twelve-year-old mermaid whose last name I forget, who during our stay in Kings- ton has visited us daily and delighted us with the imperious manner in which she rules her court of adolescent mermen. Suddenly Harry ex- claimed, "Here comes the Doctor," and pointed seaward. Expecting a visit from the quarantine officials, we paralleled his glance and saw in- stead a slight riffling^ of the bay's surface. "The trade wind," added Arthur. "It comes every morning between nine and ten and blows like the jooce." We watched its coming until we were inter- rupted by the prison launch, arrived to retrieve the anchor, and by my decision to put over our 176 The diver wore a worried, thoughtful expression, for there are sharks also in Kingston Harbor Lying beside the salvage tug, Hippo revealed that it isn't mere inches that makes seaworthiness Hauled out on the United Fruit Company's ways at Kington, all hands got busy with the paint brushes Six hours later, her sides and bottom painted, Hippo took the water with something like a sigh of relief CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS light hook in addition to the heavy one. On subsequent mornings, however, we have watched the daily awakening of the trade and have found it always the same and invariably fascinating. First comes the faint disturbance of the surface to which Harry had called our attention. That passes and is succeeded by a brief interval of calm. Then another agitation of the water, well over to the seaward side of the bay, a caress of the rising wind, which is suddenly duplicated in a dozen places. Soon the ruffled patches merge, and the effect of the wind, but not the wind it- self, is seen to advance in a long line across the bay. Until now the air in the vicinity of the Hippo- campus has been breathless, and we have idly re- volved around our anchor rode ; but soon we feel a vagrant breath of air against our bare arms and shoulders. The yawl, like an animal on the alert, ceases her purposeless movement and points seaward, facing an unknown danger. The advancing ripple, now augmented, brushes past us, the hollow tubes of the mizzen turnbuckles 177 DIVERS EXPERIENCES whistle a shrill defiance, the Hippocampus tenta- tively dips her forefoot, and we are embarked upon our daily tussle with the wind. Starting leisurely, by mid-afternoon the trade has whipped itself up to a thirty-mile gait; and the waves, sweeping across the bay, alternately dip our bowsprit and bumpkin under. Some- times, as on the day after our arrival in Kings- ton, the wind attains a forty-mile strength, and then the O'Toole boys, youthful water-dogs that they are, stand by in their bathing-suits to give help where it is needed. Generally by six in the evening the breeze has died away and the bay resumed its placidity ; a condition maintained un- til the next morning's visitation of the Doctor. Sailing races never become drifting matches in Kingston, but, to the contrary, more than one has been won by the last man to remain afloat. This is all very well for those who are born and brought up in Kingston and know no respite from the tropical trades, but if ever I visit this delightful island by yacht again I shall moor my craft in the snug harbor at Port Antonio and journey to the capital by rail. 178 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS In a previous paragraph I mentioned a hulk that had been used as a breakwater for the yacht club anchorage. For several years it has been lost ; but we have found it. On our first day in port, following our seance with the dragging anchor and our rescue by the O'Tooles, the two Joes returned aboard, got up anchor and then, maneuvering off the yacht club, let go at pre- cisely the spot indicated by the kindly stranger ashore. Our seventy-five-pound anchor, descend- ing with the uncanny magnetic attribute of a lodestone, drew itself to the submerged wreck and became entangled in its iron ribs. We were more securely anchored than we knew, and the other hook which we put out the following morn- ing as a precaution was only an aggravation of our difficulty. That evening, meaning to haul in the light anchor to prevent the two lines from fouling overnight, we found that it would not budge, and although we were then unaware of the existence of the hulk, we surmised that our customary in- port luck had got the better of us. So two days later, when we had completed arrangements 179 DIVERS EXPERIENCES for hauling out the yawl to paint her bottom, we buoyed both lines and sought the west-end wharf of the United Fruit Co., leaving in abeyance the disentanglement of the anchors. Native boys, at home in the water as on dry land, placed us over a cradle and blocked our keel, and in a few minutes a gang of blacks, sweating profusely over a windlass, had hauled us up the marine railway. Then we got into diffi- culties with Jamaican law. Being out of water we found that we should n't be there, but being out, we would be permitted to remain overnight provided we were forthwith fumigated at a cost of five guineas. Otherwise we must launch again before six o'clock to frustrate the rats which (it would appear) always leave the barren inter- ior of little yawls between the hours of sunset and sunrise and spread pestilence among the unsus- pecting inhabitants of the island. Rather than break the law or — a more important consider- ation — pay five guineas for fumigation, we de- termined to do a two days' job in one, and, work- ing uninterruptedly, we were actually able to paint the sides and bottom in less than six hours. 180 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS This was the first time we had hauled out since our initial launching in April, and we were re- lieved to find that aside from a slight softening of the seams near the spot which had received the impact of the ten-ton boulder in our accident at Mayport, our underbody was uninjured. More- over, thanks to its liberal coating of bronze paint, the bottom was as clean as if we had taken the wa- ter three days instead of three months previously. This, I think, speaks volumes for the efficacy of bronze composition, inasmuch as for two of the three months we have cruised through waters in which the teredo and marine growths are notor- iously destructive. Going off the ways in the late afternoon we moored to a barge near by, and resignedly awaited the passing of Sunday and Emancipation day, August 1, on which the negroes celebrate the liberation of their forefathers from a state of slavery. On Tuesday afternoon, following a luncheon at the Jamaica Club as guests of Commodore W. Baggett Gray of the Royal Jamaica Yacht Club, Al and I went aboard the American tug J. J. 181 DIVERS EXPERIENCES Merritt and sought an interview with her salvage captain, J. J. Johnson. He is an enthusiastic yachtsman, the part owner of a local sloop that has raced and won in northern waters, and in his official capacity he has salvaged nearly all the American yachts that have stranded on Carib- bean shores during the last twenty years. We laid before him our petty troubles— two anchors, and their lines hopelessly entangled in a wreck — and he was as interested and concerned as he would have been at the tale of a palatial yacht gone aground on Roncador Reef. More, he was sympathetic, and out of the kindness of his heart offered to send down a diver for the mere cost of his services. This cost was so much better than the regular fee of $25 a dive that we left the tug greatly elated, promising to return early the follow- ing morning and lead the way to the buoyed cables. Strangely enough, we were as good as our word (although a life of cruising begets bad hab- its in the matter of punctuality), and six o'clock saw us shoving off with Captain Johnson in the 182 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS diving launch, the Hippocampus looking pretty small alongside the I. J. Merritt. Arriving off the yacht club we were pleased to find the buoy still afloat, and were yet more delighted, after a spasm of bubbling from the bottom of the bay, to be told by the diver's helper that we might haul away on the heavy anchor. A few minutes later the other line was liberated, and long before the Doctor had paid his morning call we were breakfasting aboard the Merritt j our anchors on Hippo's deck and their lines neatly coiled by members of the tug's crew. Gratifying as it is to be the recipient of kind- nesses such as those accorded us by Captain John- son and his fellows of the sea, it is still more pleas- ing to be privileged to mention them in print. And this chapter cannot conclude without repre- sentation of our interview at the offices of the United Fruit Co. when we called to pay our hauling-out bill. "We 've come," said Al, "to find out what we owe you for hauling us out last Saturday." "Did we haul you out?" asked the manager. "I 'd forgotten." 183 DIVERS EXPERIENCES "You certainly did, and you 'd better take our money while we have it." "Well, let me see. You Ve come a long way and you may never get to where you 're going, ajnd the cost will be — nothing." They may have hurricanes in the tropics — though we Ve yet to see one — and sharks, and all manner of predatory influences. But the hearts of the inhabitants are in the right place. 184 IX ROLLING DOWN TO COLON THE Hippocampus has arrived at Colon, Panama, and as I look over the record of her voyage across the Caribbean Sea I own to a feeling of bitter disapointment. In justice to the reader who has patiently followed the little yawl on her journey from New York I desired to include in this story an account of a battle with the elements that would dwarf into insignificance every previous happening of the sea. I wanted to be able to say, "As I recovered consciousness I saw the mainmast go by the board ; the mizzen ballooned off into space; the cabin hatch reeled after it, ripped off by the sheer force of the hurri- cane, and in another minute we were at the mercy of the waves." I thought that it would enhance the dramatic quality of my yarn if it were written on a raft with sharks encircling me and were con- signed to the deep in the last of our muscatel bottles. 185 ROLLING DOWN TO COLON Unfortunately, nothing of this sort occurred. For 550 miles we sailed steamship courses, and for four days of the five that were occupied in running from Kingston, Jamaica, to the Atlantic terminus of the Panama Canal we enjoyed weather conditions of the Grade A Select variety. Nothing could have been more disappointing from the writer's point of view; and nothing more delightful from the navigator's. Throughout the entire voyage of the Hippocam- pvs, which now draws to a close, I have been the troubled possessor of a sort of dual personality. One part of me is the navigator who offers co- pious libations to the gods of weather and is best pleased when conditions are ideal; the other the writer who leaves port dolorously, hoping that everything unpleasant and exciting will happen at once. Unfortunately for both sides of my personality, we have experienced mediocre wea- ther and have never been totally and efficaciously shipwrecked. Had we stayed a day longer in Kingston, how- ever, there might have been a thrill or two to write about. For the better part of the two 186 I w S.Me$rit ** *.J* mm \cr re- course, noon positions, and daily mileages of Hippocampus en route Jamaica — Panama 187 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS weeks that we remained in port, touring the island by motor-car, making friends ashore, and enduring the harsh treatment of the trade wind, Squibb had a premonition that we should come to grief before leaving. So definite did his presen- timent become that for the last two days he stayed aboard almost entirely, despite the assur- ance of Chambers and myself that the yawl could take good care of herself. When on the morning of August 7 we slipped our cable and took a party of local yachtsmen for a run around the course in Kingston harbor, I thought that his premonition would come to fru- ition. At the outset it was a three-reef breeze for the two local yachts that left their moorings with us; but we, running down the wind to the turning-point off the Myrtle Bank Hotel, car- ried full sail and carried it nicely. Coming about, however, and starting up the beat to the Palisados, we heeled as we do at sea, and spray came aboard to discomfort those of our guests who were not properly clothed for the occasion. Still, the pots in the galley and the books on the cabin shelves comported themselves 188 ROLLING DOWN TO COLON with dignity and we had no thought of shortening sail. But as we neared the upper turning buoy, this thought occurred to us simultaneously with the arrival of a squall. All hands sprang to the mainsail, the halyards rattled through the blocks, and we won our contest with the main strength of the wind by the fraction of a minute. Noth- ing would disgust me more completely than to strain our spars or rigging in the supposed shelter of a harbor. Returning to the yacht club anchorage under jib and jigger we picked up our mooring with- out making it too evident to bystanders on the shore that we usually do such work under power. Whereupon, finding that Squibb still cherished his notion of impending trouble, we paid farewell calls in relays, at no time leaving the yawl unat- tended. Late the following afternoon, we learned from the local radio station that no disturbances had been reported in the West Indies and decided that the time was ripe to put to sea. Hurricanes, I may say parenthetically, had been pretty much in the back of our minds ever since we had en- 189 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS tered the tropics, and not until we reached Ja- maica and learned that we were but two days re- moved from the southern limit of storm tracks had we felt at all easy about them. Now Chambers and I obtained our bill of health from the American consul, and returned aboard to find the Hippocampus undergoing her usual trade-wind contortions. Squibb was champing at the bit and the sea-horse herself strained at the tether and reared her head in a thoroughly equine manner. "She 's rarin' to go," said Squibb, "and I 'm about one jump ahead of nervous prostration. Let 's get before something happens." So we got. Not, however, without starting the motor and breaking the anchor out. And when the two Joes, enjoying the assistance of the power-plant, but yet pulling hard on the hawser, brought the line half in they found the underly- ing reason for Squibb's premonition. The haw- ser had caught on a piece of hidden wreckage and was chafed two thirds through. Another day and perhaps another hour in port and we should have gone adrift from our anchor, and not even 190 ROLLING DOWN TO COLON the efforts of the O' Toole boys could have saved us from piling up on the harbor wall. It is such things as this that make us glad to be at sea. On this occasion we were more than ever glad to have plenty of water beneath and all around us, for we knew that unless the trade wind broke a habit that was established when the earth first started its rotary motion, fair winds Would blow us across the Caribbean. We had said good-by to the old days of beating three miles to gain a mile and we could read our Dis- tance Made Good from the dial of the patent log. So we anticipated and sd we found it. Moreover, this long jump in open water was extremely interesting from the navigational point of view, as the reader may learn if he will permit a short excursion into the technique of sailing. Colon lies south by west from Kings- ton, and if we could have relied on the trade wind's blowing from north of east for the entire distance, it might have been a simple matter to lay a course on taking our departure and main- tain it throughout, altering only slightly to allow for drift and leeway. Had we started immedi- 191 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS ately on a south by west course, however, and encountered after two or three days a south- easterly slant, we should have been obliged to resume our old business of beating against the wind. There was also the possibility of being set too far to westward by the main currents of the Caribbean and making a landfall to leeward of Colon, and even of being set down on Port- land Rock, which lies fifty miles from Kingston and only fifteen off the most direct route to Colon. , Having these things in consideration we steered a course of south by east immediately after taking our departure from the outermost cay at the entrance to Kingston harbor. We sailed full and by, the mainsail double-reefed, the wind coming down from the east at a strength of thirty or thirty-five miles an hour. It was rough. Joe Chambers admitted it, and opined that there had been too much fizz in the gin-fizz he imbibed before leaving. I admitted it, stand- ing before the galley stove, my legs stretched and my head braced against the hatch cover as I prepared the evening meal. Joe Squibb, who 192 : "i Guests used to think that the dink, although admirable in other respects, came a little short of dignity Two of the members of the crew striving to look pleased while raising a thirst on the Myrtle Bank lawn Only in Jamaica can one swim in the chill fresh water of a rushing river and float down into the briny sea Roaring River Falls, Jamaica, where the stream drops from the skyline to wind through a grove of cocoanuts ROLLING DOWN TO COLON has the constitution of a horse, sat at the tiller and sang a French ditty. He alone was unaf- fected by the sea, but we all agreed that if it had become the least bit rougher we should have spoiled the perfect score that we have maintained in fourteen weeks of cruising. But as we left shoal water the seas grew longer and less precipitous, and toward morning the wind slacked off. This is a pleasant habit which the trade wind has — of easing up during the night and permiting the watch below to enjoy its repose. Why it doesn't die away entirely at night as it does almost invariably in Kingston harbor is something that will have to be left to the meteorologists to explain. The next day at noon I had difficulty in ob- taining my sight for latitude — a circumstance that may seem odd to the sailor who has never cruised below the tropic of Cancer, for in the higher latitudes the noon sight is rightly consid- ered as simple as rolling off a log. In Lat. 16° 48' N., however, where we were on the ninth day of August, the sun is only 00° 55' south of the observer, and, what with finding a spot on deck 193 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS that is not shadowed or obscured by sails and rigging, with pointing the sextant directly south, and with making the sun kiss the horizon at the exact moment of local apparent noon, the pro- ceeding is anything but simple. The resulting fix was inexact, but it showed a distance of ap- proximately seventy-five miles made good from the point of departure and a course made good of S.% E., or only one eighth point of leeway and drift. That afternoon we enjoyed the most perfect weather of the cruise, for the wind continued to blow from the right direction, the sky was fair, and there was only enough sea running to give the long, easy roll that is one of the delights of small boat sailing. In mid-afternoon, when we shook out both reefs, we voted unanimously that, despite the ever-present threat of hurricanes and the general opinion to the contrary, the Carib- bean is the ideal sea in which to cruise in summer weather. In the early evening, deeming that we had made sufficient easting, we changed course to south magnetic and so continued for another 194 ROLLING DOWN TO COLON twenty-four hours. At the expiration of this period we had added another hundred miles to our distance and made good a course of S.%W. We were then feeling more strongly the westward set of the Yucatan current, as was ap- parent from the three eighths of a point diver- gence between the course sailed and that made good. Nevertheless, we were still well to wind- ward of Colon, and I decided on a further change of course to westward, waiting, however, for the result of our afternoon sight for longitude before altering to south by west. During the ensuing night and morning the weather changed to cloudy, with occasional sharp showers, and as the hour drew on to noon I won- dered whether I should be able to get my altitude sight. For some weeks I had been aware of a growing feeling of irritation every time I at- tempted to determine our position with reference to the equator, for not only had we chanced to keep our latitude and the declination of the sun virtually identical, but we had found that re- course to the pole star was denied us by banks of cloud which invariably assembled to northward 195 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS at morning and evening twilight. At the risk of becoming too technical, I may add that I had failed to provide myself with azimuth tables of stars having declinations of more than twenty- three degrees and that none of those observable stars having lesser declinations were suitably placed for ascertaining our latitude. Consequently, I was much more elated than the situation would seem to warrant when at five minutes to twelve the clouds broke away over- head and I obtained a sight of the sun. As our latitude had now become appreciably lower than the declination of the celestial body, there was no difficulty in catching it where it belonged on the northern horizon and in transferring to our chart a fix of whose accuracy I could be certain. So fortified, we again waited for an afternoon sight and at 5:10 changed course to south- southwest — another point to westward. During this day we sighted our first ship since leaving port, and there occurred small incidents which one comes to expect in Idng-distance cruis- ing. I glanced aloft, for instance, speculating on the strength of an approaching squall, and dis- 196 ROLLING DOWN TO COLON covered that the gaff lacing of the mainsail had chafed in two against the lee shrouds. Where- upon we lowered and repaired the break while the squall passed by. Late at night, while Squibb and I were putting a double reef in the sail on the approach of dirty weather, we acci- dentally came about, and in so doing fouled the log-line on the rudder. Two dismal, rainy hours passed while I untangled the kinks from the line. On August 12, our fourth day out of port, the wind shifted to southeast, and we had reason to be thankful that we had kept well up wind from Colon. Still having the weather gage, we merely sheeted in, hekTthe tack, and continued on our course, and our noon position showed that we had made our best day's run — 120 miles in twenty- four hours. -By nightfall, when we were within a hundred miles of the isthmus of Panama, the steady breath of the trade wind left us and we found ourselves becalmed in the center of a large storm area. Thunder-showers volleyed all around us, the barometer pumped alarmingly (as it does on the approach of a hurricane), and we 197 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS felt that the proper time had come to expend some of the sixty-five-cent gasolene with which we had provided ourselves in Jamaica. Two hours of running under power carried us out of the storm-center and into another favor- able slant of wind, and we continued under sail until eight o'clock of August 13, when, at the passing of a particularly violent squall, the wind died. As we were debating the advisability of re-starting the motor, we saw two waterspouts form to eastward of us and brought the discussion to a speedy close. We started up and were not long in putting distance between us and the spouts. Nor, the calm continuing that day and all the ensuing night, did we again stop the motor. Chugging along under a leaden sky at our cus- tomary cruising speed of five miles an hour, we drew near to the coast of Panama, and at four o'clock, when the sun showed his face for an in- stant, I obtained my only sight of the day. It checked with our dead reckoning longitude, and, continuing on our S. S. W. course, I was not too 198 ROLLING DOWN TO COLON much surprised when, an hour later, we sighted Manzanillo Point broad on our port bow — ex- actly where we wanted it to be. When at dusk the red and white flashing light of Isla Grande showed under the high shore of Manzanillo, we spliced the main brace; and one has to make a perfect landfall after five days in a tossing yawl to understand just how enthusiastically we spliced it. We were still fifty miles from Colon, and in a continued calm we chugged along, bucking a strong current. It was ideal motor sailing, the moon shining brilliantly through puffy clouds which lacked the ugly menace that had been the chief characteristic of clouds in Cuban waters, and a big lazy swell overtaking us and restrict- ing our horizon as we sank into the hollows. The side-lights of a steamship drew near on our star- board quarter and were replaced by a single white light as the ship changed course and bore away to westward. Presently the red and green lights flashed again into view, and throughout the night we had the companionship of this 199 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS stranger, cruising back and forth, but slowly drawing near to harbor, awaiting the coming of dawn. As daylight strengthened we saw on our left a series of sweeping hills falling away from the heights behind Manzanillo Point, their valleys swathed in mist, their shadows the deep purple and their high-lights the vivid green which one comes to expect in tropical landscapes. On the right I was surprised (so deficient is my knowl- edge of geography) to find that in place of the axial range of mountains with which my imagina- tion had provided the isthmus, there was only low ground, such as one may see along the Connec- ticut shore of the Sound. Ahead, the break- waters of Limon Bay opened up, and we saw through the entrance the smooth harbor and the buildings of Colon and Cristobal. Over Man- zanillo, astern of us, there floated a segregated patch of cloud above the gray, horizon-sweeping cumulus. As the sun rose it glowed into the ruddy hue of embers and displayed a narrow selv- age of golden saffron, gleaming like silk. We liked the prospect, and after two months 200 ROLLING DOWN TO COLON of cruising in foreign waters, felt that we were coming home. Passing between the jetties, we lay to in the examination anchorage, following the example of our night-time acquaintance, which daylight revealed to be a navy tanker. Presently a small motor-boat (small by com- parison with the ships in harbor, but larger than the twenty-eight-foot Hippocampus) lay along- side and we were visited by a customs inspector, a measurer, and a doctor of the Panama Canal. They were Americans, of course, talking the American language, and they welcomed us heartily to the Canal Zone. At the rate of fifty a minute we answered questions relating to our health, our dimensions, and our general inten- tions, and then we were told that contrary to the usual custom we might stand up the bay without a pilot and anchor off the Cristobal water-front. So we did; and as we swung along astern of the navy tanker, proceeding slowly under a pilot's charge, I could not resist the temptation to shoot over an impudent question by semaphore. "Why did you stick around last night?" I asked through the medium of flags, and felt 201 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS properly rebuked when I received in answer the words, "Because we wanted to." Perhaps in afterthought this answer seemed ungracious to the captain of the tanker, for in another moment his quartermaster sent the mes- sage, "Who are you?" "We are the yawl Hippocampus'' I replied, "from New York." "Kindly repeat the last two words," the flut- tering flags spelled out, and when I had made the repetition they added: "We would be pleased to have you call on us when we have come to dock." As it happened, we had no time to make the call, but I met the navigator of the tanker ashore in the afternoon and scolded him roundly for waiting to make a daylight entry into the harbor which, next to New York, is the best lighted in the North Atlantic. He excused himself with the plea that the light on Isla Grande was unre- liable (having derived this information from the "Light List"), but we ordinary seamen of the yawl knew that even the finest light will seem un- reliable when a violent rainstorm obscures an 202 ROLLING DOWN TO COLON otherwise perfect night, and reduces the visibility to zero. Cristobal is the eastern terminus of the Panama Canal, separated from the Panamanian city of Colon by the tracks of the Panama Rail- road, and it was off the immense modern docks of Cristobal that we came to anchor, guided by the advice of an American ashore who first hailed us with — "If that 's the Hippo, we Ve been looking for you for a long time." After we had raised our sails to dry them in the morning sunlight and had thoroughly disorgan- ized ourselves with all manner of wet clothing spread about on deck, we received a friendly call from Percy Van Wagener and Jimmy Powell of the Texas Co. They constitute a self-appointed visiting committee of two to welcome all amateur mariners, whether bound for the South Sea Islands or places less remote, or whether search- ing for treasure or for rewards more tangible. They were come, they said, not to sell us a thou- sand tons of crude oil for our bunkers, but to in- vite us to dinner at the Strangers' Club. Every 203 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS visiting sea-captain stops there, we were told, every adventurer, every world celebrity; and we must register in the book that President Hard- ing, the Prince of Wales, and all the rest had written in. Would we come? Will a dog eat meat, or a yawl roll in a sea- way? So the following evening saw us sitting around a rectangular table on the breeze-swept porch of the Strangers' Club; strangers no longer to Powell and Van Wagener, nor to our fellow- guests, E. G. Davidson and Captains Eden and Kohler. Conversation ranged from this to that and was judiciously interrupted by asides to a white-coated Jamaican boy who stood by, pencil in hand, and repeated after us, "Martini, Bronx, Planters' Punch, Haig & Haig," and a great many other magic words. The dinner which fol- lowed this auspicious opening will linger in my recollection after most other incidents of the cruise have faded from it, for it was the first time in years that I had sat down to a combination of excellent cuisine, Sauterne, Curasao, and the 204 ROLLING DOWN TO COLON talk of men whose home is the world, who sail it or roam it with utter disregard to distance. There is a glamour to life in the Canal Zone, even though it is not entirely spent around the white napery of the Strangers' Club. In a sense it is pioneer country, for within five miles of the canal on either side is the rank jungle, a paradise for hunters — yet Colon and Panama City have their cabarets and show-girls and the sophistication of New York. In a glance one sees the primitive and the ultra-modern, but it is not this contrast — the propinquity, say, of partly clothed San Bias Indian and partially unclothed Broadway Indian — that arrests the attention. Most impressive is the fact that here, on the edge of South America, we have a miniature of North America. In Cristobal and New Cristo- bal we have Americans living in the American way, eating food and wearing clothes imported from the States, thinking American thoughts. The Panamanians may have the tropical "manana fever," putting off till the morrow the things that should be done to-day, taking their 205 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS siestas, and shielding their faces from the sun. But the Americans go at their work and play just as if they were on their native soil. Everything in the Canal Zone is government- owned, although the landlord sometimes masque- rades under the name of the Panama Railroad Co. So abundant is the supply of electricity from the immense hydro-electric plant at the Gatun dam that every closet and every piano in the zone has its lights continually burning to dispel the dampness. The United States (or the railroad company) operates a slaughter-house, a cold-storage plant, modern bakeries, laundries, filtration-plants, dry-docks, machine-shops, hos- pital — everything to fill the ordinary or most un- usual need of employee or seafaring transient. Having from a safe distance heard the war- time rumblings of a government-controlled na- tional railway system, and having observed the sad disillusionment of those who put their trust in the Post-office Department, I am by prin- ciple opposed to government ownership and op- eration. Yet here I see a government organi- zation working smoothly, silently and with des- 206 ROLLING DOWN TO COLON patch combined with the utmost degree of cour- tesy. A test of any mechanism is its flexibility, and I find here in the Panama Canal an executive machine that handles the smallest yacht with the same absence of fuss that characterizes its opera- tion with the largest battle-ship. We are not side-tracked because we are small, nor are we denied this or that privilege extended to the more remunerative customers of LTncle Sam. On the contrary, we had no sooner come in con- tact with officialdom than we were made to feel that our needs and our wishes were of paramount importance. If we are not spoiled by official cordiality, we stand in grave danger of being ruined by per- sonal hospitality, for we find here motor-boat enthusiasts, followers of the wanderings of Hippocampus, who insist on playing host to us and putting themselves at our disposal at any and all times. A. E. Arnold, of the commissary department, is a little grieved at this minute be- cause we believe that he and Mrs. Arnold should be our guests on board before we accept another dinner invitation; while H. F. Stevenson, whose 207 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS friendly Jersey City voice hailed us from the dock as we entered Cristobal, says that he will regard it as a personal insult if we do not make his house our home, either now or at any future visit to the canal. And these are only two of the many who have showered kindnesses upon us. Yesterday afternoon I took my life in my hands by disposing my body on the after deck of Steve's motor-cycle to make a trip to Gatun Lake to ascertain the chances of storing Hippo in fresh water until next spring. Steve drives care- fully enough, but he is more used to engine-room telegraphs than to handle-bar controls, and I have the feeling that any moment with him may be the last for some incautious pedestrian. How- ever, we made the round-trip to the dam success- fully, and at Gatun had a highly satisfactory in- terview with F. W. Kariger, pilot in charge of lighthouses for the Panama Canal. Readers of the "National Geographic Maga- zine" will recognize in Kariger the nameless Samaritan who rescued the Dream Ship from a night of drifting when that famous cruiser broke down in Gatun Lake en route from England to 208 ROLLING DOWN TO COLON the South Sea Islands. Rescued her in the motor-boat Eunice, a thing of shining brass, and towed her for hours at the alarming speed of six dollars an hour. Kariger has always deplored the government regulations that stipulate a cash return for favors rendered even to amateur mari- ners, and since then has been sympathetically in- terested in the ambitious wanderings of all craft too small to leave their own harbors. Conse- quently, he knew all about the Hippocampus and her itinerary, and even before the introductions were over asked me: "Why did you come around the western end of Cuba?" I gave him one of half a dozen reasons that I had on the tip of my tongue, and he replied, "It may have helped literature; but it was an error in seamanship." "How so?" I asked defensively. "Going the eastern end we would have had wind and cur- rent against us ; coming the western way we had current for us and only calms and waterspouts to bother us." "Calms and waterspouts? Well, you are 209 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS lucky. I Ve steamboated it there since I was no bigger than a baby hippocampus, and I 'd sooner swim up Gatun spillway than sail from Cape San Antonio to Jamaica when the trade wind is blowing as it usually blows in that vicin- ity. And now what can I do for you?" Timidly I told him of my plans and aspirations — to pass through the canal and dip Hippocam- pus in the waters of the Pacific before storing her somewhere for use another season. "The easiest thing in the world/' said Kariger. "But I '11 tell you something about the tropics. You can't lay up a boat in the Atlantic or the Pacific because the teredo will eat her up, and you can't haul her out because the ants will eat her up. The only thing you can do is to leave her in fresh water off my dock where she '11 be safe from insects (and Indians) , where I '11 keep my eye on her, have her painted, and her engine kept free from rust. And I '11 store her sails and cushions in a dry closet. Does that seem satis- factory?" Satisfactory? I was overwhelmed, and posi- 210 ROLLING DOWN TO COLON tively stuttered my thanks. I have grown pretty fond of the little Hippo in the last four months, and it had troubled me not a little that I might have to leave her in unsympathetic hands. But now my mind is at rest. On my return trip to Cristobal, perched pre- cariously on the quarter-deck of Steve's motor- cycle, Steve told me mercilessly that Kariger would give the yawl a thousand times better care than I could myself, and Steve is as well in- formed as he is frank. Though it be spoken in a spirit of mean revenge, I feel that the Hippo- campus is safer for a year in Gatun Lake than I am for another minute of Steve's motor-cycle. 211 X THE JOURNEY'S END HAVING been open to the deep-sea traffic of the world for a mattter of five years, the Panama Canal is blase. Battle-ships which possess the power to thrill the least emotional of souls pass through it, and the pelicans, sitting on the bleached branches of trees rising from the bottom of Gatun Lake, shrug contemptuous shoulders. Twice a month the tremendous emer- gency gates at the Gatun locks are experiment- ally closed, to the wonder and admiration of all visitors who are mechanically minded, but the Hebraic little frogs of the dam pay them no at- tention. Unperturbed they croak their guttural Oy, Oy, Oy — a sound that, even more than the songs of the cabaret-girls in Colon, reminds me of little old New York. Ships from Shanghai, Cape Town, Liverpool, pass from ocean to ocean in a day, and the lock engineers, unamazed, re- pair to the carpenter-shop between the lock cham- 212 THE JOURNEY'S END bers and pursue their interrupted craftsmanship in fine native woods. The whole Canal Zone is so scaled up to the operation of tremendous works that the unusual in point of size, intricacy, or ingenuity has become usual. Conversely, the small ship or the minor undertaking has become interesting. Hence it was that the "Star and Gizzard," less affection- ately known as the "Star and Herald," of Panama City, singled out the Hippocampus for a column of glowing praise. From this news story we learned that our twenty-eight-foot yawl is the smallest boat ever to pass through the canal on a long cruise. Gratifying as it was to know that our diminu- tive proportions had established a record in the annals of the canal, we were still more pleased by a special concession that was accorded us by the authorities. Having cruised from New York without once taking a pilot, and having at times navigated difficult places without adequate charts, we entertained an ambition to pass through the most meticulously piloted waterway in the world without a professional hand at our tiller. 213 I CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS We disclosed our desire to the port captain at Colon and learned that it was unusual, unten- able, and preposterous. No ship, we were told, other than a government vessel, had ever passed through the canal without a pilot; no ship was permitted to move even from anchorage to dock without one. It was not that we were incapable of passing through without a pilot; our wish was contrary to the rules and regulations govern- ing the canal. Severe as it seems, this ultimatum was couched in friendly phrases, and we took heart. "Very well," we replkd, in effect, "why not abrogate the rules? What are rules for if you can't break 'em?" And we presented a few tell- ing facts and figures. By official measurement Hippocampus is of six tons gross weight; by official classification she is a vessel in ballast and is chargeable at seventy-five cents a ton, or $4.50 for the passage. This sum includes the services of the pilot. The pilot's hire would nick the Government $14. Problem: Find the Govern- ment's percentage of profit. This presentation of statistics won the case for 214 THE JOURNEY'S END us, and, following our assurance that we were able to differentiate between red and black buoys, we received permission to proceed at will from Cristobal to Balboa. On the morning of August 19 we got under way from our anchorage, and with E. G. David- son, a mining engineer, aboard as passenger, swung into the channel leading to the Gatun locks. With us, as we approached the giant's stairway, steamed the S.S. Arapehu, bound from England to New Zealand, and her passengers, lining the rail, watched us with interest as we lowered our brilliant yacht ensign and in its stead hoisted a dingy, time-worn remnant of a United States ensign. They did not know, of course, that this flag, once brave and bright, had spread its stripes in the Adriatic submarine zone, and had been brought to Panama to enrich its sentimental value; but from the studied non- chalance of the crew of Hippocampus they may have guessed that the occasion was one of great moment to us. To say the least of it, one does n't enter a thou- sand-foot lock in a twenty-eight-foot yawl with 215 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS a calm, untroubled mind. We knew that the in- coming water would surge up under us from six- teen-foot culverts, and we had been told often enough of the damage resulting to small boats. Some had had their rails and rubstreaks ripped away, and even navy tugs had been torn from their moorings and whipped about in the lock chambers. As we waited for the Arapehu to enter the first lock ahead of us we felt that cross- ing the open Caribbean was child's play com- pared with this adventure. Nevertheless, as I say, we were nonchalant. Under power we crept up near the stern of the ocean liner and lay to alongside the left wall of the lock chamber. Heaving lines were dropped on to our awning from above, and when we ob- served their slightness we politely but firmly asked for heavier stock. The ponderous gates were closing, time pressed, but new lines of three- quarter-inch diameter were soon forthcoming. The upper ends were secured to bollards forty feet above us and we were advised to take a turn with each around our bitts and prepare to haul in slack. It sounded simple in prospect. 216 THE JOURNEY'S END With the first inrush of water — an influx, by the way, a dozen times more tumultuous than the admission of water to the locks in the New York barge canal — we were thrown violently against the wall, and there we stayed, chewing away our rubstreak, for the first fifteen feet of the thirty-foot rise. GBut presently a violent counter-current caught our stern, and try as Al and Davidson, manning the stern-line, would, they could not hold us close to the wall. This was an exciting two minutes, but suddenly the current slacked off, and we floated as placidly as a celluloid duck in a bath-tub. One third of the agony was over. The next third was the worst, for there is some- thing inexplicable about the middle lock at each end of the canal that plays hob with the currents and with the small craft caught in their rough embrace. Even capital ships have trouble in the second lock, and we have heard of iron chocks and yards of hand railing being hurled high in air when the electric "mules" curb the unruly plunges of their charges. This time as theiiuge gates closed majestically 217 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS behind us we lost some of our nonchalance, and I for one felt somewhat as Poe's character felt when he looked up from his cot and saw the walls of his dungeon drawing together. We had started the motor to convey us to the upper level, but now we shut it off and stood on deck ready- to pull or push. Joe Chambers and Davidson were again at the after line, and Joe Squibb at the less troublesome bow line, while I stood by prepared to soften the first crash of the boat against the stone coping. The crash came as the water eddied up, and again the splinters flew. For a moment we hugged the wall, Chambers and Davidson taking slack feverishly, and then again the current caught our stern and robbed us of the slack. The line hauled taut and we surged forward. There was no heaving against that urge. In- stead, as the water rose, the angle of the hum- ming line increased from the perpendicular, and in a moment we were irresistibly thrust stern first toward the center of the chamber. The turn- buckle of the after mizzen shroud snapped as the 218 THE JOURNEY'S END line tended against it. The bitt started slightly from the deck. "Pay out slowly," I advised; "let the current take us." For I feared that a parted line would throw us under the stern of the Arapehu. And with one turn around the bitt, the steaming line snaked slowly through the aching hands of the two men. Now we lay at right angles to the wall, and now as I ran forward to fend us off, we splintered the tip of our bowsprit against the unyielding stone. In another moment Chambers cast off the stern line, for it was threatening to carry away all our port-side rigging; but at that instant the current slacked off and we floated gently, starboard side to the wall. Not too gently, however, and of course the dink interposed itself between us and the stone. There came a cry from the quarter-deck of our lock mate, and Al, seeming to anticipate the warning, yanked the tender from harm's way by a margin of inches. We eased the Hippo's shock of impact and breathed again. Likewise we cast off our remaining line, started 219 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS the motor, turned around in the lock, and fol- lowed the Arapehu into the third and topmost chamber. As we took our mooring lines from the lock tenders on the lake level we received a word of encouragement. "You 're through the worst of it," said Walker, an official who later showed us through the op- erating galleries of Gatun, "and if you '11 haul aft a bit to lie directly abreast the ladder you 11 have no further trouble." We did as we were advised, and found when the water was admitted that we had been placed directly above one of the big inlet culverts. The effect was somewhat similar to that of a ball sustained in air on the powerful jet of a foun- tain; for the current, rising perpendicularly be- neath us, divided fore and aft and kept us in slack water. In this lock I replaced Al at the stern line, for his hands were raw from his experience, but had little to do but take in slack as we ascended. In one hour and nine minutes from the time of en- tering the lowest lock we were in the fresh water 220 THE JOURNEY'S END of Gatun Lake, but little the worse for rough usage, and with the last major excitement of the cruise behind us. The New Zealander was towed from the cham- ber by her six electric locomotives, and as she cast off her steel cables, we started our motor and, dodging the back wash from her propeller, headed blithely for the dock of the canal lighthouse depot. There we were welcomed by Kariger, pilot in charge of lighthouses, and there inspected the motor-boat Eunice, which, as I mentioned in the last chapter, figured extensively in the canal passage of the Dream Ship. Eunice is chiefly interesting to northern eyes in her deck of solid teak. We are used to this tropical wood in the ornamentation of expensive yachts, and consider it bordering on the sacrile- gious tor employ it for the deck of a work-boat. Yet Kariger told me that for five years the hob- nailed shoes of negro deck-hands, the heavy weight of gasolene drums, and the sharp edges of acetylene bottles have pressed against it; and he successfully defied me to find a dent in its 221 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS surface. If the Hippocampus had been pro- vided with a rubstreak of teak before passing through the Gatun locks she would not now re- quire the services of a carpenter on her port- side. That evening we motored with a party of friends back to Colon for a go at the movies, and that night for the first time since our departure from Key West we fought a battle with the mosquitoes. In the terminal cities, and else- where in the zone at a distance of more than 200 yards from the lake shore line, mosquitoes are virtually non-existent, but at the lighthouse dock they are wild and wicked and voracious. Our old friend citronella ministered to us through the night, but I suspect the Gatun mosquitoes of drinking from the mouth of the bottle and re- turning refreshed to the onslaught. Consequently we were cheerless and heavy- eyed when our friends Arnold and Stevenson de- scended from the morning train from Colon and boarded us for the run across the canal. It was raining dismally at the time (as Davidson, who had slept on deck under the awning, could well 222 THE JOURNEY'S END attest) , and as we looked out over the broad reach of the lake we could see nothing. But the trop- ical clouds were incapable of spreading a wet blanket over the spirits of our new guests. They know the rainy season, and they confidently pre- dicted that with the starting of the motor the rain would slack off and stay slacked off for the rest of the day. As a matter of fact it did, and although the day was overcast, we were informed that we could have no more perfect weather for the isthmian jaunt. The clotids, spreading a canopy under the sun, kept from us the infernal heat that is still remembered with dread by the men who dug Culebra Cut. In itself our trip across the isthmus was un- interesting, for the canal is so perfectly buoyed that a blind coal-passer could not lose his way. But the proximity of the jungle and the an- achronism of ocean-going ships meeting and pass- ing in fresh water served as fuel for conversation. At Darien, where there is a powerful naval radio- station, we looked eagerly for the peak upon Which our old friend Balboa stood when he sighted 223 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS the Pacific — a peak immortalized in the lines of Keats : Or like stout Cortes when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific — and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise — Silent, upon a peak in Darien. It 's all the poetry I know, and Bartlett had to help me with the first three lines; but I had the satisfaction of declaiming it when, under Steve's expert ciceronage, we found the peak — green, close-cropped by the canal engineers, and seemingly no higher than a dozen hillocks sur- rounding it. Subsequently we learned that the peak where Balboa (or, if you take the poet's word for it, Cortes) stood and, stared is situated in another Darien, several counties nearer the equator. But we had the thrill. We had a very good time altogether. Some one cooked up a navy mulligan at the psycho- logical moment and we partook of its delicious- ness as we passed between the still slipping sides of Culebra Cut — now known on the charts, but nowhere else, as Gaillard Cut. As we came to the locks of Pedro Miguel (invariably called 224 Already the masonry of the upper level of the Gatun Locks, Panama, wears an air of remote antiquity The giant double gates at Miraflores, with the huge protective chain in place to avert accidents Not a Fatu-Liva bird from the famous Filbert Islands, but a young toucan looking square at the photographer THE JOURNEY'S END Peter Mike) we licked from our fingers the last vestiges of the chocolate-cake which Mrs. Arnold had contributed to cap our meal. So fortified we were ready for anything, but found instead that peace and hospitality were to attend the last few miles of our southward voyage. At the Peter Mike locks we were in- formed that a welcome and safe mooring awaited us at the anchorage of the Balboa Boat House, and farther on at Miraflores a military-looking individual in the uniform of the lock guards cupped his hands and bellowed, "Have you got your orders*?" "What orders, sir?" we asked, habit slipping a mental cog back to sub-chaser days. "Your orders to make yourselves at home at the Balboa Boat House." Having been subconsciously prepared for the command, "When gassed and provisioned you may put to sea," our relief was intense, and grati- tude rendered us inarticulate. A few minutes later we dropped quietly to sea level, and when the last gates opened found our- selves at last in the waters of the Pacific. There 225 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS was room at this juncture for reminiscence of the hundreds and thousands of crooked miles that we had put behind us in linking Balboa with New York; but there was no time for reflection. As |we swept out with the falling tide a small boat intercepted us and we were boarded by a man who we thought and feared was a pilot. If he was a pilot — and the insignia on his cap seemed to proclaim him such — he was spoiling our record in the last two miles of the journey. If he was not a pilot, he was as welcome as flowers in May. Our anxiety was not relieved until after we had anchored at his direction and he had left us to our own devices. Then Red Gibson, the Balboa jack of all trades, Whaler, Lear, Potter, and other yacht club members boarded us and we were informed that, anchored where we were, we would go high and dry at low water. So we knew that we had come to the southern point of our voyage without accepting the services of a pilot. Our escutcheon was still clean. ' Getting under way again we secured our anchor on deck, and made fast to a club mooring, 226 THE JOURNEY'S END thereby paving the way for our last misadven- ture. For the next thirty or forty minutes there was a mad flourish of clothes below decks, from which emerged the crew of the Hippocampus, slightly immaculate in liberty whites and with appetites whetted for a meal at the Century Club in Panama City. Lear had extended the invita- tion to crew and supernumeraries, but of the lat- ter Stevenson and Arnold had other engage- ments, and only Davidson accepted. Carr, an- other club member, came alongside in a floating tin Lizzie which is the admiration and wonder of all inhabitants of the Gold Coast, and we were ferried ashore. Of the dinner at the Century Club, graciously presided over by Lear's pal, .his fourteen-year- old daughter Dora, of the ensuing drive through the cool of the evening along the smooth Pacific highways of the zone, of our next day's visit to the ruins of Old Panama City, as guests of Davidson, and of other hospitality and diversions, there is room for no more than the merest men- tion. The arrival of the Hippocampus at Bal- boa had been expected since June, and in August 227 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS we were made to understand that our welcome had been elastically extended. With the focus of our interest directed ashore, poor little Hippocampus suffered a severe dislo- cation. Neglect put her nose out of joint, and when, on the day after our arrival, the evening tide swept seaward in its sixteen-foot fall, she de- termined to create a diversion on her own ac- count. Deftly, quietly, but with a grieving heart she dragged her club mooring to a high spot on the middle ground which parallels the water-front, and there immolated herself on a sandy altar. At midnight when we left the shore in the club tender, caroling softly as voya- geurs are wont to do in the sma' hours, Al Cham- bers's keen eyes were suddenly attracted by the silhouette of tilted spars against the sky-line. "Hello," he said, "some poor dub is high and dry." A tightening of the throat strangled my feeble efforts to sing the bass of "Merrily We Roll Along/' and I whispered, "A thousand dollars (which I have n't) to one (which I hope to have) that I 'm the dub." 228 THE JOURNEY'S END Sure enough I was. As we drew nearer, we saw the Hippo lying over on her side, in the pa- thetic attitude of one who, having struggled to do her best, has wearied of well doing. Around her there was enough water to float the club tender, and from it I stepped to the diagonal plane of Hippocampus 's deck. Below there was much confusion. Clothes, camera, typewriter, and cushions lay in a con- glomerate heap on the cabin deck, a heap sur- mounted by my precious sextant. On nine hun- dred and ninety-nine other occasions I had wedged the sextant in its rack secure against the Hippo's most erratic gyrations. On the thous- andth I had neglected it. Even the chronom- eter, my most cherished instrument, hung pre- cariously, fixed by two threads of one screw, for I had been in the act of dismounting it for pack- ing when interrupted by some other duty. But the good luck which has attended all our mishaps saved our possessions from major in- jury, and I derived much consolation from the fact that we were heeled over to port where my spare clothes were not. Chambers, whose ne- 229 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS glected turn it had been to pump the bilge, also came out unscathed, but Squibb's locker received the bilge-water. Seeing that we could neither sleep nor mend matters until the tide had again risen, we re- turned with blankets to the yacht club and turned in on the porch deck. At three o'clock I was again aboard to watch Hippo come to an even keel, and to learn that she had done herself no harm in her adventure. The others joined me and we slept until mid-morning, when we cast off our mooring and anchored in deep water. So the cruise of the Hippocampus ended as it had begun and as it had been continued for four months, a chapter of hair-breadth escapes from amusing or frightening misfortune. On a dozen occasions if we had been a little more favored by- fate there would have been no story to write ; and contra, if we had been less favored there would have been no one left to write the story. Success has crowned our efforts. # # # In the delightful closing hours of the cruise we wished fervently that we might go on without 230 THE JOURNEY'S END cessation, cruising, perhaps, to the South Seas be- fore all the world has been there. But the ne- cessity for earning an honest living has drawn me to New York. So after only three days in Balboa, we headed north again, bound for Gatun Lake and the business of putting Hippocampus out of commission for the winter months. A week passed in unshipping spars and sails, in drying cushions in the fitful periods of sun- shine which break through the August rain- clouds, in painting deck and cabin, and in placing equipment in dry storage. Then, when the Hippocampus was stripped of everything port- able, her energetic little motor snorted for the last time and chugged her to a mooring off the lighthouse depot. There she rests, saucy and trim as when she first took the water, awaiting my return. While three thousand miles of her native element separate her from me, she is brought constantly to the foreground of my mind by the written assurances of my Canal Zone friends that "Hippo is O. K." So also are the resourceful, energetic and com- panionable shipmates who helped me sail her to 231 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS the zone. Both Squibb and Chambers, re- sponding to the lure of tropical life, have turned their backs, on the winds- and vicissitudes of northern existence. Squibb, again a landsman, but with the firmly established reputation of a sea-dog, is surveying for an oil company in the Colombian jungle. Chambers, always the rover and the adventurer, has cast his lot with our engineering friend Davidson, and at last accounts was heading for the upwaters of a great South American river, there to search for gold and diamonds. Hippocampus owes them much, but when I last saw her pirouetting at her mooring she wore the righteous air of one who gives as good as she receives. 232 XI CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ON SAILING 'fTlHE blood of hundreds will be on your head -*■ if you make this cruise," said a friend of mine when I was discussing the possibilities of taking an auxiliary sailboat to the Pacific. That was a year ago, before the delightful little Hippocampus had sailed into my life. "How's that?" I asked. "Because you don't know anything about sail- ing, and you '11 be fool enough to say so ; and the first thing you know, all others who are as igno- rant as yourself will be following you to a watery grave." "But," I protested, "there does n't seem to me to be anything difficult or dangerous in the plain, unvarnished sailing that I intend to do. I '11 have a motor to get me out of the tight places." "That 's all very well," said my friend. "But it takes at least five years of experience to make 233 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS a yachtsman. What do you know about scan- dalizing a mainsail, for instance?" "Not a thing," I cheerfully admitted. "A mainsail is the last thing I 'd want to scandalize ; but if I were put to it, I bet it would n't take me five years to get the knack of it." "You 're hopeless," said my friend, and there the matter rested. Advice on Yawls Having learned that it was foolhardy of me to set off in a sailboat without prior experience in sailing, I next sought advice on the type of rig that is best suited for tropical cruising. The opinions delivered were many and varied. One man who had a sloop to sell pointed out that Josh Slocum sailed around the world in a sloop, and I had n't the wit at the time to know that Captain Joshua, after one* or two painful experiences, converted his sloop into a yawl and sailed for forty-two days on end without touch- ing the wheel. Another man knew where I could get a bargain in a Long Island thirty-footer, which had the advantage that in a sudden squall 234 THOUGHTS ON SAILING it would lie right over on its beam ends without capsizing. This bargain attracted me enor- mously until I was informed that cooking is dif- ficult aboard a boat that 's likely to lie over on its beam ends every minute or so. Then I got into the hands of experts who assured me that a schooner is absolutely the only thing for long-distance cruising. "Very well," said I. "Bring on your schooners. Schooners for all hands." It appeared that I had the wrong kind of schooner in mind. And when it penetrated my consciousness that a schooner yacht is a vessel with two whopping big mainsails, I lost some of my enthusiasm. This was to be a pleasure cruise; not a punishment. One man suggested ketches. He knew where I could buy a fine big ketch named Typhoon, that had sailed across the ocean and back. When he named a price of $6000 I contented myself with borrowing Typhoon's taffrail log. Brigs, barks, brigantines, and barkantines be- ing out of the question, my choice seemed to be narrowed down to yawls and I paid a friendly 235 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS call on an editor to ask him what he knew about yawls. He knew a lot about them. "Theoretically/' he said, "the yawl is the ideal type of sailboat for long or short distance cruis- ing. Everybody who has never sailed a yawl will tell you that. However, I 've yet to hear from a man who has sailed one, and my personal opinion is that actually a yawl is the worst rig for any kind of cruising. The mizzen-mast is stepped above the water-line, and if that does n't kill a yawl as a seaworthy proposition, I can give you half a dozen other objections that are just as valid." "Well," I said, "I guess I won't take a cruise." So I went out and bought the yawl Hippo- campus, which is as seaworthy a packet as ever sailed to the Spanish Main. Advice on Masts When the Hippocampus was going into com- mission in New Rochelle I learned the most dis- couraging things about her. In particular, her masts were too light for cruising in the southern seas. 236 THOUGHTS ON SAILING "What you want," said a neighborly yacht owner, "are shorter, thicker masts that will stand the shock of a sudden squall. If I were you I 'd take those spars out and replace them with sticks of at least two inches greater diameter. That six-inch mainmast is all right for protected cruis- ing, but down where you 're going it does n't pay to take chances." People talk of taking masts out of other people's boats as though they were lead-pen- cils. So I held the advice in abeyance, not having the money nor the time to refit the Hippocampus with heavier masts, and one morning about three months later it was returned vividly to my mem- ory. We were lying in Kingston Harbor, Ja- maica, and, at about ten o'clock, all hands were getting a last forty winks of beauty sleep when we heard sounds of a small boat being rowed in circles around the Hippocampus. Presently a salty voice smote the calm morning air. Said the voice, "Now here 's a boat that must have been built especially for tropical cruising. Most yachts that come down here from the States 237 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS have masts that are much too heavy. Hers are of exactly the right proportions." "Good morning," I said, poking my head through the companionway. "How do you make that out? Up North they told me that her sticks were entirely too light for this region." "Not a bit of it," said the admirer of the Hippo- campus. "In the short, choppy seas we have down here, both in harbor and outside, the yachts with heavy spars shake themselves to pieces in no time. If you have light masts you can always reduce sail to save them. If your spars are heavy, you can never avoid that inces- sant pound, pound, pound that shakes the heart out of you and your yacht." "Thanks," said I. "There 's a certain savvy yacht owner up in New Rochelle who 'd like to correspond with you." My Humble Opinion of Yawls My experience in sailing before the cruise of the Hippocampus was confined to a short run in a sailing dory in Newport harbor and a seven- mile sail in a sloop in Bermuda. Consequently 238 THOUGHTS ON SAILING I do not pose as an authority in sailing matters. However, it is my humble opinion that the yawl is the ideal type of rig for long-distance work. As compared with the schooner she has one heavy sail instead of two, and this is desirable when it becomes necessary to lower on the ap- proach of a sharp squall. Moreover, a sea-going yawl can be built smaller than a schooner, which is a decided advantage when cost of operation and ease of handling are considerations. Be- tween a sloop and a yawl there is no comparison, because the yawl has all the advantages of the sloop and has, in addition, the jigger sail which is her distinguishing characteristic. This jigger permits one to trim sheets so that the yawl vir- tually steers herself. It may be said for the schooner that her sail area is reduced in proportion to the yawl's spread of canvas when double reefs are taken in both sails. Nevertheless, it takes time to reef sails, and time in small quantities is often of vital impor- tance. Perhaps it will be thought from my constant reference to them that I have squalls in the brain. 239 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS My preference for boats which handle easily is not based on a fear of sudden puffs of wind, how- ever, but on my inherent love of leisure. When three or four men embark on a long cruise in a small boat the novelty of steering or trimming sheets wears off and sailing becomes a business. It never becomes monotonous busi- ness, because the sea and the weather are con- stantly changing; and it is always as much fun to put to sea and stay there as it is to put into harbor and stay there. Business though it is, sailing should never degenerate into a duty or a hard- ship; and the way to keep it out of either class is to arrange that all hands have their regular sleep. On a yawl this arrangement consists of set- ting the sails at night so that one man may stand his watch alone, -regardless of what comes in the weather line. If it is blowing hard at sun- down all hands may lower the mainsail before the night routine starts; and the man on deck can be satisfied that he can handle, unaided, any situation that may arise throughout his watch. The same applies in squally, unsettled weather, 240 Native craft loaded with produce and stranded at market time on the gently sloping beach of Panama City In the middle distance lies Hippo, at her journey's end; beyond her the misty islands of Panama Bay A United States cruiser approaching Culebra Cut, her ensign dipped in answer to the Hippo's salute Moored to a buoy .in Gatun Lake, Hippocampus has the air of giving as good as she receives THOUGHTS ON SAILING when it is calm one moment and blowing furiously the next. The jib and jigger are left standing; and while during periods of calm they do not slat about annoyingly or dangerously, they pre- sent sufficient sail area to carry the boat along nicely when a stiff breeze springs up. Only with the yawl rig can this ideal combination of enough canvas for headway and not too much for safety be effected. Weather in the Caribbean While on the topic of weather I may as well answer the burning question that has often been asked me with respect to sailing in the Caribbean in the summer season: "Is n't it too hot for com- fort in the tropics?" The answer is yes and no and depends on the kind of clothes you see fit to wear. If you want to dress yourself in a full consignment of gar- ments from stiff collar and necktie to spats and patent-leather shoes, it is too hot. But if you are contented with a bathing-suit by day and a flannel shirt and khaki trousers to slip over it at night, it is not too hot. Hardly a night passed 241 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS when Hippocampus was south of the tropic of Cancer that the warmth of a blanket was n't wel- comed in our bunks or that we did n't relish the extra protection of a slip-on sweater during the mid-watch. I may add that I have never come nearer to freezing to death than on the afternoon when, off the south coast of Cuba, a sharp rainstorm caught me on deck with all my clothes off. My shipmate Squibb, who was in the same predica- ment, stuck it out, but at the risk of flooding the cabin I dived below and got myself into a full suit of sweaters and oilers. Ten minutes later, of course, the day was as hot as it had been cold ; but there was always the recourse of a cool dip over the side. The Friendly Sharks "Oho!" says the incredulous Northerner. "Did you dive over the side whenever the spirit moved you?" Well, strictly speaking, we did not. I have never seen a shark bite a man, and I have never seen a man who has seen a shark bite a man ; but 242 THOUGHTS ON SAILING I have heard of a thousand men who have seen a man who saw a shark bite a man. That 's rather complicated, but it 's enough for me. As recounted in a previous chapter, I had an expe- rience with a shark that made me still more wary, but even that did not keep us from trailing circumspectly from the bumpkin on occasion. The day we landed at Los Indios on the Isle of Pines, Cuba, I so far forgot my habitual cau- tion as to dive overboard to carry a mooring- line to a wharf jutting out into deep water. I clambered safely up, secured the line, and re- turned aboard to adorn my person again with wrist-watch and spectacles. And that short in- terval of time was all that a small Cuban boy re- quired to make the quarter-mile from shore to head of dock. "Hey," he cried, panting and gasping from his rapid running. "Sharko; malo." And he made the gestures of diving and swimming. From his haste and worried expression as much as from his words, I gathered that it was un- healthy to swim in those parts; and although 243 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS subsequently we grounded the yawl and cleaned her sides in shoal water that was reasonably thickly populated with small, friendly hammer- heads, I never again played the role of water- spaniel in deep water. The Stupid Mosquito I was on the point of remarking that, just as I have never seen a man being nibbled by a shark, I have never seen a tropical mosquito thirst for human blood. But my reference to Los Indios reminds me that during our stay there we had a visitation from the little pests. After washing the Hippocampus' sides we sought advice from the port officer, the collector of customs, the health inspector, the dock fore- man, the steamship agent, and the mayor of Los Indios concerning the depth of water over the bar of the Indian River. He said there were six feet of water, and we believed him until we ran aground in four and a half feet. It was then that the mosquitoes descended on us and demanded our life's blood. But presently, when the tide had lifted six inches, we kedged 244 THOUGHTS ON SAILING off and anchored half a mile from shore. Those stupid mosquitoes returned to the jungle to feast on crocodile-hide and never again molested us during our stay in Los Indios. For fifteeen minutes in Bahia Honda on the north coast of Cuba, and for one night in Gatun Lake, Panama, we were also bothered by mos- quitoes; but on no other occasion after leaving Florida did we have the slightest need for screens or citronella. On my return home last autumn I met a man who had spent the summer almost as far north of New York as I had been south and he told me that well within the arctic circle he wore gloves, veil, and canvas leggings and was nearly eaten alive by mosquitoes. There 's a contrast for you. The Menace of Hurricanes When we put Hippocampus out of commis- sion in Panama and Squibb and Chambers em- barked for points south, I secured passage as a deck-hand aboard a Panama liner and worked my way north. And I worked. I learned the 245 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS weight of a holystone as I never did in my hitch in the navy, and in eight days I suji-wujied enough paint- work to qualify me as a first-class paint-washer extraordinary. But that 's aside from the point. ! After four o'clock of each day we foremast hands were permitted to amuse ourselves, and as my chronometer, sextant, and books were in the safekeeping of the captain I used to wander up to the bridge and do a little unofficial navigat- ing. On the afternoon that we approached the town of Port au Prince, Haiti, the third mate, with whom I was talking, looked aloft and said there was trouble brewing. I looked up too and all I saw were a few ragged clouds with the same suggestion of pink on their edges that I had seen any number of times during the preceding three months. Being sane, if not weatherwise, I sti- fled the impulse to say that the sky looked fine to me. The next afternoon I read in my bunk after knocking-off time, and I was surprised to hear some of the crew talking at supper of having sighted Cape Maysi (the western end of Cuba) 246 THOUGHTS ON SAILING at a distance of about six miles. Now I knew that our course was carrying us fully twenty miles from Cape Maysi and I questioned one of the men with some particularity about what he had seen. He had made out, he said, a light- house as plain as the nose on his face (he had that kind of a nose) and had seen individual trees, and he supposed that for some reason the Old Man had changed course. That did n't seem reasonable to me and I was thoroughly mystified when, observing that the third mate was again on watch, I climbed to the bridge for information. "Hello," he said. "Remarkably clear weather we 're having. I sighted the tip of the mountain on Cape Dame Marie a while ago and that 's fully a hundred miles off." 1 looked at the third mate and he looked at me, and I understood why Cape Maysi had seemed to the crew only six miles away. Just then the radio man came forward with a message from the captain, and that message read, Hurricane reported from Trinidad, moving west- northwest across the Caribbean. 247 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS As that was as near as I came to the only hurricane that swept through the West Indies in 1921 I cannot qualify as an expert in hurri- canes. The ship was well out of its track and we felt only the mighty roll that it sent out hun- dreds of miles in all directions. For two days the deck-stewards were fairly busy with the pas- sengers, and then the sea flattened out as the dis- turbance passed away. But the next time I see a certain peculiar effect of clouds and light which is followed by a period of extremely high visibility, I '11 know better than to doubt the word of an old-timer who tells me that there 's trouble brewing. The Fly in the Ointment The menace of the hurricane is the only fly in the ointment of summer cruising in the Car- ibbean. Everything else you can get used to; calms, squalls, and even waterspouts; but you can't laugh away a big twister. I believe im- plicitly the words of a succession of sea-captains that it is only by a miracle that a small boat will live through a hurricane. 248 THOUGHTS ON SAILING Gales, these wise old dogs of the sea tell me, are nothing to snivel over; and the smaller you are, down to a certain limit, the better your chance of coming through unharmed. Although the sea builds up into mighty mountains, the waves move in a steady procession, and you can easily live through the chop that rides them. But in a hurricane the wind not only blows with a force sufficient to rip iron hatch covers loose from their fastenings, but the sea comes in from all direc- tions and piles up in a smother that will swamp even the tightest small boat. Nevertheless, I am less frightened of hurri- canes now than I was before I knew a solitary thing about them. In my guileless, unarithmeti- cal way, I used to read on the Pilot Charts that, say, 6 per cent, of hurricanes occur in the Car- ibbean in July, and 12 per cent, (or whatever it is) in August, and so on, and somehow I had a picture of six hurricanes waltzing across Jamaica in every seventh month of every year. But, bless me, that is not at all the case. They have n't had a hurricane in Jamaica for five or six years, and there are thousands of little piccaninnies 249 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS running around naked who never even heard of one. If I say, as I should have said much earlier in this chapter, that the Caribbean is the best, the most satisfactory cruising ground that I Ve ever struck, from the points of view of temperature, scenery, freedom from inclement weather, and absence of insects, would n't you cruise there in summer on the off chance that no hurricane would hit you? I don't say that the menace of the hur- ricane ever leaves you. You are aware of it waking and sleeping, and when American con- suls and other weather sharps tell you wisely that a perfectly well-behaved, gentlemanly sort of day looks hurricany, you have to restrain the impulse to do murder. But I have never yet heard a yachtsman say that the mere awareness of possible danger detracted from his enjoyment of the moment's pleasure. Living in the vicinity of hurricanes you get used to them just as a city man gets used to mail-trucks and taxis, and neither the sailor nor the city man wears a mourning band around 250 THOUGHTS ON SAILING his sleeve because he may get picked off any minute. Besides all of which, news of hurricanes always comes by radio at least two days in advance, and it's surprising how far inland you can run in forty-eight hours. The Indispensable Motor I started this chapter with the intention of tell- ing what I had learned about sailing during a voyage of three or four thousand miles, and it has taken me right to the end of the space to say that I don't know much about it. When we started from New York and ran into our worst weather almost immediately, I knew less than nothing about handling a yawl; and if it had n't been for the skill of Chambers we should probably have ended the cruise there and then. But by force of example and under the buffeting of ex- perience I did pick up a trick or two ; and I think now as I thought when I was shrouded in abys- mal ignorance that sailing a small boat is easy. Of course the power that you pack away in 251 CRUISE OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS your auxiliary engine is what makes it easy. I used to be a motor-boatman, pure and simple — more or less pure and fairly simple. Now I am a sailboatman from the word go. But I am a motoring sailboatman, and when the wind dies and I find myself drifting stern first toward a rocky ledge I start the engine and get away from there. Similarly when it was proved by experiment that Chambers, excellent sailor though he is, endangered both Hippocampus and the port of Havana by making a landing under sail, we doused canvas and startled the natives with our skill as motor-boatmen. So if all hands will follow my twofold, double- acting advice of never putting to sea in a motor- boat that is unequipped with sail, or in a sail- boat that has no auxiliary engine, there '11 be no blood on my head. 252 3477-2 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 029 726 955 Ol