Part 24

The tension caused by such incidents possibly triggered another flare-up, which developed just before our departure from Hampton. It began as a fairly routine issue between Mickey and myself over one of his derelictions but quickly developed into a confusing verbal free-for-all. It was obvious even to the most obtuse that Nick, Mickey, and Moto were badly divided. Mickey and Moto accused Nick of being “troublemaker,” while Nick retorted that they did not really care about the success of the voyage, but were always complaining—of the food, of the routines, of the Skipper. Mickey and Moto demanded that Nick be sent home, and I myself, remembering the many times he had been my outspoken critic, wondered if he might not welcome an excuse to get out. When I asked him, however, he maintained he wanted to finish the trip as planned. It was a disturbing impasse. The three seemed to be at complete loggerheads, and I could see no compromise.

At last, after a heated debate, we emerged with a temporary course of action: (a) Moto, who confessed that he had not felt well for some time, would be given a thorough medical examination at the first opportunity—and here Mickey chimed in with “Me too! I not feel so good!” (b) We would continue without any crew changes, at least as far as the Canal Zone, at which time we would have another session.

Only after the conference had broken up did I realize, with a kind of baffled double-take, that I had started out by taking Mickey to task, and ended by putting Moto on the sick list and asking Nick if he wanted to go back to Japan!

From Hampton we sailed past numerous naval ships at anchor and into Norfolk Channel. At Great Bridge we pulled alongside a dock, told the attendant to “Fill ’er up!” and then docked nearby for the night, a procedure we were to repeat a number of times. Again we were experiencing a new kind of cruising, along narrow channels, into locks, and through drawbridges where maneuvering was quite difficult for our underpowered boat. Our only safety lay in making plans well in advance, knowing the chart perfectly, and anticipating problems. Even so, we had several tense moments when a bridge seemed to lift with agonizing slowness while we were bearing down on it, urged on by the current and a following wind, with our puny reverse doing no measurable good. Also, although we followed the channel faithfully, we ran aground three times between Hampton and Morehead City, North Carolina. Each time we were able to get ourselves off without help, using sail, motor, and kedge.

Our last grounding was, humiliatingly enough, right in Morehead City, only half a mile from our destination. Going by the chart, which indicated a sufficiently deep channel up to the Yacht Club, we entered and immediately grounded. With a strong tide setting across the channel and a fresh north breeze, we were unable to budge. While we relaxed and waited for high slack, a Coast Guard vessel came alongside and offered to pull us off. I admit I was tempted.

“Well ...” I said.

“You just sign these papers in quadruplicate,” the officer said briskly, handing them to me.

“Well,” I continued, “I’ll tell you. So far we’ve never asked for help—I’d like to try to manage by ourselves.” Somehow the sight of all that paper work seemed to turn a kindly offer into a government project.

In Morehead City we tied up for two weeks at a gas dock near the center of town while we made final preparations for heading back out to sea. Also, we gladly accepted an invitation from our good friend, Dr. Warner Wells, surgeon at the University of North Carolina Medical School in Chapel Hill. I had written Warner from Hampton about our health problems, asking about a medical checkup for Moto and Mickey. For several years Warner had been on the research staff of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Hiroshima, where he had been well liked and respected by the Japanese community. He now had Japanese-speaking doctors on his staff, and I knew that Warner, if anyone, would be sympathetic with the psychology of our ailing men.

Moto and Mickey entered the university hospital, where for three days they were given an exhaustive series of examinations. The results, except for a slight vitamin C deficiency, were negative. The charges, although I had written in my letter that I would pay all fees, laboratory expenses, X rays, and the like, also were negative!

We in the family were enjoying a holiday with the lively and interesting Wells family. We would all have been perfectly content if the examinations had taken a week or more. But I had one more trip to make, back to Washington. At the request of the National Academy of Sciences, I attended meetings at which ongoing and future research programs in Hiroshima were discussed. There it was finally decided that the prospective follow-up of my studies in Hiroshima would not be “reactivated,” due to a change in research emphasis and the presence of a new director of ABCC in Hiroshima. My understanding that I would continue my research program in Hiroshima, on our return, had been very clear, and all our plans had revolved around this fact. However, I had no formal, written contract to that effect, only a gentleman’s agreement—and now, apparently, a new gentleman was in charge.

I was advised, however, to consult with the new director when we reached Hiroshima, as he would be “most sympathetic” to my plan for a continuation of my study on the effects of atomic radiation on the surviving children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I appreciated the offer of sympathy, but I would have preferred something more definite, as I felt strongly that this promising line of research should be continued—if not by me, then by someone else.

We sailed from Morehead City on November 15, happy to be on the way once more. On a couple of mornings we had seen a light frost on deck, and the evenings had become too chilly for our blood and our wardrobes, both thinned by extended tropical living. Pulling away from the dock, we waved to the handful of friends we had made and headed out the channel, setting a course to the southeast as soon as we cleared the last buoy. By midnight we were well away from land and on our way to Jamaica, by way of the eastern Bahamas and the Windward Passage.

The two-week trip to the Bahamas was rather rugged, with a variety of weather that ranged from glassy calm to winds strong enough to cause us to heave to for half a day. The first part of the passage was mostly in southerlies, and not until the thirteenth day out did we have what might reasonably be called “trade wind” conditions. Even then, hesitating to tempt fate, I made the notation in the log in quotes.

On November 28, at 0900, we sighted Mayaguana Island, dead ahead, rounded the northwest point, and came to anchor just southwest of the lighthouse in five fathoms. We were fourteen days out of Morehead City and very glad to be back in the trades after a slow and vexatious passage. The direct distance was 763 miles, but we had logged over 1,000 due to the large percentage of adverse winds.

We spent the day—Thanksgiving—at Mayaguana. Like most of the Bahamas, it is low. The lighthouse, we learned, was automatic, with no sign of life around it. A wide sand road had been cleared through the surrounding growth of cactus and scrub trees, but our first shore party followed it for several miles without seeing any sign of habitation. They returned—having left me aboard to do some necessary work on the engine—with their arms full of booty: yellow fan coral, marble-white brain coral, a round fisherman’s float of blue-green glass, and numerous shells to add to Barbara’s collection, which she had persistently been building throughout our trip, in spite of our disinterest, gibes, and—when an occasional uncleaned shell smelled to high heaven—active protest. This time, however, no one said anything unkind, for we remembered that it was Thanksgiving and wanted our cook to be in a good mood.

She was. Relying entirely on canned goods, we had quite a feast, including shrimp cocktail, glazed ham, asparagus tips, potatoes (both mashed and sweet)—and, for dessert, mince pie! The prize dish, however, was neither the pie nor the ham, but a loaf of honest-to-goodness home-baked wholewheat bread which Barbara somehow managed to whip up in, of all things, a pressure cooker.

The next day Barbara and I went ashore to explore in the other direction, this time with more success. After following the road for four miles or more, we reached a small settlement—ten or twelve boxlike houses built of whitened coral stone, each with a wooden door and two wood-shuttered windows painted in blue, green or pink. The place looked deserted, but we could hear the voices of children at play and finally found a group of them. They stared at us for a moment with awe and then went tearing for the houses, yelling the news at top voice: “Ooooooh—white mon! Oooo—white mon!”

We gathered that Mayaguana was not a tourist island!

We were very hot and thirsty, but although there were some coconut trees growing in most of the dooryards, and all of them loaded with good drinking nuts, we had no coin of the realm and had not even thought to bring cigarettes or a candy bar. Several women came out to look at us and smile shyly, but no refreshment was offered and, as we had no bargaining power, we had to make the long walk back without refueling. How nostalgically we recalled the islands of the South Seas, where native hospitality had provided cool coconuts, open, ready and waiting, by the time the stranger had arrived!

In the afternoon we weighed anchor and set out for Great Inagua, some 70 miles to the south, arriving in Mathew Town late the following morning. It was Saturday, and the mail-and-supply boat had just arrived, so there was a considerable stir in the village. Five of us rowed ashore and spent several hours wandering around. As on most British islands, the buildings on Great Inagua were neat and freshly painted. The streets, paved with crushed white coral, were well laid out and carefully tended.

We found the one store overflowing with people who had just received their monthly pay checks from the town’s No. 1 employer, Morton’s Salt Company. We took our turn in line, and at last were permitted to purchase seven tomatoes and one (1) loaf of bread, both items having just arrived from Nassau.

On the way back to the dock we called—by request—at the office of the sole government official on the island, and forked out $8 (American money was graciously accepted) for “harbor and landing fees.” Clutching our unexpectedly costly purchases, we rowed back out to the _Phoenix_, and left for Jamaica the next morning.

The four-day trip, which took us through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti, was uneventful from a sailing point of view, but climactic in terms of our crew relationships. Only a brief entry in my log refers to the incident:

Mickey refused to obey order to steer by standing in cockpit while boat was passing, so relieved him of duty.

The actual happening was somewhat less dry. In the afternoon while Mickey was on watch and I was below, I could hear a boat’s engines. I went up, and found Mickey lounging on the starboard side of the cockpit, steering with his foot. Overhauling us rapidly from astern was a motor vessel, probably a coastal trader, somewhat larger than we were. I spoke to Mickey.

“There’s a boat coming,” I said, indicating aft. He paid no attention, and did not move. “Mickey, stand up and steer.”

No movement. I repeated the order. Mickey said, without moving, “Why?”

I answered, “Because it’s dangerous and also it doesn’t look good.” No move. “Are you going to stand up and steer?”

“This is a yacht and I don’t have to.”

“Are you going to stand up and steer?”

“No.”

I stepped into the cockpit. “I will take the tiller.” Mickey left the cockpit, as I began to steer. The boat passed us close to port. I said, “Mickey, you are through.”

He went below. In a short while Nick appeared. “What is trouble?” he asked.

I explained the circumstances. “Unless Mickey is willing to apologize and make some effort to cooperate from now on, he is through,” I added.

This time I felt, and the family agreed with me, that the time had come for a showdown. Mickey knew how earnestly we hoped to finish the voyage with our original crew, but we felt that, more and more, he was taking advantage of this knowledge, confident that we would condone anything rather than break up the crew. Usually, however, his behavior took a more subtle form, such as shirking in his work, coming up late for “all hands on deck,” calling his relief watch five minutes early, and so on. He had seldom been, like Nick, openly in opposition, but on the other hand, I knew where I stood with Nick, although I didn’t welcome his spots of defiance. At least they cleared the air.

For the first time in our entire relationship we determined that Mickey must admit his error, apologize, and make some gesture of reconciliation. (In private I decided that even a very small gesture would suffice—but I, too, had my face to save.)

We completed the trip to Jamaica, with Mickey relieved of duty. By noon on the fourth day out we were off Kingston harbor but, rather than enter the busy harbor, we decided to pull in to the docks at Port Royal. We were still well out when a launch approached and we were boarded by officials who efficiently went about clearing us while we were still on the way in. By midafternoon we were safely tied up, had been cleared and given such a cordial welcome that we never did get around to moving the _Phoenix_ over to Kingston.

But casting a shadow over the friendly ministrations of Sir Anthony and Lady Jenkinson, who were living aboard their yacht _Fairweather_ while operating the hospitable Port Royal Beach Club, was the uncomfortable knowledge that the “clearinghouse session,” which I had put off until we reached port, would have to be held that night, and would be definitive. We all dreaded it, but unless Mickey was willing to meet me halfway, admit his error, and make a genuine promise to mend his increasingly insolent ways, we would have to part company. I said as much to Nick, who was doing what he could as go-between, but Nick brought word that Mickey would not apologize, that he considered it an “insult” for me to tell him what to do.

The meeting that night was brief and bitter. I stated my position, in clear and simple words. Mickey stood firm. I told him that in that case I would have to send him back to Japan.

He said, “Good!”

As had been the case in Hawaii, it was the other two who went to bat for Mickey. Their argument was that Mickey’s defection was harmless and that, since we were so near the end of our trip anyway, we should simply ignore the whole thing. I refused, saying it was neither safe nor prudent to continue with someone in whom I could have no confidence and who continued openly to defy me. As we talked, it developed that Mickey had given Moto a completely inaccurate version of the episode: (1) I had made an unreasonable demand; (2) he _had_ complied with my order, but I had sent him below anyway, for some unknown reason.

There was only one flaw in Mickey’s account: Jessica, who had been in her cabin below, had heard the whole incident and remembered it perfectly.

I could only repeat that, under the circumstances, I had no other choice than to send Mickey home, by the first available ship.

There was a dead pause. Moto then said, in a low voice, that he would go, too, if Mickey went; then Nick, not looking at me, said he also would have to go. I said I was sorry that was their decision, but that I would make the arrangements. I left the boat and went ashore.

I walked aimlessly in the dark, in the vacant lot by the docks, trembling with frustration and disappointment. In a few minutes I saw dark forms approaching. It was the family, and I called out in blind anger, “I suppose you’re going to desert me too?”

They came over. “We just wanted to tell you,” Barbara said quietly, slipping her hand into mine, “that you were right and we’re with you all the way.”

“There was nothing else you _could_ do,” said Ted, who had always been our mediator and balance wheel. “You’ve always put the safety of the voyage first and you mustn’t be influenced now by that dream of finishing the trip with the same crew. Even if we did give in, and take the boys back, it would be a kind of lie to pretend we had succeeded in finishing the trip as friends.”

“We’ll get along all right,” said Jessica. “I can take a watch.”

With tears in my eyes, I embraced them all.

The next morning, while I was making ready to go over to Kingston with Sir Anthony to see about boat schedules for shipping the men back, Nick approached me. “Skipper,” he began hesitantly, “if you would have me, I have changed my mind.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to finish voyage. I want to stay on _Phoenix_.”

“I’ll talk to the family.”

I did, and we decided to accept Nick’s offer. So Nick stayed on with us, and from that moment an entirely new relationship began. Having thrown in his lot with us, breaking completely with his mates, Nick now came over wholly to our side, giving us unswerving loyalty and warm friendship. It was an amazing transformation.

Moto’s role in the case was a strange one. We still liked him very much; we felt strongly that he didn’t _want_ to go but that some force stronger than himself compelled his action. He brooded for long hours, obviously miserable; and yet he either would not or could not revise his decision.

I learned in town that it would be almost impossible for me to send Mickey and Moto back from Kingston, as ships bound for Japan rarely called there. It would be far easier, I was told, to carry them on with us as far as the Canal Zone, where arrangements could easily be made. Mickey objected so violently to this suggestion that I told him he had full authority to go to town and make his own arrangements for the passage. He and Moto spent several days in town, but Mickey finally had to admit that my information was correct and they agreed to go on with us to the Panama Canal.

However, I made it very clear that they would travel as passengers and would have no hand in sailing the _Phoenix_. The family and Nick would handle the boat alone.

While here, it seemed wise to haul out once more, making use of the rather primitive (but cheap) marine railway in the old Naval Dockyard, instead of waiting until the Canal Zone, where prices, under American administration, were likely to be high. Sir Anthony enlisted the services of about twenty men from Port Royal to lend us a hand for a day—at 10 shillings apiece—and we all turned to on the huge cranks of the massive, hand-operated winch, taking an entire day literally to inch our thirty tons up the incline.

During our stay in Port Royal we went into the city only two or three times. There was no bus service between Kingston and Port Royal, and the tiny ferry-launch ran only one trip each way a day. The town was hot, dirty, and not too colorful. Although the Christmas season was in full swing, we found little that tempted us to buy.

Port Royal, however, we liked very much, and after a day’s work on the boat we would often take a stroll through the old town, with its ancient stone houses, narrow streets, and vital air of history. We knew that in the waters just off the dock, buried in the earthquake of 1692, lay the remains of most of the town, with its warehouses still full of booty taken by the pirates. Here, in the middle of the seventeenth century, was the city acknowledged to be the wickedest in the world.

Old Fort Charles was still active, now the training ground for the Jamaican constabulary. We recalled that Nelson was in command here briefly in 1779, and his quarterdeck, where he was wont to pace and watch for French ships, is still preserved.

At the church we had a chance to see a Jamaican wedding, which is often solemnized only after many years of preconnubial bliss and large families. As a matter of fact, the two little flower girls in flouncy white dresses, who escorted the bride with her magnificent ruffled train dragging in the dust as she came up the dirt road to the church, were daughters of the bride and groom. This state of affairs is due not to lack of morals but lack of funds, as a wedding must be celebrated in proper style. If the length of the procession that accompanied the bride was any indication of the length of the guest list, the financial outlay must have been staggering.

The party following the ceremony went on all night, just beyond the wall that separated the dockyard from the village of Port Royal, but the music, unfortunately, was not calypso or West Indian, but a particularly penetrating selection of canned American hit tunes.

We sailed for the Canal on December 18, hoping to make it in time to pick up our Christmas mail. Nick, Ted, and I shared watches, two on and four off, while Barbara and Jessica, between them, accounted for three hours during the day. The system worked very well.

Our two passengers remained below decks most of the time. Nick was patently being ostracized by them, but he refused our suggestion that he join the family at meals, stolidly eating in silence in the main cabin, ignoring and being ignored by his former companions. We all felt the strain. Since it was now too late to go back, and even surface formalities had ceased to exist, we looked forward to the time when we could part company.

On the morning of the 22nd we sighted land, very faintly, off the starboard bow. Later in the morning a number of ships passed in the early mists, all heading in the same general direction, so we knew we couldn’t be too far off course. We headed south-southeast to pick up the coast more firmly, then turned south along the coast to the harbor entrance. By midafternoon we had passed the breakwater, noting that the four buoys at the entrance, shown on our “up-to-date” chart, were not present.

Dropping anchor in the merchant anchorage near the channel, we flew our flags and awaited developments.

15 GALÁPAGOS: HOME OF THE LAST PIONEERS

“Those delicate souls whose coffee must be just so....”