Part 25

We were at anchor, awaiting further orders, by 1530. Five hours later we were still waiting. During this time, ships arrived, were boarded, cleared, and allowed to move on toward the entrance to the Canal. Several times official launches passed, the officers gazing curiously at us and sometimes waving.

Finally, just as we had decided to turn in for the night, we were boarded by a very cheerful Canal officer. He said quite frankly that the central office just hadn’t noticed us out here, and none of those going back and forth on official business had thought to report us. He didn’t look at our papers, passports, liquor, or cigarettes (all laid out for inspection) but merely told us to move over to the “East Flats” and gave us some forms to fill out. Then he shook hands briskly, got into his launch, and shot away.

We checked the chart, located East Flats, weighed anchor, and worked our way over there, across the Canal channel, dodging the harbor traffic which was moving busily even during the night. It was almost midnight when we reached the Flats, and dropped the hook. I got to work on the papers at once, but we were boarded again before I had finished. This time we had two visitors who took out the tape measure and solemnly, using flashlights, began to take measurements, inside and out, for all the world as if they were going to give our _Phoenix_ a new suit—of sails, I hoped!

Because of their industry, I now have official figures on the size of our “Engine Room”: 3 ft. × 3 ft. × 3 ft. 6 in. They told me, while working, that they had just come from an eight-hour job of checking a tanker (which they had also measured with a tape measure). Surely there must be an easier way to do these things!

We were told that I should report, in the morning, to the port captain, Immigration, and Customs. It was already well into tomorrow by this time, and when the instructions for arriving at the protected anchorage off the yacht club began to involve getting permission from the Port Captain to request permission from the yacht club, whose permission must then be reported back to the port captain, I began to get a bit fuzzy.

By the time the measurements had been completed, I had the forms properly filled out and was able to hand them over. The two officials waved us a cheerful good night and took off—on their way to another boat. Work here goes on around the clock.

The next day we put the dinghy over the side, and Barbara and I went ashore. It was a stiff 40-minute row, and the harbor was choppy, so we arrived in a rather soggy condition. However, we started our rounds of the offices while we were still drying. After getting permission, etc., we walked the mile to the Panama Canal Yacht Club, where a very friendly manager received us and said it would be quite all right to anchor off the club, but had we asked permiss— I said that we had. “Then go back and tell them it’s okay with us!”

We motored at once to the yacht club, where we found a berth in quiet and protected waters only a lifebuoy’s throw from cold drinks and good old American hamburgers!

There we remained over the holiday season. We found that arranging passage for Mickey and Moto, contrary to our expectations, was a difficult and time-consuming task. Day after day, I made the rounds of various agencies, went on board Japanese ships—of which there were many—and talked to various officials. We got nowhere. At last I contacted Governor Potter, in charge of the Zone, to whom we had a letter from friends back in Yellow Springs. He very kindly put us under the full-time protection of Jim Barrett, who immediately put into motion wheels I had been unable to budge. Very shortly we had secured two reservations on the _Eishin Maru_ due to pass through the Canal on January 6, bound for Yokohama. It was the earliest available date, but the men would have a private cabin and first-class accommodations.

During this period relations were strained on board. It was bitter for us all to face the knowledge that one of our aims—to complete the voyage with our original crew intact—had failed. But, as Ted so logically remarked: “Suppose we did complete the trip with all the men. If you ignored all the troubles, evaded all the issues, and kept secret all the fights, just so we could boast we had completed the voyage with the same seven people—just what would we have proved?”

I located a nice hotel in Cristobal for Mickey and Moto and was willing to underwrite their expenses while they were waiting for their boat, but the Canal Zone officials had other ideas: the men must stay on the _Phoenix_ until transferred to the _Eishin Maru_.

Christmas was quietly observed by the family, with none of the gaiety of previous years. However, we did have our Christmas mail, which had been piling up for us on the other side of the Isthmus, and we had a most interesting introduction to the Canal when we went across by train—“Span a Continent, Atlantic to Pacific, in One Afternoon!” Skirting the Canal and Gatun Lake, we could catch glimpses of great steamships which seemed to be moving sedately through the jungle. Occasionally, as the track ran closer to the Canal, we saw them pausing at one of the locks, to be raised or lowered, or wandering as if along an inland stream, looking as lost as if they had been cast up from the Flood.

Back in Cristobal—the narrow American strip which borders the sprawling Panamanian city of Colón—we went ahead with arrangements for making transit of the Canal as soon as Mickey and Moto were on their way. On the day after Christmas I went “across the tracks” to Colón, to order a new foresail from a sailmaker whose address I had been given. It was depressing to walk through the narrow, dirty streets, which contrasted so markedly with the solid buildings and clean, broad streets on the American side. Only the children were out as I wandered through the seemingly deserted town; the elders presumably were still recovering from Christmas. In the alleys, as I passed, little boys were futilely snapping silent cap pistols guaranteed only yesterday to give forever five thousand bangs a day; while little girls were mourning over the cracked heads of their unbreakable plastic dolls.

On January 6, early in the morning, the _Eishin Maru_ arrived and Mickey and Moto transferred themselves and their belongings under the eye of the authorities. The log makes the final entry:

Jan. 6, 1958. Mickey Suemitsu and Moto Fushima sailed today for Japan, on _Eishin Maru_. All family agreed Mickey must go, but feel sorry Moto went along. However, for months he has been in very poor spirits and losing weight, though thorough medical examination shows nothing wrong, so perhaps all for best.

Now only five in party.

On January 9 we made our transit of the Canal. We were told we would need extra “linesmen” aboard—either hired or volunteered—and Jim Barrett, who with his family had given us help and friendship far beyond the call of duty, promptly offered to take a day off and lend us a hand.

In addition, the pilot himself, when he reported aboard in the drizzly predawn darkness, brought along a companion, an apprentice pilot getting his first experience of taking a yacht through the locks. The weather was rainy and windy—the worst we had had since our arrival. At 0600 we got away from the anchorage and headed for Gatun Locks in a driving rain.

Well padded with fenders, and with one line forward and two aft, we entered the first lock, slipping in just behind the freighter _Santa Olivia_. We had elected to go through by tying alongside the walls, rather than tying to another boat or being held by lines in the middle of the lock. The walls stretched high above our heads. It was much the worst lock, but even so, when the water started pouring in, I was surprised at the turbulence. With a man on each line, we strained to keep our position. Suddenly a heavy surge hit us, and with a loud popping sound the two after lines snapped. Out of control, the ship plunged almost across the chamber, with only the forward line still holding.

At once our pilot, Captain Torstenson, blew a whistle and the incoming flow of water stopped. We hauled ourselves back toward the starboard wall by our remaining line, fending off as we came in, and leaving a slight mark where our bowsprit ground a light patch in the slimy discoloration of the lock wall. Fresh lines were broken out and made fast, and we tried it again, this time with the water coming in at a more sedate rate. The lift proceeded without further incident, and soon we were floating on a level with the men who had peered down on us a few minutes before. A great chain was dropped across the lock behind us, the heavy double gates ahead swung open, and we proceeded cautiously behind _Santa Olivia_ into Lock No. Two. Each succeeding lift became easier, but because of our lack of power, the closest attention was required throughout the transit.

From the third lock we emerged into Gatun Lake, and a completely new type of sailing—in a fresh-water lake 90 feet above sea level where our course, marked by buoys at regular intervals, led past the skeleton tops of long-submerged trees and the peaks of hills which had learned to be islands. _Santa Olivia_ moved rapidly out of sight, and many other vessels passed us going in both directions during the day. All the way across the lake we had unsettled weather, but the wind was fair, so I suggested using the sails to help out in the open areas. Captain Torstenson was a power man, however, and vetoed the idea. He seemed to be in no hurry. In fact, he and his assistant, Captain Fetherston, were both amiable, easygoing chaps who seemed to consider this job as a sort of picnic. They regaled us with lively stories of the Canal and its operations, and their relaxed attitude was infectious. We all took it easy and enjoyed the trip.

Our only other tense spot was at the second, and last, Miraflores lock, where the current is fast. Here we had to be out and away under full power even before the gates were fully opened, in order to beat the surge of the incoming sea.

By 1830 we were anchored off Balboa Yacht Club. The pilots and Jim left to catch transportation back to Cristobal and the rest of us settled down to savor the knowledge that we were once again in the Pacific—our own ocean.

The next morning we went ashore to check in at the Balboa Yacht Club and once again were accorded a friendly welcome and taken in tow by one of the old-timers. Our ten days in Balboa were taken up with preparations for the 6,000 miles of Pacific which lay between us and the Hawaiian Islands. We planned to make two stops, in the Galápagos and in the Marquesas, but in neither of these places could we expect to get supplies or provisions, so it was necessary to be completely self-sufficient for an indefinite number of months. Like Cristobal, on the Atlantic side, Balboa is attractive, self-contained, and completely American, catering only to government employees. We were distressed to learn that, contrary to advance information, we were not permitted to shop at the American commissaries in the Canal Zone and as for “free port” shops, such as those we had found so tempting in St. Thomas, they don’t exist here.

Adjoining Balboa is Panama City, capital of Panama, sprawling, colorful, and very Latin. Lovely old cathedrals front on verdant squares; wide main streets peter out into winding, thin alleys; Moorish-type architecture and free-flowing, highly expressive Spanish reminded us constantly that Panama has been and will remain far more simpatico to Latin ways than to the often-irritating American influences which exist in the Zone. While we were there, there was considerable grumbling, especially among the university students, at the control of the Canal by the United States; and there was a constant agitation for a greater share of the profits. It was easy to see that here, in times to come, will be one of our country’s trouble spots, and it is not impossible that the time will come when the Panama Canal, along with the Suez and others, will have to be internationalized.

Our most difficult job here was getting permission to enter the Galápagos, which belong to Ecuador. Marie and Jerry Trowbridge, on _White Seal_, had been quoted a dollar a foot and had reluctantly decided to skip those islands. We knew, however, that there was no hard and fast rule for getting a permit, or the amount of the fee, so we again pulled rank and asked Governor Potter to put in a word for us. He kindly contacted the Ecuadorian Ambassador and we obtained permission with remarkable ease, at a very modest fee.

While we were getting ready for sea, a number of visitors called because they had “heard we were going to the Galápagos.” Each would start out by extolling one particular island in the group, and when we had been sold would casually remark, “I wonder if you’d be willing to drop off a few things for us”—packages, letters, foodstuffs—even a sizable wood-and-coal stove, which we had to lash on deck. We were happy to take all we could carry, because we knew that the passing yachtsman was a major factor in supplying the pioneers on these isolated islands. Also, on the advice of old-timers, we took reading matter for the islanders—books, magazines, and newspapers—as much as we could collect.

We sailed on January 18, bound for Wreck Bay, San Cristóbal, the port of entry for the Galápagos. The islands are on the equator, about 860 miles southwest of Panama, and we were warned to expect a slow passage. Yachts have taken as long as three months for the trip and some have managed to miss the islands completely. This had, in fact, happened to the Carrs, on _Havfruen_, who had preceded us by a couple of months and had also been carrying a respectable load of supplies for the colonies. They had carried on to the Marquesas, where they had unloaded their cargo to be shipped to Tahiti. From there, eventually, it would have to travel up to Hawaii, over to California, and back down to the Panama Canal, there to await another yacht bound for the Galápagos and willing to take on the mission of good will. The entire circuit would take upward of a year and we could only hope that none of the cargo had been perishable!

We had no intention of missing the islands, no matter how long it took us, and to our delight we started out as if we were going to make a record passage. On the second day out, we made a noon-to-noon run of 197 miles, better than eight knots, which we knew was accurate because we could check our position with Malpelo Island. This delightful state of affairs was soon over, however. We ran into the area of light southerlies, where we had to work our way alternately west and southeast, slowly making good our course. My log on the ninth day out is representative:

Midnight. Very quiet. Moon just down. Two knots, course west. Many dolphin about, snorting and leaping. Phosphorescence all around.

We weren’t worried about our slow progress. The peace on board was so wonderful that I personally felt a two-month passage would have given me just that much more time to soak it in. We three men continued our two-hours-on-four-off system, with the girls sharing three daylight hours, thus shifting the watch each night. Nick ate his meals with us, sat with us in the cockpit, joined in our discussions, entered fully into our family life. It was a happy ship.

On the tenth day out Ted and I tackled a navigation problem that had been baffling us for several days. Obviously we weren’t making all the distance we were sailing. In the past two days, for instance, we were 62 miles short of the spot where we estimated we should be. We knew there was an adverse current in this region, but the loss seemed excessive. Ted and I set to work studying charts and books, and found a clue in a footnote of our _Ocean Passages_. It mentions “The Holy Child Current, which runs from January to March, but is not equally definite in all years.” It certainly seemed to be definite this year, and our position on the chart was right on the dotted line that represented this inconstant current, called “El Niño” in the pilot books.

The weather was generally fair and the seas light, but we had one sudden blow which caught Barbara on the tiller. I had hesitated to give her a night watch, knowing it would not result, as she fondly hoped, in giving me more rest. Actually I had learned to snatch needed sleep at any hour, day or night, and in fact slept more soundly during the day, when the others were awake, than I did at night. But she wanted to try it, so we compromised, and I gave her an hour after supper, from 1900 to 2000, so that she could learn to judge weather conditions after dark.

It was during one of these evening watches that she gave me a call: “Squall coming!” She was absolutely right. It hit us at once, the wind changing in an instant from south to west, accompanied by heavy rain. We took down staysail and genoa and tacked to the south under mizzen, main, and foresail. For the first time Barbara had the experience of keeping the tiller during the passage of a “front” and was very proud, afterward, of “her squall.”

Two days later, another incident was worth recording:

Jan. 29. Terrific bubbling all about, like a giant kettle. Can hear it quite easily—like crossing Amazon Bight, but in Amazon bubbling was bigger and color brown.

On this same day I had the bad luck to break my reading glasses, the spares—having already lost the originals over the side—and faced the poor prospect of a long passage, with plenty of time for reading, and broken lenses. However, I patched them together with transparent tape, and became quite adept at reading through the chinks in the patches.

On February 1 we knew from the number of birds about that we were close to land. Our morning shots seemed to indicate that we were south of the island, so we edged a bit to the north. At 1123 Ted sighted land through the haze off the starboard bow, and soon we were rounding the southwest corner of San Cristóbal, keeping well out because of swells and the onshore current. We passed Freshwater Falls, on the south side of the island, where the old-time sailing ships were wont to water. On an exposed shore, with heavy surf and a square-rigger to handle, this must have been a feat that demanded real seamanship, not to mention plenty of nerve.

At 1900 we entered Wreck Bay. Coming up to the anchorage, we pulled in our log line and discovered that there were barnacles on it. If so many had attached themselves to us in two weeks, how many, we wondered, must have signed on with those ships that have drifted two or three months between Panama and the Galápagos!

Within half an hour we had been boarded and cleared by very efficient officers, and I had brought the log up to date and summarized the passage.

We had eagerly looked forward to our visit to the Galápagos, having read everything we could about the islands, from Darwin on. We had been intrigued by the accounts of the weird geological formations, of unique and strangely fearless animal life, of rugged individuals who had pioneered here. But too often the accounts that one reads are of a bygone era and do not accurately describe islands as they exist today. Now we would have a chance to see for ourselves.

Puerto Chico, the settlement of some 200 people at Wreck Bay, is the port of entry. It is a naval base (navy: 1 launch), and the center of population for all the Galápagos—an island group inhabited by fewer than 2,000 people. Water is the limiting factor, and only four of the islands provide enough water to sustain permanent colonies. The names of the various islands can be most confusing, as each boasts of at least two—Spanish and English—and usually more. Santa Cruz, for example, is also known as Chavez, but the English gave it the sturdy name of Indefatigable—a name which the people there obviously find tiresome, as it is never used (except in articles in the _National Geographic_).

We spent only a couple of days at Puerto Chico, long enough to get our breath, stretch our legs, and deliver a letter. The latter job took all one day. While in the Canal Zone we had been entrusted with a message to Mrs. Karin Cobos, who had come over as a child in a Norwegian colonizing expedition which eventually petered out. She had married and remained in the islands and was now, we were told, living “up in the hills.” Ted, Nick, and Barbara expressed their willingness to look her up.

They started walking early in the morning up the fine, broad road which leads from Puerto Chico to Progreso, a tiny settlement five miles up the mountain. This fine road lasted for two miles. Beyond that it was still under construction. Each working day the road is pushed forward a foot or so, and there is universal confidence in the islands that someday, within the lifetime of many now alive (the younger ones), a fine highway will run all the way to Progreso and a jeep will be imported to use it.

Just beyond the end of the completed section the party left the parched, sandy, cactus-strewn slopes and began to climb into the hills where low-lying clouds were constantly dropping moisture. The cleared track soon degenerated into a muddy path, but there were still plenty of rocks so that the travelers could step from one to another and so hope to keep their shoes reasonably clean. As they plodded on, however, the drizzle changed to a downpour, the rocks and lava hunks became fewer and the mud thicker. Soon the path was merely a trace winding through dense undergrowth and knee-deep in mud. Long before the gang reached Progreso, they were unrecognizable and hoping only to keep the mud out of their hair.

In Progreso, which is a cluster of tiny houses scattered about in a (muddy) clearing, they learned that (a) Karin Cobos—well known, of course, throughout the islands—lived somewhere up beyond the village, indicated by a vast and indeterminate sweep of the arm, and (b) not a soul in Progreso spoke a word of English.