MY DESTINATION, as the hour of departure drew close, was to be one of the outer isles of the Galápagos group about 1000 miles southwest from Panama. And, if I missed the Galápagos—and since I hadn’t yet had time to learn navigation I expected I might possibly pass them before I learned—I was going to make the Marquesas, 3000 miles farther westward, my destination.
The maneuver of getting under sail, and pushing off safely into the steamer channel, had been in my mind a score of times. Over the last week, as departure time for my trip approached, I grew fluttery in the chest whenever I thought of the first encounter I was to have with the sails. What does a boat do when you heave the sails aloft?
I had a book on How to Sail. Every day I went through it and memorized names and mentally practiced the ritual of getting under sail. The whole thing made me shrink a little, and feel very small. So I planned the set-off in minute detail: casting away from the buoy, the set of sails—everything. I would be on deck at daylight to cast off. Once adrift, I would hoist the jib, then staysail, then mainsail . . . as the book directed. With the wind from the north quadrant I would run down mid-channel before it. And if it was southerly, I would cast off on the port tack, run to the bar on the right of the channel, then come about to the opposite bar. Thus no matter what the wind, or what my nautical shortcomings, I felt prepared.
The time to go had come. It was Saturday, May 25. A light breeze slid in from the south. My boat and I were as ready as we would ever be.
I was on deck at six. I wanted to be under way before the yachtsmen were out for their day’s sail. I didn’t want them seeing me make my first tries at the sails and tiller. It was for exactly this reason I didn’t take a trial run around the harbor to acquaint myself with my boat. The armchair sailors in the Yacht Club lounge—with their yachting caps on—were ready to guffaw “saltily” at every move that didn’t conform to their dainty code.
I pulled my little seven-foot dinghy aboard, lashed it in its place on the starboard rail against the deckhouse. I unfurled the sails, led the halyards free, and ran the sheets out. I coaxed the engine into motion, and the propeller turned over slow ahead. I danced to the bow and fidgeted with the shackle which joined the anchor chain and buoy. In a moment Pagan was free, moving slowly ahead. I jumped back to the tiller and pointed her up to the channel.
I decided on the spur of the moment not to use the sails since the engine performed so agreeably. I lashed the tiller, and sprang to the bow to ready the anchor in case I needed it. It was tangled with its chain, which was strewn across the fore scuttle.
I took up the anchor, heaved back on the folds of chain to clear them, and made to lay the anchor beside its hawsehole. The deck tilted ever so slightly—I stubbed against the traveler. My foot slipped. I went over, back first, clawing upward. I was under in a second, dragged by the anchor. I dropped it, and groped to the surface.
When I could see again, Pagan was a length away, sliding eagerly on toward the moored yachts. The anchor chain was rattling through the hawse.
The chain drew taut as the anchor bit in, and Pagan’s bow fell off, sailing in a long circle around the anchor. I struck out toward her. She passed within a span of a buoy, slid very close to a near yacht, then fell away noticeably down tide. The anchor was dragging. Beyond, to where she drifted, were boats, moored closely bow and stern.
I broke into a hard swim, head down. I didn’t look up, I pounded at the water. When I looked Pagan had fallen farther away. Then, what she did stopped me short.
She struck a buoy, or rather glanced off it, and turned directly toward me. I swung aside; the curl under her forefoot slapped me gently. When the chain plates came up I took a grip on them and pulled myself over the rail, onto the decks.
I pushed the tiller down and she swerved cleanly away, making for a clear spot where I wanted to stop her and relax a minute.
Then she fetched up with a jolt to the end of her chain, and twisted, doubling back toward the cluster of boats. In a panic I cut the engine and wished I hadn’t. The anchor, I asked. Will it hold?
Pagan dragged back and back. The boats loomed. I thought of the engine—I was deciding to go below and crank it. We slid past a mooring, then past the first of the boats. Then I remembered the sails.
I leaped along the deck to the mast and dragged down on the mainsail halyard. The heavy white canvas whipped and rustled while it climbed—then it filled, bellied out, and by its force slacked off the sheets. I ran to the tiller. Pagan was moving, in fact she was scudding before a quartering wind on the starboard side. I jiggled the tiller to clear the boats.
Quite suddenly, I forgot everything I had learned about sails from the book. I froze as it were, and sat searching in the rigging for the logical thing to do. I was confused, I guess, by the sudden speed and my inability to reason with it. Just then Pagan came to the chain end. She stopped where she was for a moment, strained mightily, then jibed. The heavy boom flew across with a swoosh from the starboard to port side. I saw it coming and ducked, or I would have been knocked sprawling into the harbor. I ran forward, broke the anchor loose, and drew it on deck.
I heaved on the sheets and Pagan fell off on the port tack, reached up to the wind, and skidded out of the yacht anchorage and into the main steamer channel. By now the pier was peopled with sailormen out early for the day’s cruise. These “harbor circumnavigators” practice a hard scrutiny of all things of the sea. A few had seen my glaring amateurism. I wanted to redeem myself by a seamanly show as I crowded into the wind, making for the open sea.
I stepped lightly forward and hoisted the staysail and sheeted it flat. I hurried back to the tiller, to tend my course. In a minute I stepped up and sent the jib fluttering into the rigging. Pagan took on a more balanced feature in her looks, in her pull, and in her angle on the wind. She sped along at what I judged to be about five knots.
As she approached the sand bar on the rim of the channel I put the helm well down, as it explained in the book, to bring her about. She turned jerkily up to the wind, luffed her sails for a brief moment, but fell back on the port tack.
When she had gained sufficient speed, I thrust the helm again to leeward. She rounded into the wind, faltered, and fell off the same as before.
Again I resumed speed on the tack. Then suddenly, and almost imperceptibly, Pagan eased to a noiseless halt. She swayed smoothly as though balanced on a wire, except that she was heeled at an unseamanly angle.
My kittens were clawing uphill over the tilted decks. I tossed them below to the safety of my bunk.
I doused all sail, started the engine, put her full astern. No response. I stumbled to the bow, plunged from the low deck into the shallow water and fitted my shoulder against the stem. I lunged at it—again and again. I rested a few minutes, watching the falling tide as I did, wondering how long before I would be high and dry! And in view of the Yacht Club!
I climbed to the deck, wilting as I climbed, cursing the bar with everything I could lay my tongue to. Then it came. The wake of an outbound steamer passed under her, wafted her high, then dropped her roughly on the sandy bottom. I gave the engine full throttle astern, leaped over the bows, and in a moment of joyous strength, aided by a surge of wake, shoved her free.
I dragged myself over the bows and struggled across the sail-strewn decks to the tiller. I moved Pagan into mid-channel, and taking no more chances with the sails I headed her outbound to the wide gulf, where there was sea room for my experiments.
When Panama saw me last, the decks were flowing their overload of sails and sheets into the water, the boom jerked from side to side, and halyards flew at loose ends in the rigging—but for all that, Pagan rode happily out to sea.
Day was gone. I was alone with the night sounds of the sea. Pagan pushed through the damp blackness slowly, as though feeling her way. I was straining eye and ear toward the bows for hints of land. In my lap my dainty kittens slumbered placidly, unmindful of my deep anxiety.
I drooped over the tiller, yearning for a guiding light to wink out of the black. I was lost. Three hours before I had felt certain I knew my position, but now I was steering a jigsaw course, and hoping for sight or sound of a haven where I could anchor and rest for the night, and think. The day had posed perplexing questions.
As near as I could figure I was some fifty or sixty miles off shore; somewhere near—I hoped—the little island of Pedro Gonzáles in the Perlas Islands.
It was ten o’clock at night. I was limp from hunger and from the work of practicing all day with my sails. The full long day I had hoisted and dropped sail, had maneuvered my boat on every angle to the wind, had even reefed and double reefed the sails, and had drifted and butted aimlessly over a large circle of the sea. In the end I knew my boat better, but I was left in confusion. I didn’t know it well enough. Then unexpectedly dusk had swooped in. I found myself in the busy steamer channel, and grimly in need of a night of deep rest.
At dusk Pedro Gonzáles had been a blue smudge on the horizon which night quickly enfolded. Had I then used full engine with the sails, I could have soon closed in enough to make a night landfall with ease. But I held off. I had expected the breeze to build up soon after dusk and push me in just as quickly. Instead, I was becalmed on a glassy sea with sails slatting, blocks creaking, and Pagan rolling listlessly.
I left the sails up but put her under power and groped uncertainly forward. Suddenly the quick rush of seas came to my ear, followed by regular intervals of near quiet. I leaned closer to the night. A blackness blacker than the night reared up ahead, and soon the surf was louder.
I could see only the towering edge of the jagged isle where it blotted out the stars. Sometimes the seas, pounding against the blunt shore, sounded closer than at other times.
An outjutting of the shore loomed up ahead. I turned off, rounded it to starboard, and sighted another shaggy shadow on the port beam. I swung around and bore down between the two, hoping to stand in close where I could cast the lead in search of anchorable water.
As I crept along the seas grew louder. Close by to port was a curling line of gray surf—somehow it seemed it should be farther away.
Ahead I could see dollops of water splashing over the rocky shallows. The air was damp, as though there were spray in it. You don’t acquire the mariner’s instinct for imminent danger in a day of sailing! I flashed my light across the water and blinked it.
Suddenly, voices boomed from out of the black: “No pase par aquí! Piedras! Peligroso!”
Rocks! In a hair-raised moment I flung the tiller to port. Pagan jibed. Gleaming gray water flashed from all sides. I cut the engine. I raced to the mast and cast loose all halyards, clawed down the mainsail. In a trice I had, almost unknowingly, thrown the anchor out and made it fast at ten fathoms. Rocks were awash practically at the forefoot. On either beam the slush of water over shoal heads kept me on deck, heart abeat, for over an hour, as Pagan settled peacefully to anchor.
Mestizo fishermen rowed out in their frail cayucos. They swung aboard in the beam of my flashlight, grinning from stubbled faces, assuring me that my position, though precarious, was safe enough; and went away.
I sat on deck, eying the rushing water, hearing its ominous sounds—in a confused reverie. I thought back on the day filled with lessons, and I tried to look ahead to what was in store when I should be alone out on the ocean. The longer I pondered, the more I was convinced of my total inexperience for the trip I was undertaking. I didn’t know my boat. I couldn’t handle her. The day had shown it.
It was practice I needed, at least a week of it, if not two. I needed to work and live with my boat as I had done that day. Then I would know her, would be able to predict her behavior, could control her.
I thought of practicing in the waters off Pedro Gonzáles, using the isle as a base, and I thought of using the whole Perlas chain as a practice ground.
I flashed my light over the Perlas chart and saw in the tight-clustered arrangement of isles ideal grounds for my purpose. There were suitable bays to practice anchoring in, and there were close channels to beat through, and there were shoals and reefs and small islets to practice avoiding. In a revealing moment I decided my liking for them, and figured on getting to work when daylight came. When I went below I was relieved of an unsureness that had been a part of me for days.
Now I could practice in a proper way. I could learn what I needed to know, and then sail out on the blue, easy of mind.
Throughout the day of working the sails and maneuvering my boat I had eaten little, and suddenly my stomach was squeezing and unsqueezing itself. For preparation of meals on Pagan I followed no organized menu. When it came time to eat I always glanced through the stores list and struck off whatever suited my mood and fancy. Then I rifled through the food lockers until I found it. I made it a point to keep a close tally on my stores, so I could readily know the exact state of my supplies.
When I outfitted Pagan in supplies I had the same idea you would have if you were going on a hunting trip. Hunting trips, however, are usually short-lived, whereas I had stocked up for well over four months.
When I provisioned for the trip it was a compromise—a compromise with foods I enjoyed eating, foods that were inexpensive, foods easy and quick to prepare, foods that would keep. I took aboard a gallon each of the following: rice, flour, oatmeal, corn meal, hominy grits, tea, coffee, honey, jam, oleomargarine, and sugar. The reason I say a gallon is because the only things I could find around the Yacht Club to store my staples in were a dozen one-gallon cider bottles. I couldn’t afford to buy sealed containers to store food in, so I filled each of the bottles, screwed the lids on tightly, wrapped them in blankets, and stored them under my bunks. Because I had twelve bottles, I filled two with sugar.
For bread, I carried a five-gallon tin of hard, heavy sea biscuits. Housewives around the waterfront gave me a number of quart jars which I filled with dried prunes, dried apples, and dried peaches. From the ceiling of the cabin hung a huge bacon and a ham. They swayed with the roll of the boat, and freshened the cabin with a richly sweet smell.
The bulk of my food stores centered in a heavy load of canned goods—248 tins in all, mostly large-sized cans. I liked the big cans, they were the right size for a meal; a few twists with a can opener and I had the quickest meal possible. There was everything in the selection from canned ketchup to canned fish for the kittens.
Of all my provisions, my favorite was pork and beans. Life on a boat whets the appetite and sharpens the appreciation. The simplest foods take on a zesty flavor. I didn’t need, nor had I the means and time for preparing, rich, ornamental foods. My funds wouldn’t allow anything more than simple, life-sustaining fare. Moreover, I was in glowing health, and had virtually no food dislikes. It was quantity rather than quality with me.
A small, low table on the port side in the after part of the cabin served as my galley. On one corner of the table was a little Primus stove—an intricate affair which worked by compressed air and kerosene. It gave a healthy flame in quick time. It made masterful fish stew.
Isthmian housewives had given me an array of pots and pans and odd tableware, no two pieces of which matched. It all amounted to an effective “kitchen,” and when, on occasion, I wished to dine other than straight out of a cold can, I was able to set up an impressive formal table.
Means of storage for water had been a grave concern from the very first. One of the yachtsmen gave me two ten-gallon milk cans which I filled and lashed to the mast in the cabin. Someone gave me a ten-gallon oaken breaker, and someone else a little four-gallon oaken keg. I found a fifteen-gallon airplane gas tank in the rocks on the harbor edge. I bought six five-gallon jeep cans at fifty cents each—one I used for kerosene, and the other five for water. I bought two ten-gallon oaken breakers from the Commissary at the heartbreaking cost of five dollars apiece. From quart jars housewives gave me, I managed another three gallons which I stored in the forward bunks. When I sailed I carried a little over ninety-five gallons of water.
My fuel supply for the little Kermath marine engine consisted of eighty gallons of gasoline. There were twenty gallons in the built-in tank just forward of the lazarette. I had six five-gallon cans in the cockpit. Two five-gallon cans were strapped to the mast on the foredeck, two more were secured to the stempost, and one was lashed to a cleat on each cockpit coaming.
Aside from the supplies of food and fuel there were other items. There were an army first-aid kit purchased from war surplus, a large cosmetic kit and other gifts such as nylons for Mary, flea powder to delouse the kittens, two brand-new suits of clothes—complete with overcoat and hat—in which to meet my wife upon my arrival in Sydney, a pneumatic life raft for emergency use, and two cheap feathers and a shark spoon with which to fish for extra food. I had a small library aboard, about twenty-five books in number, almost all of which were given me. Many magazines were brought down to the wharf for me, including comic books. The latter I would have discarded except that I felt I could pass them off to some appreciative native peoples along the way.
In the way of luggage aboard I had my personal belongings packed into my sea bag—my carry-overs from the Merchant Marine. I had seven suits of khakis, odd shirts and trousers, shoes, and foul weather gear.
I had a number of navigation instruments aboard which as yet I knew very little about. I was waiting to get out to sea where I would have time enough and ideal conditions for learning to navigate.
My total stores, according to my rough estimate upon departure, were sufficient to keep me in good supply for at least four months. If I was lucky at fishing, as I hoped to be, or able to collect island fare along the way, I figured I could sail for five months. This afforded me a wide margin of safety, since I expected to be in Sydney in just under four months.