A
MODERN SEA BEGGAR
by
being
the story of his cruise from Newlyn to
in
the yawl `Inyala', with letters telling
of
his life in the
edited
by
FREDA
AND EMILY UTLEY
Illustrated
with Photographs
PETER
DAVIES
Published
in 1938
PRINTED
IN
THE UNlVERSITY
PRESS, GLASGOW
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
TO
AND TO
HIS
FRIEND, RAB BUCHANAN
PREFACE
This
book has been compiled from three sources: from
manuscripts
prepared for publication by
Utley
(some of which have appeared in The Yachting
Monthly),
from his log-book, which he frequently kept as
a
private notebook, and from his letters.
The editors have drawn from
these sources and com-
bined
them. This explanation is necessary because they
know
that
lished
in this form some of the observations and thoughts
which
they have included. As far as possible, however,
they
have avoided altering his words. The letters have
been
printed with the permission of their owners,
Utley's
mother and Rab Buchanan.
The editors desire to
express their appreciation and
thanks
to E. Warington Smyth, whose nautical know-
ledge
was of great assistance in revising the text, and who
gave
much time and care in helping with the actual
work
of editing. They owe much to her many suggestions.
Their
thanks are also due to Rab Buchanan for assistance
in
deciphering the MS. and for his encouragement
throughout.
F.
U.
E.
U.
CONTENTS
Page
PREFACE -
- - -
- - -
7
PART
I
The
Cruise: Adventures:
(September 1930 to September 1931)
I. NEWLYN TO
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII. THE GALAPAGOS:
1.
2.
3.
A Visit to Dr. Ritter- - -
- 129
4.
5.
With Brun on the Norge - -
- 150
6.
Disaster -
- - -
- - 160
7.
A Desperate Journey - - -
- 175
8.
Salving the Norge : and Departure- - 195
IX. THE GALAPAGOS TO THE MARQUESAS -
- - 204
CONTENTS
PART
II
Life
in the
Page
I. THE MARQUESAS -
- - -
- - 225
II. THE MARQUESAS TO
III.
INTRODUCTION WILFULLY MISPLACED, BEING
A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF
UTLEY
- - -
- - -
- 333
LIST
OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The
yawl Inyala - -
- - Frontispiece
Page
Rab
Buchanan and
The
Inyala, lee rail awash - -
- 208
PART
I
THE CRUISE: ADVENTURES:
(September
1930 to September 1931)
`.
. . I often say to myself when I take the wheel
at
night, the sky a blaze of stars and the ship
cutting
a phosphorescent track through the
black,
"Where would I sooner be? Who would
I
change places with" I tell myself, "Nowhere
and
no one." One lives fully like this-doing
things
and dreaming.'
(In
a letter from
to his mother)
I
NEWLYN
TO
When
I was a small boy the first books which made a
vivid
impression on me were Nansen's Farthest
North
and the back numbers of the Boy's Own Paper,
with
tales by Ballantyne and
Coral
Island.
There
were two things I wanted to do; one was to go to
the
North Pole, and the other was to sail to the South
Seas.
I had a great fleet of model yachts, and in my sum-
mer
holidays I used to sail a dinghy with my father, and
sometimes
I would get twenty-four hours on a fishing
boat.
Whilst
still a medical student I spent a holiday in
where
I made friends with an Englishman who was
stranded
in
French
crew and could not ship an Italian one, I offered
myself
to him as crew, and I had a delightful week sailing
on
the
While
I had been away a great friend of mine, called
Rab,
had heard that one could spend wonderful holidays
on
the west coast of
idea
being just day sailing with safe anchorages every
night,
and to spend much of the time walking, shooting
and
fishing. So with this very modest idea of sailing Rab
bought
a beautiful little ten tonner called Temptress, and
the
following spring four of us went up to the
her.
None of us knew much about it, but each of us tried
to
bluff the others that he was a salt-encrusted old shell-
back.
But before we ever sailed, before I even saw the
Temptress,
the stimulus was given to us which eventually
landed
Rab and me in
16
A MODERN SEA BEGGAR
the
Temptress, Mr. J. S. Douglas Dixon of
found
that he had sailed her round
way,
and also round the west coast of
seilles.
Our adventure in the Scotch lochs seemed a very
poor
thing after that.
We
sailed about the lochs for a fortnight; by then
we
were fired with ambition to go to sea, and Rab and I
thought
we would like to sail to
seemed
a great adventure, and we were amazed at our
own
daring.
One
who afterwards comes into the story, called
Walter,
had to leave us, so three of us set out. The first
night
we spent at sea we got a bit of a dusting, and we
left
another member of the crew on the Isle of Man. So
Rab
and I sailed by ourselves to
more
heroic. But then I had to go home. Nevertheless
two
months later we tried it again. We sailed back to
to
The
following summer I had very little time, but was
invited
to go with four strangers on a fifteen-ton cutter
from
I
was mate, and pretended to be the complete deep-sea
sailor.
I would like to tell the story of that cruise. The
boat
was very old; and the hull and rigging were com-
pletely
rotten. The skipper, who was a very fine sailor,
had
been to sea before, but the others were complete
novices
and all were inclined to sea sickness. It was on this
voyage
that I learned what the sea could be like when it
really
turned nasty. We got to
ing
back ran into a ‘strong’ gale, an official number 9
Beaufort
Scale; we carried away the bowsprit and the
boom,
and eventually got into
bare
poles, pumping like mad. The boat was sold there for
twenty-five
pounds.
NEWLYN
TO VIG0 17
In
the winter of 1929 to 1930 Rab decided that we
would
go to the
money
and started looking for a boat. He first thought of
buying
one of the smaller Brixham trawlers called `mules,'
which
had the reputation of being splendid sea boats.
The
Brixham smacks are some of the few sailing fishing
boats
left in
with
a surveyor, and found every one of them rotten, as
they
had been built in a hurry after the war from green
wood.
Then Rab tried to buy the Asgard, Erskine Chil-
ders'
old boat, a Colin Archer ketch of the Norwegian
pilot
boat type, but after a lot of negotiation her owner
decided
not to sell. It was while he was inspecting the
Asgard
that Rab first saw the Inyala, and the surveyor
advised
him to buy her.
The
Inyala was built in
special
survey. She is an old-fashioned boat of the plank
on
edge type, very strongly built, with oak frames and
pitch
pine planking, and the surveyor passed her as per-
fectly
sound. She is yawl rigged and her dimensions are:
fifty-one
feet overall; forty-five feet on the waterline;
eleven
feet beam; nine feet six inches draft. There is a
1906
Parsons engine giving a speed of two knots, and she
carries
twenty gallons of petrol.
Below
from forward aft there is, first, the forecastle
and
galley, then a passage with cupboards and shelves to
port,
and a small cabin to starboard, once the owner's
cabin
but now holding two fifty-gallon water tanks and
the
ship's stores. Next comes the saloon, then aft of
that
the companion ladder with a W.C. to starboard and
another
cupboard containing another fifty-gallon tank
to
port. Aft again is my cabin, and then the engine-
room
and sail locker combined, and there is another,
fifty-gallon
tank in the lower part of the forecastle
floor.
18 A MODERN SEA BEGGAR
We
could get no information about the Inyala's qualities
as
a sea boat, as her last owner had never taken her out of
the
said
that she was just the boat for the purpose; others that
a
boat with so little beam would be a death trap. Also, an
enormous
deck house completely spoiled her looks. But we
had
seen nothing better that Rab could afford to buy, and
both
Rab and I have a prejudice in favour of deep draft
boats.
We feel vaguely they cannot turn over. So Rab
bought
her. We got our old Scotch hand Willy down from
Oban,
and with my sister Freda as additional crew sailed
her
to Brixham to fit out.
As
we originally planned the cruise to the
the
crew was to consist of four amateurs: Rab, skipper;
myself,
mate; Walter, and a doctor friend of mine, whom
I
will call `G.' About the middle of May I went down to
Brixham
with G to try her out. I found Rab busily engaged
in
cutting four feet off the main mast and six feet off
the
top mast before I could stop him. After I had told
him
what I thought of him we set sail for
Then
Rab had to go home, so G, Willy and I set off
for
boat,
but she was rather slow and much too tender, and
we
decided to put an extra three tons of ballast into her.
We
agreed then that Rab was right in shortening the
main
mast; but I have since regretted the cutting down
of
the spars.
We
four met in a pub in
about
the middle of July. There was great enthusiasm.
We
toasted one another again and again. We were all
convinced
that town life was just silly: we said that all it
amounted
to was earning enough money to buy enough
beer
to deaden the memory of how one earned the money
to
buy the beer. We damned all civilization, and swore
that
we would never come home again, that we would
NEWLYN
TO
find
some obsure atoll and settle, and there spend our
lives
waiting for the coconuts to drop off the trees. Then
the
first flow fell. G resigned his job, but the
local
authorities
immediately offered him a better one at a
thirty-three
per cent increase. He was still firm about his
atoll,
but when they made him an even better offer and
then
as there were only three of us we decided to take
Willy,
and eventually met in Brixham about the middle
of
July 1930.
We
spent a hectic ten days. Willy, Rab and Walter
each
had his sweetheart or his wife staying with him,
and
the women were all convinced they would never
see
us again. The Brixham fishermen shook their heads
gloomily
and foretold disaster, saying that no boat
with
so little beam was fit to go to sea. They worked
on
Willy, who felt that way himself, and, worse, they
worked
on Willy's wife. To make matters even worse,
the
weather was very bad, the wind blew persistently
from
the south-west, and there was gale after gale. When
everything
was ready we kept on putting off the day of
departure
because the weather was so bad.
At
last at the beginning of August we set sail, saying
our
destination was the Canaries. The wind was light
leaving
Brixham, but as soon as we got out of the shelter
of
the Start we met a strong breeze dead ahead with a
very
unpleasant sea. Rab, who is a bad sailor, was very ill;
and
I, who never actually had been sea sick, was feeling
none
too good. I steered the boat until about eight in
the
evening and then went below, leaving her to Walter
and
Willy. She was then on the starboard tack, but when
I
came on deck again at
port
tack heading for Bolt Tail; the jib outhaul had
parted,
the jib was half up and half down, and Willy at the
wheel
did not appear to have noticed that anything had
20 A MODERN SEA BEGGAR
happened.
We secured the jib, and I left Willy again in
charge
and tried to cook a meal. There was an awful mess
in
the forecastle. Willy, on whom we had always de-
pended
before, had not stowed anything, and he had also
left
the forecastle hatch ajar. Everything was swamped
and
I could not get the stove to light for about an hour,
but
eventually having done so by dint of soaking it with
paraffin
I managed to warm up a stew, which only I and
Willy
were able to eat. Then Rab from his bed of agony
ordered
us to heave to for the night, which we did; but I
made
the mistake of not lowering the mizen, so she did
not
lie to very well.
In
the morning it was blowing much harder and
Rab
decided to put back. We had a furious argument, but
Willy
when appealed to also thought it was advisable, so
we
shamefully ran back to Brixham. The worst part was
that
no one was surprised to see us back.
Rab
decided that he would not start with us from
find
another amateur and that he would join us later.
Then
Willy said that he would not go, so that left Walter
and
me.
For
nearly a month Walter and I stayed down at Brix-
ham
trying to arrange something. We advertised in The
Times
and all the yachting papers, but found no one. At
last
we got Whitney, a friend of the secretary of the
Little
Ship Club, so the only thing we wanted was a paid
hand.
We could get no one in Brixham, where our name
was
mud, but my sister, who was staying with me for a
few
days, and who spends most of her holidays in fishing
boats,
was sure she could get me a Cornish fisherman.
After
a lot of telephoning, I engaged Richard Jenkins, on
the
recommendation of another fisherman friend of hers,
and
I arranged for him to arrive two days later. But the
day
after I had fixed this up Whitney got a telegram to
NEWLYN
TO
say
that his brother had got badly injured in a motor
accident
and was not likely to live, so he left us.
The
following day Richard Jenkins arrived, and then
Rab,
not knowing that Whitney had left us, came to see
us
off. By this time I was getting desperate, and I per-
suaded
Rab to let me go with Walter and Jenkins and
another
paid hand if we could find one. But then Walter,
whose
morale had been slowly ebbing away through the
weeks,
suddenly decided that he would not go, and he,
too,
left me. Finally it was decided that I should sail from
Brixham
to Newlyn with my sister and Jenkins as crew
in
order to pick up a second paid hand in
we
arrived in Newlyn, to my surprise I found Rab wait-
ing
for me. He said that he would come at least as far as
would
be my mate.
I
was very relieved about this. Rab is an expert navi-
gator,
but I, on the other hand, only a fortnight before I
left
Brixham could do nothing beyond navigating by dead
reckoning
and getting my latitude by meridian altitude.
Rab
for the last fortnight had been coaching me at odd
times
in how to get position lines and I knew how to do it
in
theory, but theoretical knowledge and the confidence
that
you can practise that knowledge are two very dif-
ferent
things.
In
Newlyn we took on a second paid hand, another
fisherman
called Jack.
Monday,
1st September, was a lovely day, and to our
joy
it was blowing fresh from the north-east. We spent
the
last hours getting the fresh provisions on board, and
at
about four-thirty in the afternoon all was ready. My
mother
had come down to see us off, and I took her ashore
and
we had two farewell drinks together. My sister was
wanting
more and more to sail with me, but had promised
to
join her husband in
22
A MODERN SEA BEGGAR
of
Newlyn were there to see us off, including all Jenkins'
and
Jack's relations. At
ings,
and Rab took her out of Newlyn harbour under
motor.
As we went by the entrance my sister called out,
`I
must come, too.' I called back, `Jump for the rigging.'
She
hesitated, looked as if she were going to, then hesi-
tated
again, and we swept by. When well out in Mounts
Bay
we set mainsail, jib, staysail, mizen and gaff topsail,
and
I knew in my heart that we were really off.
The
wind was very light at first, but about
it
began to freshen, and at
force
6 steady from the east-north-east.
The
sailing directions advise you, on leaving
to
make as much westing as possible so as to get an offing
of
at least 10 degrees West, as the chief danger lies in getting
embayed
in Biscay. Also by getting west as quickly as pos-
sible
you get beyond the 100 fathom line into the 2,000
fathoms
of the
Atlantic
bed which makes the short dreaded seas of the
So
having the wonderful luck of a north-east wind,
which
is so rare at this time of the year in
drove
her west-south-west as hard as she would go. We
had
forty-eight hours glorious sailing, and from mid-
night
September 1st to
logged
161 miles, an average of just over six and three-
quarter
knots. The Inyala has never sailed so fast before
or
since.
I
felt very well, very proud and very happy. After all
the
uncertainties of the last weeks I knew we were really
off
and that nothing was going to stop us now.
On
September 3rd the wind began to fall light, but at
that
I was in a totally different world. The sea was clear
and
of a deep oceanic blue, and the short channel waves
NEWLYN
TO
had
given way to the long Atlantic rollers. I went over-
board
for a swim and the water felt about ten degrees
warmer.
Our observed position at
10
degrees 20' West.
From
then onwards there is little to recount. The wind
grew
lighter and drew steadily ahead, but we had our
offing
and all went well. Rab was very sea sick, but he
clocked
my observations every day and checked my calcu-
lations.
Extracts
from my Log are:
`September
5th. Wind light from north-west with
periods
of calm. Heavy squall from west about
followed
by calm. Log reads 289 at
`September
6th. Wind continued light during the day,
but
freshened towards evening. Wind backed to south-
west
and we had to put about at
`September
7th. Rab is feeling much better and we dis-
cussed
the situation. I rather want to go straight on to the
Canaries
while the weather is fair, but Rab wants to go
into
however,
that as I am skipper, I must decide as if he were
not
there. I retort that if he were not there I would go
on,
but as he is there and I have never been to
feel
we could enjoy life together in
enjoy
our
position, making it out at
9
degrees 55' W. Then we had a large whiskey apiece and an-
nounced
confidently to our crew that they would see a
flashing
light every fifteen seconds on the port bow about
had
a great respect for our navigation, but they were not
so
astonished as we were.
`September
8th. Last night we kept Villano on our port
bow,
and picked up
wind
was light and dead ahead. I slept from
24 A MODERN SEA BEGGAR
halfway
between Torinano and Finisterre, wind dead
ahead
and everything shrouded in mist. It all looked very
much
like the west coast of
beating
down the coast. In the evening the wind dropped
to
nothing and then it poured with rain. I was on deck by
myself,
and murmured, `If the rain before the wind, then
the
topsail halyards mind.' I awaited the squall, but no-
thing
happened.
`I
handed her over to Rab about
still
prevailing.
`When
Rab woke me about
changed.
cleared
up and the sun was shining, and we were about
two
miles from the entrance to
two
knots under the motor. About
engine
and Rab and I had a glorious swim. At four in the
afternoon
we dropped anchor off Vigo Yacht Club, eight
days
out of Newlyn.'
The
port authorities came for our bill of health, and
said
that as we were a yacht there would be no further
formalities
and we could land when we liked. We rowed
over
to the Yacht Club, and were welcomed by the Pre-
sident
holding a large whiskey in each hand. He then
took
us around the town, feeding us on shell fish and
pointing
out all the night clubs. It was quite a welcome;
but
I am afraid if the President ever sails into
will
not receive quite the same hospitality from the Royal
Yacht
Squadron. Altogether we had a very good time in
Rab
was leaving me. At last he decided to sail on the six-
teenth.
On the evening of the fifteenth we went into the
agents
for the Nelson Line, to buy his ticket home.
There
I met a young Dutchman called Tony, who be-
NEWLYN
TO
gan
talking to me ,about sailing and about an Irishman
called
Walsh, who had sailed into
tonner
on his way around the world. We went on talking,
and
he seemed about as mad about sailing as anyone I had
yet
come across. I suggested that he might like to go with
me
to
he
would like to see the boat. We went on board and he
decided
to come-but I knew he was coming ten minutes
before
he did. I mentioned this later, and he said: `You
could
lime me to go sailing with a spitty finger.'
I1
Rab
and I decided to have a quiet last night at
just
a little dinner and then bed at
paration
for the ardours of the morrow. We got on board
all
right at about eleven, but then suddenly half
arrived
on board to wish us farewell. The party lasted till
me,
but the first thing I really knew was Tony arriving
on
board at eleven in the morning all ready to sail.
I
pulled myself together and we left
There
was no wind, and to my great astonishment I
managed
to start the motor. About two miles out we got
a
slight breeze from the north which gradually freshened.
We
set all plain sail and the gaff topsail. I wanted to make
as
much westing as possible, so I set a course south-west by
west,
which made the wind just abaft the beam. We
made
good progress and by
miles.
That night I rather had the `wind up'. It was
1,200
miles to the Canaries, and I had nobody to consult.
It
was the first time I had ever set out on a long cruise
with
the responsibility entirely my own. Also, although
I
have never been actually sick, I never feel too well the
first
twenty-four hours at sea. But it was a wonderful
night;
I took the twelve to three watch, and mixed with
my
fear was a great pride and joy.
The
following morning the sky became overcast, and
by
leaden
sunset with ominous triple-banked clouds, and I
had
a very definite feeling that there was bad weather on
the
way.
During
the night of the 17th to 18th the wind con-
26
tinued
to back, and by
by
east. The night was very overcast and there was a very
red
dawn.
At
the
west of the
made
me only about twenty miles away. As the wind was
still
backing and freshening I decided to go about, and
steered
her west by a half-north. It blew harder and
harder,
and by six-thirty it was blowing a moderate gale.
But
the seas were out of all proportion to the wind, and
she
was putting her bows right under, and the forecastle
hatch
was letting in a lot of water. I looked around at the
sky
and the sea, and decided to take the mainsail off her
and
hoist the trysail. Just as we got the mainsail on deck
and
the trysail set the wind lulled, and I felt I had been
over-cautious,
especially as there was a sneer on Jack's
face.
But the lull was only temporary and the seas got
larger
and larger. The boat was greatly eased and she no
longer
put her bows under. I did not heave to, but kept
gently
edging to windward with a man at the helm. The
glass
had fallen over seven-tenths in twenty-four hours.
During
the night of the 18th to 19th the size of the
seas
continued to increase, but the wind did not rise in
proportion.
The boat behaved very well, but in spite of
blankets
continued to take a lot of water through the
forecastle
hatch; also a good deal came through the aft
hatch,
flooding my bunk. At
minated.
There were three or four very heavy squalls
and
the wind blew a sustained force of 8 for about an
hour.
The seas, I should say, were nearly twenty feet
hqh. Everything had moderated by
the
wind veered to north-west and the sun came out; we
got
all our bedding and clothes on deck to dry. Every-
thing
on board seemed to be soaked through. We put up
.ez,
A MODERN SEA BEGGAR
the
mainsail and sailed south-west. I got my meridian
altitude
and took two position lines during the afternoon.
I
got a perfect interception, and realized that it was very
lucky
that I had trusted to my observations, instead of to
my
dead reckoning the previous day. When I went about
I
had only been about fourteen miles from the Burling
Islands.
I
found I spent all my time navigating. I had not had
to
add or subtract for the last seven years, and I made
very
heavy weather of it. I remember thinking at that
time
that bad weather was merely a tiresome interrup-
tion
which took me away from my calculations.
From
then onwards the wind gradually dropped and
we
got alternating calms and rain squalls, but the swell
remained
very large. We argued about the size. Tony
and
Jenkins said they were about thirty feet from crest to
trough;
I said about fifteen feet, but there was about a
hundred
yards from crest to crest and they were built in
three
storeys. Everything was banging about, and we
only
made twenty-one miles in fourteen hours. On the
other
hand, it was a glorious day of semi-tropical
weather,
and we began to anticipate the pleasure that
was
to come. Tony and I had a very good swim, and we
spent
the time sun bathing and cussing the boom.
of
strength, the real type to go sailing with. Jenkins had
rather
got the wind up, the size of the swells and the
loneliness
of the ocean were a little too much for him. He
kept
on saying: `If we get swells of this size with no
wind,
what will we get if it blows?' I wrote in my log:
`Jenkins
is a magnificent seaman, and altogether a dear,
but
like all fishermen he hates the unfamiliar, and he `
hates
the idea of having no convenient rock to wreck him-
self
on in a blow.'
`Jack
has gone west altogether, although he has had
Tony
was a great find, a thorough seaman and a tower r"
VIGO
TO TENERIFE e9
nine
hours sleep each night since we left, He just goes
about
with a face as long as a fiddle cussing under his
breath.
The fact that there was too much pepper in the
soup
was the last straw to-night-a poor fish. But most of
mankind
are poor fish when it comes to sailing, either
before
you start or later.'
That
night was a wonderful one. I stayed up talking
with
Tony till three in the morning, and then took over
from
him. I sat dreaming at the helm, looking first at the
stars
and then at the blazing phosphorescence of the
rollers,
and thought to myself if anybody in the world
offered
to change places with me, I would answer: `Where
better
could I be?'
I
decided that my crew would probably leave me in the
Canaries,
but that I should try to get a scratch crew and
go
on.
On
September the 21st the wind was north-east by
north
and dead aft of our course. I had hopes that we
might
be just within the north-east trades, so I decided
to
set the squaresail.
This
was a thoroughly experimental affair. We had
first
decided to adopt Conor O'Brien's method of running
the
yard up on a jackstay attached to an iron ring round
the
mast head. But just before we left England Weston
Martyr
had suggested to Rab that this was unnecessarily
complicated,
and that it would be better to bolt the yard
to
the ring and to hoist the whole contraption on the stay-
sail
halyard. Then, when the yard was aloft, to set the
squaresail
by first hauling on the central halyard and then
pulling
on the two outhauls.
We
had got the gear ready in
seemed
to go right. The ship rolled all over the place and
everybody's
temper was very frayed. Everything we could
do
wrong we did, and we hauled up that yard and then
brought
it down on deck again five times in all. At last
.
. .
90
A MODERN SEA BEGGAR
after
four and a half hours' hard work we set it. Then we
were
rather disappointed. It seemed very small, and al-
though
the wind had freshened to a strong breeze we
could
only make three knots. Then we set the raffee. This
was
no trouble, and it increased our speed to about four
and
a half knots. But the raffee was much too small, and
I
remarked bitterly in my log, `Rab always under-
canvases
his boats. If we go to the
two
cloths to the raffee. I would like to put a new topmast
on
her, six feet longer than the present one. Also I regret
the
four feet that has been cut off the main mast. These
deep
boats require driving, and the Inyala's working
canvas
is about right for a gale, but nothing less.'
But
that evening after a drink or two all round every-
thing
seemed very good. The barometer had risen, the
wind
was steady from the north-east blowing about force
6,
and we were fairly confident that we were at last really
in
the north-east trades. I noted in my log at
`Jenkins
is quite cheerful again, and is declaring that he
has
never known better sailing. Jack is cussing in the fore-
castle
and Tony is singing at the helm. I am writing my
log
with my right hand and clinging to a glass of whiskey
with
my left. How I pity everybody who is not with me.
This
is life as it should be lived. Continue to give Tony
good
marks; of all people I have come across he has the
best
temperament for this sort of thing. The sea is in his
bones.'
We
continued to run happily before the north-east
trades
and knew what perfect sailing was, and on Sept-
ember
93rd I decided to make for
There
is little to record, except how enjoyed ourselves.
The
weather was glorious. I went about naked most of
the
time. Also I discovered the right way to be towed from
the
rope ladder for my morning bathe. This became quite
a
ceremony. First I soaped myself all over with a teacup-
VI00
TO
ful
of fresh water, and then Jenkins tied a rope about my
middle.
I hung on to this with my hands, lying on my
back
in the sea. It is a glorious sensation. The ceremony
of
the Captain's morning ablutions completed, the work
of
the day went on.
One
evening I got several bites from bonitos, but they
always
got away either with the line or the hook. I felt
I
must catch one--for the sake of the Boy's Own Paper.
On
September 24th I told the crew at
Would
see land dead ahead at about two in the afternoon. At
could,
but at
have
never been more pleased about anything in my life.
I
had been observing and calculating, but never really
believed
that it was quite true. There are few better
sensations
than verifying one's calculations in fact.
The
crew began to acquire great respect for my
navigation.
We all celebrated at sundown. We rounded
anchor
in five fathoms between
I
had wanted to go to
of
a happy winter spent there as a child with my father.
But
this time, though we thought it a lovely place, we did
not
like the inhabitants. You cannot go ashore without
being
pestered by louts willing to sell you anything from
chairs
and fruit to women and boys. As a last straw the
Captain
of the Port sent in a bill for one pound for pilot-
age.
Under protest he reduced this to ten shillings, but
we
had never seen any pilot. I strongly advise seamen to
keep
clear of this place.
We
weighed anchor on September 526th at about
course,
and I thought I would try her under the square-
sail. I set mizen, trysail, squaresail, raffee and jib in suc-