Author's Introduction

An Unlikely Passage

Nobody in his right mind sails from Singapore to Guam. It just isn't done. It’s all uphill, against prevailing winds and currents.

Of course, a lot of people are doing a lot of strange, wonderful, daring, and sometimes totally absurd and impractical things these days. Some of them are hair-raisingly dangerous things – things that nobody in their right mind would ever do in a sane world. Most of them are trying to prove something – either to themselves or to the world. Men are trying to prove they are real men. Women are trying to prove they can do anything men can do, and that men haven’t got anything on what was once called the “weaker” or “fairer” sex. And children are just smaller people who can do just about everything that adults can do. To make things even more interesting, they are increasingly doing their amazing things before cameras for viewing audiences. “Reality TV” has come into vogue. Men and women have themselves and camera crews plopped down in the wilderness or deserted shores by helicopter to prove they can survive under primitive conditions, and they film it to show others just how surviving in a “real life” situation could be done by the viewers at home. It’s all very interesting, but it’s staged adventure for the entertainment (maybe even education), of viewing audiences.

Cruising sailors embark on their adventures for a variety of reasons. Some are trying to prove they can do something, and others just want to experience the unique lifestyle – the adventure of traveling the world, either alone or with friends and families, in a way that intimately connects with both nature and former eras – a lifestyle that literally bespeaks of self-reliance and independence to a degree that is very rare in this modern day and age.

Wind power is free, and the world, at least in slow motion, is at the beck and call of the cruising sailor – and there are tens of thousands of unique and wonderful places one can see and experience only by boat. The nature of sail being what it is, however, almost all cruising sailors plan their voyages and passages very carefully – in such a way as to take advantage of the prevailing winds and currents and avoid certain areas during certain seasons. To do otherwise would not only be impractical, but foolhardy and downright ridiculous – unless, of course, they are merely trying to prove it could be done. There may be someone out there even now beating across the North Pacific against the roaring forties to prove that it can be done.

Perhaps the main thing that makes my voyage from Singapore to Guam unique is that it wasn’t an effort to prove anything. It was simply an effort to do something practical even though the ways and means may have seemed impractical to the disinterested observer. In all actuality, though I had always wanted to be a cruising sailor, I wasn't just cruising. I actually had a compelling reason to get from point A to point B with my boat, by the most economical means available. If I was trying to prove anything (or if I did prove anything), it was that travel on a sailboat can still sometimes serve a practical purpose – and that even practical endeavors can perhaps be a little adventurous. Even somewhat interesting.

Since completing this manuscript, it has collected a considerable amount of dust. Naturally I intended to have it published, and the few who read the manuscript urged me to do so. However, writing it all down was an activity that held my interest. On the other hand, marketing my work was a chore that didn’t sufficiently motivate me. After a little effort in that direction, I was sufficiently encouraged to just lay the work aside and proceed to other things – and I had a full plate of other things to occupy my time.

Initially I submitted the manuscript to a couple of large publishing houses, and two or three smaller nautical book publishers. Some kind and even encouraging words came with the rejection slips. They said they liked it, but weren't very interested in putting their brand on it. Hard times, it seems, had befallen the personal adventure market. As one yachting magazine editor stipulated in the 1986 WRITER'S MARKET, "No simple narrative accounts of how someone sailed a boat from here to there!" Another commented that it seems "everybody is rounding the Horn in a bathtub these days."

One prospective publisher of nautical books sent me a nice rejection letter, writing that, while he liked it, he simply did not know how he could market such a book. It didn’t easily fit into any nautical book market category he was familiar with. He asked me if I had any ideas as to how it could be marketed – as if he might reconsider if I had any constructive ideas! Another said, “The story of your single-handed voyage from Singapore to Guam is interesting and most unusual, but…” and another said, “Obviously, there was much worth in your manuscript, or we would not have kept it as long as we did… (but) as much as we enjoyed it…” the market is into other things right now, etc., etc.

By now, of course, there are thousands of cruising books in print. Many men have circumnavigated the globe, non-stop; children and young ladies have sailed around the world single handed. One woman has even rowed across the Atlantic. A blind man has attempted to sail single handedly across the Atlantic. So, why should a healthy, grown, non-handicapped, white male bother writing about a non-event like sailing from Singapore to Guam?

Well, maybe it’s the modest vanity of a frustrated writer. Perhaps it’s wanting the grandchildren to think they had a grandfather who did some things a little out of the ordinary. Or maybe it’s the belief that everybody’s story, no matter how insignificant, ought to be told and put down into print – even without regard to potential sales or the profit motive.

So, despite the fact that such an adventure is no longer considered a formula for writing success, I’ve written a book about sailing a 35 foot wooden ketch named the “Semangat” from point A to point B, with two intermediate port calls. The adventure took place in 1976, and the original manuscript was written in 1979, while I was serving as master on an seismic survey vessel in the North Sea. Since then, and my initial flurry of submissions to publishers, it has dutifully collected dust.

But, to be truthful, I believe my experience had a few unique aspects, and some people might even think it interesting. For one thing, my voyage was truly a solo endeavor, as few other voluntary voyages have have ever been – perhaps even a foolhardy one to boot. Nobody helped me plan or outfit for the voyage. You might even say, I didn't even plan it myself. Nobody saw me off when I made my grand departure; nobody monitored my progress by radio; nobody had an accurate idea of where I was. In fact, I had no radio transmitter or even any serious life-saving equipment – and nobody met me when I arrived at my intermediate ports of call. Nobody saw me off when I sailed from them. And, since nobody knew when (or if), I would arrive at my final destination, nobody met me there either.

Had I failed to arrive at my destination, nobody would have bothered looking for me for some time – weeks, months, or maybe never – and I was aware of that all the while I was out there. I was late making my final destination, and there was some cause for concern as to my safety. Only a week or so before my arrival in Guam, the island had been devastated by super-typhoon Pamela. And further back on my track a killer typhoon named Olga had crossed my path prior to wreaking death and destruction in the Philippines and Taiwan.

My father, back on the farm in Southern Illinois, was the only one who had any idea at all as to where I might be during the course of the voyage, for we corresponded by what is now called snail mail. An eternal pessimist, and knowing of those two Pacific typhoons on my intended track, he had concluded that I had perished at sea long before the conclusion of the voyage. He’d written to my wife, assuring her that if I hadn’t arrived by the time she received his letter, they’d all seen the last of me. But, he wrote, if she could manage to get to the farm with the kids, they’d do the best they could. I arrived about a week after the letter had.

Having received that unexpected message with such bad news, my wife began to think maybe she’d better do something. Until then, she hadn’t been overly worried. She knew about as much about sailing and geography as she knew about nuclear physics. Having been told that it only takes a couple of weeks to get to Guam from Singapore by ship, she figured I’d been enjoying an extended vacation in the Philippines or some other exotic place.

When she received that letter from my father, however, she really did become worried. She had dutifully reported my “disappearance” to the local Coast Guard office. Due to her lack of command of the English language (being Vietnamese, and new in the country), she was unable to properly communicate the situation. Fortunately, no massive sea and air search rescue efforts had been initiated. The Coast Guard had apparently concluded that she was complaining that her merchant marine husband had simply deserted her, or was merely at sea somewhere and had not written lately.

Reading my dad’s letter after my arrival put an ironic final twist to my adventure. It was a little strange reading that I “could not have possibly survived those two killer typhoons,” and that I was a goner. I found it gratifying to be able to write to inform him that the news of my final passing had been a little premature.

I had only collided with one of those typhoons on my passage, and fortunately it wasn’t super typhoon Pamela, which I had fortuitously missed. But I did get very intimate with the one called Olga. She had crossed my path a little too close for comfort. And that too, in my modest opinion, helps to make my experience worth relating – though the publishers might groan and exclaim, “Oh no! Not another typhoon survivor story!”

And, in the background, there are the circumstances that had led to my decision to sail from point A to point B in the first place. I tell of those previous and noteworthy events too. Woven into this narrative is quite a bit more than just another sea adventure.

So, this is not exactly the “usual” narrative formula the cruising book market happens to like. It doesn’t fit into any of its pre-defined categories. But, in the end, I believe my adventure was unusual enough to merit telling. So here's the book, available here for the first time.

W.R. Carr
May 28th, 2009

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Foreword

Anxiety and Prelude to Adventure

In early December 1974, I had realized a long-held dream. I'd purchased a boat – a 35 foot auxiliary ketch, built to the lines of Peter Ibold's "Endurance 35" design. Constructed only a year before in Terengganu, Malaysia, of tough chengal wood, the boat had been christened "Semangat." Semangat is a Malay word that roughly translates to, "the inner spirit or vital force in plants and animals." The Semangat became my home afloat in Singapore which had become my home away from home.

Saigon, Vietnam, had served as my home port for a number of years, but the war that made that possible had been winding down. It seemed peace would be at hand soon. While this was good news, the number of American merchant ships that plied the eastern seas, shuttling cargo to Vietnam, was quickly declining. Meanwhile, new job opportunities for American expats had been increasing in Singapore where a booming new offshore oil industry had developed. I had made the move to Singapore to seek employment in July of 1971, leaving my family in Saigon.

By 1974 it appeared the offshore oil boom was soon to extend to the waters off the Vietnamese coast, and I was looking forward to making the move back to Vietnam to rejoin my family. I thoroughly believed that my first offshore passage on the Semangat would be to sail from Singapore to Saigon. But that was not to be.

***

The Paris Peace Accord had been signed on January 27^th, 1973, followed by a cease-fire. In March of the same year the last U.S. combat troops left Vietnam, and from February to April of that year U.S. POWs had been exchanged for North Vietnamese prisoners. Peace in Vietnam was supposedly at hand.

There was only one problem with the peace – there was no peace in Vietnam. While Americans at home basked in the belief they had attained "peace with honor," only two short years later, on the 31^st of April, 1975, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong marched triumphantly into Saigon.

***

On the 26^th of March of 1975, I’d just returned to Singapore after a week as relief the captain on the oilfield service barge Seamar Sakan in northeast Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. It had been an interesting week spent in Lord Jim’s sector of Joseph Conrad’s fabled Eastern World – but my mind had been troubled by other things, things that prevented me from fully enjoying my time in the River Berau area. The news coming out of Vietnam was not very reassuring.

The reason for my concern with news from Vietnam, of course, was that my wife, Chi, and two children, Jim and Lilia, were in Saigon. On April Fools’ Day I wrote in my journal:

“In the past week Hue has fallen, Da Nang has fallen, Qui Nhan went this morning, and Nha Trang fell this afternoon! And all of this out of a blue sky. It’s happening incredibly quickly. At that rate Saigon will be in chaos by tomorrow!”

In February, I had visited my family for a couple weeks, returning to Singapore on the 24^th of that month. While things had not appeared all that rosy, there was no reason to believe a wholesale North Vietnamese invasion, and the total collapse of South Vietnam, was immanent. After all, our trusty leadership in Washington had negotiated “peace with honor,” and the North Vietnamese had agreed not to dishonor that agreement – at least not so soon! The chief North Vietnamese negotiator at the Paris Peace Talks, along with his American counterpart, Henry Kissinger, received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts and alleged “peace making” accomplishments.

The leaders of the South Vietnamese government were not all that happy with the form the Peace with Honor had taken, of course. There was no honor in it for them – for they had been excluded from the Talks destined to dictate the future of their country. Peace, for them, was negotiated by the deadly combine of their enemies and their super-power “benefactor.” They knew they had effectively been sold down the river.

Naturally I was aware of all of this, but nonetheless had enough faith in both our government and the so-called “peace process” to believe that the “long term” would be considerably longer than two short years. And only months before, it still appeared that South Vietnam had a future. Still, the outlook had been grim enough by New Years that the company I worked for, Sea Mar International (Hong Kong) Ltd., had put its planned Vietnam venture on hold – and my recently acquired title, "Manager of Sea Mar International (Vietnam), Ltd.," had lost a considerable amount of its prestige and substance.

Fortunately, we had not yet managed to get our Saigon office set up when alarm bells told my boss and myself that maybe we’d better slow down and wait a little while before making a big-time plunge into business in Vietnam. Our project was a very ambitious one, as we hoped to gain the government's blessing, and industry funding, to build the first offshore oil supply base in the country. This base was to be located at Vung Tau, which was very opportune for me, since my wife and I owned some beachfront property there. For me, it had promised to be the ideal job, and one with a very promising future – but only if the South Vietnamese government, and the peace process, survived.

By April Fools Day, however, that future had changed radically before our eyes. Indeed, it was totally obliterated. And that’s why I, Manager of Sea Mar International, Vietnam, Ltd., had been back at my previous job, simply described as “Operations” (which more or less meant “Man Friday”), which in turn had meant, among other things, being company fleet relief captain. Thus my recent stint on the Sea Mar Sakan in Borneo.

When South Vietnam began to crumble, my boss, Captain Lucky Wilhelm, kindly offered me the use of one of the company’s vessels to sail to Vietnam to get my family out of the country. But time seemed too short. And, since scheduled air service to Saigon was still available, I had opted to fly up to look the situation over. I arrived in Saigon on the 5^th of April to see what I could do – or to see if anything could be done – before the North Vietnamese marched into town.

When I arrived, Saigon was in a state of combined stupefied shock and denial. A tense and surreal form of normalcy prevailed in the South Vietnamese capital, as tens of thousands of refugees arrived in the capital during the previous weeks. The numbers of refugees being held at the outskirts of Saigon were growing exponentially, and the government was attempting to prevent them from entering the city and causing chaos and panic among the residents. Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were literally at the city’s door, and soon the last major battle of the war was under way at Xuan Loc, only 35 miles to the northeast.

One of the first things I did after arriving in Saigon was to visit the U. S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), at the Ton Son Nhut air base, to get the military take on the situation – and to offer a vessel for evacuating some Vietnamese (along with my own family), from the country. The place was a beehive of activity. The American staff was obviously packing up, offices were being cleaned out, cardboard boxes cluttered the hall ways. It seemed mass confusion. Most dependents had already left the country, and it was clear that everything and everybody was being moved out.

I was referred, or shuffled around, to several offices manned by men in civilian clothing. None had the authority to accept my offer. Some said it sounded like it could be helpful, but they were noncommittal. Finally, after getting the classic bureaucratic run-around, I was given a phone number to call. I was told it was the number of the “Admiral” himself, and I should take my offer to him as he would make the decision with regard to any sea evacuation. I didn’t write the name down, but it was presumably the admiral in charge of all American military operations and contingency planning then ongoing in Vietnam.

One of the MACV staff allowed me to make the call from his office. The admiral, or whoever it was that answered, didn’t sound all that assertive or decisive, and his voice sounded very nervous. The gist of his message was (as if he were reading a script), that there was no evacuation of American forces or Embassy personnel going on, and no general evacuation of Americans or anybody else contemplated. A North Vietnamese invasion of the Saigon area was not expected or considered imminent, but the dependents of American embassy and military personnel were merely being sent home in a long overdue reduction in force – a simple precaution.

The admiral's answers simplified things for me. I could focus on getting my family out of Vietnam as quickly as possible by any means that presented itself.

On a previous visit, I’d already obtained a passport for my son. But I began the process of getting passports and exit-visas for my wife and daughter. My son was already registered as American citizen, but my daughter, who was only eight months old, remained to be registered as a citizen and, of course, didn't yet have a passport. Since, until very recently, I had intended to maintain a permanent home in Vietnam, my wife didn't have a passport either.

The line of passport and visa applicants at the American Embassy was becoming impossibly long. While I was standing in that line on the sidewalk outside the Embassy gate early on April 9^th, we all watched in amazement as a South Vietnamese fighter jet made two bombing passes over the Presidential Palace two or three blocks down the broad boulevard. This was definitely a bad sign. Fortunately, I was able to pick up my daughter's birth certificate and passport later that day after the bombing excitement, and after a brief resultant curfew was lifted. That second visit to the embassy that day was my last.

It was still necessary to get Vietnamese exit visas for my children and a Vietnamese passport for my wife. Unfortunately, the South Vietnamese bureaucracy was beginning to break down, and it soon became evident that I was not going to be able to get a passport for my wife. Luckily, I was able to get an exit visa for my son, but the situation had deteriorated by the time I was trying to get one for my daughter. The officials had stopped issuing exit visas to infants, saying that the Americans were “stealing” Vietnamese children. The main excuse for this change of attitude was that one of the early military evacuation flights, loaded with Vietnamese orphans, had crashed on takeoff and killed everybody on board. It made no difference to the officials that my daughter held an American passport.

On April 17^th, my son flew out of Saigon with some Vietnamese friends departing for Singapore. My boss and his wife kindly took him in until we could get to Singapore. But it was beginning to look as if my wife, daughter, and myself, were not going to get there. I began wondering what it was going to be like to be in Saigon when the South Vietnamese government fell and the Viet Cong and Northern armies marched in. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but it increasingly appeared I was going to find out.

My contacts with the American ex-pat community in Saigon had always been very limited. No other Americans lived in the community where our home was located, and I had no American friends with whom we socialized. Other than my visits to the Embassy to get passports for the kids, my only personal contacts with other Americans came through going out in the evenings to some bars on Cong Ly Street that served a respectable concentration of American ex-pats who lived in that area. Each evening there were fewer and fewer American patrons in evidence, and soon the only ones left were the very few who swore they were going to stay, hell or high water.

At home, of course, I listened to Armed Forces Radio and watched TV to try to keep up with events. I saw and listened to President Gerald Ford making his last minute pleas to Congress for military aid to prop up the South Vietnamese government and the hard pressed remnants of it’s army. I listened to the news reports that told of Congress’s refusal to appropriate more funds for the war, and finally their callous affirmative vote to cut off all funds entirely. I knew this was the final death knell for South Vietnam.

One night the American Ambassador appeared on Vietnamese TV with a reassuring message for the Vietnamese people. I could see his sole purpose was to prevent panic and despair among the population rather than convey any truth. Obviously, the end was fast approaching.

On Saturday, the 19th of April, 1975 I went out for a few beers to see if I could find any news. Everywhere I went, I was the only customer. I was the only customer in the Iron Butterfly Bar when another American happened in. He asked me if I'd been to the big meeting in a theater down town.

"What meeting?" I asked. He explained that "the general" had recently called and held a meeting for all remaining ex-military American residents of Saigon. At the meeting, he had some rather important things to say. The message was that Saigon was going down – and soon! And that if those remaining American holdouts knew what was good for them, they'd get out now. He'd told them to pack up their families and take them to the Tan Son Nhut main gate. There, he said, a bus would pick them up to pass through the gate and take them to a holding area. Then they would be flown out to the Philippines cost free.

"Unfortunately," I said, "My wife doesn't have a passports, and my daughter doesn't have an exit visa, and I'm not connected to the U.S. military or any government agency."

"That doesn't matter," he said. "You're an American, and that's all that's required. The general said we can take anybody with us we want – no questions asked."

I found this pretty difficult to believe, but it obviously provided a new straw of hope. So, early the next morning, I went to Tan Son Nhut Air Base to see if what he said was true. Indeed it was. I saw the military bus waiting outside the gate and got on. In a few minutes it was loaded with would-be refugees and took us through the gate to the holding area in the MACV area. There, off to the side of the gathering crowd, I found an American handing out papers to a small group of Vietnamese and a few Americans gathered around him. He confirmed what the fellow in the bar had told me. He handed me a very simple "affidavit" form.

"Just list all of your dependents on that affidavit," he said, "and have it signed by any Vietnamese." The only stipulation was that the Vietnamese gate guards would board the buses and remove all Vietnamese men who appeared to be of military age. This was incredible – even unbelievable! List as many people as you want to take with you, and have it signed by any Vietnamese! Wow! No passports or anything else were required. And he was handing these affidavits to Vietnamese too! I could see this was going to snowball in a hurry.

Immediately upon returning home I told my wife to pack up. Then I asked my 17 year old sister-in-law, Tuc, if she would like to go with us. She'd never dreamed of leaving the country until that very moment, but she decided to pack too. My eldest brother-in-law, Duc, signed the affidavit for us. Later that afternoon my little family stepped aboard the bus that stood waiting outside the main gate at Tan Son Nhut.

My wife's parents and brothers had accompanied us to the bus, and the leave-taking was a tearful one. Chi would never see her parents again. Duc, who signed our affidavit, was a National Policeman. Another brother was in the Vietnamese Navy. The youngest, also of military age, worked as a musician for a government agency – so none could accompany us.

The crowd at the MACV bowling alley and swimming pool area which served as a holding area numbered in the several hundreds when we arrived, though evacuation flights were landing and taking off every half hour or so. We spent that night there and most of the next day, dining on army field rations while awaiting our turn, as the number of refugees crowding in continued to swell.

Late on Monday, the 21^st of April, 1975, on the day that President Thieu resigned, we boarded an imposing Air Force C-141 Starlifter and flew out. Destination: Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.

***

All criticism of our government's Vietnam policy aside, I'll have to say this about the evacuation of Saigon and Vietnam – and the subsequent handling of refugee housing, feeding, processing, and final re-settlement. It was an extraordinarily complex and downright amazing undertaking. Though and awful lot deserving Vietnamese were left behind, I've got nothing but admiration for those who orchestrated the evacuation operations and pulled them off under the most urgent, trying, and dangerous of circumstances. The handling of such a massive number of refugees, with all the associated transport and logistic challenges, was nothing short of amazing. Our military, and the civilians involved, performed many miracles during that period, and the instances of outright heroism were far too numerous to count.

After all was said and done with regard to the Vietnam war – in the very end, when the war was lost, our government and the military performed miraculously in its last ditch endeavor to do the right thing. The evacuation was a great act of compassion and generosity on the part of all participants involved, followed by equally generous and compassionate acts by the American people that received those refugees into their midst.

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Chapter 1

Preparations and Non-Preparations

I had to chuckle when I read the date by which the Singapore immigration authorities wanted my wife and her sister to leave the republic: Friday the 13^th of February, 1976, a date not much favored by mariners as a prospective departure date. But, not being very superstitious, I seized on that date and determined that if we could possibly be ready by that then, it should, and would be, our departure date.

As it turned out, it was not possible for us to make that departure date stick. I dutifully obtained our sailing clearance for the thirteenth, but when that date rolled around, we were still at least one day or two from being ready to sail, if indeed it could be imagined that we were within weeks of being ready to sail. To tell the truth, we weren't anywhere near ready by any stretch of the imagination. However, I had decided that we could leave port and anchor in some nearby protected cove on the Malaysian side of the strait, where I could complete the necessary preparations, such as finishing up some critical carpentry and joinery work in the saloon and galley, which I had begun and would make our voyage a bit more comfortable. It was ridiculous that we had to even think of sailing before I'd finish the interior work on the boat, but we weren't leaving because we thought it was time to go. We were effectively being deported from the country. And I didn't want to have to beg more time. I was fed up with the extremely awkward situation we found ourselves in. I was fed up with what seemed a totally unnecessarily callous attitude on the part of Singapore's immigration department.

***

The authorities had been talking particularly tough of late, for we had already left the Republic after a previous ultimatum. I'd made a desperate attempt to "improve" my wife and sister-in-law's immigration status by sailing with them on the Semangat to a "foreign port." We'd departed on the 21^st of November, 1975, for Port Dickson, Malaysia. On our departure, the immigration authorities had met us by arrangement in Singapore's Eastern Quarantine anchorage and returned their travel documents.

My rationale for the trip was that the Semangat would sail foreign with my family as "crew." When we returned to Singapore, they would be in the Republic as crew members of a vessel rather than refugees. I reasoned that since the vessel was Singapore flagged, the authorities could hardly force it to leave the country, and my crew would be able to remain in Singapore under their crew status.

We arrived back in Singapore on December 1^st, and the plan had worked fine – to a point. But there was a major problem that I hadn't foreseen. Though my wife and her sister were allowed to stay in Singapore as crew members of the Semangat, they were not allowed to go ashore! They were "restricted to the ship," as we say. The authorities were not about to issue crew "shore passes" to any Vietnamese refugees among the crew!

That was a big disappointment, of course, and a big problem. Much to my disappointment, the whole family had been miserable for the entire cruise. We had sailed into a violent storm (a Sumatra), almost immediately after departing. The whole crew suffered from acute seasickness from the beginning, and never really got over it. The weather had continued bad and the seas choppy – even at the anchorage at Port Dickson. So, by the time we got back to Singapore, Chi and her sister, Tuc, were desperately looking forward to getting off the boat. Since we still had our comfortable rented house ashore – and there were no guards to keep them aboard – there was no way they were going to stay on the boat even for a single additional night. It just wasn't going to happen.

Naturally, I knew further immigration problems would soon be at hand. As was bound to happen in due course, a Singapore police boat soon paid a call on the Semangat, and discovered it crewless. The result was another ultimatum, directed at my employer, to get my wife and her sister out of the country.

When that happened, of course, I was again away, this time on a tug relief job. It was an emergency job that I couldn't turn down lest the company lose the charter. A relief captain was badly needed, as the current skipper had apparently got crossways with the quarry managers on Karimun Island, and they'd demanded he be relieved of command. The tug, Sea Mar III, was preparing to tow some barges loaded with granite gravel to Lho Sumawe at the northern tip of Sumatra. Not only was I the only relief captain available, the tug crew had apparently threatened to walk off and quit unless Captain Carr was sent over.

On the 9th of January I'd left Singapore for Karimun Island to take command of the tug. We didn't get back to Singapore until late on Saturday the 7^th of February – when I learned the company (Sea Mar), had managed to get an extension on the last demanded departure date for Chi and Tuc. The new expulsion date was Friday the 13^th – only six days away!

As we approached that fateful day, the crew of the Semangat had been living illegally ashore in Singapore for two and a half months.

When we boarded the Semangat on that Friday, however, fate itself had interposed in order to prevent our departure as per sailing clearance. As we paddled out to the Semangat in our little Malay sampan dingy on that day, I noticed the tiller laying over at an unnatural angle. Something definitely wasn’t right. When I climbed aboard, I found that the tiller no longer worked the rudder. In fact, at first I thought the whole rudder had come adrift and fallen off. I dove down for an inspection and was relieved to find the rudder still there, but totally loose on the stock. The steering was completely out of commission, and repairs would require several days – perhaps a week or more.

Only the night before my former boss, Captain Lucky, and his wife Aggie, had thrown a big going away party for us which the entire office staff attended, plus several other friends. To my discomfiture, the attendees were almost unanimous in their appeals to me to abandon my hair-brained plan to sail away with my family. Many of them actually thought I was about to commit suicide, taking my whole family with me. Both Lucky and Aggie put considerable pressure on me to change my plans. Lucky urged me to fly to Guam with my family and, after getting them settled, return to my job. He said he'd be glad to look after the Semangat in my absence.

Despite my firm arguments that the dangers were not nearly as great as they all believed, I came away from the celebration with with a heavy heart and many misgivings – and Chi and Tuc had grown much more apprehensive of the impending voyage than they had been before. However, I had hardened my determination to sail with all hands as planned. But, with the rudder out of commission on the very day of the intended departure, things had abruptly changed – I had a good face-saving excuse to send my family to Guam by air. Despite the tremendous extra expense it would entail, the abrupt change nonetheless seemed to lift a great weight from my shoulders.

When we had discovered the broken rudder, I had looked aloft and asked myself, "Is Somebody up there trying to tell me something?"

It seemed the Man upstairs had sided with the neigh Sayers at the party. I was off the hook as far as sailing right then was concerned, and the way was cleared to change my entire plan of action. It did not release Chi and Tuc from their need leave the country, however, so I decided they would fly to Guam with the children after all, as Lucky, Aggie, and several others at the party had urged. I would stay behind and complete the work on the boat, and then sail to Guam alone.

There were three major problems with the new scenario. First, it meant that my destination would become written in stone. Had we all sailed together, we would have had total flexibility in both our itinerary and ultimate destination. If we decided to go to Guam, we could take our time about it and stop in as many ports as we saw fit. In fact, we might have ended up a genuine cruising family yet, which is what I had ultimately envisioned in the first place, despite the discouraging experience on the Port Dickson trip.

Secondly, with my family in Guam, I could not afford to dilly-dally, or have the luxury of stopping in all the interesting places I would have to pass on the way. Essentially, I'd have to make a bee-line for Guam – a destination I wasn't particularly fond of. My only real purpose would be to rejoin my family, and not to enjoy the cruise itself.

Thirdly, had we all sailed together, we would have had enough money for an extended period of cruising. But now, a large chunk of our money had been spent on airplane tickets, and I had to give most of the rest to my wife so she could pay rents and the other costs of living ashore for however long it took me to get to Guam. As for my sailing budget, it was going to be a very tight one. And I knew that when I arrived in Guam, we'd probably be just about broke. In fact, there was no guarantee that the family wouldn't be in dire financial distress by the time I got there. And that's not all.

I couldn't think of anywhere in the world that I'd rather not have had for a destination than Guam, as it was against all prevailing winds and currents. But I had little choice. Guam, it would be, as that was the nearest American soil to which I could send my family. No other country in Southeast Asia would accept Vietnamese without passports, unless they just happened to drift up onto their shores. And if they did that, they were usually required to stay in a refugee camp that often resembled a concentration camp. And Chi and Tuc had friends in Guam, so it wouldn't be as hard on them as it would be going off to a completely strange place.

***

The loneliness set in long before the voyage was begun. It set in the moment I saw my little family off at the airport on Monday the 16^th. It was a tearful departure they made – Chi, Tuc, Jimmy, then seven, and Lilia, two. Life had been harsh on them the year past. What with being driven from our comfortable home in Saigon, where Chi had been forced to abandon almost all of her worldly possessions, then the refugee camps, first in the Philippines and then Guam, followed by months of trouble and expense getting to Singapore, all to no lasting avail. That would seem to be enough! Now Chi had been forced to leave another home, again having to abandon or give away most of her accumulated possessions, because there wasn't enough room on the boat for everything and precious little could be taken on the plane.

After seeing them off on their flight, I drove back to the now deserted house. The feeling of loss overwhelmed me as I contemplated the quiet, empty rooms, where only hours before Chi, Tuc, and the children had lived, laughed, and played. It was too much! I could not keep the tears from welling up in my eyes and overflowing. It all seemed so cruel and unfair. I quickly packed the few remaining boxes of our possessions into the car and returned to the boat, never to see the house again. The thought of being separated from my family again, after going through such a trying year, was difficult to bear. I couldn't have spent another night in that house thinking of it. I needed the boat now, as a heartbroken child needs his mother. Only the boat could help me forget for a time my overwhelming sorrow.

In order to keep my mind from dwelling upon Chi and the kids, I dove into the work of repairing the rudder with great vigor and determination. Diving down with a mask and crescent wrench, I managed to remove the steel strap which was keeping me from losing the rudder entirely, having secured it first with a line made fast on deck. I then managed to heave the rudder up and inspect it more thoroughly to see what had gone wrong. I discovered that in addition to the one bolt that passed through the one strap, holding it to the rudder stock, there had been only three more half-inch bolts holding the stock to the rudder. They had all passed through the stock and into the rudder in a fore and aft direction and therefore had been subject to all the bending stresses that were inherent in the pressure in the water working against the rudder. It was no wonder that they had succumbed to metal fatigue long before such failures should have been expected.

The next day I went to a machine shop and had them start making three more straps with which to secure the rudder to the stock. When they were made, I set to work setting the rudder back in shape. I set all three straps into it and through-bolted them with several half-inch bolts, and, having had the rudder's stock itself drilled for through bolts, I was able to make a very strong union between the rudder and the sturdy stainless steel stock. Then, I also replaced the three long bolts which passed through the stock and traversed to the after edge of the rudder. I thus had a rudder which I felt would be as strong as it was practical to make it.

The work on the rudder took several days due to the trips that I had to make to the machine shop and the time that I'd had to wait for the straps to be completed. When the rudder was ready, it was fortunate that spring tide was at hand, as I was able to have a friend with an outboard motorboat tow the Semangat alongside the yacht club jetty. There, with the kind assistance of some friends, Captain and Mrs. Cary Williams, I scrubbed the bottom of the Semangat as the tide receded, leaving her high and dry. Then I restored the repaired rudder to its proper place as the Williams applied the antifouling paint to the boat's bottom. I supplied the beer to keep the work progressing at a cheerful pace.

We also painted the waterline with red boot topping and the upper hull with a fresh coat of white paint. The Semangat looked wonderful, and now I could rest assured that everything regarding the hull was sound. As a precaution, I had pulled the middle bolt from the bobstay chain plate and found it to be in good shape, but still replaced it with a new one. Since the one I pulled looked so good, I didn't bother to check the others, assuming they would be in about the same condition. Next morning at high tide, I was able to motor the Semangat back to her mooring, confident that my rudder was as strong as it could ever be.

For the first several days after the departure of my family, I worked hard both day and night on board getting things shipshape. Then I slacked off a little after I'd assured myself that the boat was sound in hull and rig. In the evenings I would visit a local bar or have a few beers at the yacht club, usually closing the place up and returning to the Semangat in the wee hours of the morning. I was well satisfied with my work thus far and felt that I needed to relax a little before making the final plunge. I was also having parts made for a steering wheel steering gear that I intended to install. I bought a nice teak wheel that I stored aboard to be installed at a later date after sailing from Singapore. I bought more charts and spent some time actually planning my route, and finally I set a sailing date, as I was getting anxious to be on my way.

In setting the sailing date, I left myself some time, with the excuse that I needed to be sure not to overlook any details in my planning. The pressure was somewhat off the entire affair, thanks to Chi and the family being safely in Guam and among friends they'd made during our previous stay there. The date I'd set was Sunday, the 7^th of March. Another excuse for the delay was that I was a little worried about departing during the strength of the northeast monsoon, and having to beat against what would be an almost perpetual rough northeasterly sea and swell. The northeast monsoon would soon be moderating, I thought, and I figured that would work in my favor, so there was no rush.

***

As my sailing day approached, I had to listen to more pleas of friends to abandon my plans, but I hardened my determination to sail on schedule. My work slacked off even more, however, as my continued and increased evening drinking began to affect the work to be done the following day. About this time I ran into an Australian named Peter, who was staying at the Cameron Hotel where I often went for a few beers. He and I hit it off pretty well and became regular drinking buddies. He was a vacationing supply boat captain and was also quite interested in sailing, so we had a lot in common to talk about.

Peter also had a pretty intriguing story to tell about himself. He claimed to have been released from a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp just a few months earlier. Whether his story was true or not, it was very interesting in that he claimed he had seen at least four hundred American prisoners of war just prior to his release in the fall of 1975, at a time when both sides were claiming that all prisoners of war had already been released or exchanged. Peter himself had been an Australian naval officer, and had already been discharged from active duty when he and the American helicopter pilot he was hitching a ride with were shot down over Laos. Peter was a most likeable type and didn't seem to be the type of fellow who would fabricate a tale. I'm sorry now that I did not take a greater interest in his story and make some notes on the details, as most of it is now lost to me. I can't even remember his last name, although he claimed to be from a rather prominent Australian farming family.

Peter was a beer drinker, which is sort of a national trait with Australians, and the two of us did put away some beer during my last week in Singapore. Peter became more and more interested in my proposed adventure, and, as time went on, he became something of enigma. It was one of those situations where you like someone and greatly enjoy their company, but all of a sudden just can't seem to get away from them. Late one beer-saturated evening at the bar of the Cameron Hotel, during a moment of weakness, I had made the mistake of accepting Peter as a crew on my voyage. I regretted it immediately, as I was looking forward to being alone for a change, but we had even shook hands on the deal.

We closed up the bar in the wee hours of the following morning, and I returned to the Semangat in pretty bad shape. The next morning I awoke at about 0900 to the sound of the approach of the yacht club launch. My head was bursting, but I knew I wouldn't get that last and most needed hour of sleep that I so desperately required, as I heard the sound of Peter's voice hailing me. Before I had pulled on a pair of shorts he had climbed aboard, and the launch was away. Peter was in the companionway, a six-pack of beer in one hand and a sack of lunch in the other. My crew had reported aboard for duty!

Then began a real chain of beer drinking, self-abuse. Though I would have honored my deal with Peter to crew for me, it soon became apparent that to do so would be a terrible mistake. It seemed that I spent the next few days trying politely to tell Peter that I needed rest, that I had work to do, last-minute preparations to make, fresh provisions to get in, etc. I desperately longed for privacy and a full night's sleep, but all to no avail.

Each morning after an increasingly abandoned night-before of drinking, Peter would arrive early with his ever-ready six-pack of beer and a few little odds and ends for his lunch in a little bag. I would suffer through it and in the end would take him back to the Cameron Hotel just to get him off the boat.

Then, of course, I would once again weaken and end up closing up the bar before returning to the comfort of my bunk on the Semangat, once again to be awakened before I had been able to sleep it off – and the whole routine would be repeated. Meanwhile, by some small increments, I was getting on, as best I could, with my last-minute preparations to sail.

There must have been some hidden psychological fearfulness at work deep inside my subconscious which permitted me to allow this crazy chain of events to continue. Certainly, I really had nobody but myself to blame for it. But I suppose I was fearful and apprehensive about my fast approaching hour of reckoning, and was subconsciously preparing myself in order to delay my departure or back out of it entirely.

Whatever the case, I had enough wits about me to know that it must end, and that I had to pull myself together and sail on schedule. By the time Saturday, the eve of my sailing date, arrived, I still hadn't managed to get any fresh provisions aboard for the voyage. By then, nobody believed I was going to sail on Sunday the 7^th – least of all, Peter. Even I had doubted it for a while, but I now made up my mind to surprise everybody by sailing as planned. That would be my only means of solving an increasingly difficult dilemma. I was highly annoyed at the present state of affairs and particularly annoyed at myself and my weak behavior. I decided I'd carry on as before for one more day, just as if what everybody suspected (that I would ultimately fail to follow through on my plans to sail to Guam), was indeed going to be the case. Peter showed up as usual with his six-pack long before I'd managed to sleep off my hangover.

How he could do it I don't know. I was sick, and this time I felt so bad that I had to tell Peter that he could drink his beer alone on deck, while I took a little nap. But no sooner had I lain down, I heard shouts of alarm from the shore and Peter yelled that one of the other yachts had come adrift from its mooring.

I went topside, and seeing that the boat was near at hand, cranked up the Semangat's engine, and we got underway to rescue the maverick. We overtook the wayward craft, a beautiful forty-foot fiberglass cutter, and, after Peter jumped aboard the other boat, took her in tow. The helm of the other craft had been hard over, and before Peter could realize what the problem was, the sleek yacht had overtaken and veered into the side of the sluggish Semangat, doing some serious damage to the bulwark. We finally got the situation under control and the boat back on her mooring.

When we had again secured the Semangat, I threw up my hands and joined Peter for a beer. After downing his six-pack, we went ashore and found that the owner of the boat we'd rescued was nowhere to be found. I had to resign myself to the fact that not only would I not receive any thanks for my good deed, but I would not even have the satisfaction of letting the owner know that I had damaged my own boat in the effort. We drank the rest of the morning and early afternoon away at the yacht club, then off we went to the Cameron Hotel bar, where we continued drinking until closing time. I knew this would be the last night I would be submitting myself to this drunken spree.

Peter and I talked of the prospective voyage, and he laughed and said, "You know your not sailing tomorrow!" To which I responded, as casually as I could, simply, "Maybe not. But we'll see."

I was never really sure whether or not Peter was serious about wanting to go with me as crew. But I certainly didn't want to encourage him at this point. I didn't say, "Oh, yes, I am going to sail tomorrow," for fear he'd run up and get his gear and say, "Well, I'm ready!"

Peter was a go-cart enthusiast, and he was planning to get up early the next morning to go watch the go-cart races. He invited me to go along, saying that they were a hell a lot of fun to watch, but I declined. I knew that even if I weren't sailing the next day, I would be feeling miserable and couldn't fathom how Peter could be feeling any better. I certainly had to admire him. He could put away the beer, and it never seemed to bother him. He could drink all day and most of the night, then get up early and go to the go-cart races and drink some more! I just wasn't in his league, although I'd always sort of fancied myself somewhat of a beer drinker.

Seeing me out to the car, Peter again asked, "Are you sure you don't want me to come by and get you for the races?" I was beat! When I got into the car, I almost felt like I had to hang onto the wheel tightly just to keep from falling down in the seat and going to sleep.

"No, thanks Peter," I replied, "Tomorrow is a big day for me, you know. But I appreciate the invitation. Hope you enjoy them."

Peter looked at me and smiled skeptically. "You're not going anywhere tomorrow," he reiterated, "I'll be down after the go-carts – about eleven or twelve. I could be there earlier if you need any help."

"No, that won't be necessary, Peter, I can handle it okay," I said, "Good night and good luck!"

"See you tomorrow!" Peter reaffirmed, as I slowly pulled away from the curb. I was sorry to be seeing this cheerful friend for the last time. My, how he could put away that beer! I had some pangs of guilt at the thought that he might have been sincere in the wanting to sail with me. But he hadn't been anything but a hindrance. Time and again I had told him that I had work to do or things to get, and he'd sloughed it off and talked me into another beer, and another, until I'd lose all my steam and forget, just for one more day, about preparations.

Now I was going to make good on sailing, preparations or no preparations. It was late, well past two in the morning, as I pulled up to Lucky's house to return the car I had been using. Lucky was away on a business trip to Japan, and I, swaying on unsteady legs, turned the keys over to Aggie, after waking her from a sound sleep. I thanked her for the use of the car and wished there was a way by which I could thank her and Lucky properly. All the kindnesses they had shown me as friends first and foremost, and as employers, were simply beyond any simple thanks. They had seen me cheerfully through thick and thin during my troubled times, and I had them to thank for more than I could say.

During the past year I had spent many months away from my job, attending to my personal problems, but never once had I been removed from the company payroll, and my job was always waiting for me. I had not resigned until the week prior to Friday the 13^th of February, when we had originally intended to sail, and even then Aggie had insisted that I accept a bonus which I had not earned in any stretch of imagination. That bonus had covered my family's air fair to Guam and more.

I now felt strangely awkward saying good-bye perhaps for the last time ever to this wonderful person, under such imposing and inconsiderate circumstances in the dead of the night. I told her that I would be sailing sometime before noon. She wished me luck, and we parted as if it meant that I was merely going out for a Sunday sail, to return later the same afternoon.

Of course I was really dragged out but somewhat sober by the time I had walked the two miles or so to the yacht club. My little Malay sampan, which I used as a dingy, was bobbing and bumping lightly on the dock pilings when I arrived. I struggled to stay awake as I paddled toward the Semangat, mindful of the time I had once fallen asleep while traversing the fifty yards or so from the dock to the boat after a similar night if drinking. On that occasion I had awakened sometime later some three miles up the channel, having been swept up the Johor Strait by the flooding tidal current! It had taken more than hour to paddle back, and dawn was breaking by the time I climbed aboard the Semangat on that occasion.

This time I had managed to stay awake – resisting the urge to lean back and relax for a moment, for a moment of relaxation would have certainly brought on sleep at the paddle. I was asleep as soon as I got into my bunk. It was the last night I was to spend in Singapore waters at my familiar mooring in Johor Strait.

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Chapter 2

Getting Underway

I awoke at about nine with the usual throbbing head, with the realization that this was Sunday, the 7^th of March – the big day! The effort of getting out of my bunk was a painful one, and I just wished I could get that extra hour or two of rest that my body was so desperately craving. But I knew better than to hesitate. I gained my feet, my knees weak beneath me, and headed for the galley to put on coffee water.

Struggling to collect my senses, I attempted to sort out what had to be done before getting underway. My mind seemed to be full of cobwebs and all sorts of other debris. Only one more five-gallon jerry can had to be filled with fresh water, and that would be it, I thought. Everything else was about as taken care of as I was likely to have it before sailing. I got the jerry can out and put it up in the cockpit and paused for my coffee, which I drank while assessing the wind and current situation.

There was a slight northeasterly breeze, and the current was not unfavorable. I couldn't ask for much better sailing conditions for getting out and underway. The sky was clear, and, all in all, aside from the way I felt, it showed signs of developing into a perfect sailing day. The coffee didn't do me any good. My head still felt as if my brain were trying to swell and burst out of my skull, each heartbeat was a stabbing pain in my temples, and my stomach felt as if I'd dined on gravel the previous evening – and as if somehow during the night those rocks had been heated to an incredible degree. But I forced myself to do what I had to do.

I shoved off in the sampan with my jerry can and soon returned with it filled. That topped off my water supply. The boat had a thirty-gallon, stainless steel water tank, and I had a ten-gallon plastic water barrel in the cockpit which I had lashed to the mizzen mast. Opposite the barrel, also lashed to the mizzen mast, was a ten-gallon-sized plastic garbage can which I had filled about two-thirds full of fresh water. Then there were my four five-gallon jerry cans, also made of plastic, which I stowed below. These could also be shifted around as inside ballast, if necessary, to slightly change the trim of the vessel. Thus I had a total of about seventy gallons of fresh water aboard.

Thanks to my wife’s efforts before Friday the 13^th had intervened, there were plenty of provisions aboard, in the form of canned goods, rice, beans, and dry stores, but an utter lack of fresh provisions with the exception of onions, garlic, and a very few eggs. I wasn't too worried about the lack of fresh vegetables and fruits, as I figured that my first passage would be relatively short and I'd have a chance soon enough to stock up. Tioman Island – which was not far up the coast of west Malaysia – was to be my first destination. It would only be a two or three day sail from Singapore.

As I’d paddled back toward the Semangat with the filled jerry can, I carefully took in, for the last time perhaps, the familiar sights and feel of the surrounding land and water. The other boats moored about, the clubhouse and the jetty, the greenery of Singapore's northeastern side and adjacent islands across the narrow strait of Johor. I wasn't happy to leave this place. My refugee immigration problems aside, Singapore had been very good to me, and I'd grown to think of it almost as home during the past five years. I would miss it, and I had no idea when, if ever, I would return. I had friends there too, whom I regretted leaving. Lucky and Aggie Wilhelm, I could rate among the best that I'd ever had or was ever likely to have. And there were others too. Would I see any of them again? I paused near the trimaran "El Gringo," and called out to Lom, the Thai wife of Frank Shepard, who was my only other live board neighbor at the time, in hopes of being able to say “so long” to at least one more friend. Frank was out of town working on an oil rig, and there was no answer from Lom, who apparently was still asleep or had spent the night ashore with friends.

Frank had given me an M-2 carbine and some ammunition to take along with me on my voyage in case of need. I was grateful for it, as until then I had no arms at all on board. He had brought it down from Thailand with him in El Gringo, and having no further cruising plans at the time, he passed it on. He was happy, I'm sure, just to be rid of it, since if the Singapore authorities ever found out about it, he’d probably have been in deep trouble.

With no response from Lom, it looked as though I would be spared all last minute good-byes. The clubhouse had been deserted except for the hired help and one or two early comers of the Sunday sailing crowd. I decided against knocking on the deck of the El Gringo to try to awaken Lom if she would be sleeping soundly. I thought that it would, after all, be easier to sail away without any good-byes at all.

It seemed a little strange, almost unreal, that I should be about to depart upon a lengthy, perhaps bold, even dangerous, solo journey at that moment. So alone, even now before departure. Somehow it just wasn't the way one would tend to picture such an occasion in his mind. It seemed that there should be at least a modest knot of people standing by to see me off, waving farewell from the little jetty and watching my every move with admired interest as I made my final preparations for that ultimate moment.

But there I was, a very solitary soul, making very solitary motions as if I were an abandoned outcast sneaking away from a hostile shore, dipping my paddle carefully and quietly as I propelled the little sampan toward the Semangat for the last time amidst these familiar environs. It wasn't as if I'd planned it that way either, as I had certainly not wished for such a totally joyless departure scene. I had rather allowed it to happen or perhaps subconsciously willed it. My best friend, Lucky, was out of town as was my brother Pat, who had been staying with us at our Changi house – and Chi and the rest of the family were in Guam. Other friends, I had simply neglected, and never informed of my intentions.

Aggie and Peter were the only ones aware of my plan to sail that day. I'd already bid Aggie farewell during the night, and Peter hadn’t taken my determination to sail seriously. Indeed, my primary concern was that Peter might turn up at any moment with his six-pack of beer and sack lunch. I wanted to be gone before that could happen. "Thank God for the go-cart races," I told myself. I chuckled when I thought of Peter coming down as he inevitably would. I would have liked to see his face when he arrived on the scene and looked out only to see an empty and forlorn mooring buoy where the Semangat had been.

It was with a grim feeling of dull satisfaction that I thought of it. Yet, at the same time I was melancholy at the thought. He was a friend, and we had put a lot of beer away together. If he turned up before I got underway, perhaps he would persuade me to share one more six-pack, maybe even delay another day – or two. But I didn't want that. I couldn't have it, I told myself, for I must sail and I must sail now! My throbbing head reminded me of that, and it hardened me to my commitment.

Back aboard, I stowed my jerry can and mechanically set about removing and stowing the sail covers. Then I hoisted the sampan aboard, using the mainsail halyard and hand winch. I stowed it inverted on the coach roof, lashing it down securely. I then removed the sail gaskets from the furled sails, sweating beer in the increasingly hot sun, then pulled the yankee up to the forestay and fastened all the halyards to the heads of the sails. The moment of reckoning was fast approaching.

I stood for a moment trying to get my thoughts together in my pounding brain. Was I forgetting anything? Was I really ready? I knew there was a lot of stowing and securing to be done down below, which should be done before getting underway. Hardly any of the stores or boxes of household goods were properly stowed and secured. But I'd have to get that later, after departure. There was no time now. I glanced apprehensively toward the beach and the jetty, fearing that Peter might arrive before I'd finished. Nobody in sight. Good!

Could it really be, I asked myself, that I was actually going to hoist the sails and cast off the mooring line and sail away for good? It seemed I must be dreaming. It didn't seem real or possible that it could be that simple! Just hoist the sails and cast off!

Wavering, I hesitated for a fleeting moment. Did I really want to do it? Doubt. Faint heartedness. Headache. Sweat! If I waited just a little while, Peter would be there and I'd have an excuse to delay, perhaps ultimately back out entirely.

Then I grabbed the main halyard and pulled! Up went the main sail! My heart seemed weak and my knees seemed to be trembling as the sail filled slightly, and the boat began to surge forward as I winched the sail tight. I jumped to the main sheet and slacked until the sail fluttered along with my heart. That was it. The main was up, and I wasn't going to take it down for a while! Next, I hoisted the mizzen, hanging on the halyard to get the sail taut. Then came the club jib, and the boat again jumped to life, straining at her mooring.

Then I threw the mooring off, watching it and its buoy splash into the water and slide aft along the side, our fastening to Singapore was severed! We were under way! I raced back to the cockpit and took charge of the tiller, sheeting in the main as we lay to on the starboard tack standing out into the channel. We were off at last! There was no turning back now!

My headache seemed to disappear and my body to drink in new life and vigor as I felt the surge of power gathering in the sails and we heeled gently over. I sheeted all sails in hard and ran close hauled out into Johor Channel for a moment, then came about onto the port tack to head out of the channel, again close hauled in the gathering northeasterly breeze. As soon as we were steadied on our course, heading toward the Johor River Channel, I rushed forward and hoisted the yankee, and returned to the tiller where I leaned with satisfaction as the Semangat seemed to buckle down as if she were determined to make a spectacular departure.

We were now under full sail, and the breeze was fine, as we seemed to glide over the calm water. I glanced back one last time toward Changi Yacht Club. I wondered if there might be just one person there to take note of our graceful departure – the beginning of our grand adventure. I say "our" and speak as if there were perhaps several of us aboard. But there was only "me." But it was me and the Semangat – and I speak of "us" always in the first person plural, for she was to be both my home and companion, with a life of her own, in which we would blend together for many miles and many days and weeks as we sailed eastward.

The Semangat, my little ship, my friend, the very key to survival and my essence of existence. In her I was seldom to feel the loneliness that had stalked me until that final gesture of casting off the mooring at the Changi Yacht Club. I often enough regretted that I could not share the joy that I felt in her with Chi and the children, but total loneliness could not impose itself upon me then or ever, as long as the Semangat was under me.

When we rounded Changi point, we had a fair quartering breeze which steadily increased to a healthy force four and had us fairly bounding along in the still smooth waters of Johor River. I eased the sheets and let her run. Off to starboard was Changi Beach, and I wondered if anybody at least momentarily looked seaward to witness the spectacle of our passing. If so, those early bathers would think that we were out for a Sunday sail of little more significance than their own Sunday outing at the beach. I scanned the beach with my binoculars, exultation surging in me, tempered only slightly with moroseness and melancholy. “Good-bye Singapore!” I said to myself. “Good-bye.”

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Chapter 3

Raking Past Horsburgh

I set our course toward the southeast and away from the island of the Lion City. I had got underway just at eleven o’clock in the morning (1100), and was past the Angler Bank buoy by 1210 and into fairly open water. We entered Singapore Strait well east of the Johor Bank buoy and headed east for Horsburgh Light where Singapore Strait opens to the South China Sea.

The wind continued to increase, which made for fast sailing in spite of an adverse tidal current in the strait. But we were heeled over to such an angle that all of the gear and stores down below soon where in a jumble. When the wind really caught hold, I heard objects crashing and shifting down there and dreaded what I would find when I was able to go down to assess the situation. Finally, when I got the rig balanced out to sail herself, I lashed the tiller and went below to see how things looked.

As expected, it was chaos – absolute shambles! This was hardly a seamanlike situation. Everybody knows that a vessel should be secured for sea before departure. But this merely shows what a sad state of mind I had been in during those final hectic days of non-preparations. I hardly knew where to begin, but I dug in. There was a large jar of sugar that had fallen on the cabin sole and broken. Sugar was spread all over the galley floor and was shifting down into the bilge. I swept up what I could and let the rest sweeten the bilge water. I couldn't stay below long enough to do much, as the traffic situation in Singapore Strait is never very stagnant, so I was soon back up on watch letting my senses take in the beautiful situation that I found myself in – alone on my own little boat, on a beautifully clear day with a breeze calculated to get us off to a good start. What a lift my spirits had received. We were full and away!

The breeze soon freshened a little too much, however, increasing to a force five or six. I didn't relish the idea of straining my rig too far at this particular time. We were coming close to dipping the lee rail, and the Semangat has a lot of freeboard, so I lowered the yankee to ease her a bit. Even with the sail shortened we continued clipping along at about five or six knots.

As we approached Horsburgh, the tidal current became increasingly strong, setting westward – the wrong direction. I wanted to leave the strait on the north side of Horsburgh as there are numerous dangers to the south of it. But as we approached, it became obvious that we were too far south to make it without first tacking the northwestward. The wind was still strong from the northeast and we were as close to it as we could point, almost making an easterly course good on the port tack. When I hauled around to the starboard tack to gain northing, the current set me westward at a discouraging rate – back the way I had come – although my heading was almost due north.

We continued on the starboard tack until I thought we were far enough north to pass Horsburgh safely on the next try. Then we came about again onto the port tack and headed eastward. But again we just couldn't quite make it. By the time we were up to Horsburgh, we were still too far south to pass safely. So, there was nothing to do but try once again. And again we were swept back toward Singapore by the current while gathering northing. This time I stayed on the starboard tack until we practically grounded on rock islands on the coast of Malaysia which formed the north shore of Singapore Strait.

Of course, we were forced well westward again, but I felt sure we could make it this time. If not, we'd just have to make a wide detour and go around Horsburgh's southern side or wait until the tidal current finally slacked and reversed itself sufficiently to make the passage. The detour to the south would cost us, as Tioman Island lay toward the north of Horsburgh. So I was determined to make it this time if it could be made.

Things looked good for awhile, but by the time we were again approaching Horsburgh, which is a lighthouse set atop a rocky island, our chance of clearing it was again beginning to look very doubtful. It would be close, and we were being set southward by the strong northeast wind. Our leeway was our enemy on that treacherous lee shore, and there was nothing I could do about it. And we were getting choppy seas now from the South China Sea, which helped knock us down to leeward. We bore on in spite of my doubts. I could see that we could make it if I could only point up another half a point.

The rocks were getting closer and the wind was whipping up white water around them. It was getting dark now, and those rocks and breakers looked threatening as hell. The wind was still whistling at a good force six through the rigging. The time for a decision was at hand. Should I play it safe and take off one more time? A slight miscalculation and we'd be up against a rocky lee shore with no escape. My efforts were beginning to tell on me too. The night before, the morning hangover, added to a lack of food, were beginning to take a toll, perhaps affecting my judgment.

In what might have been an act of desperation, I decided to take a chance. We were no more than one hundred yards from the rocks and the pounding surf when I ran forward and pulled the yankee back up. I hope everything holds, I told myself, as I leaped back to the tiller. The next minute would tell the tale – whether the extra sail would allow us that extra half point necessary to pull us safely through.

The Horsburgh light seemed to be tapping me on the shoulder in the gathering darkness. Its powerful beam sweeping past effected momentary daylight, illuminating the sails and the horrors of the situation that my laboring vessel and I now faced. I could see and hear the waves crashing on the rocks. The wind howled, and the Semangat heeled frightfully. But as she heeled, she headed higher into the wind. But would she hold? Would the wind and seas beat her head down again? I had no way of knowing, as I had never had the Semangat in such a critical situation before. She had never really been put to this sort of test. Would the wind and sea force her onto the rocks? I was worried that the strain would be too much for her – that something in the rig would carry away – a shroud would part – and I had visions of my voyage ending right here on the north shore of Horsburgh.

But she held! She performed like a champ. We were no longer being set down toward the rocks, and I could see that we would soon be out of danger – if everything held. We must have been doing seven knots through the water, but it seemed as if it were ages before I could really breathe easily in the knowledge that if something broke, at least we would not drift immediately ashore on Horsburgh. Yard by painful yard, we gained distance from the rocky beach as we clawed off, bounding eastward into the comforting sea room that only a sailor can appreciate – where there's nothing to leeward but water and sky.

We finally passed Horsburgh at about 2145, and, once past, I could think about easing her off again. I could also take stock of the reality that we were now at sea. It was rough. The seas were running about four to eight feet in height. Had I been on a large ship I might have referred to them as moderate – not much more than slight – but they were rough for me now, as we were close hauled, jumping right into them, which makes for the roughest kind of riding in a small sailboat. And I was beginning to feel the effects of it.

Combined with my already beaten down physical condition, this particular state of sea, and my angle of attack, was not helping it a bit. I was dog tired and wanted to sleep, but because of the traffic which I could see, and the ships that were not yet in sight, which were all heading for the Horsburgh light and to or from the Singapore Strait, I could not relax. There was a perpetual procession of ships marching down from Hong Kong and the Luzon Straits, making a beeline for Horsburgh Light. I could see several ships up to the northeast coming our way, and some approaching from the southeast, not to mention those behind us on their way out of Singapore Strait. There would be no rest for a while yet.

To shorten sail, I decided to take down the main and proceed throughout the night under headsails and mizzen. I discovered that Semangat found her head at just slightly south of east, which seemed to me as good a course as any, east being the fasted way across and out of the shipping lanes. Few ships would be approaching from that direction, and perhaps I'd be able to catch a few winks of sleep later on.

Fortunately, I didn't have to steer. The Semangat could steer herself as long as the wind was anywhere from four to seven points off the bow. My fears that she may not be able to do so in rough seas were quickly dispelled. I hadn't yet figured out how we were going to manage sailing free, as we had neither self-steering gear nor twin headsails. I knew somehow I'd devise a way as I had no desire to spend long hours at the tiller. Thus far, since departing Singapore, I had not spent more than two hours actually manning the helm, and that’s how I hoped to sail during the whole voyage if possible.

Once we'd more or less got steadied down on our course, with Horsburgh safely astern, I prepared hot chocolate and sat for a while in the companionway, sipping it and nibbling soda crackers and cheese. It was my first bite of solid food since about noon the day before. We were really being tossed around, and I was feeling none too good. Obviously, the northeast monsoon was still very much in charge in this corner of the South China Sea.

I put off until the morning any serious thoughts as to what my first destination was going to be. As mentioned, I had been planning on Tioman Island. Sailors always seem to be partial to islands – especially tropical ones with coconut palms and sparkling beaches and the like. I thought Tioman, off the east coast of West Malaysia, would be a good jumping off place from which to seriously begin crossing the south China Sea and shooting perhaps for Brunei or North Borneo. I figured with predominately northeasterly winds I could pretty much make a straight easterly shot of it from there towards a point somewhere in the midsection of Sarawak and thence up along the coast of Borneo, to Brunei, which I figured would be my next destination. Maybe somewhere along the line, the southwest monsoon would begin manifesting itself and help me make some northing. But I wasn't sure now. I was already east of the longitude of Tioman, and I was beginning to have second thoughts about relinquishing any longitude. My sights were set eastward, and we were heading east at a handsome rate of speed.

The time came, not too far into the later hours of the night, when I could stand it no longer. I needed to get some sleep. I was tired, sleepy, and feeling sick. I brought my bedroll up and spread it on the coach roof on the weather side of my sampan, which was the high side, and lashed myself to the grab rail. There I laid down and covered myself with a poncho against the spray. There was no traffic threatening, but I spent an uneasy night, starting awake at frequent intervals to look around for dangers – the stars above continually informing me that we were still headed eastward.

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Chapter 4

At Sea At Last!!

Morning dawned fine and clear, and I felt quite rested in spite of the many times I had been aroused, the tossing and turning, and the spray hitting me occasionally in the face. I’d had to lie on the weather side of the coach roof as it was the high side and relatively level. With the boat heeling about twenty degrees to starboard, I was still half lying against the sampan amidships. Frequent seas would slap the side of the bow, and quite often I would get a facial shower. I was a little sore from the hard bed, but that didn't bother me. The thrill of awakening to a sunrise such as the one into which we were headed, and the sight of the sea and sky all around made me forget the discomforts of the night. There wasn't a bit of land in sight nor a ship or sail other than my own. I had the entire sea, the world itself, it seemed, to myself for the first time in my life.

The wind was still fresh out of the northeast and the seas were still running four to six feet and more. By all indications, however, I had made a good run during the night and hoped that I'd made a fairly good easterly course. I set my watch to minus eight (-8) zone time in my enthusiasm to feel far and gone from Singapore. Time wise, Singapore is an oddball (though this was changed some years later). It kept minus seven hours and thirty minutes zone time, and I’d always been annoyed at this half hour time change whenever entering or leaving Singapore. I never could understand why they and Malaysia wanted to be a half hour out of step. I don’t know whether it was a legacy of the British colonial era, or a statement of Singapore’s subsequent independence. I suppose they had their reasons, but it always seemed awkward where navigation and ship time were concerned. But now I corrected that situation – or so I thought – on my ship.

At about a 0945 I set about establishing my navigation routine. I planned to depend almost entirely on the sun for my daily fixes by getting a morning sun line while the sun was still bearing pretty much easterly or near the Prime Vertical, as it is called, and advancing it ahead to cross with a latitude determined at local apparent noon, thus obtaining a standard running fix for my daily noon position. It would certainly be accurate enough for me and the Semangat. I would only use the stars when a fix was needed to assist in making a landfall or to reassure myself when in the vicinity of charted dangers to navigation.

On that first day, I got two sun lines, one at a 0945 and another four minutes later, which had always been my custom when aboard ship on the morning watch. I get two at about the same time so one will check the other. If they don't fall in closely together, I usually get another and determine which of the first two was bad. After plotting my two sun lines, and advancing them along my DR (dead reckoning) track to 1200, I figured up the time of local apparent noon. It was to occur at 1310, in -8 time zone. The trouble was, when I noted that the time was approaching and grabbed up my sextant, I was looking at the ship's clock, which I’d forgotten to set when I’d retarded by watch thirty minutes! It was still on Singapore time! So, no latitude. I was already twenty-two minutes late when I first raised the sextant to my eye. And the sun was to the west of me rather than east, and the altitude was declining rather than rising toward its zenith.

This silly oversight was quite irritating – blundering away of my very first noon sight on my first day out. I had no chronometer which would have always been kept on Greenwich time and prevented the mistake, as the half hour difference would have been obvious. But, of course, all was not lost. I waited a few minutes and got a couple more sun lines and retarded them back to noon to cross with my morning ones and thus had my noon position. At least I knew that it was in the ball park longitude wise, though a little fuzzy as to latitude.

My noon position indicated that we had covered eighty-four miles since departure. That distance didn't include the extra miles that we'd sailed while frantically tacking in our first two attempts to clear Horsburgh. That wasn't bad for twenty-three and a half hours, considering that we'd been beating against a stiff breeze and choppy sea and under reduced sail through the night. In fact, I was well satisfied with our first day's run. And the Semangat will never be a great speedster. She's a cruising vessel, heavy, beamy, and comfortable – not in the least racy.

The best thing was that we had made a good easterly course, only falling about a point to the southward since leaving Horsburgh, which meant we had made good about five points off the wind, which is nothing to complain about under headsails and mizzen alone. I had put the main back up shortly after sunrise, and now, with the wind backing toward the north, we were heading a good deal north of due east.

As the wind continued shifting to the north, I dropped all thoughts of heading north to Tioman Island. We would head directly to Borneo. The only thing that worried me was that I knew it was going to be a long haul to Brunei or Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, and we needed to go into a port as soon as possible for fresh vegetables. The islands of Kepulauan Natuna Selatan, ports in Indonesian Borneo, and the off lying islands were all off limits except in an emergency, as I did not have the required Indonesian sailing permit to call at any of their ports, and their officials can quite often be pretty awkward to deal with.

At any rate, I was unwilling to take a chance calling at any Indonesian ports, as much as I would have liked to. I'd had too much experience with the Indonesians in my supply boat and tug travels around their islands. The nearest non-Indonesian port in Borneo was Kuching, Sarawak, but of all the places we were prepared to go into, chart-wise, Kuching was not one of the them. In fact, I didn't have any coastal coverage at all for the small section of Borneo coast from Tangung Datu to a point on the Borneo coast up near Brunei.

The only chart on board showing Kuching at all was my general chart showing the western part of the North Pacific – N.O. 522. I was using that as a general track chart on which to keep a plot of my entire trip, since its coverage stretched all the way from Singapore to Guam. The only other thing we had was a nice colorful map of Southeast Asia printed by the Bartholomew World Travel Series. Surprisingly enough, of the two, the latter was the only one that actually showed the mouths of the Kuching River and the actual location of Kuching. N.O. 522 didn't even show a dot where the town is. Only the name was shown on that chart, and both chart and map were of extremely small scale.

I knew if I decided to go to Kuching it would be a risky business, and we could do without such risks. There were enough of them even when the latest and largest scale charts were available. Still, it might take a month to get to Brunei. And I was in need of fresh stores, as I’m not fond of living exclusively out of cans. And more importantly, I needed to write letters to Chi and my father so they'd know that I had sailed and what my itinerary was likely to be. But I had plenty of time to think it over. I would make the decision when it was time to do so. First, we'd take a closer look at the coast of Borneo.

There weren't many entries in my journal for that first day at sea. I was still feeling sort of rough, and was more or less overwhelmed by the realities and enormities around me. Aside from navigation, and fixing a snack or two, I just sat back and tried to take it all in while healing my body and mind. Could this really be me? Was I really doing this? I asked myself. It was all still a little difficult for me to grasp and believe – a long-held dream was actually being fulfilled.

By 1900, the wind had diminished to almost nothing. Soon it was dead calm except for the remaining swell, and Semangat's sails began to bang and pop from side to side. We were becalmed. It was a bit disconcerting after such a good start to be brought to dead standstill all at once. The swell made the noise of the sails and rigging, with swinging booms and creaking blocks and fittings, most upsetting. I didn't want to lower the sails to lessen the din either – I wanted some breeze! I searched the horizon for any signs of rippled areas coming our way. But the sun set beautifully over a sea that might have been made of rolling oil. I stretched out in the cockpit to await the return of the wind.

At 2200, I awoke to the feel of the vessel healing gently to starboard. The northeasterly breeze was back, and it seemed the Semangat knew just which way to go, for she had resumed her easterly heading by herself. It appeared we were sailing at about four knots in the gentle breeze. I went below and made hot chocolate, popped some popcorn, and sat in the companionway hatch watching the horizon and sky. This was the life! For the present, I could pretend that I didn't have a worry in the world.

Soon after I'd finished my popcorn and hot chocolate, I once again turned in for sleep on the coach roof. I wasn't confident enough to sleep below. I wanted to be able to awaken at any minute, and sit up for a good look around. Also, I thought that being topside, any change in the wind or weather in general would wake me up more quickly than had I been down below. Besides, the weather and temperature were perfect for it. Eventually, I moved one of the bunk cushions up to the cockpit and slept there every night. Only when the relatively few rain squalls passed did I ever retire below while I was at sea during the whole trip.

Sunrise next day revealed three islands in distant view. Our first land fall! Two were far off to port and just aft of the beam, and the other just forward of the starboard bow, all a great distance off. Bearings seemed to indicate they were the Kepulauan Pengibu to port and Dundun to starboard.

Salt pork and one of my two eggs, eaten with bread and a sweet pickle served on the side, along with coffee, made up my breakfast. The breeze was still holding up well, now from the north-northeast and at about force three. The Semangat was heading up about east-northeast and still steering herself better than I ever could. It was another fair day, and I was beginning to really feel well again.

At 1145, I sighted Mendarik Island broad on our starboard bow. That confirmed that I had correctly identified my earlier sightings, but I checked myself anyway by getting a noon sight. Noon put us in latitude 1° 28' north, longitude 106° 45' east. We had made eighty-eight miles on a course of 081° true from my previous noon position. One hundred seventy-five miles from Singapore! The journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step, as they say. We were doing all right.

After the navigation chores were completed, I made a kind of Chinese soup for lunch and, now feeling much better, began to work on some linen shelves down in the head. At about 1000, I started up the engine, just to see if it would still run and to charge the batteries. I ran it for twenty minutes or so and was again thankful for the wind and sails. But with the engine again quiet, the wind commenced to die out. By 1130, the boat was no longer able to hold her head up to the desired course, and we fell off to the east-southeast toward the dangers of the Kepulauan Tambelan and its outlying rocks. At 2345, we came about onto the starboard tack and Semangat found her head at about northwest – not a very good course as far as getting where I wanted to go was concerned, but at least the northward component was good, and it was a safe heading on which I might get a good nap. Just as I started to lie down, however, I sighted a ship which was westbound in our direction. No sleep yet.

At about 0030 on the morning of the 10^th, the wind died out again. This time it was completely gone. I awoke from my brief nap to the sails banging and popping as we rolled gently in the low swell. The sky was perfectly clear and the sea dark and as smooth as syrup. I tried to sleep again. Bang, bang! went the main sail. I sheeted in a little more on the main, which only helped a little, doused the running lights, hung up a lantern on the main boom so that we could be seen, and finally did manage to get some sleep.

Awakening at 0420 I was gratified to find a light, but most welcome, northeasterly breeze. The Semangat had hove herself to, with the yankee aback, but we were soon under sail again on the port tack. The Semangat ghosted along on a heading just south of due east in the light air under the sparklingly clear sky.

Dawn found us fifteen miles north-northwest of Karang Laut, or Europe Shoal, as it is called on some charts. Mendarik Island was still in sight on the starboard beam. It looked as if we were doing about two knots, but not having an instrument, such as a taffrail log, I could only guess at our speed. From 1930 the previous evening, until 0700 in the morning, we had only managed a mere fifteen miles and made good a course of 123° true. That wasn't good at all! But it could have been worse. After all, we'd been totally becalmed for four hours during that period.

Still, I felt slightly discouraged. But a thin veil of cirrus clouds was beginning to cover the sky, and there were some altostratus clouds, clouds with wind ripples, above. The way I looked at it, if there was wind up there, there would soon be wind down where we were. By 0800, the wind did come. Not much, but about five knots worth of it. We were at least moving. In celebration of the fact, I called for breakfast and went below to cook it. My last egg.

A school, or perhaps I should say pod, of porpoise came huffing, puffing, and blowing up to about one hundred yards of the stern and tagged along for several minutes. They didn't seem very inclined to socialize, however, and sort of held back as if afraid to approach too near. Eventually two or three closed to within twenty-five feet of the stern. When I dove below for my camera and came back up to take a picture, they must have thought that I was manning the harpoon, for all of a sudden they just stopped dead and let the boat sail away from them. They just drifted aft and soon were gone from sight.

After being deserted by the porpoises, I returned to work on the two linen shelves in the head and got them finished by about 1115. About half an hour before I finished them, the wind had died down to the faintest of breezes. So I thought I'd try out the brand new Genoa that I'd brought for times like these. I got it up just in time to see the breeze die to nothing. The new genny just hung limply on the forestay. There was not a breath of air stirring anywhere within sight. I could actually count the clouds above by looking into the water, and the horizon was indistinguishable from the sky. It seemed the sky totally surrounded us, and we must have gone to heaven.

In spite of it all, we had covered 44 miles from noon to noon and mostly in the right direction. We had sailed 216 miles since departure. But I was now beginning to realize that I should have left Singapore earlier in the season rather than expecting help from the southwest monsoon. The northeast monsoon is at least dependable, the southwest isn't. And during the change of the monsoon, it’s even less dependable. I had been afraid of too rough a passage in the northeast monsoon, but it's better to have it rough and move on than to sit still in absolute calm discomfort when you are trying to get somewhere.

I hate to admit it, but I became impatient. Perhaps I wouldn't have had it not been for the thought of my family not knowing where I was or when to begin expecting me. Maybe that's just an excuse, for there is nothing harder on the nerves than the banging and clanging and popping of sails on a becalmed boat. So, I broke down and cranked up the engine again and motored along for about an hour an a half, when a light breeze developed.

After shutting down the engine, the light breeze moved us along at about three knots – for about three minutes. Then the wind died down again – but since we could still make way, that was all I asked. A faint air propelled us along at what I guessed to be about a half of a knot, just barely enough for steerage.

At 1723, I heard the sound of a turboprop plane overhead and remembered that this would be the day my brother Pat would be returning to Singapore from Borneo. It was an ARCO charter flight, Boraque Airlines or something like that, and it occasionally would touch at Kuching enroute. It was about the right time for it. It usually landed in Singapore at 1700, which would be 1730 my time. It may be a little late, I thought. It seemed weird that that blasted airplane would cover in a few minutes what it had taken us three days to cover. Absolutely unreal and unfair!

By 2000, the wind had died down even more. In disgust, I pulled down the genoa and bagged it, returning the trusty yankee to the forestay. The genoa had required constant attention. I couldn't attain a balance with it and had to tend the tiller almost constantly. It had been a bad day for testing it. It was for light breezes, but the one we'd had was less than light. But with the full working rig up, any light air at all was enough for the boat to be able to hold her own heading. Apparently the northeast monsoon was really beginning to break, I thought. I hated to see it go if this was to be the alternative. I couldn't help but wonder what we'd do if the wind never returned. Fortunately, it usually did.

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Chapter 5

Slow Boat to Borneo

On Thursday, 11 March 1976, at 0330, I awoke to see that a light northeasterly breeze had come up. The yankee was aback again keeping us hove to, and before turning in I had dropped the main to stop the popping and banging. I hoisted the main and got underway. But by 0400 we were as becalmed as ever. Again I cranked up the engine and powered along in a northeasterly direction until 0900, when I shut down to get a couple sunlines, cook, and check the engine oil. A small puff of air came along and kept us barely moving until it fell completely calm again at 1100. The booms were swinging and the sails flopping so slowly that the only noise was the goosenecks on the booms squeaking.

With nothing else to occupy me, I set out to fix something special for lunch. I came up with what I dubbed "Semangat Brunei Bound Cakes," for at that moment I was still thinking Brunei as our destination. They looked sort of like potato cakes, but were a long way from being anything like them. Perhaps I shouldn't bother the reader with the recipe, but it may interest some to know how some sailors do their cooking. So, the following is an actual excerpt from my voyage journal:

Recipe: I mentioned above that I had stopped to take a sun line, cook, etc. Well, I took three beautiful sun lines and turned right around and discovered one of the most delicious delicates to ever be served up on the China Sea. "Semangat Brunei Bound Cakes" is what I named them, and thought I'd write the recipe down before I forget it, for I'll probably never again prepare anything so elegant, complicated, and messy in its preparation on board.

It started as yesterday's supper. I (had) fixed some rice and fried up some things to go with it. The leftover portion was to be made into fried rice today. As it turned out, I used the wrong kind of rice and prepared even that incorrectly. It was glutinous rice, and I made it so glutinous that I could have used it right then for the glue.

I chopped up some small onions and garlic, my last three strips of bacon, and mixed these with a can of mushrooms. This I fried last night to eat with my rice.

This morning I had about as much of both left as I had eaten last night. There was enough for fried rice, but I couldn't see trying to make fried rice with that sticky white mess. I didn't want to throw it away, of course, so I chopped up some ham and threw this, along with all the remaining fried onions, garlic, bacon, and mushrooms, right into the rice and stirred.

What a thick, sticky mess that was! I could hardly pull my stirring stick out of it! I thought I'd add a little nutritional value by adding a couple of heaping spoonfuls of powdered milk. Then I thought a handful of cornmeal might do it some good, so I threw some in and stood back to think.

What to do now? I intended to fry it–but how? It wouldn't pour. If I used a spoon, I'd never have been able to shake it off into the frying pan. If I used my hands to throw it in, I surely would have gone into the pan myself, because I'd never have been able to let go of it in time.

I finally decided it could be done by isolating little balls of the mass in a pile of cornmeal and rolling them around in it until covered. Then they could be put in by hand like potato cakes. This I did, using my hands for the feathering job. Then I put them on a plate and sort of nudged them off the side into the hot greasy pan. They fried up very nicely and much resembled potato cakes. They tasted pretty good too. I've eaten four, and that comprised my lunch, for they are pretty heavy fare. I have four left for supper.

As far as what proportions of what to use in this recipe, one must suit his own tastes, as I did. The sticky rice should be just thick enough so as to be easily worked with a screwdriver, yet not so thick as to bounce if dropped on deck. Be sure to wash your hands and utensils immediately after working the batter, as I have a strong suspicion that if the stuff ever dries out in the batter form, it would make good deck sealant or wood filler–hard to remove.

Later I sat in the companionway, munching on Brunei Bound cakes and drinking hot chocolate, while wondering if Brunei was where we were really bound. From the way things were beginning to look, it might take months and months to get that far. We had only enough fuel to run the engine about another thirty hours. But, it was beginning to look as if the wind were never going to return. It was so calm and flat that the clouds and sky were reflected perfectly and mirror-like from the sea. It was as if the boat were floating in space again.

Looking down into the water just over the side, I could see a variety of fish taking advantage of the shade of the hull. I accidentally dropped the Brunei Bound cake I’d been eating into the water, and, to my amazement, it sank like a rock. One little fish charged at it as if to devour it in a single bite but appeared to change his mind at the last minute. He seemed to be wanting to beat a hasty retreat, but it was too late, for at that instant the Brunei Bound cake struck him squarely on the head. The little fellow seemed to stagger back and them swim off in a daze.

In an effort to get my mind off my becalmed condition, I put a hook over the side and fished for a while with a piece of ham for bait. None of the fish were interested in it, however. I've always been a lousy fisherman, and it wasn't long before I was as impatient with fishing as I was with being becalmed.

Some porpoises surfaced about three feet from the port bow. I dove for my camera and fumbled with the lens cover in a effort to get a close-up shot of them, but they wouldn't cooperate – neither would my lens cover – and I missed out again. But just them, a breeze popped up and swung the boat around toward the east and started to move us along.

I shook my head with concern at the results of my day's sailing endeavors – 33 miles in the last twenty-four hours! Things weren't looking too good. This made the previous day look like a nice run. I could see that, although the northeasterly winds had died down, the southwesterly setting current which they start in motion had not yet abated. We were three days, twenty-three hours, and thirty minutes out of Singapore and had only covered 249 miles! It was discouraging. From my journal:

1345: Dead calm again!?!

1515 to 1545: Under power. Couldn't take the banging of the booms any longer.

It was hot! I rigged my awning under the mizzen boom to shade the cockpit somewhat. It wasn't enough, so I gave up and went below for a nap and awoke to come up and look upon a most beautiful tropical sunset. I had expected we'd still be drifting aimlessly back toward Singapore or down toward the Karimata Strait to the south, but was delighted to see there was a pleasant breeze blowing and that I could set a course right for Tanjung Api (Fire Point), on the northwest corner of Borneo. With this nice breeze, light though it was, my good spirits returned. Ah, if only Chi could experience this kind of sailing, I thought. She could not help but love it. In addition to the colorful sunset, there was a romantic half-moon right overhead and calm sea with a nice six-knot breeze. I settled down into my accustomed evening seat at the head of the companionway ladder and puffed contentedly on my pipe and sipped a cup of coffee. The world was right again.

We did accomplish something during the earlier part of the afternoon. I finally got around to wiring up my compass binnacle with a little light so that I could just flip a switch to check my course at night. I had been depending on a flashlight until then. The binnacle had come equipped with a little kerosene lamp, but it had proven impossible to keep lit in any breeze.

When I went below to pump the bilge, my Gusher Whale pump gushed the water right out onto the floor of the head where I had it mounted against the bulkhead. I changed valves, and the new one wheezed like a cow with whooping cough. It gushed again on the floor like a half-dead porpoise. It was dark, so I put off further repairs until morning.

We motored again from 2300 to about 0100 in the morning, as the wind had disappeared again around 2200, and I wanted to get at least ten miles in for the day. At 0100 I gave up and went to bed with the sea as glassy smooth as I'd ever seen it. I could hear the lonesome call of some sea bird, and in the distance a porpoise was occasionally puffing and blowing like an old horse at pasture.

At 0700 I was up and again under power. It was still glassy, deathly calm. I sighted a peak bearing 113° by my little hand compass. I had no sure way of identifying it until I got my noon position. It might have been some islands or maybe the mainland. I hoped it would prove to be the latter.

Lazy me. I don't like to sit at the tiller and steer, and that is one of the reasons that I don't like to use the engine. No autopilot. But I hoisted the mizzen alone and found I could strike a delicate balance between propeller torque, rudder, and wind pressure generated by the motion of the vessel ahead, thus the mizzen effectively served as a steering sail. Using this system, I was able to motor along, lie up on the foredeck where it was less noisy, and look up at the clouds. I had to be careful about moving around, however. Moving around changed the trim, and that would change the course. But lying on the foredeck seemed to keep her just about on the course I wanted.

Another positive effect that came of lowering the sails, after waiting fruitlessly for hours for a wind, was that when I got the sails down and the engine going – and all set for motoring – a breeze would likely come up just for spite. It happens according to Carr's First Law, I reflected. I may someday be tempted into jotting it down. After all, there are a lot of others with their own laws – from Newton on down to Parkinson and Peter with his Principle – and even Murphy. Why not me?

My sun lines confirmed that the peak that I sighted was Palua Murih. It was only shown as a circle of dots on my small scale chart, so I hadn't really expected to find an island there. According to that, it might have been a submerged reef. But the reality was that it was very much a real island and quite high. Usually such dots denote an underwater obstruction. I hadn't overlooked the name on the chart, but I had thought it must apply to another group of nearby islands in the Tambelons. I was glad to find that I didn't have as much to fear from the southwest setting current as I had thought probable.

At 1130, I was able to shut the engine down and get under sail again with a force two drifting in out of the northeast. I fried cornbread for lunch and opened a can of spaghetti and hot dogs. Hot chocolate was served for drinks, and cornbread and honey made the dessert. For a bit of extra flavor and freshness, I chopped up some onions and garlic to add to the spaghetti. I sure had a lot of garlic and onions on board, thanks to Chi. I used them generously in every meal.

Serasan Island came into view bearing northeast at about noon. Naturally, my chart didn't show a height for it, but since it had to be about thirty-five miles away according to my reckoning, I figured that it must have been about 940 feet high. The visibility was very good, to say the least. It was 435 miles to Brunei from my noon position. That was as the crow flies, however. But, I thought, we might have to sail over 600 miles to get there!

Kuching was looking more and more attractive. I figured I would cruise in close and see where the traffic was going in and then follow the other boats and ships up the channel to Kuching, which appeared to be a ways up the river from the coast. It seemed we had a good chance of getting there the following day with any wind at all.

Most of the afternoon I spent puttering down in the cabin. I made a simple rack over the chart table for the Nautical Almanac and other navigation tables and my slide rule, and also put the much needed lip, or lee rail, on the inboard edge of the chart table to keep the charts from sliding off when we were on the starboard tack. Those things done, I took a good saltwater bath on the foredeck and then allowed myself the luxury of a freshwater facial cleaning job. While I'd been at work, the northeasterly breeze gradually increased until we were sailing along wonderfully on a heading directly for point Api, Borneo.

Since it looked as if the wind might hold true, and we might sight Tanjung Api about midnight, I thought I'd better get some sleep early. I stretched out on the cabin top about 2100 and set my alarm clock to awaken me at 2230, which it did. The wind had shifted slightly to the east-northeast and had died down some. I still could not make out the coast. Visibility was still good, with a bright crescent moon, so I set the alarm for midnight and went back to sleep.

At midnight I was alarmed awake again to find that the wind had died down even more, shifted to the east, and Semangat was merrily sailing herself south!!! Now I was able to see a dark line of the treetops and hills but could only guess at the distance the coast was off. Optimistically, I guessed six miles. I changed tacks and headed up as far as possible in the light wind, which was about north by east, only to becalmed ten minutes later. It looked as though we wouldn't round Api Point that night, but at least we had come up to the Borneo coast and I could get a little more sleep as we stood off to the northward.

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Chapter 6

Borneo Landfall

At 0315, I awoke to find a light southeasterly breeze had sprung up, and the old Semangat had us heading on a northeast by easterly course. That was just perfect except for one thing. When I looked out to see where the land was, there was none to be seen! Yet I was sure I’d seen it at midnight. Before sailing further toward the northeast, the direction that I needed to run to round Api Point, I wanted to ascertain that I was indeed near the Borneo mainland. For, if I were too far out – if by some odd quirk of fate my midnight landfall had really been a mere "cloudfall" or some other such nonsense – I could be sailing into danger by continuing northeast due to the islands in that direction. I started the engine and ran southeast in hopes of again sighting the tree line on the horizon. But the moon, which had lighted the night earlier, had set at about 0330, leaving me with only starlight to see by. I considered it too risky to continue heading for the beach in the dark, so I shut down.

Twice I saw an luminous glow, but twice it turned out to be fishing boats. At 0445, I set sail in the light breeze and proceeded northeastward, knowing dawn would occur before I would be likely to run into trouble in that direction. Still, I was on dangerous ground, by any measure, in not having the local charts.

I stayed on lookout until the faint glow of the coming sunrise assured me that everything was as it should be – Borneo was really there – then back to sleep I went until about 0800. A land breeze had freshened, and we were clipping right along, now on the starboard tack for a change, with Api Point fine on the starboard bow. I breakfasted on a bowl of cornmeal mush and a cup of hot chocolate, but while I was preparing it, one of the biggest, blackest squalls that I've ever seen descended on and around Api Point and threatened to do the same to us. I almost shortened sail in preparation for the wind that it might bring but decided to hold off until the last minute. The squall wore itself out quickly, however, and spread into a general light rain which eventually engulfed us and the surrounding sea.

For some time I wasn't too sure that Api Point was indeed Api Point. I thought it could possibly be Datu Point, which is a about twenty miles to the eastward, and that we may have somehow passed Api Point in the dark. Finally, erroneously, I decided that must be the case. But, as I inched along toward the northeast, the wind still holding steady, Datu Point slowly came into view round the corner ahead. Api, it seemed, had been impersonating Datu, which I considered a rather mischievous thing for it to do. Some humor eh? I would have known better, of course, had I had the proper chart, as Datu is high and rather mountainous looking and Api in considerably lower but still high enough to hide Datu from view when approaching from the west.

Soon the winds became a bit flaky, and we had trouble making headway. I sort of put a great deal of significance on the passing of Point Datu, and I was anxious to get by it, as it marked the Indonesian-Malaysia, border. Once out of Indonesian water and land areas, I could breathe a bit easier. For if I'd been forced, for one reason or another, to land in Indonesia, I could expect all sorts of problems with the officials. Sarawak is a Malaysian state, and the Malaysians are a little more reasonable about such things as unexpected visitors. My goal was at least making it past Datu that day, if nothing else. If we could do that, I'd be satisfied. But the winds weren't cooperating, it seemed, and once again we were stalled.

This was Saturday, March 13th – just a month since that Friday the 13th we were supposed to have sailed from Singapore. My noon position showed that since actually leaving on the seventh we had covered 343 miles. We had been underway for five days, twenty-three hours, and thirty minutes and had averaged a speed of 2.39 knots! Wow! My engine had been used for twelve and one-half hours longer than I would like to admit, as I would have preferred to make the entire voyage under sail if possible. But I was anxious to move. I guess I’ll have to admit I was in a hurry, and that is something a cruising sailor should never be in.

I was a bit ashamed to feel a bit hurried and anxious to "make-time," as a fellow who is in a hurry has no business with a sailboat. He might better spend his time and money on airplane tickets, racing cars, and hydroplanes. Often, when anxiety seemed to be taking charge, I would stop to tell myself that, blast it, I'm not in a hurry! I've got all the time in the world. I had figured that the trip would take about three months total, and I knew my family had means to stave off starvation at least a little longer than that.

That was the crux of the whole thing – I couldn't help but think of it and worry. That one big cloud of frustrated and suppressed urgency would hang over my head for the entire voyage. It couldn't be avoided. But, at the same time, I was determined to enjoy this rare experience to the fullest possible – if possible – at least within the limits of time that I had set for it. But now, in my desire to at least get past Datu Point, the wind died out once again, and the Semangat rolled and popped her sails languidly, several miles short of that rocky point ahead.

In disgust, I went below and prepared some lunch. It consisted of canned peaches and pears which I poured over jelled and diced cornmeal mush, which had been left over from breakfast. Over it all I poured some milk and had a rather pleasant meal, eating two servings of it and still had some left for evening dessert.

Finally, a suggestion of a breeze permitted us to just make headway. As the Borneo coast slipped by at a devilishly slow pace, I managed to find Kuching radio on my transistor radio. The radio was my sole link with the "outside" world and a great means of relaxation. I got the news frequently, and time signals every morning, as it had two short wave bands on it. It also had a cassette recorder and player, and I had brought several music tapes which I often listened to in the evenings. Joan Baez, Kingston Trio, Chet Adkins, etc.

By listening to Kuching radio, I was beginning to get acquainted with the place. Already I was beginning to like Kuching just from hearing their broadcasts. Sarawak is basically an English-speaking state in spite of the government's attempts to Malaysianize it, and English is still their official and predominant language. Sarawak was the land of the White Rajas and has a history worthy of may adventure novels, complete with pirates and sultans, not to mention headhunters. Malay and local tribal dialects, as well as Chinese, are also spoken, of course. But, in spite of efforts to the contrary, English is yet to be displaced as the predominate language, so Kuching radio was an English speaking station.

At 1920, we finally passed Datu Point to starboard, only a mile and a half off. I had to use the engine for a while to assist the sails in order to avoid having to make a tack back out to get around. Now the wind picked up fine, and the Semangat bounded eastward at such a rate that I thought I might have to rein her in to avoid going too far during the night. I determined that if the wind held good and things looked promising, I'd play it safe and bypass Kuching. I'd take advantage of the wind driving me eastward toward Brunei, a coast and port for which I had proper charts. But if circumstances favored it, I would, after all, not shrink from calling at Kuching.

By 1930 I did have to shorten sail, but that must have been the signal for the wind to go away, for that's just what it did! We rolled and bobbed heavily in the choppy seas that had been developing. I put the main back up just to see if it would dampen the rolling somewhat, while I went below to cook and eat. But at 2030, a stiff northeasterly sea breeze sprang back up, and it began to look as if we were Brunei bound again.

After going to bed on the cabin top I was awakened at 2230 by large rain drops pelting me in the face. I headed below to close the hatches and portlights and returned on deck just as the wind struck. It hit with great fury, and the boat heeled so far over that I had to hang from the main mast rather than stand on the deck to get the main sail down, even after having eased the sheet. Then the rain began in true earnest and the wind eased.

By midnight I had dried out a spot on the cabin top and was back in bed, but the sky still looked mighty threatening off to the southeast. I left the main furled and carried on under headsails and mizzen. At 0200, I was squalled out of my sleep again. This time it wasn't as windy, but it was just as wet. Confused seas made the riding rough, but after a short period of baffling winds that caused me to heave to and go below for a nap, we were again heading east.

At 0400, the rain was coming down by the bucketfuls. I filled everything that I could and enjoyed the feel of the fresh, sweet, rain on my skin. There was an impressive amount of thunder and lighting too, and once the worst of the squalls had passed, the continuing roll of the thunder sounded downright weird. In my journal I think I described it rather aptly: ". . . the low rumbling thunder is the deepest, most threatening sound I've ever heard outside of a tiger's snarl," and that's how it sounded, like a deep throated and continuous snarl.

After the night of rain squalls, wind, and calms, spiced up by choppy and confused seas, I found that we had not managed to get more than fifteen miles from Datu Point! And we weren't making any headway now. It was calm. I had collected about ten gallons of rainwater, so I decided to treat myself to a good, thorough, freshwater bath, and a good hair and beard washing. I needed it, to say the least, as salt water just doesn't leave you feeling as clean as fresh water. My hair and beard were particularly difficult to do anything with in the salt water.

Squalls were still round. It seemed we were floating at that moment in the only dry spot on the whole ocean. At 1000, still becalmed, I got fed up, started the engine, and headed for the entrance of the Kuching River – or what I thought was Kuching River. Off and on we sailed and motored as the breeze would return and then again die out.

I had to refer to my Bartholomew map in order to guess where the Kuching River actually lay. There were river mouths shown both on the west and the east sides of Sipang Point – the third major point on the northwest coast of Borneo – and the one that marks Kuching. I had no idea which river channel would prove to be the shipping channel. I chose the one on the west side of Sipang Point, because, according to the map, it was bigger – and, more importantly, it was also a lot closer. The nearer I got to the coast, the better the sea breezes became until I was fairly flying toward my destination in a strong northwesterly wind sailing wing and wing. In fact, my speed was a little troubling since I really had no idea what I might be sailing into. I had expected to see ships and boat traffic focused on the river mouth, but that wasn't happening.

My unease increased as I failed to see any shipping headed in or coming out of the river toward which I was headed. Nor were there any signs of local traffic as I approached. That didn't seem right. I knew there had to be a lot of shipping and other river traffic going up and down to the capital of Sarawak. I was beginning to think that I had made a mistake – or that Kuching was much smaller and sleepier place than I imagined.

Sipang Point is at the north end of a long and rugged peninsula that juts northward from the coast. We were traveling deep into a bight, or bay, between that and Datu Point, which, with the approach of evening, was truly beginning to worry me. There is no feeling any more distressing to a modern sailor than to be approaching an invisible river, on a strange lee shore without a chart. But there I was, heading for a river that with every passing mile seemed to be the wrong one. I knew we wouldn't be able to get around to the other side of the point before dark to see if there was any traffic over on the east side. So, I bored on in at least to get a closer look, feeling less and less secure all the while, not knowing what dangers might lie ahead. For all I knew, abrupt and serious shoaling might commence at any moment.

The ancient mariners used to do it, I told myself. If they could explore around and about strange coasts and survive, why shouldn't I? But, of course, there was that sad reality that many a bold mariner of old had not survived. I was being bold all right, and downright reckless, as I raced with time in order to enter the invisible river before dark. Indeed, just a whole lot of the early navigator's hadn't survived, and their wrecks decorate many a chart, and reefs and rocks bear their names. Many made one final discovery, and it was that which ended their seafaring career – their folly often immortalized on now charted rocks and reefs. Thinking back on this landfall now, in light of what I later learned, I get cold shivers down my spine. I was indeed courting disaster, but the gods were kind to me.

Semangat did have a little digital Fathometer, which for the first time was paying its way. But it couldn't save me from that sudden vertical rise of a rock or coral. Soon, however, I finally noticed some small fishing boats approaching. They were coming in from seaward with their day's catch, I imagined. I watched where they went and found that they headed for a point near the shore about a mile out toward the inside end of Sipang Point from the river mouth, which had finally become visible. Thence, they seemed to follow a channel very close in along that rocky shore southward until they disappeared into the river. So I hauled off to port and proceeded in that direction to close with that forbidding coast.

Another boat was soon approaching from the northwest, and I sailed to intercept it before it approached the secret channel which appeared to have no markers. The breeze was still fresh, and I had no trouble intercepting the boat as it headed for its haven. I hailed the surprised fishermen. But, alas! They spoke no English!

"Kuching? Kuching?" I asked, and pointed to the channel and river mouth. "Yes," was their reply, also pointing. I tried by sign language to determine the depth of the channel but could do no more than point to my boat under me and the water in the area of the channel and then stretch my arms wide to indicate the draft of my boat. I don't know whether they understood or not, but "Yes, yes," was their reply. Then I made more signs and vocalized with more pidgin to indicate that I wished for them to lead me in. "Yes, yes!" they replied, making signs to come along. And away they went.

I thought I'd be safer motoring in, so I dived down and started the engine and came up and dropped the sails into the great shaggy bundles of disarray about the decks, and really had to pour on the steam to keep up. I was still feeling mighty uneasy about the whole thing, knowing their boat drew no more than three feet of water to our five and a half. I feared we were getting into trouble, but when a sailor's bound and determined to get into port before dark.... I threw discretion to the winds and buckled down to the task at hand. I pulled the little lead line out of the locker under the cockpit seat and wondered how I would ever manage to handle it while steering and trying to keep up with the boat ahead.

Nearer and nearer the fishing boat led me toward the beach. When it looked as if he was surely going to ground, he made a hard right and headed south paralleling the shore. I followed as closely in his wake as I could and made the turn. I couldn't see the Fathometer while I was steering, so I attempted getting a sounding with the lead line. Bad throw. I tried again, but it was no good. We were moving too fast. I slowed down at the expense of having my pilot fast leaving me behind. But I had to sound. A good one!

Two fathoms! But throwing that lead wasn’t easy while trying to steer with the toes of one foot. And things were getting worse. The problem was that we were getting a ground swell – right on our beam – and without the sails up, the boat began doing some serious rolling. A fathom and a half! And still a good mile from the river mouth! I knew there would be a point right near the mouth of the river where the water would be its most shallow. The bar. I didn't like the way things were shaping up a bit.

At this point, I would have turned around, but I was afraid the channel might be too narrow to turn in. The water wasn't clear enough to see anything through it. To stop seemed out of the question. I had nothing else to do but continue, it seemed. We were committed and I was regretting it.

Two fathoms again! Then nine feet! That was still good enough. I had checked the tide tables previously (at least I had the tide tables!), and I knew the tide was falling, but it was still near high. But not knowing anything of the depths ahead, that was a very small consolation. Eight feet! Getting shallower! I was throwing the lead continually now. We were rolling beyond belief! At least thirty degrees to each side! I'd never seen the Semangat roll like that before. I looked forward at the delighted faces of the fishermen as they watched us roll. It was a real chore to keep the boat under control. But I managed to keep her more or less on course and even to take soundings. About seven feet! That's only a foot and a half under the keel!! Of course I was endeavoring to get the soundings while in the troughs of the ground swells. Not much further to go – but could we make it?

What physical and mental punishment I was subjecting myself to! I thought I must be crazy to risk my boat like this. What a hare brained operation this was, I thought! I was ready for the big bump – if it was to come, it had to come soon. Still seven feet and apparently holding! How I was struggling! I was conducting an absolute and classic panic drill and acrobatic act – and I couldn't stop or turn back. The fishermen seemed to enjoy my performance immensely.

Then we made it! We were in smooth water, and the color of it was muddy-river-deep looking. Two fathoms! Three! And I knew we were safe – my boat and I. The fishing boat had gained on me and was now well on its way to the village, which was a small group of thatched houses on the left bank of the river just inside the entrance and about a quarter of a mile up. It was very picturesque, as it was overshadowed by a beautiful cloud-shrouded mountain. I breathed a great sigh of relief. It was just dusk. Just in time!

There was a squall coming down at us from the mountain, so I stopped long enough to furl the sails so they wouldn't blow all over the place. Then we motored about half a mile up the river and got around a bend away from the opening out to the sea, and out of sight of the village, and came to anchor near the right bank, an a driving rain.

When I went below and stopped the engine, I had quite a fright. As I lifted the seat which served as an engine cover, what seemed to be warm salt water sprayed up in my face and all over the cabin. Oh, oh! I thought. A broken hose, seal, or water pump or something worse! But it proved to be flywheel-whipped bilge water. The bilge water had got pretty high, and the bottom of the flywheel of the engine was dragging in it and throwing it up into my face. Some joke!

No problem. But I was reminded of a troublesome leak around the stern tube. I'd have to do something about that – it was getting worse. However, I was tired and had no time for that now. I was hungry too, as I'd had no time to grab a bite since breakfast, which had consisted of no more than a piece of cornbread and a small flying fish which had landed aboard during the night and which I had fried and eaten whole.

It was a drizzly, cool night. We were anchored about seventy-five feet from the bank, which was nothing but a mangrove entanglement. I could hear the strange sounds of the jungle inhabitants beyond that dark curtain of vegetation. I hung an anchor light to the forestay and retired to the cabin, still disturbed about the apparent lack of any river life or commercial traffic – only the few local fishermen.

In spite of the folly of risking all simply to make port, I could not help but feel a sense of pride and satisfaction at having successfully negotiated a most difficult and worrisome arrival on a strange and enchantingly primitive coast. Having achieved it in the manner that I had – much as it might have been done a century or two before, without chart or sailing directions – I found it easy to forgive myself and claim credit for concluding our passage in grand professional style. In spite of all, my feelings of accomplishment were considerably increased with the relief from my recent intensely exhilarating experience. I lay back on my bunk, relishing the night sounds of the jungle near at hand, and slept in great comfort after the trying and frustrating passage and its nerve-racking conclusion.

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Chapter 7

The Santubong Channel

It was Monday, March 15^th, exactly one month since my family had flown out of Singapore for Guam. I awoke at 0730 to a fine, sunny, slightly misty, morning. The sun was already quite warm, and the mists were fast burning away from the river's margins. For the first time I could properly appreciate the size and beauty of the steep-sided mountain that rose just beyond the far bank of the river. Last night its peaks had been veiled in clouds. I later found out that this was Mount Santubong, which adorns many a local picture postcard. The birds were singing merrily from the nearby mangroves. I noticed that the tide was slack and low, so it would soon be just the right time for me to start getting underway to ascend the river on a rising tide.

Breakfasted of cornmeal mush with milk and sugar was served up, and I went forward to heave the anchor at 0915. We were underway at 0929 motoring upriver. I was still struck and rather stumped by the continued lack of river traffic. Had I taken a wrong turn immediately upon entering the river mouth? This had looked as though it were the main, deeper channel of the two. Since I was here, I thought I'd go ahead and try this one first. There had seemed to be another channel which went off to the right, but it hadn't seemed to be a significant channel. Whatever the case, I thought, I’d soon find out.

Barely half an hour into the transit, at 1000, we developed engine trouble, and it turned out to be serious. The hold-down bolts on the rocker-arm assembly on one of the cylinders had carried away. I was lucky to have stopped it before more damage was done. I anchored again to check it out and was able to remove the whole rocker-arm assembly on the one cylinder. Also, I checked and found that my little Volvo Penta, MD-2B could operate on one cylinder only. For safety, however, I decided to continue upriver under sail alone. The current was favorable, and there was just enough breeze to maintain steerage. I was underway again by eleven, with the wind aft and using only my jib and mainsail for ease of handling in the sinuous river.

The riverbanks and river itself were deserted. We did pass a school, near where I'd anchored to fix the engine. We presently passed a sign that read "Sungei Buntal" (Buntal Channel) and saw where that joined the channel that I was on. We soon passed two groups of buildings. One was a group of thatched houses; the others, tin-roofed frame structures. It looked like a government outpost. Both had pole jetties, which were covered with bus-stop-like shelters. I supposed that these were the Borneo style bus stops, since river travel is the primary mode of transportation. But where were all the water taxis and buses? And where were the people? I sure longed for a chart so I'd know where we were headed and whether we could, in fact, get to Kuching from there.

But, we just carried on as the early explorers must have. Their motto must have been "Forge ahead, if you can!" And that's what we did, with the fathometer keeping me informed about water depth, which seemed quite ample and fairly even at steady two fathoms under transducer.

The channel was quite winding, but we were always able to continue under sail. The current was taking us upstream at a nice rate, and I used the sails for maneuvering mainly as the wind died down to a light air. The riverbanks remained an unchanging green screen of mangrove jungle. Only once did they change, where one bank became rocky and rather steep. That stretched only lasted half a mile or so, and I kept on the lookout for rocks ahead in the channel.

The miles slowly slipped by and nothing changed. We might have been right back where we'd started except that I had been watching the bank continually moving past. We passed a fisherman in a small sampan, just finishing up laying nets or traps of some sort. We passed close enough to inquire how far it was to Kuching, fearing that he'd say that Kuching wasn't in this direction at all. By his little English and sign language, I took it that we had five miles to go. This, of course, provided some relief from what had been gathering doubts.

A hundred yards further on, the wind died, and we continued under current alone, letting the current provide the necessary air to stay away from either bank. Soon the solitary old fisherman overtook me under power of his one sculling oar, waving and smiling as he left us behind. I waved back with a defeated feeling at seeing him pulling away so steadily. I wondered by how much he would beat me in getting up to Kuching, which I assumed was his destination.

The old man was about a hundred yards ahead when a little breeze sprang up and I began overtaking him again. As we passed him, I threw him a line, which he caught, and took him in tow, which he received with appreciation, if not some degree of skepticism. But the wind held, and we moved along at least slightly faster rate than he could have sculled.

Within about a mile of where we picked up the fisherman, the channel opened into a much bigger river. This was the real thing! The Kuching River! The traffic here was what I had been expecting all along and more. There were ocean-going ships, coasters, riverboats, and numerous water buses. I later found that I had come up Santubong Channel, and a shortcut for me.

It had been much used in the days of smaller ships, but it seems that during the war some Japanese destroyers had come to grief near the rocky section that I had noticed, making the channel unusable for most shipping. We had been lucky not to have snagged on one of them as they remain there in their watery grave. Later, when I was able to ponder over the chart of that route, I could see that I would never have chanced it had I possessed the chart on board at the time. The proper shipping entrance was way over around and east of Sipang Point and east of Point Po, thirty miles from where I had entered Santubong Channel! I had saved myself at least a day by coming this way, but I had taken a hell of a chance – and, as it turned out, had been very lucky. But we had made it safely, so it had been all for the best. And it had truly been a unique experience.

Now there were channel markers, buoys, ranges, and signs pointing out dangers. It was like a huge water road, complete with guide signs and mile markers. We still had about four miles to go to the main part of town. Our tow cast off about a mile short of Kuching proper, pointing to his house on the right-hand bank. I waved good-bye to the old man and thanked him for his piloting assistance and local knowledge, and he thanked me for the tow. It had really saved him a lot of elbow grease, if not a heck of a lot of time, as the breeze was, by then, diminishing a bit and our headway had decreased to about sculling speed.

Soon we rounded a bend and found ourself in the middle of a busy, bustling town with a frightening amount of traffic of all descriptions moving every which way over the water. Fortunately, the current was still setting swiftly upstream, and there was just enough breeze for steerageway. We dodged from one side of the channel to the other, avoiding every description of vessel. We passed a line of naval vessels, then the central market with its myriads of small boats and sampans coming and going. Kuching was just what I had expected and hoped for. The town looked old and rustic, as befitted a Borneo capital. People waved from the shore as we passed, as it appeared sailing vessels had become a novelty in the river.

I was standing on the cockpit seat, wearing nothing but shorts and an old, open shirt, barefooted, steering with my toes. A Malay cheroot was sticking out of my beard and a cocky little cap on my head that must have made me look ridiculous. But I was in an exhilarated mood, and found myself laughing and jubilantly singing, if you please, "I’m Popeye the Sailor Man!" I fancied that anybody seeing me threading my way through these crowded waters under sail, casually steering with one foot, would conclude that I must be a salty old rascal indeed.

All the while, I was scanning the banks ahead for something that might have been a yacht club of sorts, or at least an anchorage where private boats were moored or anchored, but couldn't see anything of that nature. I spied some European tourists watching me pass from some steps that descended right down into the water, and I steered for them. At the last minute I hauled off, hailing them at the same time. "Where's the yacht club?" I yelled. They all shrugged and threw out their hands to the side and watched in bewilderment as the Semangat tacked away upstream.

It had occurred to me that we might be big news around a sleepy little river town – might even make the front page of the papers. But when I saw the size of the city – not huge, but big – I figured that single-handed sailors from Singapore might be more or less old hat, and swallowed the visions of grandeur which had surfaced earlier. We were fast running out of city, when I spied a small backwater at a bend in the river where several police boats were either anchored or at moorings. It looked to be about the best place around to anchor, so I swung in among them and let go the hook and dropped the sails. I veered out plenty of cable, and the Semangat finally fetched up and swung around to stem the now moderating current.

We had made it! We’d anchored at 1515 – not bad at all for a twenty-mile river transit under sail with very little wind. We’d had the great fortune to ride on a flood tide for the entire distance!

On the way up, I had had an excellent waterfront tour of the center of the city, and was quite impressed with what I'd seen. It was a much bigger place than I had really expected, although it had the expected flavor and atmosphere. There was some evidence of imminent change, however, in the form of one high-rise type office building in town and under construction on the side of the river away from the main part of town. It was distressing to see these signs of modern urbanism encroaching upon such a quaint setting as this. But progress is encroaching even on places such as Borneo and, for better or worse, it cannot be stopped.

The river transit had taken four hours and forty minutes. I had been surprised that we were able to ride the flood current all the way upriver. It had worked out perfectly. I furled the sails neatly and secured for a stay in port of at least a week. I had a lot of work that needed to be done here. In addition to the engine problems, I still had much carpentry work that I’d originally intended to do in Singapore. My accommodation was far from finished down below. And I also wanted to install my new steering wheel before sailing. But for the time being, I thought it was enough to secure the sails and tidy up the decks and sit back and relax while waiting for the port officials to come and clear my little ship. So I raised the "Q" flag and a courtesy flag and waited.

There was plenty of daylight left, and I was able to take stock of my new surroundings. The anchorage was in the margin where the city along the banks of the river was giving way to "kampong" – native type buildings, scattered among palm trees. Additionally, we were literally in the shadow of the beautiful state mosque with its several impressive pointed gold cupolas topped with Moslem crescents. Upriver was all rural looking with thatch roofed houses peeking through the abundant trees and greenery. It was a quiet and pleasing anchorage. The police boats all seemed deserted, although I found that some had police guards aboard. I felt a great deal of self-satisfaction once again as I contemplated the day's undertaking and the successful final conclusion of the first leg of our journey.

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Chapter 8

Kuching

Shortly after we'd settled down at anchor, a customs launch came alongside, and the driver said that the officials would be out in the morning. He was off for the day and on his way home. I had been sort of looking forward to dining ashore on curry and rice or perhaps a steak, but I had plenty of letter writing to do and could use a good night's sleep. Shore going could wait. It would be enough just to enjoy being safely anchored tonight, and I was satisfied to remain aboard.

Under a spectacular sunset-colored sky, I prepared a little meal, which I served up in the cockpit and ate to the sound of children's voices, dogs barking, and chickens cackling, which came drifting across the water from both banks of the river. I broke out a bottle of cream sherry by way of special celebration and eventually retired to my stateroom desk for a little letter writing.

On the fourth letter, I had to give it up and throw it away, as the sherry had begun to creep in between the lines. I hit my bunk at midnight after checking my anchor cable and the lantern which I had hung to the forestay as an anchor light. I was a bit apprehensive about what the combined river and ebb current was going to do to us. It was at just about maximum ebb or a little better and was pretty swift. But we seemed to be holding alright after dragging only a little initially.

What worried me most were the logs and bunches of driftwood – literally, trees – that I saw drifting by. There were large clusters of green vegetation, too, which had more the appearance of floating islands. They also looked as though they could pose a rather serious threat should they foul on my anchor warp or the stem. I could see that I would never feel entirely easy about leaving the boat unattended when I went ashore. And, I had visions of awakening during the night to find myself drifting past the central market or some other downstream landmark.

The port authorities came aboard first thing the next morning. There were three of them. I offered coffee, which they accepted, and things went rather smoothly. I had been a little worried whether I was doing the right thing in declaring my M-2 rifle. But they showed no interest in it and, fortunately, didn't even want to see it. I had referred to it as merely a “rifle,” but in fact it was a fully automatic military weapon. It's just as well that they didn't have a look. I was disappointed that they took with them my Singapore sailing clearance. I had hoped to keep it for a souvenir with its Friday the 13th date.

At 1000 I went ashore, catching a ride on a small police launch. The officer was very friendly and obliging. He said that whenever I wanted to come back out to just give a yell, as he was assigned to watch the other police boats and ferrying their crews back and forth.

He landed me at the foot of stairs and a footpath that went up the bank behind the mosque, through trees and a rather jungle like setting. I walked through a cemetery and along the side of the mosque and out through the front gate to find myself right downtown. I was carrying dirty laundry, but the first thing that I did was to go to a seedy little Chinese hotel and rent a room for just long enough to take about two and a half good long showers. Then I went to the bank to change money and the post office to post my letters. After that I found a laundry and dropped off my clothes.

I lunched on fillet steak and later dined on Chinese fried noodles at an open-air restaurant. I located the vocal Volvo representative only to find that he didn't stock anything that I needed for my engine. The agent was nice enough, however, to take me to a bolt and nut shop where I was able to purchase two bolts that I needed for then engine. But two others would have to be specially machined.

Just down the river from the mosque, I had noticed Brookes Dockyard, and thought that would be as good a place to try as any. The superintendent, or manager, was a gentleman named McPherson. He didn't seem to be particularly overjoyed at making my acquaintance, but he asked me to bring a sample of the double-ended and flanged bolt that I needed, and he'd see what he could do. So I told him that I'd bring it the following day.

Most of the rest of the day I just walked around town. The famous Sarawak Museum was one of the first places I sought out. It contained a large number of exhibitions both on the Raja Brooke days and the native Dayak and Iban peoples and their cultures past and present. I regretted that I would not be able to see clear to go into the interior of the country and visit some Iban longhouses. The nearest one, I found, was actually no farther than about twenty miles away. But, I could imagine that it could not be a very good example of the Iban and their culture, since it was so close to civilization and readily accessible to tourists. Still, I wish I'd been able to see it.

The Ibans interested me in particular, as they still seem to be maintaining a great deal of their old ways in isolated areas. They are beautiful people, not unlike other Malays in build and appearance. They are traditionally hunters and slash-and-burn farmers who move on when the land becomes unproductive in a given area. They are also former headhunters, and skulls still decorate some of their longhouses to this day – or so I was told – presumably old skulls. Their culture, though still surviving to a great extent in some places, will not last long, due to the increasing social and economic pressures from outside and the unrelenting assault of commercial loggers on their forests.

Then, there is that creeping, crawling business referred to as the tourist industry, which is taking its toll and in time will turn them into commercialized curio communities. I guess that I'm a tourist myself, though I hate to admit it. Trouble is, travel to out-of-the-way places has just become too easy for too many people. Tourists are swamping fragile cultures all over the world and hastening their deterioration and ultimate demise.

By in large, I had a pretty good day of it looking about town. I returned to the boat fairly early by a little ferry sampan – a sort of hand-driven water taxi with a roof. The boatman propelled his craft from the very bow with two "push" oars. I hadn't seen this particular method used in any other part of the Orient that I had visited. It was quite a feat to make headway against the current. But the boatman knew just how to do it, taking advantage of the little marginal areas of slack water, or eddies, and timing his push across the strong current just right. The maximum ebb current must be in excess of five knots, and that's how it seemed to be running when I returned to the Semangat. I had my doubts as to whether we could make it, as the boat was located about a quarter of a mile upriver from where I caught the ferry, but the old man made it in jig time. Surprising!

Once aboard again, I could tell that we'd dragged anchor a bit. The boat was uncomfortably close to the beach, but I left it that way for the night as we seemed to be holding well enough again. On the next flood, I'd drift the boat higher up and re-anchor.

The next day was Wednesday, the 17^th. I took my sample bolts over to Mr. McPherson at the dockyard and returned to pick them up at five in the afternoon. He had them finished for me. His people had done a good job too. He refused to take any money for it, so all I could do was attempt to express my considerable appreciation, rather awkwardly. I did a little shopping, picked up numerous odds and ends that I needed, including some charts to get me safely out to sea again and a little gas torch for soldering a little oil fitting on the engine.

Mr. McPherson, who is of European-Malay lineage, seemed to hold some sort of a grudge against “white men.” After talking to him for some time, I came to the conclusion that he resented the way the last White Rajah had abandoned Sarawak to the British after the Second World War, betraying Sarawak’s independence, and the way the British had passed it to the newly independent Malaysia in 1963.

Sarawak has a unique and unusual history that I’ve always found very fascinating. Leigh R. Wright, in in a 1972 lecture, called Raja James Brooke and Sarawak “An Anomaly in the 19^th British Colonial Scene.” Here’s a thumb-nail history by Christopher Buyers.

The state of Sarawak originally formed part of the hereditary domains of the Sultan of Brunei, though his control over it was more apparent than real. The Dayak tribes and pirates that inhabited the territory were fiercely independent, frequently rejecting the Sultan's authority. At least, so things stood until the arrival of a young English adventurer from India. James Brooke, a former army officer from Bengal, arrived on the scene in the late 1830's. Entering the Sultan of Brunei's service, he set about pacifying the wild territory known as Sarawak. Succeeding in his task, he first secured appointment as the Sultan's Governor, but succeeded in establishing his independence in 18^th August 1842. He secured the title of Rajah of Sarawak and had this recognized by Great Britain. He conquered a vast slice of the North Eastern coast of Borneo, so large that it was to dwarf the domains of his erstwhile suzerain. He left his vast domain to his nephew, younger son of one of his surviving sister. Charles Brooke, the second Rajah of Sarawak, greatly extended and pacified his inheritance. He expanded trade and commerce, encouraged immigration and accepted a British Protectorate over Sarawak, 14^th June 1888. Charles was succeeded in 1917 by his third, but eldest surviving son, Charles Vyner. His reign lasted 39 years, but his interests lay outside Sarawak. The Japanese invaded and conquered the Raj on Christmas day 1941, forced him into exile in Australia. He formally ceded his rights to the British Crown on 1^st July 1946, in return for a large pension, and retired to England. Administered as a Crown Colony until 1963, Sarawak, together with the former British North Borneo and the Federation of Malaya, formed Malaysia on 16^th September 1963. (A “Brief History” excerpt from a Sarawak history and genealogy web page ©November 2000, by Christopher Buyers,)

The British government had never been absolutely comfortable with the White Rajas. James Brooke was one of their subjects (a private individual at the time), who became the sovereign of an independent country – one as large the British Isles. The British were happy to have a friendly ruler in north Borneo, of course, and had actually given the Rajah naval support to suppress pirates and certain coastal tribes during the early years. Rajah Brooke had hoped to bring Sarawak into the Empire as a British colony, but the British government always seemed to consider Sarawak sort of an illegitimate step-child. As John Abel Smith, a friendly member of Parliament, had quipped in 1866:

“The English government is quite alive to the importance of Sarawak to British interests, but as long as Raja Brooke governs it so well and cheaply for them, they will do nothing for him or Sarawak.”

The last Raja, Charles Vyner, though popular among his subjects, apparently had never really had his heart in Sarawak. The old spirit of the White Rajas was gone. Vyner was up in age when the Japanese were finally routed out of Sarawak, and there were succession problems. Rather than returning to Sarawak after the war to salvage his country, he simply ceded it to the British without consulting his subjects. His only return was to announce the done deal to his disappointed subjects. Had he returned sooner, he would have not on found that the war had not destroyed his kingdom as he apparently imagined, but most of the people were against the cession and eager for the White Rajah to return and resume his rule.

Ironically, on the eve of the Japanese invasion in 1941, Sarawak celebrated a century of White Rajah rule, and had adopted a new constitution promising eventual native rule. That promise was betrayed with the cession. When the British granted independence to Malaysia, they summarily awarded Sarawak to Malaysia as an expediency to themselves. This didn’t make everybody in Sarawak happy. The Dayaks, in particular, had been happy with White Rajah rule, because the Brooke governments had favored them and taken pains to preserve their autonomy and culture. The Brooke government is generally described as autocratic, paternal, and even personal. The Brookes had resisted selling out to foreign corporations eager to exploit Sarawak’s natural resources and turn it into a plantation economy. In short, Sarawak had the rare distinction of being a white ruled Asian country that was happy with its lot, where the people had no reason to resent “colonial rule.” The resentment came when the White Rajah abandoned them and a “real” colonial administration was put into place. Sarawak ceased being an independent nation.

Years after writing the original manuscript of this book, I learned that James Brooke, on his very first visit to Kuching aboard his yacht the Royalist, had traveled the same route we had traveled, and he described his approach to the Santubong Entrance, which was then the main channel used by ships visiting Kuching from Singapore and other points west. He had the advantage over me, of course, in that he was in possession of all the then current information on the Borneo coast, as well as a Malay pilot aboard the Royalist to show him the way.

While I had known the generalized Malay meaning of the word “Semangat,” it wasn’t until many years after sailing from Sarawak than I learned that the Borneo Dayaks worshiped “Semangat” as a god.

“Dayaks worship a superhuman power, called Semangat, that rules the lives of humans, animals and plants. This invisible life force dwells many places: all the human body parts, cut hair, shadows, names, the water in which a human or animal bathed, traces imprinted in the mud... Semangat can enter any body, and it is somehow like a soul that can be destroyed by other more powerful souls. The soul of any man is inherited from a forebear, that's why the cult for the forebears is crucial. Wooden carvings are supposed to host the souls of the dead. All the souls submit to two divine powers: the sky, whose image is the hornbill bird, and the land with water, symbolized by the infernal snake.”

This only goes to show just how limited and superficial my visit to Kuching was. Though I was fascinated with the place, I saw and learned very little of it during my brief stay.

Back aboard the Semangat, I repaired the engine except for the little oil fitting which I seemed unable to solder. It seemed I would have to ask another favor of Mr. McPherson. I removed the fitting entirely to take to him for a replacement. In the evening, after first bathing in river water, I went ashore for supper and a couple beers.

On Monday, the 22^nd, I went ashore and had the good fortune of arriving downtown just in time to get in on a Chinese festival. It included a pretty impressive parade, with floats, clang bands, dragon and lion dancers, and stilt walkers. It was climaxed with the sacred finale – two fellows walking along with long barbecue skewers thrust through their cheeks.

At the parade I had been befriended by a shaggy-looking local “rock group,” who treated me to an evening in some of the local discos and rock clubs. There was a bushy-headed Afghan named Salim, who was the leader and singer of the group, his friend Harry, and two others. These were not really the sort of people I wanted to meet in Sarawak. I was much more eager to make the acquaintance of the Dayaks who were in evidence, with their half bowl haircuts, tattoos, and elongated earlobes. But such opportunity did not present itself.

Salim and his friends, learning of some of my interests, said they'd take me to the famous wind caves where the nests for the Chinese bird soup were gathered that on the following Saturday, so it looked like I might get at least one excursion outside of Kuching. They failed to show up at the appointed time on Saturday, however. I never saw them again, and thus missed my chance to see the fabled bird nest caves. I have a suspicion that I just wasn’t “hip” enough for them to continue the acquaintance.

On Friday, the 26^th, I took my two five-gallon fuel jerry cans ashore and filled them up, as rain was standing between me and work on the steering box. It took two trips in my sampan to ferry enough fuel to fill my small fifteen-gallon diesel tank and end up with two full extra jerry cans. I was getting serious about leaving. I ordered some more lumber, a local mahogany, so I could continue my joinery work at sea.

Though my intercourse with Sarawakis was minimal, I did made some loyal friends during my stay at Kuching. The most loyal were three boys in the nine to eleven year old range named Razali, Johnny, and Ismali. They paid almost daily visits to the Semangat, spoke perfect English, and traveled in an old dugout canoe, which was patched in several places with pieces of galvanized tin. They were the only regular visitors that we had. The only other one to visit my little floating home was a young man named Sahidin Bin Hassan, who liked to be called Stuvesant.

He lived in the house on the bank nearest the anchorage and had swam out to visit the first time. I met his whole family, as I had filled my water cans at his house. He had two beautiful sisters, one of whom, Jaleta, accompanied me once to show me the local aquarium. His father, an architect, had taken me for a sightseeing drive the same day, and the evening before my departure, I had taken dinner with them. Mrs. Hassan was a delightful cook, and I thoroughly enjoyed the meal she and her daughters had prepared, as well as their fine company.

Kuching held me for two enjoyable weeks. I didn't get around to sailing until the 29^th of March, and had begun to get very anxious about allowing myself such a lengthy stay – albeit I was sorry to be leaving. I accomplished quite a lot there. In addition to repairing the engine, which I repaired with great credit due to Mr. McPherson and Brookes Dockyard, I managed to build proper cupboards in the galley, make a seat-footlocker also in the galley, change the position of the fuel tank so it was under the cockpit and out of the way, repair the leak around the stern tube housing, install a steering box and the new steering gear and wheel, and repair the bilge pump, amongst other sundry odd things.

All in all, I remained pretty much all business during my stay in Kuching. Nobody bothered me at the anchorage, and I was able to get a considerable amount of work done. My anchorage had been hidden from view from the town, and few people became aware of my presence behind their mosque. On Friday, the 25^th, I had picked up my sailing clearance, and over the weekend, I made all final preparations for getting underway on Monday.

On my last evening in Kuching, after dining at Stuvesant's house, I returned at about four in the afternoon. I found Johnny, Razali, and Ismali already aboard waiting to say their good-byes. They had some small gifts for me – two nice little wickerwork rice scoops and a bamboo back scratchier. They stayed until about 1800. Then, when I'd just lain down for a nap, Stuvesant swam up. We chatted for about three hours and had hot chocolate and popcorn, and I paddled him ashore, saying good-bye to him and his father. I was sorry that Jaleta was out and I could not say good-bye to her.

It was just as well, I guess, for all of a sudden, I had deep regrets at having to leave so soon after making their acquaintance. Jaleta figured very large in this feeling of regret. It was indeed time to depart – I had already tarried too long and dared not remain longer.

It was 2200 by the time I got back to the boat. I hoisted the trusty sampan aboard first thing, and got it secured, ready for an easy and early departure the following morning. I lashed the water barrels to the mizzen mast, brought up the two life rings, and threw two life preservers over the life lines at the sides of the cockpit in their accustomed positions, and we were ready for sea.

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Chapter 9

The South China Sea Produces Bound Cakes

Coffee was served before sunrise the next morning, March 29^th, and the tide was already outbound. Our anchor was up, and we were powering downstream by 0645, passing the central market with the splendid colors of dawn blanketing the sky, the sun just peeking over the buildings and trees toward the east. It was a wonderful time for getting underway. In my heart there were heavy places and regrets at having to leave such a pleasant and interesting country, but a sailor must always focus on the "next" port. I always have. I have fallen in love with dozens of places only to forget them immediately in the excitement and romance of sallying forth once again upon the sea toward whatever may lie ahead.

Perhaps forget is a poor term to use, as it is always something of a heartbreaking experience to leave new places and new friends behind. One must not dwell upon the melancholy notes of recent departures, however, but must shut them out firmly in favor of looking ahead. The memory will always be there to enjoy along with a longing to return. It is not forgotten, but the mind is momentarily purged of painful thoughts in favor of the positive prospects of the future. To this day, I long to return to Sarawak, as I long to return to so many other places that I have been fortunate enough to visit, and, for a fleeting moment – often with feeling of belonging to. Kuching is one of the top places on my list, and perhaps I shall return to the fabled land of the White Rajahs one day.

By 0730, we passed the entrance to Santubong Channel, glad that I now could return to the sea through a well-marked and safe river channel. It was comforting to have the chart down on the chart table where I could dive down and take a look at will, identifying all the bends and channel markers, the names of all the points and reaches. At 0930, I rounded McDougall Point and had the open sea in view three and a half miles ahead. At a little fishing village on one bank, I sighted a ketch rigged trimaran flying the American flag. I regretted not feeling that I could spare the time to stop and investigate and pay them a visit. The village was very attractive too. It was a very picturesque setting – just the sort of place where a true cruising man would want to stop for a while, but I didn't feel that I had that luxury.

When we left the mouth of the Kuching River, it was ten o'clock. I still had six miles of fairly shallow water until I got over the bar. There was a light northeasterly breeze, so I hoisted the sails but remained under power, as the tide had turned and was now trying to take me back into the river. By 1135, the wind had increased enough that I could shut the engine down and proceeded under sail alone. The river transit had taken four hours and thirty-five minutes, and I officially called my departure time from the Kuching River bar 1100, with Po Point lighthouse bearing 317 true at about 2.1 miles distant. In spite of my regrets about leaving, it felt truly good to be free of the land again and at sea.

The wind was still light, and I had a hard time getting away from my point of departure. Kuching River seemed to want to suck me back in. By 1530, I was still only 4.6 miles from goal and struggling with light breezes which presently changed to northerly. A northerly light breeze wasn't good, as the Kuching River opens into a blight, or indentation, in the Borneo coast out of which we had to go north. With the light wind we were experiencing, we could only tack very slightly north of due east. Then, back on the starboard to travel several miles west, making almost no northing.

By 1830, however, the wind had increased to force three or four, a fine sailing breeze. The wind was still out of the north, but, now again on the port tack, at least we could make a heading of about northeast good. By 2100, Po Point lighthouse, located just north of the river entrance on its west side, dropped out of view some twenty-seven miles astern. Fifteen minutes later I was able to make out the luminous glow of Tandjung Jerijeh lighthouse fine on my starboard bow. Things were beginning to look up. But no sooner had things began looking good again, with Jerijeh Point in the offing, than I ran into a large fleet of fishing boats.

It must have been the entire northeast Borneo fishing fleet congregated together. There were hundreds, it seemed, all around in the direction we wanted to travel. We weaved through them for a couple of miles and, since there was still no end in sight, came about on the starboard tack. We ran out of the fishing fleet again and continued on that tack throughout the night, making a heading of a discouraging west, as the wind soon died to only a light air and was still from the north, back toward Po Point, which was soon again peeking over the horizon.

The solitary sailor often finds himself trying to grab a bite to eat under the most trying and difficult circumstances. So it was with me on this evening when the pangs of hunger overwhelmed me and compelled me to go below to scratch a quick meal together. I decided on a pan of instant Japanese noodles. The breeze was still fresh at the time, and the Semangat was heeling far over on her port side in an increasingly rough sea. At the same time, I was having to keep a close watch on the numerous fishing boats which were about.

No sooner were my noodles done, with me drooling at the mouth in anticipation of hot food, than the Semangat took a lurch, throwing me off balance, while at the same time in endeavoring to insure the safety of my meal, I somehow managed to dump the entire pan of noodles, together with their hot liquid, onto my left foot! Ouch! The flavorful broth was almost completely lost into the bilge, my left foot was burnt, and I was burned up at the loss.

Determined to eat the noodles anyway, I managed to salvage most of them from my left foot, where they had landed in a rather compact entanglement. Back into the pot they went, more water was added, along with a few chopped onions, garlic cloves, and spices, and I finally had my supper, though in a somewhat watered down version than what I had been anticipating.

On Tuesday, March 30^th, I awoke to find a nice northeasterly breeze blowing and a fine sunny day in the offing. I had plodded along in a westerly direction throughout most of the night and now found myself a mere twenty-two miles from where I had taken my departure at eleven the previous morning. At daybreak both Po Point and old familiar Sipang Point were easily observed to the south and the southwest, respectively. That wouldn't be for long though, I comforted myself – prematurely it turned out.

To my chagrin, our nice breeze fell to a light air by mid-morning, and the poor Semangat could just barely hold her head up to a course of northwest! I breakfasted on French toast and honey, hot chocolate, with some pickled onions and garlic on the side, by way of working off my frustrations.

By noon we were a scant thirty-two miles due north of the Kuching River bar. It was almost enough to make me start that darned engine, but I felt that with the length of the present leg of the voyage being what it was, it would be unwise to seriously try to cut it down by motoring. We were heading for Manila now – no question about the destination this time – and I thought we'd save my diesel fuel for those last few miles, should it be necessary to get me into port at the end of the line. Sadly, at 1300, Sipang Point and Mount Santubong were still clearly visible only thirty miles back.

The gods smiled upon us by about 1500, however, as the breeze began to freshen out of the north. We came about to the port tack and set a course of northeast. By 1630, there was a wonderful force four blowing, and my spirits were rising in direct proportion to the increasing wind.

I was enjoying a formal meal on the cabin top – of beef curry, cabbage, potato, mushroom, onion, salt-egg stew (with onions and garlic, of course) – when I saw a porpoise jumping about one hundred yards to starboard, just forward of the beam. I watched him through the binoculars and noticed him and his buddies swerve and head toward the Semangat. Just in case a good shot might present itself, I ran for my camera. They were racing toward us lickety-split. They passed directly under the boat from starboard to port and hung a hard right, right under the keel, and got into play formation directly beneath the bowsprit. I stood on the bowsprit and watched and took pictures as about seven of the playful critters swerved up and down and in and out, keeping pace with the boat about four feet beneath my feet.

They were so close I could easily hear their high-pitched squeaks, so I began to whistle back at them. Darned if I don't believe that they heard me, because they suddenly became even more playful. They began turning sideways as if to take a look at me, nearly flopping out of the water as if to lift an ear closer. A couple even turned back flops right beneath me, and all the while I was taking pictures. Were they responding to me – giving me a special show? They may have been a bunch of daring youngsters who believed they were playing a dangerous game, mocking the harpooner as he stood poised for the throw. After about ten minutes, they tired of the game, however. I guess they thought that they'd showed me as they cut away to port and then astern. They followed at a distance for a short while and soon disappeared. I got some good pictures.

All the while we had been clipping right along. Those porpoises had to do more than just leisurely coast along to keep up! It had taken effort – the Semangat might have even winded them a little. It seemed we were doing about six knots, which was about tops for the Semangat when close hauled. I figured we could clear Sirik Point, which jutted far northward from the inside of that bight I'd been cleaving out of those past two days, if the breeze held. Sirik Point formed the northeastern outer edge of the bight. When that point was south of us, we could consider ourselves clear and away and clear of the Borneo coast. I sighted the luminous glow of Sirik Point light at 2030 and estimated that we'd covered thirty-seven miles in five and a half hours – an average of 6.2 knots! The best we'd done so far.

I was feeling pretty good about that good afternoon run, and the prospects of putting Sirik behind us within a very few more hours, when the gods decided that we'd had too much of a good thing. They turned the wind off again. By 2215, we were barely able to hold a heading of any kind. At 2330, with flopping sails, I put the boat on the starboard tack, away from Tandjung Sirik, and gave up for the night, a bit crestfallen but still pleased with the progress we'd made.

Wednesday was just about a repeat of the day before with a few periods of breeze and many disappointments. Our noon position put us only twenty-seven miles from departure – a pretty sad showing for two days of effort. And it was breathlessly calm and hot. But by late afternoon, a breeze developed and gradually increased to a force four. It was still holding fair out of the north-northeast when I finally went to bed in the cockpit under a clear sky with the Semangat heading north-northwest.

Next morning, April Fools' Day was upon me, and when I awoke I found that not only had the wind held for the night, but it had veered over to the northeast so that we were heading north! I hoped it wasn't all some sort of April Fools' joke, for it was just what the doctor ordered. We were making some northing now, and there was no sign that it might slack off. We were really burning up the sea miles!

While in Kuching I’d bought some artificial fish bait in the form of little rubber fish and we'd been trolling with two lines during the night. I pulled the lines in to find that both of my little artificial fish had been bitten off right behind the hook. April Fool! So much for my fancy rubber fish. I put a dried mushroom on the hooks for another try at it, but I'll have to admit that mushrooms proved to be mighty poor lures. Apparently fish are not fond of mushrooms.

The breeze was paying off, as we had a twenty-four-hour run of eighty-six miles. The only better day's run we'd had was the second day out of Singapore when we had eighty-eight miles noon to noon. That's about as good as we could expect, I figured, as our entire voyage was to be against prevailing winds and currents. There would be few, if any, one-hundred mile days.

As the wind held firm and even increased, and the sea building, I puttered around below as much as I could. I finished my folding leaf table in the main saloon and built a condiment rack with lee sides beneath the table. Also, I installed a hook on the hinged top of the steering box so the top could be propped open to serve as a hatch and ventilator scoop for the lazzarett locker and the area under the cockpit, an area that had before been void of any natural means of air circulation. I also put a lock hasp on it so that it could be locked up when in port.

By 1700, the wind had built to a high force four or low five, and the seas increased accordingly. It was getting a bit rough, but the boat was remaining dry. I was happy to see the Semangat bounding ahead with great determination, and I gave her full rein.

For supper, at 2000, I boiled two handfuls of elbow macaroni in a half pan of water – one-third of which was sea water – cut up two fresh onions and three cloves of garlic, and threw in three dried mushrooms, a can of chicken noodle soup, a generous shake of tomato catsup, and some chili sauce. I called that "April Fools' Soup," and it tasted pretty good, sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese and served up in the saucepan. For desert I had the remains of the morning cornbread, eaten with honey. Hot chocolate to drink – a pretty fancy meal if I do say so myself – in spite of the rough pitching and more or less constant twenty degree heel.

Shortly after I stretched out on the lee cockpit bench at about 2215, a dark, threatening line of clouds loomed up ahead. I struck the main for a while to see what those darkies had in mind. It turned out to be a bluff, but I kept the main down for the night anyway, as the breeze remained pretty stiff. The wind was still northeast, and we were heading on a northerly course toward the coast of South Vietnam. I figured that was the way to catch the most favorable winds and currents for this season, if they could be called that. Also, of course, I wanted to stay clear of the extensive area of the South China Sea to the east of me labeled "Dangerous Ground," and get far enough north to head toward Manila on about an easterly heading. The idea was essentially to negotiate the entire passage on two tacks. Starboard tack north to the mid-section of Vietnam, and port tack from there eastward to Manila.

Shortly after daybreak on the second, we passed a lonely oil rig, a floater, and a supply boat standing by it, about five miles to the east. I didn't recognize either the rig or the boat (but I’d been out there myself on such a boat just a year or so before). Our wind was holding, and we were making good time. My noon fix indicated that we'd just broken the one-hundred-mile-a-day barrier. We had done 110 miles from noon to noon, making a course of 338° good. The going was getting rougher, but it was paying dividends in mileage. This was the typical northeast monsoon wind that I had been hoping to avoid before leaving Singapore!! I could do with a whole lot of it now, as I could see that whenever the northeast wind died down, it was usually replaced by no wind at all or almost no wind. And a sailing vessel can do her stuff only with wind.

We had passed the sun up in our race northward. Yesterday I had to look north to get a meridian altitude of the sun, and today I had to look south. That, as well as the rig and supply boat we’d passed reminded me of my old friend, Captain Jon Rocco.

Jon was an ex-navy boxing champion who had spent the last couple of decades in “oil patch” as a supply boat captain, hauling rig supplies, towing oil rigs, and setting and pulling anchors for floating rigs. He had followed all the major oil booms around the world almost from the inception of offshore drilling – from the U.S. Gulf coast to Venezuela and Trinidad, the North Sea, Nigeria, and then Singapore and southeast Asia. I’d been with him on one run to get some anchor handling lessons when I’d last been in this particular area. Jon had an endless supply of sea stories, and on that occasion, had told me an interesting navigation story. It was about getting a local apparent noon shot at such a time similar to the one I’ve just noted, told as only one such as Jon could do.

He related how he got out on the bridge wing with his sextant to get a noon site, a few minutes before meridian passage on fine day. Facing almost due east, as usual in these latitudes, he got the sun into his sextant scope as usual, and began adjusting the vernier as the sun approached it’s zenith. He was rocking his sextant to insure that he had it perpendicular to the horizon. The sun appears to swing like a pendulum when this is done, and when at the bottom of the swing the sextant is adjusted to place the lower limb of the sun on the horizon to get its altitude. When the sun’s altitude is very high, of course, the arc of the sun’s swing is very large and flat, making it difficult to determine the bottom of it’s apparent swing.

All at once Jon was baffled. No matter how he tilted his sextant, the sun stayed right on the horizon. He was still facing east. Ordinarily, as the sun approached its maximum altitude the observer would end up facing either north or south, depending on whether the sun was passing north or south of the observer’s position. He said he faced north, and the sun was still right on the horizon no matter how he tilted his sextant.

Then Jon did an about face, and then another – and the sun stayed right on the horizon in the sextant telescope! He’d got a 90 degree sun! Rather than just a meridian altitude, which determines latitude, he’d got his very first one sight fix! His vessel was exactly below the sun at that magic instant. The sun’s geographic position (it’s hour angle and declination), were Jon’s longitude and latitude. Not many people ever manage to do that.

As we approached nearer to the Vietnam coast, I reflected sorrowfully about the unfortunate events of the year before. Just about a year previously, all hell was breaking loose in Vietnam. At that time, I had written in my journal in Singapore:

...In the past week Hue has fallen;

Da Nang has fallen; Qui Nhan went down this morning, and Nha Trang fell this afternoon! And all of this out of a blue sky! It's happening incredibly quickly. At the rate of communist advance, Saigon will be in chaos by tomorrow!

My family was then in Saigon, and I was in Singapore and worried because it appeared that I was in danger of being cut off from them. Here I was now, approaching the Vietnam coast again, but not with the intention of pulling in there as had once been my plan just over a short year ago. Now we would have to be very careful not to approach too closely.

But how close was too close? That I didn't really know. But I did know that we didn't want to take a chance at meeting a Vietnamese patrol boat. The results of such an encounter could be rather troublesome, to say the least. Certainly, they would suspect me of being engaged in something other than "innocent passage." I decided that 100 miles would be a safe distance. I'd wait and see how the wind held, as maybe I would be able to head more toward the northeast if the wind should change during the night.

I saw the North Star, Polaris, for the first time on the voyage. Using it, I was able to get a good easy check on both my steering and held bearing compasses. Both were right on the money. The swells were getting bigger, but we were still fairly skipping along. We were still on the starboard tack as we had been since the previous morning. I indulged in my usual late evening snack of popcorn and hot chocolate while sitting at the top of the companionway listening to the sound of the Semangat slashing and plunging through waves. Ah, what a life!

That night was a funny one. I don't know why, but I had awakened laughing two or three times during the night. I couldn't remember what I had been dreaming about, but it must have been pretty funny. The cruising life was evidently good for my sense of humor. One of the times that I awoke, I spotted a ship headed south. It was the first I’d seen since March 31^st. At 0800, seven dolphins (porpoises) were back again, frolicking under the bow.

Having spilled my morning coffee all over myself, my shorts, and shirt, I took my "daily" saltwater bath up on the foredeck early. I'd been neglecting the good old daily for two days, as the rough weather seemed to sap me of energy and ambition, but the coffee had been well sweetened and I had to get unsweetened. My clothes, I tied to the "safety warp" and let them drag over the stern in our wake.

The safety warp was one of my lifesaving devices. It was nothing but a long line that I dragged aft which had a fairly large eye in the end and an eye about in the middle with some knots at about four-foot intervals down its length. I towed it astern, particularly in rough weather, so in the event that I ever fell over the side, I'd have a chance of catching a hold of it before the boat got too far ahead. It was about 150 feet long. Fortunately, I never was forced to test the technique. I don't know whether I would have been able to hang on to it as it was pulled along at five to seven knots or not. But I didn't like the idea of the generally accepted harness and life line used on most modern racing and cruising yachts. All the same, I could think of nothing more frightening than the prospect of falling overboard at sea and watching the boat sail herself merrily away and over the horizon. I didn't like the thought of it at all, so better safe than sorry. Of course it was a slight drag on the speed, but I felt that the effect was not too significant, and the added security well worth the cost of a fraction of a knot.

One hundred and thirty-three miles noon to noon! What had I said about not expecting any one-hundred-mile days? This was a very pleasant surprise indeed. An average for the day of 5.54 knots! It was great, but it turned out that this was the high point of the entire voyage as far as distance run was concerned. I never came near that again, and just think what it might have been had I not been towing my safety warp! I thought I'd stay on the starboard tack one more day, but if this speed kept up, I'd have to get morning stars to make sure that I wasn't running in too close to the coast.

At around 1300, I was crossing a well-trafficked shipping lane on a line between Bashi Channel, between the Philippines and Taiwan, and Singapore Strait. There was a steady stream of ships – mostly tankers – headed in both directions as far as the eye could see. Most of the afternoon, I spent reading. I was reading The Decline and Fall of the American Dollar by Ronald Segal. Then I spent some time rereading about typhoon doctrine in Rear Admiral S. B. Luce's (USN) Seamanship, which was first published in 1898. It dealt with how square-riggers were handled in typhoons. I also brushed up on modern typhoon doctrine in my Merchant Marine Officer's Handbook, which I always kept at hand for reference.

That was another thing that we had to worry about. We were approaching typhoon country. My voyage from Manila to Guam would be down what I call "typhoon alley" – that stretch of Western Pacific where typhoons are most frequent. There is no month that is completely safe from typhoons in the West Pacific area. There are more tropical cyclones there each year than in any other tropical cyclone-prone area of the world. The most typhoon-free month, though still not absolutely safe, is January. From that month of the year, the frequency of typhoons increases steadily until the peak months of late summer and early autumn are passed, and then the frequency again decreases until January. I tried to calculate our odds against meeting a typhoon and felt optimistic about our chances of a typhoon free voyage. It would be May when we would be exposing ourselves the most. I figured that we had a very good chance of not hitting one – at least the odds were in our favor. The Semangat and I were very small, and the ocean very big. The odds said that there may be two typhoons that develop in the month of May somewhere in the West Pacific area, and I didn't see any valid reason why I should have to meet with one. But then, I've always been a very poor gambler. And, while the West Pacific is very large, so are the typhoons it delivers up!

I got a time check from the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) early on Sunday morning, April 4^th, and got a nice assortment of stars in the gathering dawn light. I found that Mui Ke Ga – that familiar point on the South Vietnamese coast – 110 miles distant, and our old beach property at Vung Tau 130 miles distant to the northwest. At 0620, I put the Semangat over on port tack, to run eastward for a awhile. The rough seas with slightly diminished wind wouldn't allow her to hold a very favorable course, so I moved twenty gallons of water, in my four jerry cans, up to the forward cabin and found that it helped us head up slightly higher into the wind. Although it was better, we seemed only to be able to make about east-southeast good. How I hated to give up that hard earned northing!

Naturally, the wind would have to start acting up now that I'd started trying to head east – thanks to Murphy's Law! We were making fairly good headway, but also drifting south! I took the yankee down and replaced it with the genoa to see if that would help. It would be my second attempt to put my new genoa to work.

By 1400, I finally got the rig balanced out to do what I wanted it to do. Head due east! Or at least almost due east. We were still a little south of it, but I was satisfied and decided that I'd treat myself to a batch of what I chose to call "easting-ho-losh," for I was getting a little hungry.

Not knowing just exactly how to go about preparing easting-ho-losh, I commenced by thinly slicing a large potato into the frying pan. Then came two medium onions and five small cloves of garlic, followed by a slosh of corn oil. Then I started it to frying. After pondering awhile – it just didn't look complete – I put in some water and crumpled and chopped up some cabbage leaf, as it seemed to me that easting-ho-losh ought to be more of a broiled than a fried preparation, since I didn't have very much cooking oil left.

Into the above bubbling concoction, I poured a can of button mushrooms and then a can of corned beef. I thought of adding an elbow or two of macaroni but then decided in favor of some rice noodles that I had as being more appropriate to the "east" component of the name. All that done, I topped it off with a thimble full of fish sauce and a dash of good old Red Devil hot sauce.

I let it boil for quite some time, stirring it twice and burning the bottom to a golden ebony color, after which, I concluded, it was done and ready to be served, if anything ever could be.

When I looked at it, I couldn't help but say to myself, "Well, I sure hope it's good, 'cause there sure is a lot of it." As a side, I served up a century egg, sometimes called a black egg or hundred-year old egg, which I'd picked up in a Chinese shop in Kuching, and whipped up some frothy hot chocolate for drink. I sprinkled a generous bit of grated cheese on the easting-ho-losh and lay to.

It wasn't really too bad. As a matter of fact, sitting on the lee side of the cockpit at the head of the companionway, in the shade of the mizzen boom awning, with a fresh northeasterly breeze sweeping across my face – occasionally taking a bit of ho-losh with it to leeward – I could almost say that it was really good. I don't know how it would taste under differing circumstances. I don't believe I'd waste too much time looking for the dish on a restaurant menu if such a dish were known to exist. But after all, it was a special dish, to be eaten while sitting on the lee side of the cockpit, at the head of the companionway, in the shade of the mizzen boom awning, at sea while you are striving to go east and not south.

Truly, it wasn't bad. Honest. The fact that I could only eat about a third of it was because there was so darned much of it! And, like the famous Brunei Bound cakes before it, it was heavy fare. Real heavy.

Other that experimenting around with the genoa a bit, it was a rather lazy day during which I tried to do very little. I had something of a heavy feeling in my stomach for some reason, and just didn't feel up to much activity. So I just stood my routine sea watches and lazed around in between.

Supper? Easting-ho-losh again? No! I took that stuff, mashed it up, blended in flour, milk, egg, and water, and fried it up into "Manila Bound Cakes"! It made seven, and I ate two, for they were also heavy fare. They weren't entirely inedible. Ugh! For drink, ginseng flower tea – a meal truly fit for a king!

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Chapter 10

My Boat is Like a Lady; Mr. Dorado Arrives

By 2045, we were re-crossing that shipping lane again. There were ships coming and going like nobody's business. It was literally a seagoing version of Hollywood and Vine! By 2200, most of the traffic seemed to be astern us, so I made sure the running lights were burning good and bright and hit my cockpit bunk, taking my chances on being run over by strays.

Since 0600 the previous morning, I had been making good a heading of east-southeast, away from the Vietnamese coast. But that course was a little more southerly than my liking. I was also getting closer to Ladd Reef and some other reefs whose positions had been reported but not confirmed. They were marked on the chart as "position doubtful," "existence doubtful," "uncovers at low tide"!!! The genoa had begun playing with me again, and after writing in my log, I went up to find that we were aback and that the wind had fallen off somewhat.

That genoa was like that. The least little change in the force or direction of the wind and it had to be pampered and babied, or it would promptly bring us up so far into the wind that it would go aback. The yankee never did that. At least, it never did unless there were due cause and extenuating circumstances, and I could forgive it for that. I brought us about onto the starboard tack and found that we could make a heading of north by east, which was just what I wanted. It would be nice, I thought, if we could remain on that tack and heading right on up to fifteen degrees north, where I intended to head east again for Manila.

Manila Bound cakes were on the menu again for breakfast, along with ginseng flower tea. And the wind freshened a little the minute I took a bite. Good cakes, those!

We were one week out of Kuching already. It sure hadn't seemed that long. Time wasn't dragging as it seemed that it should, what with my growing laziness as far as getting any productive work accomplished was concerned. I spent some time writing in my journal, discussing the self-steering qualities of the Semangat. I also wrote a bit about my new steering gear which I was very happy with. It worked very well. I had been a little doubtful as to my choice of steering gears. I wasn't about to purchase a proper yacht worm gear or any other type of proper steering system as they were too far expensive.

A Chinese boatman in Singapore had showed me what he used, which was nothing more than a little industrial reduction gear with right angle drive. It looked like just what I needed, so I found a dealer. I had a choice between a twenty-to-one reduction and a forty-to-one. I took the forty-to-one, though I learned later that the twenty-to-one would have been nearer standard. That was the heart of the steering system. I bought a one-inch-diameter stainless steel shaft and a beautiful teak ship's wheel and all the other little odds and ends that I would need to make it work. Then I had a machine shop do the necessary turning and threading of the steering shaft and make, according to my drawings and specifications, two adaptors to join the rudder stock to the drive shaft of the reduction gear, and the wheel shaft to the power input shaft. The reduction gear was a neat compact unit and was designed for continuous high speed industrial work, so I thought it would be plenty adequate for my purpose.

Before purchasing the reduction gear, which only cost about $45 in U.S. currency, I had figured out how many turns of the wheel would turn the rudder to forty-five degrees using each of the two reduction ratios. It would take five full turns on the forty-to-one gear and only two and a half on the twenty-to-one. I opted for the former, although I later found that most boat steering gears approximate the twenty-to-one ratio; that is, two-and-one-half full turns of the wheel would put the rudder hard over. The whole package had cost me only $116. That was gear, shaft, wheel, machine shop work, nuts, bolts, and other materials. Only in Singapore could it have been done for that price, I'm sure. (Naturally, other places would have been more–or less!)

The main thing I feared, was that there would be no "feel" in the steering wheel using the forty-to-one reduction gear. But this proved unfounded as I found the slightest pressure on the rudder provided a bit of feel. Yet under extreme pressure, it was never difficult to turn the wheel. It was just right as far as I was concerned. Since the rudder couldn't turn the wheel, wherever the wheel stopped, the rudder was effectively locked in position, thus the necessity of lashing the wheel was eliminated. It also allowed for fine tuning of the ship's heading to attain a precarious balance between rig and rudder, which proved very helpful. I could find but one glaring fault – and this would apply to many other mechanical steering systems. That was in the fact that the rudder was more or less held absolutely rigid at all times. If the rudder ever, God forbid, contacted something solid and unyielding, something would have to give, and I had no idea what it might be. The only certainty was that something would have to give and break.

I noted in my journal that this was the anniversary of my final flight to Saigon. It was a Sunday last year, April 5^th, 1975, that I had flown to Saigon to evacuate my family. I had been surprised at how calm and unconcerned Saigon was in the face of recent military disasters still only a few days old to the north. The enemy was at the very gates to the city, yet the people of Saigon gallantly pretended to ignore the reality. It was a very unreal situation – surreal is perhaps a better word. At least the false feeling of security was. Nobody would allow themselves to admit that America had forsaken them and their government, and the nation was actually on the brink of total defeat and a communist takeover.

The people still held hopes of an eleventh hour, miraculous bail out. Nobody really believed that Uncle Sam would let it happen the way that it did. Ah, those heart-rending last days in Saigon. That had been a trying and interesting time – a time which radically changed many lives, including mine. Indeed, it changed the lives of an entire nation radically and, to a lesser extent, had effects upon several other nations.

Listening to BBC news broadcasts, I learned that the millionaire Howard Hughes had just died in Texas and, also, that Americans were being evacuated from Lebanon. Amazing, radio. There I was, sitting in the middle of the South China Sea and able to keep abreast on world events. We all take today's communication media for granted, but they really are miracles when you stop and think of it. Radio waves! In the air! All over the place!

Actually, I was alarmingly under-equipped with communication devices by today's standards – but to me, it was amazing just to be able to sit there on my little boat and listen to the world over my little transistor receiver. Having served as captain on ships with all the latest communications equipment, I am well familiar with all sorts of gear from VHF and SSB on through shipboard telex and marisat equipment, not to mention the traditional radio telegraphy. But the simple – can I really say simple? – transistor receiver was amazing enough to me. It was my only link with the outside world. I could turn it off and be as isolated as Columbus, Captain Cook, or Slocum had ever been in their days at sea – or I could simply press a button and listen to almost any part of the world I desired. I could turn the world on at will – and turn it off just as easily. Truly amazing!

That little radio was a good deal of company on my voyage. It was almost as if it is really unfair to claim that I made the voyage alone because of that radio. And I depended on it a great deal, when you come right down to it. I could have done very well without the company. I didn't really need to hear the news. But I needed the time signals that I listened to daily. Perhaps I could have survived without them, too, but I was glad I didn't have to. Nor did I have even a dependable watch. I had an old twenty-dollar Seiko chronograph, which had been knocking around in my pocket – I never wear a wristwatch – for some six or seven years. There was also a ship's clock, which didn't keep anything like perfect time. So, I reset my watch every morning before taking my morning sun lines, usually using BBC or the Japanese time signals.

Slocum had managed to circumnavigate the world using only an old beat-up alarm clock. No radios and no time ticks for him. He had used the old lunar sight method, which is a lost art to me. I had no lunar tables. Bowditch doesn't even have them anymore, nor even mention how they worked. A lost art indeed. I guess I could have managed without those time signals, but they sure made things a lot easier. With correct time, there is no guesswork to navigation so long as you can get a peek through the clouds now and then.

Tuesday, April 6^th, was another French toast morning. To keep our remaining bread supply "fresh" (we had no icebox), I had dried it in the sun, so that about the only way to eat it now was to soak it for a few minutes in beaten eggs and fry it up as French toast. Pickled onions and garlic for desert! Ginseng tea for drink. That was living!

Our noon position was latitude, 9° 32' north and longitude, 110° 18' east. Seventy miles had passed under the keel in the past twenty-four hours. Our total sailing time out of Kuching was now eight days, zero hours, and thirty minutes, and we'd traveled a total distance of 664 miles. I still hadn't had to resort to power, and the weather was fair with light northeasterly airs. The seas were down to one to two feet, but there was still a long swell out of the north-northeast.

Just a couple of days before leaving Singapore, one of the nicer yachts at the Changi Yacht Club had gone adrift from its mooring, and I cranked up and gone to the rescue. Peter had been with me, and he jumped aboard the other boat when we got alongside, and we took her in tow. For our trouble, she closed with us and rammed Semangat in the side, damaging the bulwark.

Now I set to work repairing the damage. It had been bothering me for a long time, as the track for the headsail sheet fairlead block ran over that damaged section of bulwark. Every time I was on the port tack with a fair wind, with the yankee or genoa sheeted through that fairlead block, I could see the bulwark straining and working. It was just a matter of time until a strong gust would yank up that whole section of track and the weakened bulwark under it. It was a laminated bulwark, and the glue in the lamination joints had broken loose, and some of the strips of wood had split as well. I had sort of dreaded the job, but it was going well.

As I was leaning outboard, drilling some screws out, I noticed some movement under the surface of the water. Lo and behold, I was being honored with the presence of a beautiful male dorado or dolphin (fish) that appeared to be every bit of five feet in length.

I couldn't help but think of how easy it would be to gaff of harpoon him if I only had a gaff or harpoon of some sort. He would provide me with an abundance of fresh fish as long as I could keep it from spoiling and, after that, a great quantity of dried fish, which would last for weeks. I remembered Dougal Robertson's book Survive the Savage Sea where he told the amazing saga of his family's thirty-seven day ordeal adrift in the southeast Pacific in an open life raft after their sailing yacht had been rammed and sunk be a whale. During those thirty-seven days, dorado had provided a good deal of their diet. I believe they had used an improvised gaff to catch them with.

Work on the bulwark was finished by about 1900. It was reassembled and glued up again. Next day, I would sand and plane it a bit, and it would be ready for paint.

I’d written in my journal that the old Semangat has just now – for the first time since her launching – become a 100 percent, died-in-the-wool, deep sea vessel. Our 1930 D.R. position put 1053 fathoms of water under her keel. Over a nautical mile of water under us! The Semangat had never before been out of soundings until this trip, and only now had we really got ourselves into real deep water.

Supper was served up at 2030, and I was hungry. After that, I sat in my usual position and smoked my pipe, looking at the sky and the stars, the moon and the sea around us. It was a great feeling. The Semangat was leisurely but steadily pitching along on the port tack in a light northeasterly breeze. It was a perfect night to be at sea.

In fact, it was an inspirational night. I was struck with the idea that the Semangat seemed to have a life and soul her very own, and decided to attempt to write a short poem before the mood passed out of me. So, I waxed poetic for a few moments and produced a poem. Not to dampen the reader’s enthusiasm, but I’ll conclude this chapter with part of what I came up with. For those who would prefer not to be bothered, please skip to the next page. The rest of the poem can be found at the end of the book.

“My Boat is Like a Lady”

My Boat is Like a Lady,
And that she is to me.
Just watch her moonlit figure
Grace the China Sea…

She goes ahead without a hand
To tend her tender wheel,
Bounds right ahead and on her course
With a jaunty sort of heel……

The dipper's fine to starboard
And Polaris fine aport,
And she'll stay right up and on it,
And never fall off short…

Oh yes! She is a-living,
Beating heart and all;
The little ship's alive tonight –
That's why I make this call.

I love her like a lady fair,
For that she is to me.
But she is like the others tho’,
With things to do and see.

For if I should fall overboard,
And surface but a yard away,
I don't believe She'd back a sail,
But merely bear off on her way.

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Chapter 11

Mr. Dorado's Luck

On Wednesday, April 7^th, 1976, we were one month out of Singapore and I awoke to a continued fair, though light, northeasterly breeze. I had good old-fashioned Quaker Oats for breakfast. Our noon position was latitude, 10° 56' north and longitude, 110° 30' east. We'd had a day's run of 86 miles, and were nine days and thirty minutes, and 750 miles, out of Kuching. We'd covered over 1000 almost painless miles since leaving Singapore.

We were also only ninety-five miles southeast of Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, another place that holds many a memory – pleasant and otherwise – for me. One particular event that comes to mind. It was, I understand, the first night that the Cam Ranh air base was ever shelled by the Viet Cong. I happened to have been in port at the time on a merchant vessel and was spending the night in a little village across the bay we called "Soo Chin" (I probably have the spelling wrong).

Soo Chin was the place where the more determined seaman and GI's alike would end up for a little R & R. Cam Ranh village, which was very convenient, was strictly off limits most of the time, because it was such a pleasant place to go. For security reasons, Cam Ranh village had been completely fenced in to prevent American forces from partaking too much of the pleasures and hazards to be found therein. Soo Chin, on the other hand, was a long hitchhike up the bay and across a bridge to the far side. It was in dangerous territory, and only the most determined seamen would make the effort. I was the only one that I ever knew of.

Anyway, on this particular occasion, I found myself there in the typical beer-can-tin building, after having partaken of sufficient beer, sleeping in one of the little back rooms. We were awakened during the wee hours of the morning by the sounds of muffled reports of mortars being launched from up on the hillside behind the village. We could hear them being launched and then exploding over on the base a second or two later. The attackers were much closer to us than the heretofore safe and secure haven of the air base and sea port area. In fact, they seemed dangerously close – perhaps only a few hundred yards up the mountainside.

My thoughts turned to the half dozen or so national policeman who stood guard at the village gates at each end of the road which served as main street. Those posts were strangely silent, and I guessed they didn't want to interfere for fear of reprisals. I wondered where the Koreans were – those of the Tiger Division, who were in charge of security on this side of the bay. I knew there were several Koreans on R & R in the village. They were undoubtedly presently in about the same compromised position as myself. One couldn't help but feel a bit insecure under such circumstances. But the village, and everybody in it remained as quiet as a church. Once the shelling was completed, the duration of the night continued just as quiet.

Cam Ranh village itself was like a little fenced off piece of paradise on the beach. It was a tiny fishing village of thatched houses set on white sand among coconut trees. There was no vehicular traffic of any kind, so it was quite the idyllic tropical village. The main attraction, however, was all the beautiful young girls. Those lucky enough to be able to sneak into the village were sort of in a beach combers' wonderland, since there were a dozen or more little bars, filled with girls, and almost no patrons. In other words, it was a buyer's market.

There was a military gate at the entrance of the village that prevented G.I.s and seamen from entering. But one could sneak in from the seaside, as I did on a few occasions, catching a boat ride with homebound Vietnamese longshoremen at the end of their shift.

Getting back to the ship the next morning sometimes proved to be a problem, however. On one memorable occasion I boldly departed the village through the military gate. Unlike previous times I'd thus exited the village, the American military M.P. guards proved totally devoid of a sense of humor. The upshot was that I ended up incarcerated in the brig for the rest of the day and missed my deck watch. Thereafter, I opted for the long hitch-hike to Soo Chin.

Just to the north of Cam Ranh Bay is the city and beach resort area of Nha Trang, another place that holds memories for me. The coast in general is a beautiful one with fine coconut-tree-clad sand beaches, punctuated with rock outcroppings and small offshore islands against a lush tropical backdrop of trees and mountains. What a pity that I did not dare approach that once familiar shoreline now. Everything had undoubtedly changed. Though there would be no American M.P.s to harass the wayward merchant seaman gone ashore, no Americans at all were welcome. So I just had to content myself, for the time being, with vivid memories of that coast beyond the horizon to the northwest.

Now we were becalmed again, our good runs at an end. With the sails popping, and booms swinging languidly, I completed the work on the starboard bulwark and then slapped a coat of paint on the bottom of the sampan while I was in the painting business.

Having completed my target projects for the day, and being dirty and sweaty, I thought my daily bath was in order. Since we were becalmed, I decided to get right into the water for a change. It looked so cool and inviting – I could hardly resist it. So, after streaming my "safety warp" (the boat was making just the suggestion of headway due to the roll generated air in the sails), I hung my rope ladder over the stern so that standing on the bottom rung I would be about 2 1/2 feet down into the water.

Over the stern I climbed, and oh, how refreshing that clean, clear water felt! I looked about under the water to reassure myself that I was the only one around. It seemed I was. Seeing how clearly I'd be able to view the bottom of the boat, I thought it would be nice to see even more clearly. So I climbed back up and got my mask and snorkel. It was a good time for an inspection.

Back down the ladder I went, this time with my mask on – and I looked about very carefully before taking my feet off the ladder. Nothing in sight – and the visibility was great. I could see my white nylon fishing line hanging diagonally astern and the lead sinker on it and hook at least fifty feet away. The bottom of the boat looked neat and clean with its red coat of antifouling paint standing out in brilliant contrast to the bright blue background of the seawater. It bore the aspect of being a mere, though fantastically large, toy – a model as if viewed from just below the surface of a blue-colored bathtub.

Growing braver, I totally submerged myself in the water, hanging on to the last rung of the ladder as the boat towed me gently along. Thus I cooled myself, watching the movement of the hull and frequently glancing warily aside, down, and behind. I saw there was a piece of blue nylon cord wrapped around the propeller shaft. I pulled myself down to it and tried to free it but found that I would need a knife, as it was wrapped many times round, so I abandoned the project for the time being.

In due course, I climbed back aboard to scrub myself down with detergent and a wash towel. Just as I'd got aboard and sat myself down on the transom at the top of the ladder, my eyes caught a quick movement below. A large bluish shape passed by about five feet from the foot of the ladder! It almost came a stop, then moved on – seemingly in disappointment.

My first thought was of a book I had recently read – Jaws! Then, I thought, Gad! He materialized mighty fast! But as he paused before moving again out of sight, I recognized him as none other than my big dorado visitor of the previous day. Apparently, he had been around all the time, just out of sight – perhaps just behind the hull from me. He must have decided to come up and get a closer look at the thing that was dragging astern – me. I wondered why he never bothered my hook. I guessed there just wasn't enough life on it for him.

I scrubbed myself down and got back into the water to rinse off. No dorado in sight. He must have been playing hide and seek.

By this time, the boat was gathering way. For, in accordance with Carr's First Law, my hanging precariously astern of the boat was the signal for the gods to send wind. Soon there was a pleasant force two and we were cutting along at about 2 1/2 or 3 knots through the smooth sea.

Mr. Dorado was still around. I heard a walloping splash off to starboard and looked over to see none other. He seemed to have skipped just to let me know that he was still there.

Evil me, I proceeded to make a "spinner" with which to try to catch him. At 1830, it was completed. I used a spoon – one of my precious teaspoons – my one fishing swivel, a short length of stainless steel wire for a leader, and a large hook. But now, no dorado in sight. He was probably a wise and cautious old fish to have lived so long, I thought. Anyway, I would have preferred to catch something about half his size.

I threw the gear astern on a stout line, hoping it would prove more attractive than my old rubber fish head and dried mushrooms had. The spoon worked well. It spun beautifully, as I’d put just the right twist in it. I'd opened a can of cuttlefish to add to the spinner to act as further inducement, but it just fell apart when I tried to put it on the hook, so I ended up streaming the bait-less hardware and eating the rest of the cuttlefish bait for supper. I was getting hungry.

Seeing no immediate activity at the end of my line, which I had made fast to a piece of bicycle inner tubing to take the shock of a possible strike, I went below to prepare a meal. Down in the galley, I was stirring my pan of noodles as they heated on the stove, when I heard a strange sound from up in the cockpit. I went up and looked at my line. It didn't have the appearance of being under tension. It wasn't moving about. When I pulled on it, it felt normal.

Nothing yet, I thought. Then I looked down almost beneath me over the quarter, and there he was – Mr. Dorado! I thought I'd pull the line in and dangle my spoon spinner right in front of his very nose to see what he would think of it. As I pulled my line in, I was struck by how little pull my swiveling spoon was exerting on it.

Well, I hope he liked it! Mr. Dorado had swallowed hook, spoon, swivel, and leader! The only thing that I pulled in was the sinker at the end of an empty line. Mr. Dorado had gobbled up the whole works! The strange sound had been when he struck, and bit through the line above the leader wire. My mistake had been too short a wire leader. He'd swallowed it all so deeply that when he'd chomped down, he bit through the nylon line forward the leader. But he seem unperturbed. There he was, still swimming alongside, as if nothing had happened. It seemed to me that he should be suffering from a tummy ache.

Now I felt I had moral obligation to catch him just to get him out of his misery. Surely he couldn't be expected to live very long with all that hardware in his stomach! I also wanted to get my swivel and spoon back. My silverware inventory wasn't too extensive as it was – and I didn't have many hooks left, either. Losing the swivel was a real blow, as it had been the only one on board. And, of course, one of the side benefits, should I catch him, would be a fish fry.

In another hour, I had a duplicate device made up, only less the swivel. I trailed it astern and tested to see if it would do anything. I hoped it would at least wobble. As I played with it dragging just astern, Mr. Dorado darted up. He put his nose to it and backed off. I made the spoon jump like a flying fish. He seemed quite interested, even though the spoon didn’t glide very convincingly.

When I let it drag, he followed close astern of it, examining it closely. I actually believe he was thoroughly studying it. But apparently his previous meal was still lying heavily upon his stomach. He wasn't biting. Perhaps he was saying to himself that one of these things is enough, while studying it in detail to avoid others like it in the future. I couldn't get him to take it, and, Lord knows, I couldn't blame him. Finally, I gave up in favor of eating my cuttlefishy noodles and retired early to my cockpit bunk.

At 0300 on April 8^th, I awoke to find that we were still just about becalmed but were still making slight headway in the right direction. There was a threatening line of clouds coming up ahead, so I prepared for rain. It didn't look as if there would be any wind, so I left all the canvas aloft and waited to see what would develop.

While heaving around on the main sheet to stop another flopping canvas act, off to the starboard I heard the sound that no seaman ever likes to hear unless he's lying on the beach with a beer in one hand and a beautiful girl in the other – breaking water! Breakers? Impossible! thought I. But sure enough, it was distinct as could be – and when I trained my eyes in that direction, I could make out a line-troubled water glowing with luminescence. What was more alarming was that, though we should be pulling away from it, it was coming toward us fast!

Or were we somehow being pulled onto a reef or into some sort of diabolical whirlpool? Was I about to discover the heretofore uncharted Carr Bank? I tried to think of an appropriate name for it. Carr's Discovery? Were future charts to bear the name Semangat Shoal? That had a nice ring to it.

Then the sound was gone. I listened and looked intently. There it was again – a brief sound of breaking water – and I thought I heard the hiss of foam. Then a brilliant line of luminescence shot right under the boat – then breaking water to port! Then a clear huff and puff and blow! The crisis was over! It was a single porpoise in great agitation. He had been impersonating breakers on a reef moments before. Obviously he was quite a practical joker. Now he seemed to be in a great hurry about something. In an apparent state of great mental anguish and desperation, he made three more high speed passes under the boat, breaking water each time to puff in exasperation. Then, as strangely as he appeared, he resumed his urgent mission and disappeared off to port. Strange behavior, I thought.

When the squall arrived, it just contained little spurts of rain here and there and left us with only a small portion of what little breeze we'd had before its arrival.

There was an exceptional amount of luminous matter in the water that night, perhaps activated by the squally atmosphere. There were strange ghostly lights hovering about down below – huge globules which appeared and disappeared. Old Mr. Dorado was still around, his position made obvious about twenty feet to starboard. He was lighted up like a neon sign. I stayed up drinking coffee, waiting for something to happen – like wind, maybe. But it didn't. My bed was wet, and I dreaded getting back into it, but finally did. When I did, I was honored with what I'd given up waiting for – a light southeasterly breeze – and we began sneaking northeastward, much to my satisfaction.

From 1000 to 1030 the next morning, I ran the engine to charge the batteries, after which I did a little routine engine maintenance work. I changed oil and oil filters and was happy to note that the oil pressure warning light was working properly again. It might have been my imagination, but I thought that the engine was running a little rougher than it used to. But then, it might have been that I was so used to not hearing it at all. Or maybe it was because of the swell, which was very confused and was causing us to bounce around a lot.

My day's run under these near calm conditions surprised me. Fifty-seven miles! I could only attribute it to a favorable current, which in itself was surprising. Apparently, the southeast setting current had given way to the northeast setting current in advance of any appreciable or steady southwesterly winds. The currents in the South China Sea conform more or less with the prevailing monsoon. But the northeast monsoon was hardly over, and the southwest had yet to manifest itself. But far be it from me to complain about a favorable break.

But finally we did get a very light southerly air. This was the time to try to rig up some headsails to pull me along. I put the yankee and genoa wing and wing on the forestay to see how that might work. I boomed the yankee out with my boat hook on the weather side and the genoa naturally filled on the lee side. It was somewhat less than satisfactory, but at least I could leave the wheel. There wasn't quite enough air to really tell whether it could satisfactorily self-steer or not, but the prognosis was favorable.

After taking my bath, I saw Mr. Dorado still tagging along – he'd been in evidence all day – and I went down to get my camera for a shot at him in the smooth, clear water. But, naturally, when I came up, he was nowhere to be seen. About that time I heard a bass blow and puff to starboard, and I turned, expecting to see a large bull porpoise but beheld whales instead. There was a pod about half a dozen drifting leisurely in my direction. I didn't know what kind they were, but they were black, or nearly so, and had a small humplike dorsal fin or hump. They seemed about twenty feet in length and had pronounced indentation near the forehead. They might have been humpback whales or right whales. In any case, they had humps on their backs and looked all right to me. They approached to within about sixty feet and veered slowly away. I managed to get a snapshot or two of some humps in the distance as they drifted languidly on.

Finally I got my picture of Mr. Dorado, and also discovered where he hung out most of the time – right under the belly of the ship on the starboard side of the keel. I could just get an occasional glimpse of him by leaning well out over the side.

It had been a slow day. Had it not been for the appearance of Mr. Dorado and the whales to brighten things up, it would have been down right depressing. What with not being able to catch a fish, no wind, the noise of flopping sails, and no relief from the heat – it all added up to a feeling much resembling the blues save for the two events mentioned above.

Late in the evening the airs increased to about a five-knot breeze from the south-southeast, which gave me an opportunity to experiment with my headsail arrangement. I had kept my mizzen up earlier to help stabilize the boat against rolling. But it had played hell with the steering, so I now struck the mizzen as well as the main. We began to roll again, so I put the club jib up and sheeted it tightly in between the yankee and genoa which were still wing and wing. It helped stabilize the rolling a little bit. The yankee I boomed out with the boat hook which I lashed to the weather shrouds. In this manner, I could keep the genoa filled and pulling all the time and the yankee filled and pulling most of the time. Frequently the yankee would loose the wind and go slightly aback as the boat tended to turn to starboard, which was the weather side. When this happened, the boat would automatically be pushed back to port, and the yankee again would fill and do its fair share of pulling. To aid in keeping the stern to windward, I dragged our safety warp. It slowed us up a bit, and the system was pretty inefficient, but it worked. I refused to sit and steer, and as long as I was able to make some headway in the right direction, I was prepared to be satisfied.

I wished that I had spent the money on a pair of matched headsails rather than on that new genny, so that I could rig a proper self-steering twin headsail arrangement for sailing free before the wind. But we had to make do with what we had on board. My sail inventory was rather minimal, to say the least. All we had was the one set of working sails and the genoa. No spares, no storm sails. All were like new, however, and of good quality.

Once I got all set up, I was pleased to be able to sit back and observe that the lopsided configuration was working after a fashion. I spent some time finding the proper place to keep the rudder in order to maintain a balance. After watching her for an hour without having to touch the wheel, I thought we were well on our way to perfecting the system. Maybe I could even sleep while running before the wind. There was still only five knots of wind, and we seemed to be doing a good two knots through the water, maybe even three – there was a lot of sail area in that genoa. Considering all three sails, there was 775 square feet aloft. The full working rig was only 674! I imagined that in stronger winds, however, we would have to increase the drag astern. Tow a bag of dirty clothes astern, maybe, to help the Semangat hold her heading downwind.

Next day, I made a few refinements. I moved all the weight I could aft to increase the after drag of the vessel. That helped. After having some more difficulties during the night – I had awoke hove to, with the genoa backed – I adjusted the course to take the wind a little further over on the starboard quarter and was again able to go about my business.

Noon revealed that we hadn't had such an all-fired-good day's run. We had done only forty-eight miles, but there was no telling how long that genoa had been aback before I'd awakened. Still, not bad, really. At least it was progress in the right direction. Eight-hundred and fifty-five miles had passed under the keel since Kuching, and it was the eleventh day out. The weather was still fair with only scattered clouds, and the wind was still about five knots from the south-southeast. The seas seemed a strangely confused, considering the fairly steady breeze, and there was a regular swell running about five feet, from the northeast. There was more motion in the sea than seemed logical considering the lightness of the breeze. But I could at least take heart in the fact that I was a long way from moving backwards.

Breakfast: ham and eggs, with fried onions and hot chocolate. Mr. Dorado wasn't in evidence. We passed through a jumping school of tuna early in the morning, but there had been nothing on either of my trolling lines. I imagined Mr. Dorado had moved on, tiring of such slow pace.

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Chapter 12

Sea Turtles and Waterspouts

During the afternoon, I scraped old varnish from the coach roof trim. As I was cleaning up the mess, I saw some commotion just abaft the starboard beam – it seemed that everything of any interest always happened over to starboard – or at least started there. Then I saw a hump moving around. At first I thought it might be another whale. But its motion soon pegged it as a large sea turtle. There were some big fish splashing around too. The turtle was heading my way, and I began to have visions of turtle steak and soup for supper. I backed the genoa and hove to with the wheel hard over and waited patiently for him to catch up.

Since the wind had increased some earlier, I had been dragging another line astern with a life ring attached to it to help keep our stern to windward. The turtles seemed to be headed for the life ring, but he passed it up in favor of the safety warp. When he got to that, he turned and started following it in the wrong direction, away from the boat. Then he sighted the bright orange life ring and changed course directly for it. When he reached the, he appeared to be trying to put it on. He floundered around trying to get up in the hole which was much too small for him.

When I pulled the life ring slowly in, however, he stayed right with it – right up to the stern of the boat. I then noticed there were three brightly striped dorados tagging along right under him, using him for shade. They couldn't compare with the old fellow that had been following the Semangat, but they must have been about 3 1/2 footers.

After taking a picture of the turtle right alongside, I cleared the deck for battle. I didn't know whether I'd be able to handle a turtle of that size or not, but getting him aboard proved to be amazingly easy. I just leaned over and grabbed one of his rear flippers and up he came! He wasn't as heavy as his size appeared to indicate, but there were days' worth of food in him. He must have measured thirty inches across!

Putting him on his back in the cockpit seat, I watched as he struggled frantically to right himself. I looked at his soft, tearful eyes and desperate struggle for survival. My heart softened, and I quickly came to the decision that as long as I still had fresh potatoes, onions, eggs, and plenty of cornmeal, rice, and canned foods, I didn't have any business killing him. But he sure would have made some good eating – and plenty of it.

So, with the feeling that I’d gone awfully soft, I plopped him back into the water. No fool, that one. He immediately sounded and beat an improbably swift retreat! I could imagine him saying, “Whew! let me get away from that gol-darned thing!” A little black fish that had been his escort seemed to follow, and the three dorados made a pass directly under my face, eyeing me curiously. It seemed they leaned to one side to get a better look, probably wondering what sort of ungodly beast that must be up there to gobble up a turtle that size and spit him out again!

After straightening out our lines we got underway again. No more turtle in sight. We were again just barely moving – about the way we had been moving the previous day. Later on in the evening, my old buddy Mr. Dorado showed himself again. He jumped clean out of the water twice, landing smack on his side, seemingly just to let me know he was around – or maybe that he was annoyed at what I’d fed him. Once I thought he was coming right on board, but he fell just a little short. I sure would have liked to have gotten my stuff back from him. He certainly had an ungodly way of changing colors. He would go from dark brownish green to silvery white in an instant. I suspected he was feeling ill. I've seen them change after being caught. They are initially very beautifully colored but change to a dull silvery gray as they expire. I could almost feel Mr. Dorado’s pain, and again thought the kindest thing I could do for him would be to land him and end his misery. But how?

Feeling rather low, I turned to on making and serving up supper – China Sea Stew and century egg, with cabbage salad and hot chocolate.

Next day was Saturday, April 10^th. I awoke to a pleasant and freshened force three southerly breeze, and a wonderful red sunrise. Between me and the sunrise, however, was a rather impressive squall cloud with the sun showing beneath, turning its underside a brilliant red. Hanging from that cloud was also a bright red waterspout – the first bright red waterspout I'd ever seen. I recalled the old adage, “red sky in the morning and sailors taking warning.” Thus, I took warning and altered course enough to start edging away from that particular cloud. It was on my starboard side, by the way. Everything happened on the starboard side. On closer inspection, there were two waterspouts over there, frolicking about under that cloud. They kept their unique coloration for several minutes before turning gray and nasty looking. I figured I ought to be able to win some sort of a prize with the pictures I took of them. There aren't many pictures around of red waterspouts. Unfortunately, I didn't have a telephoto lens, and they were too distant for a good shot. They looked like fine threads in the photos – as if somebody had started sewing those clouds to the horizon with red thread, but then quit.

After the two spouts dissipated, one more developed a little nearer. But it was rather puny and didn't last long. They hadn't been much of a threat since they were several miles away, and the cloud had soon outpaced me northward. Soon we were back on my desired course.

Waterspouts are funny things. Sea borne tornados, actually. But they are almost invariably small spindly-looking things and don't seem to pack the punch and violence of land tornados in temperate climates. It seems in the tropics waterspouts are without much potency. They can sure play havoc with a ship, particularly a sailing vessel, however, so I'm not playing down their potential to do one harm. But it seems that the real destructive powers in the tropics are saved for typhoons, hurricanes, and the like, which are like very fat tornados, sometimes a hundreds of miles across.

I've spent a lot of time in waterspout territory. I've seen scores and scores of them. Once, while on a supply boat in the Java Sea (believe it or not), I saw seven at one time, all hanging from the same raggedy cloud. I've seen them pass from the water to land. When they do that, they seem, invariably, to do little damage and to quickly become discouraged. I've never really heard of waterspouts doing much damage ashore. They may have, But I haven't heard about it. They just don't seem to like land. Thus, they are always waterspouts. When a waterspout is sighted by the people on land, nobody seems to worry that it might come ashore. They could cause havoc, but nothing like what a good old tornado might do. They never seen to get very big or powerful. They are usually long and pencil thin. When they begin to really get tough, they are doomed by the very weight of water they begin to suck up into themselves.

Here, I might relate a couple encounters I've had with waterspouts, both in Singapore waters. In both cases, I was lucky it was a spout in the making rather than an actual full grown one. In the first instance, I was alone on the Semangat and under sail in Johor Strait going from the Changi Yacht Club to the Red House Yacht Club near Sembawang shipyard. It was a fair day with some squall clouds passing overhead, and we was sailing merrily along in a nice breeze.

No more than a hundred yards dead ahead I sighted a patch of turbulent water – maybe no more fifty to seventy yards in diameter. It had the appearance of tidal rips and overfalls, as current passing over shallow water or a rough bottom often appears. But there were not supposed to be any shallow patches there. It was a deep channel with a mud bottom. But there was some current. Although I was baffled, I thought that it must be attributable to the current somehow. Warily, we sailed on, passing right through the troubled area.

When we got into that patch of turbulent water, the cause became very readily apparent. All at once the sails began to flap violently every which way. Fortunately, we had enough headway to take us right on through, and the agitated water was moving off to starboard. I looked up at the cloud directly overhead, and saw the telltale swirled pattern in the cloud and knew what was happening. Safely through the troubled waters, I watched to see the funnel cloud descend off our quarter and the agitated water begin to be lifted into a swirling cloud of mist and spray. Before the spout was fully formed, however, it hit the far bank and at once broke up, the funnel receding upwards once again.

On another occasion, I was on a supply boat headed toward Singapore in the strait from the east. It was a fine day as we proceeded along the Malaysian coast just to the north. The mate was on watch and called to me, “Captain, take a look in the radar! I hope that isn’t land!” When I looked into the scope, there appeared to be a finger of land directly ahead of us across our bow, about half a mile disant! The end of it curled into a small circular pattern, reminding me of a small Cape Cod. Obviously there was nothing ahead but clear water. So I stepped out on the wing of the bridge and looked up at the cloud just ahead. There was the swirl the radar was picking up as a solid target mimicking land. It was fine on our port bow and moving across to starboard, and I decided there was no point in trying to avoid it, since there was not yet any descending cloud or turbulence in the water.

We’d just overtaken a sailing junk which was now just off our starboard quarter with all sails set. They’d seen it too, and were frantically taking sails in. As we passed under the cloud vortex, the water was just beginning to get disturbed but we brushed by it close on our port side. We watched the junk. They got their sails down in time, but it passed ahead of them just as the funnel cloud was beginning to descend. It barely missed them as it continued to develop. And we watched it as it continued on toward the land to starboard. When it hit the land, it quickly fell apart.

While the dangers of waterspouts cannot be dismissed, I can think of them as little more than toy tornados, knowing what kind of death and destruction that a real tornado can create on land. Many a ship has been dismasted and severely damaged by waterspouts, but I have yet to hear of one lifting even a small vessel up and blowing it away – a fate all too familiar to houses and barns in the tornado country of my youth. But I do have respect for them, those little devils of the sea. And I was not without due apprehension that they were about and could happen at night as well as in the day. I could not help but imagine what a rude awakening in the middle of the night it would be to have one down upon the Semangat, doing its devilish deeds.

Gradually, our course was bending eastward towards Manila. The winds were still very light and undependable, but we were always making headway in the right direction, and that was the important thing.

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Chapter 13

A Pirate Scare

It is curious how quiet it can be at sea, alone on a calm day – especially when there is just enough air to keep the sails from beating a tattoo. Several times on this particular morning I had heard, or thought I'd heard, the sound of an engine off in the distance. I was sure of it. Yet the horizon was always clear whenever I stood up and had a good look around. The visibility was excellent. It was clear as crystal. But the sound eventually grew louder, and I grew more and more dubious of my sanity, eyesight, or hearing? Was there something buzzing inside my head? I finally concluded that the sound was carrying from somewhere beyond the horizon. That's how quiet it was. So quiet that I could hear a small vessel's engine long before it hove into sight.

Soon there was a boat. At first there was just the speck of a mast showing. Then the bridge and stack, and finally the hull topped the horizon. It appeared to be a fishing boat. But I certainly couldn’t be sure. As I examined it through the binoculars, I could see that it was heading directly for me. This made me feel a bit uneasy. I was still within a hundred miles of hostile coast. It could be a patrol craft of some sort. If so, and if it were Vietnamese, we could probably expect trouble. Perhaps they would consider me an enemy spy and tow us into some nearby port for interrogation and arrest, and seizure of my boat would likely follow. Or, they might tend to be easy on us and just hold us up for whatever we had on board. Worse, they might just decide to have a little fun with me and my little vessel right then and there and use me for target practice.

If it were not a patrol craft, it was most probably a fishing boat. But even then, there could be cause for alarm, as piracy in these waters is not altogether a lost art. Had it been a fisherman obviously going about his business, moving about here and there, working nets, or even on a course which would carry him quite near but not exactly dead at us, I would not have been worried. Was it just coincidence that the Semangat lay right in his path, or was he really going out of his way to approach us? I knew he could have sighted our sail quite some time before I was able to sight him. Had he, having sighted it, altered his course out of mere curiosity or for some diabolic reason? In any case, my imagination was hard at work, and I was feeling more and more apprehensive as he bore down, never waiving in his course directly toward us.

I figured the chances of his being a threat to me were about fifty-fifty. Common sense also told me that if he was a hostile naval patrol, our fate would most likely be sealed and resistance would be futile and even suicidal. Unless it were a band of pirates armed with knives, swords, and pistols, I would be outclassed, out manned, and outgunned in any case. On the other hand, I thought, if I could show that I was not as vulnerable and harmless as they might suspect, I may be able to deter them from any evil doing, should that be their mission.

Awareness of the vulnerability of the small sailing yacht at sea, when the possibility of an attack of some sort seems to be in the offing, had slapped home to me with a vengeance. I don't remember ever having felt less secure in my life. What should I do, I wondered, submit to whatever fate was in store – say a prayer, throw my fate to the winds, and hope for the best? Would it be best to put myself at their mercy and hope they would might be in possession of redeeming moral character? Or, should I stand to arms and brace up for a fight, come what may?

It was a tough decision to be called upon to make on such a theretofore wonderful day. The strange boat was approaching fast now, and I had to know what to do under whatever circumstances might develop. I opted for the stand-and-fight strategy, with some mental reservations and a good deal of heart pounding at the thought of what the possible outcomes could be.

I went below and brought up the M-2 and the extra clips filled to capacity. If the occupants of the boat proved to be an unarmed bunch of fisherman with something less than honorable conduct in mind, I could probably scare them off. If they were poorly armed, I might even be able to fight them off, as my little M-2 could really spray the lead out. If we proved to be outgunned and they were determined, I, with any luck at all, cold at least make them pay dearly for whatever they might later plunder off my little ship. I spread out my extra ammunition and covered the rifle and ammo with a towel and laid them in the cockpit close at hand. Then I sat back and watched as the intruder drew closer.

And closer and closer they came! It was clearly a fishing boat, but with every closing yard my heart was beating a larger bruise on the inside of my chest. I leaned back and tried to look and act casual. Nobody appeared on the deck of the fishing boat, but I could see heads peering out at me through the pilothouse windows. On he came, as if intent on ramming – 300 yards, 250 yards. I wondered if I could get any of them through the wooden pilothouse if they intended to run me down.

Two hundred yards and still closing steadily! At about a hundred yards, I would sound the horn. At 50 yards, I could yell at them. At 25 yards, I'd fire a warning burst. Then, before it was too late for them to turn off, I would put some lead through their superstructure to let them know that we didn't mean to be trifled with.

Then what? Try to swerve and avoid point-blank and totally destructive impact. Then, try to do them some real damage if they should make as if for another try. I was tensed up – beginning to brace myself for the worst – and I wasn't just a little scared. And on they came!

But at a comfortable hundred yards, they veered from their course and passed about thirty yards ahead of me. It was a Chinese vessel. A couple of men had come out on the afterdeck and waved as they passed – smiling in a friendly manner. They carried on in a northwesterly direction, toward the coast. I guess they had just seen my sails from afar and wanted to take a closer look. Sailboats are probably fairly rare in the area. I breathed a great sigh of relief. I watched as they pulled away, and when I was convinced they were steadily on their way, I re-stowed the ship's armaments and turned to, to cook breakfast.

We had made a fifty-four mile day according to the noon position and had made a course of about 033° good. I was happy to be getting closer to my destination regardless of the small increments. I was also very happy to be slowly putting mileage between us and the coast of Vietnam. I didn't like the idea of having to be fearful of every strange vessel that approached. The tension of the morning's experience, though the ending was a happy one, had been unsettling, to say the least. Nervous tensions and the reasons therefore should not be carried to sea in a cruising yacht. But they are to be found in the most unlikely of places, not that this was such an unlikely place. Piracy is still a real threat on the straits and high seas of Southeast Asia, and there is nothing more vulnerable than the average yacht.

We had fared slightly better on this Saturday than on the previous day. The day continued fine and clear and, for the most part, very calm with little or no wind. Mr. Dorado and his two former turtle-following friends stayed alongside most of the day. They would occasionally make forays out ahead and to the sides to chase other fish or grab a bite to eat, but always returned to heel alongside like a trio of well-trained hunting dogs. I got out the old palm and needle and replaced some chaffed stitching on the foot of the genoa and put some chaffing gear on the peak of the mainsail luff where it had been chaffing against the mast track. At 2000 I looked over the side to see that my entourage of dorados had increased to five! The sea was so calm I could see them sometimes cruising along at considerable depths beneath the surface. They glowed in a ghostly way and appeared as radiant white shadows gliding along below.

On Sunday, April 11^th, I awoke just after midnight to find that our heading had backed to west and that a faint suggestion of a breeze was starting up out of the southeast quadrant. I had the feeling I was finished running before the wind. But I couldn't really call it a wind, and running wasn't really very descriptive either. So I lowered my double headsails and once again hoisted the full working rig: yankee, club-jib, main, and mizzen. By 1245, I was glad to feel the familiar heel of the vessel on the starboard tack. We were moving again and on an east-northeasterly heading.

By 0800, however, the sea again looked as flat as a billiard table. But no sooner had I logged my growing discontent when another light breeze – about three or four knots worth – sprang onto the scene. But that wasn't enough to save the day. It still managed to turn out to be the worst day's run since departing Kuching. Thirty-eight miles!

True, on March 30^th we had only logged 32 miles, which remained the record worst day's run. But we had actually sailed much further than that on the 30^th. The 32 miles were net miles made good in one direction, but we had been tacking frequently, so had actually done much better in actual miles sailed. Now, we had accomplished 38 miles almost in a straight line with no deviations or tacking. It was the net and total distance run and sailed. But I couldn't feel too bad, since I had poorer runs – such as the 33 miles on the 10^th of March – having used the engine for 6 1/2 hours to do that! I really had no reason to complain. But we all have to have something to complain about, it seems. Everything is relative. If I had been making 150 miles a day, I reckon I'd have felt cheated the day that I only made 145.

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Chapter 14

Mr. Dorado's Trials and Tribulations

At about 1300, that same fishing boat, or one just like it, passed by again. Evidently he had lines and nets buoyed off throughout this area and was traveling around checking them. We had passed a lighted fishing buoy the previous night. It was probably one of his. When we passed that buoy, we'd gone close enough to see that there was a favorable current running beyond a doubt. I had known that there must be one, but now it was confirmed, as we had passed the buoy in an absolute calm and could see the current ripples and eddies behind the buoy as we drifted by. The current was setting northeast at one knot at least! This seemed unlikely, but that buoy certainly looked like it was traveling that fast through the water.

It really did seem that we were getting more than our share of calm weather. According to the April Pilot Chart for the area, calms have only been reported about 1 percent of the time for this month. It seemed we had been able to report calms closer to 90 percent of the time recently. At 1700, for the first time, I saw our fishing lines hanging absolutely straight down! No way through the water at all!

With that kind of absolutely still water, I was able to take stock of the assortment of fish, both near the surface and deep below, that seemed to be hovering around the vessel to keep it company. There were some little bitty black fish, about two inches in length, right against the hull. I could see them when I dropped a crumb of something down near them. They would dart out to investigate, and then dart back in tightly against the hull. Then there were some light blue fish with black vertical bands – about three of them – about eight inches long, which seemed to stay from fifteen to twenty feet down. Then, deeper still, there were some light-colored fish which I couldn't manage to get interested in the dried shrimp bait that I'd put on my hooks.

Mr. Dorados and his pals were still around too. They made their presence known when they started feeding on a school of fish over to port. My attention was attracted when I heard such splashing commotion that I thought that we were about to be visited by the literal wrath of God in the form of a tidal wave, whirlpool, or some other such awesome manifestation of overpowering elements. I looked over toward the den to see that there was a huge school of fish, thousands of which seemed to be airborne at any one instant. They were going every which way in terrorized agitation, trying their best to stay out of the water. They weren't flying fish either, but they were trying hard – jumping high and long. There were so many in the air at any one time that, from my vantage point, it gave the impression of an actual airborne procession of fish.

And what was the cause of all that terrible turmoil? Those dorados! They were out there having a grand high time too. At frequent intervals toward the ever-receding rear of the school, at scattered points, there would be a big splash and a thrashing as one of the dorados had made a kill or attempted kill. Our dorados weren't the only ones in on the orgy, however. There seemed to be a few large tuna vying for their share of the feast. Once the activity came pretty close to port bow, and one tuna swam toward the boat after a particularly vicious encounter with – I believe – Mr. Dorado himself. Apparently, out of all those fish, it had come down to a contest as which one would get a particular fish! I got a good look at the tuna, with his peculiar, jerky way of swimming – his stout, chunky form. His jerks, though much more abrupt, were shark-like and his appearance stiff compared to the languid, flowing movements of the dorado. I couldn't tell who got the fish, but I had the feeling that the tuna had been outclassed by our trusty companions.

The utter calm, in spite of the fish activities going on around me, again left me in a somewhat despondent mood. We weren't making any way! None at all! Was I getting in a hurry again? I guess I was. I had begun thinking of typhoons and about the fact that as time went on, the less safe would be the season. I tried to busy myself making a spear with which to get some fish meat. I also tried to interest myself in paying some cracks in the deck caulking with varnish to stop temporarily a couple of minor deck leaks we had in that area. But I lacked drive, and the work proceeded very slowly in the hot, still air.

As if to let me know that I wasn't the only one with problems, a little land bird, a swift, stopped aboard for a bit of a rest. I wondered where he was bound and where he was from. I was surprised to see such a fragile little bird so far out at sea.

Sunset brought a light southeasterly breeze. The swift flew into the cabin and made himself at home somewhere, apparently for the night. At 2000, there was a pod of porpoises puffing and blowing about somewhere nearby. I made an attempt to catch one of the dorados in my "butterfly" landing net, and I almost got him, but had miscalculated and knocked him on the head with the net hoop. The evening proceeded pleasantly. The light air was refreshing, and the boat was again moving. I stayed up late, once again at peace with my own little world, as the Semangat carried me slowly eastward.

As I sat in the companionway hatch, I became aware of a rather low buzzing sound. That swift was down there snorting! But look as I may, I was unable to locate where the little fellow had settled down for the night. I thought I could tell where the sound was coming from, but still couldn't find him. But after we had passed a good night, I looked around again, and this time I found where my little feathered friend had spent the night. Right on top of the condiments rack, right over the towel rack – just inches to the side of the accommodation ladder on which I had been sitting and trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. He left unmistakable signs of his recent occupancy, for he obviously had never been trained not to foul his own roost. He had, however, been considerate enough to leave most of his deposits upon the Scot towel roll immediately beneath him.

It was now Monday, April 12^th, 1976. A very blue Monday, I might add, as all my days had been blue. Literally, not in the common colloquial sense. Sky and sea were as blue as could be imagined. But though it may have been a blue-colored Monday, it was not otherwise blue for me. For some reason, I awoke with a happy feeling that I was really at a loss to explain. I guess it was because we had enough air to keep us going in the right direction. I had been so disgusted with being becalmed that a very light air made me happy.

Actually I had had no real reason to awaken in such a good mood at all. We were aback and pointed westward when I first opened my eyes! That was certainly not all that much of a pleasing situation to be confronted with first off, but I was in a cheerful mood in spite of it.

One encouraging thing was that I could finally receive Manila on the medium wave band of my radio. Also, for the first time, I was able to get a proper time signal station – one that could be turned in at any time rather than just on the hour. It wasn't WWV or WWVH but must have been Japanese or Chinese station. I never got its identity, as it was in code, at which I have never been able to tune my head and ears to. It seemed to be BRV or some such thing, But I'm not sure.

My late breakfast-lunch, which I referred to as "brunchfast" in my journal, was corned beef in scrambled eggs, cornbread (pan fried, as always), beefed up with whole wheat flour and oatmeal. And hot chocolate. After that, I turned to again, caulking those annoying deck leaks. I wished I'd brought along some proper stuff to do the job right, but I had to continue to pay the cracks, where the present black rubber caulking had separated from the plank, with varnish. This could only be a temporary measure. I used an Elmer's glue bottle with spout as an applicator.

It had been another slow but rather steady twenty-four hour hours. Fifty-one miles from noon to noon. Fourteen days, thirty minutes, and 998 miles out of Kuching. We certainly were making haste slowly. But that was good enough.

After spending most of the day on the deck project, I turned my efforts again to harpoon making. I had had a souvenir pirang, a native knife, which I had picked up a couple of years back in Jakarta for about a dollar. It was of no practical value, as it wasn't strong enough to be used. The blade was made of very soft mild steel – too soft to hold an edge. Not being the “real” thing, it wasn’t even good souvenir material. I had purchased two Iban machetes in Kuching. They were actual old machetes made from old World War II Japanese swords, and both scabbard and handle had been tediously fashioned of wood and bone with complicated little carvings, human hair tassels, and so on. They appeared old and much used. One could imagine they had been used to assail an enemy and sever heads, as well as clear jungle paths and cut longhouse poles.

After having cut about ten inches of the blade off the cheap imitation from Jakarta, I was able to put the stub back into the wooden sheath and restore it to its original appearance – only a little more useless than it had been before. The blade was so soft it had been easy to cut with a hacksaw. It was fairly easy to saw and file it into my proposed harpoon, or spear point. I filed many barbs into the blade, with which to impale and hold friend dorado. The fact that it was soft made the job easy, but that would be the most likely reason my enterprise might fail. But it was the only thing I had to use, so I finished it up and sharpened each barb carefully on its leading edge. Then I took a broomstick-sized dowel and slotted the end of it to take the blade, which I drilled and bolted to and through the shaft, and my harpoon was complete. By 2030, I was ready for business.

Strange that I should be having some slight pangs of guilt over what I was about to do. Slight pangs, did I say? I was beginning to feel like a homicidal maniac! My efforts to kill and eat Mr. Dorado, or one of his companions, seemed rather perverted and diabolical. I was about ready to give up the enterprise, not in discouragement due to poor materials, but because of sheer guilt! How ridiculous! But it seemed that I had become attached to Mr. Dorado. He was like an underwater mascot – like a dog that heels beside a protective master and only leaves his side occasionally to go out and chase up some game or scout ahead. Mr. Dorado seemed to be like that. He would run out ahead and chase the other fish away. It was as if he felt that to be his purpose and mission in life. And here I was, meticulously plotting his demise like a common murderer. I was actually trying to kill and eat him! How bloody repugnant! It very much seemed to smack cannibalism. Yet I proceeded.

It's natural enough to want to catch fish. Fishing, like hunting, is supposed to be a great and honorable sport. Even those timid souls who feel that hunting is cruel treachery usually fail to have the same feeling about the sport of fishing. And we all know that killing for food is a part and parcel of our culture. Whether the killing be done by hunter or slaughterhouse is really immaterial when it is taken down to a basic moralistic level. There are few enough of us who are strict vegetarians, but there are so many who just can't stand the thought of "any poor, dumb creature" being killed.

Many will cry out in indignation at the idea of a hunter going out for a deer or a pheasant, but would not think to turn down a juicy steak or fried game hen or chicken at the supper table. Our modern American society is particularly unique in that way. Such a large percentage of us today live absolutely sheltered, artificial, and unrealistic, lives where the thought of killing is quite alien and repugnant, yet it is quite natural to pick up nicely packaged red meat and poultry at the local supermarket. That's different. The mercenary who killed it bears no relation to the shopper who ultimately consumes it. The mercenary is a murderer, and the shopper is just buying food.

It is curious that this seems to have happened to us in the last thirty to forty years. We, during that period of time, changed from a predominately rural and agriculturally oriented society to that of a heavily urbanized society where 90 percent and more of the population is likely to go through life never having seen a poor, dumb creature put to death. Most people prefer not to think of it, yet we eat more meat per capita than any other society. Most people live literally in a dream world. But, back to my misgivings about murdering Mr. Dorado.

Usually I don't dwell on the moral factors involved in taking a life to obtain supper – or dinner, lunch, or breakfast, for that matter. I fancy that I possess a rather realistic view of the whole thing. The necessity of it is clear. While I've never been a great hunter or fisherman, I consider both occupations honorable and civilized so long as it is not done for "pure sport.” There must be some redeeming culinary value there somewhere. But the death struggle of any creature is punishment to me.

A clean kill is an obvious manifestation of a hunter's skill whether it be done with club, arrow, or firearm. Yet the "sport" part of sport fishing is the feel of the frantic struggles of the doomed creature at the end of the line in his attempt to save itself. The bigger the fish and the more desperate the struggle, the more fun it is, and the greater the satisfaction upon landing him. But what a painful ordeal it must be for the poor fish – for there is nothing more wicked than the barb of a fishhook. Just imagine being hauled in by a hook in your own cheek or throat! Is the poor thing really in pain? It is conveniently believed that fish are such low creatures on the scale of life that they actually feel no real pain. They just struggle for survival through pure instinct and little more than that. They're really not thrashing in pain at all, it is thought. At least not in the kind of pain that we would be in if it were us at the end of the line with a hook down our throat. Well, maybe that's the case. But is that really true? I hope so.

But I live by the same double standard that marks the progress of so many of us throughout our lives, and I busied myself trying to improve upon the weapon with which I was about to attempt to impale my friend dorado. I knew he was tough – real tough. And I could believe he could feel no pain nor know any fear. As a matter of fact, he seemed to know very little indeed, for hadn't he suffered quite a lot already at my hand, and insisted on remaining near the lion's den? But how am I to judge? How could I presume so much as to imagine his thoughts and feelings? All I knew was that he had eaten one of my hooks – a big one – a teaspoon, a swivel, and about a foot of stainless steel wire! Yet his loyalty to me seemed to have been reinforced!

Now to confess to an utterly dastardly deed I failed to mention earlier. I had already tried to shoot him, or at least stun him with the concussion of a rifle shot! That had really startled him, I must say. I had hoped he might be stunned and momentarily float to the surface where I might be able to net him. But he had dove straight down and left me thinking that I had just murdered him without the satisfaction of retrieving my gear or indulging in a fish banquet. But, to my surprise, he was back in a couple of minutes, pacing doggedly beside the boat! But I swore off the rifle as a means to bring about his downfall. He was never quite close enough to the surface to make it effective. Having failed in that one assassination attempt, I was now ready to try another method.

Shortly after completing the harpoon, I was standing on the cabin roof making a few practice throws at passing bubbles, when Mr. Dorado, who had apparently been observing from below the turn of the bilge, came up and paraded himself alongside in the perfect position! It was as if he himself more or less knew what I was driving at and was going to give me all the assistance and cooperation within his power. He positioned himself right in the spot where I had been throwing the harpoon. And there I was, harpoon poised and ready. I could hardly believe it!

I threw! It hit him! But what a hard skull he had under that overly developed forehead! It had hit right on top of his head, but the harpoon had ricocheted off! It didn't seem to hurt him too much, for he merely shook himself a bit and then fell back a little. Two minutes later, he had recovered himself sufficiently to reposition himself in the exact same spot for another try. I had pulled in the harpoon, straightened the blade, which had folded on his cranium, and stood ready for another cast.

To my great surprise and momentary jubilation, I scored another hit! This time the harpoon hit the poor devil behind the head and the barbs sank into his flesh and held for a couple of seconds. But he thrashed powerfully once and broke away and disappeared into the depths! He was gone!

Once again I fell into deep remorse and mourning over the death of a friend and the loss of a meal. But not five minutes later he was back! Once again he dogtrotted alongside, invitingly. I swallowed my remorse and began to think of ways to improve my harpoon. Momentarily, I thought I might stop trying. After all, he had withstood quite a lot. He had not more than earned his wings – his right to live?

But the challenge was too provoking. I would try until he ceased to present me with the opportunity for a broadside. But I would let it rest for the time being. Perhaps I subconsciously hoped he would make his escape and save his scaly hide. Go Mr. Dorado! I’m giving you more than a sporting chance!

Taking time out from my sport, I heard ominous news from Manila radio. The first typhoon of the season was being reported to the northeast of the Philippines. That was not calculated to improve my prospects of a storm-free voyage. But on the other hand, maybe it improved my odds. At least this was one typhoon that would have been down the hatch before we actually got to the most dangerous area. But again I began to wish that we were about a month ahead of our present schedule.

Bowditch listed May as the first month of the year for "significant occurrences" of typhoons in the west Pacific and China Sea area. The area where most typhoons occur is in a rather tight triangular area stretched from a point west of Manila – about where we were now located – to points northeastward and southeastward well out into the Pacific, beyond the island of Luzon. But the major spawning grounds, according to the pilot charts, seemed to be further eastward towards Guam and on to the southeast of there. That's where the lion's share of typhoons seemed to be born, and they would further develop as they moved west-northwestward, towards the Philippines. In other words, I would be going down their most traveled paths and could expect to meet any oncoming typhoons head on, should I chance to be so unfortunate. At least this would be one that I would miss.

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Chapter 15

The Death of a Swift and Mr. Dorado Vanishes

Regarding typhoons, my main – or I should say, "my only" – consolation was in the fact that the monthly average number of typhoons for the months of April and May are 0.7 and 0.9 respectively. Apparently April already had more than its quota, and I could reason that left only the chances of 0.6 typhoon likely to occur in May. I could live with those odds. Six-tenths of a typhoon is hardly any typhoon at all. But those typhoons don't necessarily pay attention to those charts of monthly averages. Sometimes they seem to just absolutely ignore them. And our voyage, just by chance, might even lap over into June when the occurrences average 1.2 per month.

The average increases to August and September expectations of 4.0 and 4.1 respectively. But these figures don't take into consideration the number of tropical storms that don't quite reach typhoon strength. When tropical storms as well as typhoons are taken into consideration, the months of April, May, and June looked a little more threatening – being 1.3, and 1.8, all according to Bowditch. Still, the odds seemed to favor us rather than the typhoons. Surely, I reasoned, we could pretty well expect a storm-free passage.

Typhoons which occur early or late in the season often tend to shoot right across the Philippines and into the South China Sea and Asian mainland before recurving toward the northward and finally the northeast. During the peak of the season, most storms recurve northward before reaching the Philippines. We were lucky that the one presently in the works was already to the northeast of the Philippines. We could pretty much rest easily that it would not come our way. It must not have been much of a typhoon, however, for I heard no more of it. It might never have really been a full fledged typhoon at all. In any case, it seemed to disappear from the news after that initial report.

Another of those beautiful tropical sunrises which seemed to be in perpetual supply greeted me on the morning of April 13^th. The wind was a good force three – just fine for a sailing man – and out of the south-southwest. We were making a course of about east-southeast good. By late afternoon, we'd be about midway between the coast of Vietnam and the Philippines.

Mr. Dorado was seen first thing in the morning pacing alongside to port, his flared pectoral fins looking for all the world like the flopping ears of a gangling pup. I felt a slight tinge of remorse at all of my efforts to do him in. But he was a tough one!

By 0800, the wind had backed to south-southeast, just as I had hoped it would, and it increased as the morning wore on to driving force four. I spent the morning working about the little sampan, getting her ready for expected launch service in Manila. I was also fitting it out to serve better as a lifeboat in case of emergency – as I had no other. I spliced pennants to the paddles and seats and lashed in plastic cans one-third full of water to act as both extra floatation as well as a fresh water supply. I devised a "float-free" lashing, whereby the sampan would float free in event the Semangat should sink – I hated to think of the possibility – before I had time to unlash and launch the sampan.

Another thing I did to make up an emergency bag of items that I would keep handy in the event of abandon ship. Fishhooks, line, wallet, money, passport, knife, needle and palm and twine, etc. – all things that I would like to have with me when I was set adrift in my little sampan in the event of catastrophe – some food, matches, and the like. The net and the harpoon also became part of the emergency gear that I kept stowed and lanyarded in the sampan.

The day's run was like tonic to my wavering constitution. It was the best run in days. A hundred and thirteen miles! Only about 380 more miles to Manila. We were now east of the longitude of Hong Kong to the north and finally almost even with Brunei far to the south. We were now fifteen days out of Kuching and 1,111 miles along. Double eleven! That had to be a lucky number!

During the afternoon I worked on, and completed, a new boat hook shaft and installed it onto the boat hook, or vice versa. The old one had been of bamboo, and I’d broken it while we were in Kuching while struggling to clear a floating island and pile of driftwood that had fouled on our anchor rope. After that, I got back down on my hands and knees and tediously payed more deck seam cracks with varnish. It seemed that every seam in the deck needed it, as the sweltering sun had managed to pull the rubber caulking free from the edges of the deck planks.

In preparation for arriving in the Philippines, I had to make a Philippine flag to use as a courtesy flag. I finally hit on an easy way to do it. The natural flag of the Philippines is a red and blue flag horizontally divided with a white triangle at the hoist pointing toward the fly. The tip of the triangle reaches about a third of the length of the flag from the hoist and right at the division of the red and blue. In the white, there is a stylized radiating sun. I noticed that the "E," or echo, signal flag would make a good Philippine flag if only the white triangle and star, or sun, were added. So all I needed to do was cut two triangles out of and old pillowcase and sew them in place. Then I took a yellow marking pen and drew in the radiating sun, and, presto! There was my Philippine flag! After leaving the Philippine Islands, I could return my "echo" flag to its original condition.

While I was foraging around through the bunk lockers for the echo flag, I came across the long-sought-after repair kit for the bilge pump that I had searched high and low for while I was in Kuching. That particular locker, way up forward, must have been the only one that I hadn't turned upside down and inside out. Chi had stowed that stuff up there long before we had sailed from Singapore, removing it from where I had originally stowed it. I also found some other things that I had been unable to find previously.

After my usual watering down up on the foredeck, I treated myself to the luxury of a freshwater sponge bath. I had such a case of prickly heat on the insides and outsides of my thighs and upon my flanks that I had to try something different. I didn't know but what it might not be an allergic reaction to something that I had been bathing in – like maybe sea water or the detergent I used for soap. The detergent was supposed to be biodegradable, and darned if I didn't appear to be biodegrading. And how it itched to be degraded like that!

The detergent I gave up, in favor of calamine lotion. And I turned the promenade deck into a nudist area. I figured my shorts had something to do with my problem, as they were always stiff with salt. I became a sun-loving nudist, and just more or less let my hair down – as if I were the only one left in the world. I let it all, ah, flop in the breeze, as they say, and felt much more comfortable thereafter.

Next day I proclaimed to be bunting day, and I hauled out all the flags and hung them about the vessel to dry and air. The old Semangat looked like a maritime Christmas tree with all her colorful flags draped about the hand ropes and lines. So I wouldn't have to stow the flags back in the same damp locker where they were getting moldy, I set to work making a flag rack over the navigation table. It was an easy and simple matter made by stringing three 1/4" by 3" battens across three overhead beams, screwing them down, and varnishing them.

Mr. Dorado was conspicuously missing that morning, and I began to feel a little concerned about him along with my teaspoon and other gear. If he were gone, I hoped he made it okay after all the indigestion and other abuse at my hand. He was gone, as he never reappeared. And I missed Mr. Dorado, in spite of all I'd done to him in. He had remained with me, through thick and thin, hardship and pain, since the 6^th of April – seven days. He was a real sport, and I was the guilty sportsman.

For breakfast: "Taters, onion, garlic, & egg, stewed a-la-'Possum Ridge–which is a dish that was first prepared years ago at my farm on 'Possum Ridge in Illinois – with the last of the day before yesterday's bread."

I made a silly mistake in my navigation on this particular day, and I found myself a good forty miles south of where I thought I should be. I scratched my head and logged that I'd made a tiny bit more southing than I had expected. I couldn't see how I could be that far south of my dead reckoning but had to put it down as a change of current and a sneaky night run to the south while I had been asleep. I didn't catch the error until I got the next noon fix plotted on Thursday, the 15^th. My noon position on the fifteenth again failed to agree with what I had expected. It was even more radical – assuming that the previous day's fix was correct.

Obviously, something was wrong. Real wrong. So I carefully went over the figures of the sights for both days and found that the fourteenth had been in error. I had used the declination of the sun for the twelfth rather than the fourteenth when I had figured up and plotted my noon latitude. I should have noticed how much the noon declination differed from that of my morning sun lines, but hadn't. Oh, well, even ace navigators make mistakes and pile up on the rocks occasionally. At least no damage was done this time.

We were practically becalmed again. The day's run had been a measly forty-three miles. There was just enough air to raise a small ripple on the surface of the water. I caught a fish with my net – the little, black, stubby one, with buck teeth. Since he was only about a two-incher, I condemned the poor little critter to serve as bait on my trolling line. But he didn't do us any good.

Another little bird came aboard at about sundown. He might have been the same one that spent the night before. Maybe he was lost. If it were the same one, I wondered, which one of us was going around in circles? I thought birds never made navigational errors. As I later sat reading with one leg hanging down the companionway hatch and the other on the deck, knee up, the little fellow alighted there on my knee and perched there, staring me in the eye.

He looked as though he had something to say. But he didn't say a word – not even a peep. I greeted him with as cheerful a hello as I could manage, and continued reading in hopes he'd eventually get the nerve to speak up and let me know what was on his mind. But he didn't. He just sat there and sullenly, maybe even imploringly, stared at me. He stayed a moment or two longer and then flew off. I didn't see whether he came back to roost or not. I read a while longer – until it was too dark – and then popped some corn and brewed some ginseng flower tea for evening respite.

Believe it or not, I then went down below and sat at my desk in the stateroom, figured up, and filled out my 1975 U.S. federal tax income! It was April 15^th, you know. What a mess of hogwash! There I was having to figure up how much the government was going to get of my hard earned wages. It seemed an absolute and utter affront and outrage that not only should they take my money but also require that I do the calculations! What was most annoying, was knowing they had made the forms so simple that I could easily figure up the maximum amount that I may owe and have to pay it. To pay only what one really owes, however, you've got to get more forms and work harder. If I were wealthy, I would have the resources to avoid almost all taxes! Ain't that a crock for you? I firmly believe that the direct taxation of an individual's personal income, derived from his own labor, is and should be unconstitutional. For a person to be taxed on the sweat of his brow, is to be that much a slave.

That little swift snuck back and spent another night on board. In the morning, he was perched up on the life line as if he owned it. He appeared rather hesitant to continue his journey – but after looking at the speed that we were making, and perhaps at the heading as well, he decided that he'd best be on his way. He couldn't stop too long on a vessel of this nature. Too darned slow!

And slow was right! I had put the genny up the day before in an attempt to speed things up a bit, but noon revealed some very depressing statistics. From the log:

1200 noon position: Latitude 14° 15' north, longitude 116° 43' east

Distance in 24 hours, 16 miles!?!? Speed, 0.667 knots!

Need I say more? Needless to say, my spirits plummeted along with the general morale on board. As if that weren't enough, I went up on deck to be confronted by none other than that same little bird. And he appeared ill – very ill, I might add. For he was sitting down on the floor of the cockpit footwell. He had a dazed, milky look in his eyes, and his tongue was hanging out. It looked pretty serious.

I gave the poor thing some water and offered some cornbread crumbs. But he seemed too far gone to respond. I poured a little water on his beak, and he seemed to sort of startle out of his daze, his eyes flashing wide open. I put a dish of water next to him, and he appeared interested, bounding up onto the edge of the plate. But his footing was unsteady, and he slipped on down the slippery plastic and into the water. But he made no attempt to drink. He just staggered and floundered about until he reached the far side and climbed to the other edge. I left him for a few minutes, and when I again checked on him, he had fallen off the plate onto his back and was lying motionless under the deck gratings.

When I picked him up, he was still alive, but he just stared at me intently and glassy-eyed with an uncaring air. I tried to force him to eat and drink, but he wouldn't cooperate. But he did catch the hiccups, however. (Or were they death convulsions?) It was hard to tell in such a little creature as that. No matter – he expired within minutes and lay lifeless in my hand. Artificial respiration failed to bring him around. Relief had come too late, and he was a goner.

Had he been beseeching me for refreshment when he alighted upon my knee the previous evening? Perhaps so – and I’d been too dense to understand his silent appeal. How could I have expected him to speak up? I should have known! He must have thought me an utter Captain Bligh – withholding fresh water in his time of need! I conducted a simple burial-at-sea service for him and turned to the radio for solace.

The news next revealed to me that this was, of all things, Good Friday! They said it on the radio. I begged to differ with them. There had been a death on board. And what was more, only sixteen miles had pass under the keel in the past twenty-four hours! And we were still becalmed! And this was supposed to be "Good" Friday?

During the afternoon, I put the final touches on the Philippine Island's flag. Then I cranked up the engine and charged the batteries. The old engine, new as it was, just didn't seem right. I hoped that it was running rough due to dirty injectors. I'd check on that in Manila.

To sort of top off a day during which it seemed everything had gone wrong, I treated myself to jelled cornmeal mush covered with diced fruit from a can, and milk! Mmmmmm! Was that good! And for dessert – popcorn, with hot chocolate to drink.

Saturday was a 61-mile day, and I felt much better. Manila was a mere 197 miles away now. This was the nineteenth day out of Kuching, and we'd covered 1,375 miles from departure there and 1,785 since leaving Singapore. Scarborough Shoal, a wreck-strewn reef, was a scant 21 miles to the north by east. I hauled the sheets hard in as we tried to point higher into the now force three southeasterly breeze. East was the course, and my hopes were high that the breeze would freshen, and that we'd soon be knocking at Corrigadore's door.

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Chapter 16

I catch a Tuna Fish with a Hank of Beard

As we neared our immediate destination, I began to experience what is commonly referred to in the naval and merchant service as "channel fever." Perhaps yachtsmen use the same term, I really don't know, but I'm sure that the malady is as common to them as it is to all who go to sea. It is a manifestation of anxiety at the prospect of arriving in port and again getting one's feet on the ground. It usually results in a restlessness and in some the inability to sleep the last night or two at sea before arrival. Some people are deeply affected by the malady, if it can be called that, and others not so much. It all depends on what the particular individual's expectations for port to happen to be. It could mean being reunited with family or old friends, or the prospects of new friends and strange sights, or merely the thought of a few beers. Few are the individuals who are not, at least to small extent, infected with channel fever when nearing port.

A couple of small butterflies were beginning to flutter in my stomach over the prospects of Manila. I knew Manila a little. I'd been there a few times, and I'd always enjoyed myself. My anxieties were a mixture of those of a skipper, who is a little nervous anytime that soundings are reached, and the crewman, who is looking forward to a night on the town with plenty of wine, women, and song. But there was another factor involved – that of being rather reluctant to give up the peace and serenity of my private little world that I had learned to love and enjoy. There was a strong hesitance to trade it in, even temporarily, for the noise, confusion, and pollution ridden air of the great metropolis of Manila, no matter what pleasures that it may offer.

Had it not been for the fact that I needed stores and groceries and wanted to check at the yacht club for mail, I believe that I'd have bypassed Manila altogether. One reason, naturally, was my growing anxiety of the approach of typhoon season. I knew that if I stopped in Manila, I wouldn't want to be in a hurry to leave and that, as in the case of Kuching, I couldn't afford to tarry. In addition, I, quite naturally, was rather anxious to be reunited with my family in Guam at the earliest opportunity and see how they had been faring. I told myself that I'd probably have a couple of wild nights on the town and then be more ready to sail again, though I knew deep inside that I would most probably have to pry myself loose from this place, once snugly moored in Manila Bay. After all, the Philippines are still a seaman’s paradise. The beer is cheap, and the natives friendly.

While I was contemplating the subject of channel fever and writing a rather long treatise on it in my journal, a fish struck one of my trolling lines. As I leaped to the cockpit and started handing in the line, I was happy to see that it was the one with the new miracle lure that I had devised earlier that day. The lure was nothing more than a hank of my beard, which I had snipped off and lashed to a hook. At last I had found a practical use for my beard!

It had always been my opinion, or at least I had a suspicion, that beards were good for something other than straining soup, catching crumbs, or for hiding under, pure and simple. Now I was proven quite correct, and I didn't know why I'd never read about it before. Beards can be used to catch fish!

The way that I happened to think of using a piece of beard as a lure came about earlier in the day when I had just missed catching a fish. I had been pulling one of the lines in at the time, and the fish struck at it as it sort of skimmed and skipped on the surface of the water. I figured we needed something light that would skip lightly on the surface all of the time while I was trolling. But I couldn't think of anything light enough to use – something that would give it just the suggestion of positive buoyancy. As I later stood, sort of gazing blankly at myself in the medicine cabinet mirror, and stroking my beard thoughtfully, an idea began to form. About five minutes later, the thought actually "dawned" on me. I flashed to full consciousness, still with one hand on my beard, stood up straight, and grabbed for the scissors, which were conveniently hanging within reach, and snip!

A small hank of hair from just under my chin was just what the doctor ordered. I lashed it securely to a hook, and presto! I had a lure that no fish could resist. When I threw it into the water, it literally jumped to life. We were moving along at about three knots, and I didn't use a sinker, so the hairy hook lurched and jumped right on the surface at the end of the buoyant nylon line. As I first held it rather closely astern for observation, it was actually jumping right clear of the water as if it were trying desperately to get back on board. It had the appearance of a tremendously hairy little frog who had no intention of being used as bait and was trying heroically, but vainly, to catch up with the boat. I had a feeling that this was the ultimate bait. It couldn't miss. I slacked it out to about thirty feet astern and two hours later was landing my prize tuna. Twenty inches of fight and fury, it was! What a struggle! Once that hair got hooked up with a fish, it just didn't want to come back at all.

The fish was rather on a small line, and with the struggle that he put up, I was surprised that I was able to land him. But I didn't take any chances and carefully scooped him up with my net rather than tying to pull him aboard with the line. I managed to land him – my first real catch of the voyage, disregarding the turtle.

Now, a tuna is a mighty meaty fish, so I had more fish than I could rightly consume in a matter of two or three days. And with no icebox or means of keeping the flesh cool, I couldn't even keep it that long. I sliced off my first day's ration of meat, taking the prime cuts off one side. This was to be eaten first, the same day, as sashimi. Then I reserved some more prime steaks from the other side to be fried that same night to be eaten the following day. Scraps, bones, head, and entrails I threw in the chowder pot for two or three days' worth of fish chowder – and started it boiling. Then the remaining pieces of good fish slabs I cut into thin strips and laid them on the cabin top to dry in the sun. That would provide me with chowder base material for a good many days to come.

That tuna got himself caught at about 1530 in the afternoon. At 1830, I sat myself down to the rare luxury of a dinner of fresh, almost quivering, red and pink sashimi dipped in soy sauce and wasabi, with chopped cabbage on the side. For drink, I had water – but it truly tasted like wine.

Slowly but surely we inched on eastward toward Manila. The winds continued light and intermittent from the south-southwest to south-southeast. By noon on Easter Sunday, we had covered 51 miles in twenty-four hours, and the distance to Manila had closed to a mere 148 miles. The regular afternoon calm befell us, and the boat just drifted in circles with all sails set and hanging limp. I dove in with mask, fins, and snorkel and swam around the boat, just daring a breeze to come up. For once, Carr's First Law failed me. But the exception, they say, proves the rule. It looked as though I had contracted my channel fever a bit prematurely.

My Easter Sunday supper was fish chowder, and I figured that I may as well include the recipe here, for not only was it rather good but there wasn't just a hell of a lot more happening on board of any great significance that day. Here it is:

Semangat China Sea Chowder

One tuna head, innards (well cleaned of course), bones and scraps.

Boil with diced potatoes, cabbage, (just a little), chopped dried mushrooms, a couple cloves of garlic, (I would have put in onions, but I was out), one cup sea water, and three cups of fresh water.

Once it had begun to boil well, I put in one can of corn, a sprinkling of soy sauce, and two teaspoons of margarine (to take the place of chopped bacon or pork).

When it had cooked up to where the potatoes were soft, I added a cupful of powered milk and let it come to a near boil again. Then I proclaimed the potage done!

Of course I had never prepared chowder before, nor had I a recipe on board (it should be obvious by now that we didn't have any sort of a cookbook aboard), so I realize that the above recipe may not meet with the approval of many chowder connoisseurs. With supper ready to be served, I said to myself, "Myself, this here stuff had better be good, 'cause there must be at least a gallon of it!" And it was good.

This Easter Sunday was the first day of the entire passage thus far that I hadn't felt in tip-top condition. Maybe I had overdone the sashimi the previous evening, for I had awoke at 0300 with abdominal pains. Soon I was running to and at the head – or hanging my stern over the side, if that proved to be more convenient. The diarrhea continued all morning and so did the discomfort in my stomach, and I feared that I had poisoned myself good in some way. By 1400 I had squirted about seven times all told, but then the pain eased and I got better, much to my relief. Having spent a good many years in southeast Asia, I had been stricken down many a time before with similar symptoms. Often ten days to two weeks would pass without much relief. I had been afraid this might stretch into one of those lengthy illnesses. Fortunately, those fears proved unfounded, and I was well on my way to being my usual healthy self by late afternoon.

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Chapter 17

Easter Calms and More Hitchhikers

The calm that befell us on Easter was as completely and utterly still as any period of calm that we'd thus far experienced. And it proved to be the longest one, too, lasting for fifteen and a half dead still hours! Of course, that's really not too bad. Fortunately, at least I wasn't going backwards. Frank Shepard of the trimaran, El Gringo, claimed that when he sailed down to Singapore from Bangkok, he once logged a day's run of sixty miles only to find that he had really made thirty in the opposite direction! At least I hadn't had to swallow that kind of mileage figures yet. On the surface, I find Frank's experience rather difficult to believe, though, and tend to think he had made some kind of navigational error. The Semangat, however, had managed to put thirty-nine miles astern by noon in spite of the record calm period.

The earlier part of the day I devoted to cleaning and straightening up the boat in preparation for arrival at Manila. The wind, though it began veering through the north half of the compass, came up and held steady at about a force three to four, east-southeast. Finally, about noon, the wind backed again to due east, where I figured it would settle in, since that was the direction that I wanted most to go. I put the old Semangat on the starboard tack, and we headed northeastward. That was just as good as anything, though, as we had been set to the south during the night and morning.

Another hitchhiker landed aboard. I came up out of the cabin to see a white, long-legged, long-beaked, crane-like bird perched on the taffrail on the starboard side. My movements seemed to scare him away, but he would always come back and land in the same place. Once he flew and managed to get a hold of my whiskers – not the ones on my face, but the ones on the hook trailing astern. It seemed that lure of mine was as attractive to seabirds as to fish. Finally, he managed to get his foot caught on the hook, and I reeled him in. Before I got him to the boat, he either let go of the hook, or the hook let go of him. No harm done, for he was soon back on the taffrail. He was becoming less concerned with my presence, and soon he only seemed to regard me with a small degree of annoyance when I moved in his direction. Otherwise, he tried to ignore me. Only when I would pop suddenly into view in the companionway from below would he show any signs of being startled.

The winds dried up again and left me just barely clawing for a heading much the same as had been the case the night before. All at once I discovered why I had been set so mysteriously south during the previous night. I had been reading in the cockpit until the gathering darkness made it difficult to see, when, glancing over to windward – if you could call it windward in the light air – I saw water sort of bubbling up about twenty feet away and abeam. It was as if it were coming from some sort of an underwater stream. Curious, I thought. An underwater spring surfacing in over a thousand fathoms of water? Then I was struck by the fact that it was maintaining a steady position in relation to the boat. Then I realized that we were actually moving sideways through the water! Our leeway was greater than our headway! I had never run into that situation before and could hardly believe my eyes.

When I gave it some thought, the reason became rather obvious. The air was on our port quarter. In such a circumstance as that, one would naturally slack away on the sheets and let the sails fill out to leeward to take advantage of it. But the air was not sufficient to fill the sails! Had I left the main and mizzen sails like that the booms would have merely swung to and fro. So I had sheeted the sails hard amidships. In doing that, I was able to keep the booms under control with the sails barely filled with air, and the vessel steady on the desired heading.

But the unlikely result was that I had inadvertently found a point of balance among the air, rig, and plane of lateral resistance whereby we were actually being pushed ever so gently sideways at perhaps an eighth of a knot with almost no headway! So, we were not going eastward at all, as we were pointing, but more like south-southeast, or perhaps just plain south! Having discovered the mystery of our southerly yardage, I coaxed her over to a northeasterly heading, which put the northwesterly airs on our port beam (which to the non-sailor would seem to be more likely to push the vessel sideways but not so – at least in this case). Soon we were making perceptible headway toward the northeast, with probably no more than twenty degrees of leeway.

By 1830 the same evening, a breeze sprang up and veered to north so we were leaping right ahead on a east-northeasterly heading. Just what the doctor ordered! I could expect to sight the mountainous coast of Luzon next morning if it held – if not actually arrive as had been my earlier expectation.

There were indications of our nearness to Manila, too. One was the bank of smog or smoke over the eastern half of the evening sky. Another was the passage of airliners overhead. I also sighted a ship – the first in six days – which was headed toward the northeast. I had heard the sound of its machinery long before I sighted it in the still air. He never approached any closer than hull down on the horizon, but he sounded as if he were no more than a mile away, and I could hear him for a long while after he had vanished from sight. I had kept looking all around all the while, expecting to see another vessel sneaking up on me from some quarter. But none materialized.

During the night, the wind veered back to the east and increased in force until it was a blustery force six, and I had to shorten sail by the main. By 0500 Tuesday, April 20^th, the seas had built up to about eight feet in height, and they were steep. It was the roughest sea, in terms of discomfort, I had yet experienced on the trip. At 0515, as expected, there were the mountains of Luzon silhouetted against a red predawn sky. I calculated them to be about forty miles distant and figured they were the mountains to the north of Manila Bay. We hauled over to the starboard tack to a heading of northeast by north. It was getting rough as a cob, and the wind was right out of the east. It appeared Luzon was going to play hard to get to.

At 0600, I took down the main and club jib to ease her a bit and continued under yankee and mizzen alone. That wind would have been great had I been trying to go in any other direction than the one which I so desired to go. All I could do was claw on to as much easting as the growing seas would allow. The bird didn't like this weather at all either. He had taken the first signs of a blow as his cue for retiring below into the cabin, which he did. He knew it wouldn't be any fun trying to fly in that sort of weather. I went down to see where he had stationed himself, and saw him casually balancing on one foot in the middle of the table. He was just making himself at home. I set out a dish of water and cornbread crumbs for him and left him to make himself comfortable.

It was a beautiful, clear morning with a brilliant red sunrise. The sea was a deep blue and speckled with white caps, breaking waves, and streaks of foam. It reminded me of how the sea so often looks off the coast of California. Many's the time, particularly back in my navy days when I had been home ported in San Diego, I've looked down from the deck of a large ship at seas such as this and wondered just what it would be like to be under sail in a small boat. Well, now I knew. It was rough. At least, it was rough when trying to beat into it. It wouldn't have been bad running with it or keeping it on the beam. All of the straightening up I had done the day before had already been undone, and the cabin was again in shambles. I'd had so much smooth sailing that I'd almost forgotten that everything needed to be tightly secured.

As the morning passed, I could tell that we were making some easting in spite of all the driving seas could do to prevent it. I knew as we approached the coast and the distance of fetch became less, it would be bound to calm down a little. And, too, I figured that much of the wind was a land breeze effect which was exaggerated by a funneling effect of the mountains around Manila Bay. I figured that by noon the sea breeze effect would begin to temper this gale somewhat and slow it down.

The bird, disenchanted with his table-top balancing act and the wild gyrations of the cabin around him, transferred over to the chart table to try that for awhile. He found the chart too slippery for him, however, as there was nothing for him to get a grip on with his claws. He slid and floundered around most comically until he gave it up as a lost cause. Then he lurched leeward, half-flying, half-falling, over to sink counter and finally the stove, where he could grab a hold on the burner. There he clung as if his life depended on it. He looked as if he fully intended to become a permanent fixture there, a half-frightened, half-bewildered expression on his long beaked face. He didn't know what to think of the gyrating environment in which he had ensconced himself.

Meanwhile, up topside, I was able to observe how the Semangat would handle these conditions. She did admirably well. The seas were short, steep, and often tumbling over themselves, but none were actually able to aboard. She could occasionally dip her lee rail when rolling back off a particularly steep to, breaking, wave – but she'd never hang as if she might have doubts about coming back up. We were, of course, taking a bit of spray.

Sitting at the top of the companionway with the hatch slide slid to, I was almost totally protected and in the lee of the cabin roof. It was about the only comfortable place to be. I could duck most of the flying spray – but not all of it. But I was enjoying the taste of the salt water running down my face and the feel of the wind whipping my sodden hair. It was quite an invigorating change from the days upon days of being becalmed.

It was obvious that whipping something up to eat was going to be highly entertaining, and I was beginning to get hungry. Coffee making earlier had been fun enough. I had to make two cups in order to successfully get one drunk. But, fortunately, by 0945, the wind had eased a little, and I hoisted the main with a reef tied in it, and also the club jib. The seas were also abating somewhat by then. And by 1000, I was able to shake the reef out of the main and sail full to a pleasant force four, on the starboard tack. At 1030, I was able to heat a can of spaghetti and wieners and brew up some hot chocolate, after moving the bird gently out of the cabin. He was leaving a horrible mess in his wake, wherever he parked himself.

Darned if we weren't becalmed again be half-past noon! We’d had a fine morning's run. Too bad that it couldn't had been directly toward Manila. But it had been mostly toward the north. Manila was still seventy-six miles away. We had started out west-southwest of the entrance of Manila Bay, at dawn, and now we were about the same distance from it but up to the west-northwest of it. If anything, we were just a little further from it. And becalmed in a rough northeasterly swell! With sails popping, rigging whipping and snapping on the masts, and booms trying to break loose from their restricting sheets, I sat in frustrated discomfort and waited for a change.

We were only twenty-seven miles from the entrance of Subic Bay. Subic, in fact, was looking more and more attractive all the time. It's a large natural harbor just north of Manila and the home of the largest U.S. naval base in the West Pacific, I believe, unless Yokosuka, Japan holds that honor. But I was trying to resist the temptation of calling at Subic. Not only did I not like the idea of going in at an American military port, but I knew Olongapo, the local town, all too well! Not that I didn't like the place. The trouble was quite opposite. I was afraid that I would become ensnared there as I had in the past. Also, I had some rather melancholy and sentimental memories at rest there, and I had no wish to revive or disturb them in any way. It dates from those romantic afflictions of years ago when I was but a young navy seaman and deeply in love with a girl whom I met there. That was all part of a distant past now, but the romantic memory lingered on in my heart.

Somehow, I just didn't want to have the opportunity to visit there just then, with so many other things pressing upon me. On the other hand, I wasn't about to flounder around becalmed that close to Subic Bay indefinitely either! In spite of myself, I decided I’d motor in rather than spend another day becalmed anywhere so close to land. The "make port come hell or high water" syndrome was beginning to take effect.

Finally I did crank the engine up and ran for about an hour toward Subic. Mainly, I was charging my batteries. But since there was no wind at the time, I also headed towards the land, of course. Before the hour was up, however, a light northwesterly breeze presented itself, and I was able to get under sail again, with the main and yankee rigged wing and wing, the yankee propped out with the boat hook, and the safety warp streamed astern.

The bird was still aboard. I'd had to chase him out of the cabin about five times. I wouldn't have minded his staying inside if he had been housebroken. But he'd never even heard the word before. He had found that if he stood on the galley counter, right by the sink, he could look into the mirror and see another bird just like him in there. That really fascinated him. I would chase him out, but soon when he would sneak back in to look into the mirror. The poor fellow was hard to discourage. He just wouldn't be driven out! After I'd managed to successfully drive him out a couple of times, he discovered that I could be avoided and he could manage to stay right inside. He had the advantage of flight.

Finally, I had to bodily grab a hold of him and physically evict him – throw him out, if you please. Only with such physically violent methods was I able to discourage him, and he finally did seem to get the hint. But he didn't leave the vessel. No sirree! He stationed himself on deck at one of the port lights and stood there sulkily, peering in through the glass with a recriminating stare, as if to accuse me of cruel and inhuman treatment, blatant discrimination, and an utter lack of civility and hospitality.

That bird had also seemed to enjoy listening to the radio and was sort of fond of kissing himself in the mirror. Obviously he thought he'd found love there. He must have thought he’d at last encountered the ideal mate and in such stately surroundings, with romantic music and all. But for my interference, he might have thought himself in a literal paradise, I imagined.

Those mountains around Subic Bay hadn't changed in fourteen years. But what incredible changes have occurred in the lives of the people I’d known then, nobody could say. Mine has certainly changed, many times in many ways. But to look at those barren mountains, I could almost imagine that nothing at all had changed. I could easily recall and partially recover the grand excitement that the sight of them once stirred in me. And to think that there I was, fourteen years later, sitting alone in a small boat offshore.

Oh, what I wouldn't have given back then to be in the position in which I now found myself! What would I have thought fourteen years ago if I had known that some fourteen years hence I would be bobbing around these waters alone in my own little boat, as I was only dreaming of doing back in those days of young romance? But look how my circumstances had changed! Life is a funny thing. It takes some strange turns, sometimes turning back on itself, as mine seemed now to be doing, at a completely different place in time. Only time was different. For the moment, I was on a very sentimental journey. I must not go to Subic, I told myself, lest I see too may changes – or lest I not see them. Either way, I was sure, would be disruptive and disturbing to my sentimentalities.

Darkness found the Semangat still near the entrance to Subic Bay and me still in turmoil as to whether or not I should bring the heading around and head in. Then, at about 2100, the wind veered all the way around to east and freshened in the form of a strong land breeze. I took down the boat hook that held out the yankee and put the Semangat on the port tack headed for Manila Bay. As the wind increased even more, I went over to the starboard tack for awhile to get closer inshore to avoid the rough seas that were building further out. In doing that, we were again heading right for Subic Bay, but when we gained the relative calm about two miles offshore, we again came about and headed south. The wind blew to a force five, and by the wee hours in the morning, I had shorten sail.

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Chapter 17 b

Standing into Manila Bay

It appeared I was destined to stay awake all night as we were making good time in the right direction. But by 0400 the wind had died somewhat and shifted so that we had to head southwest again, away from the coast. I took that opportunity to get a little cat napping in before I'd actually be closing with the entrance of the bay. But there wasn't much time for napping.

By 0600 it was blowing hard again from the east, and we bore on under full sail. By a 0815, we were able to come about to the starboard tack and head right up towards the southwest side of Corregidor Island on a heading of north by east. To my sorrow, I found our bird had died during the night. He had taken shelter just forward of the coach roof in the lee of the deck locker and – and there, he had keeled over and expired. It was the second death on board and another sea burial had to be solemnly conducted.

While on the starboard tack, I managed to get some breakfast prepared and eaten, after which we tacked again to an east by south heading, to clear the southern shore of Corregidor. By noon we had Corregidor abeam on our port side. El Fraile Island, the famous rock "battleship," was off to starboard, guns still pointed seaward. This fake ship was constructed of concrete prior to the Japanese invasion during World War II. It was intended to fool the Japanese into thinking that there was a battleship guarding the entrance of Manila Bay. I searched the shores of Corregidor with my binoculars. There were still signs of the old bunkers, well hidden but visible upon close inspection.

It was twenty-four more miles to Manila, and the wind was freshening even more. At 1300, I came to the starboard tack and was able, with the easterly breeze, to head almost directly for the center of the port. The wind increased to a force six, and I held onto all canvass. We were fairly bounding forward. It was as if the Semangat was as anxious to get in as I was, and that there would be no more tarrying about. We were having an exhilarating sail!

At 1500, I could not stand to see my poor little vessel straining herself any longer, so I shorted sail by the main in fear that something should soon carry away. The wind, still strong, veered to the southeast at about 1700, which was perfect. In another half hour, we were dead on the center of the breakwater about a quarter of a mile off. I called that our official arrival time – 1730 – and I lowered the sails and motored in to an anchorage just in front of Rizal Park. By 1830, we were anchored and secure. I furled the sails and squared things away for a stay in port at least a few days, and wondered when the authorities would be out to clear my vessel.

We had been twenty-three days and six hours enroute from Kuching and had traveled 1,562 miles at an average speed of 2.69 knots. Wow! Since leaving Singapore, we'd spent thirty days, twenty-two hours, and twenty minutes at sea (including the river transit in and out of Kuching) and traveled a total of 2,012 miles. During that time, we had motored a total of twenty-five hours. The second leg of our journey was over, and once again I lay back and basked in the feeling of fulfillment known only to sailors of small boats who successfully negotiate lengthy passages.

It was a curious coincidence that my arrival in Manila was the anniversary of a previous arrival in the Philippines. Exactly one year ago, my family and I had landed as refugees from Saigon at Clark Air Force Base. We had arrived at 2130 on the evening of April 21^st, 1975 aboard an Air Force C-141 Star Lifter. It had been quite a flight, not to mention the experience of the weeks prior to getting on it.

My wife, Chi, her sister Tuc, and my daughter, Lilia, were with me. I’d previously managed to get an exit visa for my son and had sent him to Singapore with some friends about a week earlier, on a regular commercial flight. Since then, commercial flights had been halted, and the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were at the gates of the city – and thousands of refugees were being transported to the Philippines by the Air Force.

We had departed Saigon's Tan San Nhut Airport at about 1730 that afternoon, after spending two days and a night in an air base holding area – outside the bowling alley at the pool's edge, though we were fortunate enough to have spent the night in a nearby barracks.

Once airborne, the aircraft had climbed as steeply as it could to about seventeen to nineteen thousand feet, with both back side doors and two windows to the passenger cargo compartment wide open! The two doors were large ones too, and you can imagine the noise from the engines just forward of them and wind turbulence whipping bits of paper and debris about the cabin.

Several dozen wide-eyed passengers – mostly old Vietnamese men, women, children – thus experienced their first flight. The idea of having the doors open was that airmen could fire flares out in an attempt to fool any heat-seeking SAM missiles that might come charging up at us.

The airmen were strapped to the floor between the two doors with their flare guns at ready, and two others were stationed at the windows. On that memorable flight, some time before we reached the prescribed altitude, I began to imagine that I was not quite getting enough oxygen. What with the deafening engine and wind noise and the wind turbulence and lack of oxygen, it was a rather exciting experience. I wondered what the other passengers were thinking.

Most of them had probably never dreamed of flying before, much less ever experienced it. This was certainly one heck of a first flight for them. Aside from myself, there were only about a half-dozen other Americans. The rest were Vietnamese, many of them either very old or very young, with a high percentage of women with babies in arms – all with varying degrees of alarm and fear showing on their faces. None of them were aware that oxygen depletion was a problem as we gained altitude.

It seemed that they'd never close those doors and windows, and I soon felt myself sort of gasping for breath in the thin air – contemplating very seriously reaching for the oxygen mask that dangled overhead. But then, I didn't want to be the first to grab one, so I just watched it longingly, dangling above my head, wondering if we would get the word to use them before people started passing out.

Finally, the back doors were closed and then one of the windows. But the airman at the other window was having a difficult time getting the window cover in place. He fumbled it two or three times. One more fumble and I'm sure I would have grabbed the oxygen mask. But he made it that time, and we could soon breath easily again, as the cabin was quickly pressurized with oxygen-rich air.

Upon our arrival at Clark, we had been taken and "assigned" to a gymnasium where the four of us occupied two single mattresses amongst hundreds of others lined up from wall to wall. There were thousands of refugees already there. All spare barracks had already been filled by the time we arrived, as well as one other gymnasium, and tents were being erected for the increasing overflow of refugees.

We spent four pleasant days there, being “processed” and amazingly well fed, before President Marco's growing annoyance caused us to be further evacuated to Guam, this time in a chartered Pan Am 747. In Guam we were quartered at the infamous Orote Point refugee camp with tent 31-C becoming our new residence, along with four other families.

That camp grew to gigantic proportions before I managed to extricate my family some five days after our arrival. Chi had cried when we were bused in there. A gymnasium floor was one thing, but a mere tent in the midst of a thousand others on an otherwise dusty and deserted brush-clad no-man's-land, was quite something else again. Not withstanding the trials and tribulations of it all, I sort of enjoyed it. I didn't care for those quarter-mile-long chow lines though. Nor would I care to repeat the experience.

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Chapter 18

Manila Interlude

Arrival day in any port is always long and arduous, so when I'd cleaned myself and the boat up and got things halfway squared away, I resigned myself to a quiet night aboard at a peaceful anchorage. No port authorities seemed forthcoming, so I just sat down in my accustomed position at the top of the companionway ladder and contented myself by viewing the activities along the waterfront park through the binoculars. I soon wearied of that, however, and made an early night of it, sleeping one more night under the stars in the cockpit.

Next morning, I did some more cleaning and airing of bedding that had gotten damp down below on the passage. By noon, I was beginning to think that I was anchored in the wrong place and that the authorities couldn't see me. Rather than changes anchorages, I decided to take a chance and paddle ashore in my sampan and get my own clearance. So, I put the boat over the side and went ashore. I managed to get my quarantine clearance, much to my surprise, with no trouble at all. I figured the officials would be upset that I had been so brazen to step on shore before being properly cleared by a boarding party. The quarantine officer had been so nice as to instruct me as to what further to do to get the rest of my clearance. I was supposed to go over to the yacht club and have the manager call immigration and customs for me, after which they would come and clear the vessel at the club.

By 1500 we had shifted over to the yacht club. There I received a cordial welcome from the manager, along with a temporary free membership, after being placed at a temporary mooring. Soon we were properly cleared by the immigration and customs officers. I was also pleased to find that I had some mail waiting for me there and to learn that my family was faring well in Guam.

As I paddled ashore in my sampan, I was surprised to see one of the yachts that had occupied a mooring near me at the Changi Club in Singapore – the “Mark Too,” a sleek-looking cutter rig. The annual "China Sea Race" from Hong Kong to Manila had just been completed, and the Mark Too had been one of the entrants, winning first in class and eleventh over all. The “Ballyhoo,” an impressive cutter of a least fifty feet in length, had taken the first prize and was there too. She is owned by a wealthy Australian, who had already departed for home, leaving his yacht in the hands of his paid crew. The yacht club people thought we were a late runner-up in that race. But I hadn't known anything about the race, never having followed the yacht racing news.

Manila held us for nine days. During the days, I would go out on shopping expeditions, bringing back bags of groceries, tins of kerosene, and the dozens of little odds and ends that I felt we needed for our onward journey. I bought a small barometer, which I thought would be handy to tell me when a depression was approaching, and got the injectors of my engine worked over and cleaned. I also bought a couple spare impellers for the water pump on the engine and gave the engine a general going-over to make sure that it was in top shape.

During the evenings and nights, I spent my time doing what most seamen do whenever they land in Manila – drinking San Miguel beer and fraternizing with the local ladies of the evening. The beer is notoriously inexpensive and the ladies pleasing. By the third day, however, I was beginning to come down with an intestinal problem, and I could no longer fully appreciate either. It was the same old story – the bug – and I couldn't comfortably get more than fifty feet from the nearest john. I was feeling pretty low to boot. It must have been too much San Miguel or perhaps something that I ate which didn't agree with me. But, in any case, I was feeling too low to enjoy the final several days of our stay.

There's plenty of irony in this. Manila was always one of those places I enjoyed visiting, and that I'd always wanted to return to. But now that I was here on my own boat, with no "port watches" or "too soon sailing date" to interfere with my freedom, I was down with a bug and couldn't enjoy it. Perhaps it was righteous justice, and the sailor's libertine infidelity to the "wife back home" was extracting its due payback.

My intestinal bug continued to bother me until I felt as if I were coming down with cirrhosis or a recurrence of hepatitis or some such thing. Since the bug didn't seem to go away, I figured it must be time for us to go away. And so it is with many a seaman. He craves the shore and its dubious pleasures while he is at sea but must always soon get back to sea to keep from dying. Many a sailor has lived a long and healthy life as long as he has had access to the sea only to retire to the land to meet an early grave. I began to think that might be what was in store for me if we stayed on any longer in Manila. I was anxious, too, about the ever approaching typhoon season and also my family in Guam. It was indeed time to be on our way.

On Friday, April 30^th, I visited the port authorities and got our sailing clearance. I made all final preparations for proceeding on our voyage, filling all water and fuel tanks and jerry cans, so we could have an early departure the following morning. I went ashore one last time to torture my body with some more San Miguel beer at a nearby hangout called "Grandfather's Mustache," where folk songs and music were played by anyone in the audience who happened to think that he or she could sing or play. It proved to be a rather entertaining last evening in Manila. I returned to the club after the bar closed, stopped to use the head, then raced out to the Semangat where I had to use the head again. Manila was killing me – but it would be off tomorrow to get well!

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Chapter 19

A Slow Passage through the Philippine Islands

It was Saturday, May 1^st – May Day 1976 – that we departed Manila. The eastern sky was just beginning to brighten against the skyline of Manila when we cast off our mooring. It was 0530 as we motored out through the yacht club breakwater. The weather was calm and clear, the bay reflecting broken patterns of the skyline and reddening the sky, as the distance between the Semangat and the breakwater increased. I hoisted the sails and killed the engine, catching the first of a light morning air.

The winds continued light and variable as we proceeding seaward, and by noon we had only gained nine miles from departure. In the afternoon, the light breeze steadied from the north, and we were able to make slow but steady progress southwestward out of the bay. At 1600, El Fraile Island, the concrete battleship, was close to port, and we were clear of Manila Bay. From about 1900 until 2200, we were nearly becalmed, but then a light sea breeze sprung up out of the northwest, which carried us steadily along throughout the night.

We passed between Fortuna Island and Luzon at about 0030, May 2^nd, and daybreak found me off Cape Santiago. A strong easterly breeze came up about that time and forced us to shorten sail, batten down the forward hatches, and close all the port lights. By 0840, the wind had increased to moderate gale proportions, and we shortened sail down to yankee and mizzen only and were still nearly dipping the lee rail. We were now in the Verde Island Passage between Luzon and Mindoro islands, and it seemed that the wind was funneling westward through the passage just for my benefit as I was beating eastward. We were fairly racing across the passage from north to south and back again but making very little eastward movement – figuratively, spinning our wheels with great vigor but making little yardage.

During the early afternoon, I happened to see something beneath the water trailing along astern. At first it appeared to be a fish. Then I decided I must have snagged a line of some sort of piece of rag or something attached. I luffed momentarily to check the headway and give me time to reach it with a boat hook and pull whatever it was aboard. It turned out to be a fish! He was caught on a line that we had snagged sometime during the night or morning. As a matter of fact, there were several hooks and lines, as it appeared that we'd inadvertently snagged and carried away some poor fisherman's trotline. I was sorry to have done that, but I did have fresh fish for supper and a new supply of small fishhooks and fine nylon line. Many of the fishhooks were still baited, so I tied the main line to the taffrail and continued to troll as we beat along.

The beat through the Verde Island Passage continued all day long, with the wind holding strong until evening when we were just coming up on Verde Island. Then the wind got light, variable, and cantankerous as hell. It took me three attempts at passing through the North Passage between Verde and Luzon. But we finally succeeded in getting just past the island when the wind died away and left us drifting idly in the near proximity of the island for the duration of the night.

At 0500 the next morning, a light southwesterly breeze stirred us into slow motion, and we continued toward the southeast. At 0900, the breeze shifted to the southeast, and we headed east on the starboard tack until Malabrigo Point was about a mile off to the east. Then we came around onto the port tack and headed south. At noon we were just north-northeast of Silonay Island off Calapan Point on the Island of Mindoro. We were two days and six hours out of Manila and had covered 138 miles. It didn't look good for a quick passage to San Bernadino Strait.

The sailor safely out to sea again, was again beginning to feel healthy. I had cooked and consumed a big breakfast and had, once again, and had a good appetite. At mid-morning I'd had a snack of cheese and crackers and a glass of hot chocolate. Ah, it was wonderful what two days at sea could do for a sailor! I had begun to worry about the possibility that my liver was acting up, as I had been experiencing the same sort of symptoms that I had experienced when I had had hepatitis years before, right down to the tenderness in the area just under my rib cage on the starboard side. That hepatitis had landed me five weeks in the Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego in 1961. During much of that time, I was feeling mighty low, and I wasn't hankering for another bout it.

We continued to make pretty fair headway through the remainder of the afternoon. Not very fast, as the breezes continued to be light, but at least we weren't having to fight for it. We were now in the area between Tayabas Bay on the north and Tablas Strait to the south, heading in the direction of the latter. We continued south until we were just about abeam of the mouth of the Lumangbayan River and about a mile off the coast of Mindoro. There we changed to the starboard tack and headed northeastward in a light easterly breeze away from the coast and toward Baltazar Island near the southwest side of Marinduque Island. Once past there, we could consider ourself to be in the Sibuyan Sea.

At 1800 the wind increased to a light, but pleasing, force two, and I took time out to cook up a big pot of fish chowder, using some of my old dried out tuna. At 1845, the wind increased suddenly, and the Semangat heeled over handsomely, spilling my fish chowder all over the cabin floor. I salvaged what I could, put it back on the stove, and added some more milk. I ended up with just enough for supper, having started with the intention of having at least two days' worth.

Anywhere a fellow goes in the world, he seems to be surrounded by exotic names. I guess it applies to home as well, as in the more exotic Indian names around in the United States that we mostly take for granted and think nothing of. But I am continually struck with the sounds of some of the stranger places in the Far East. As I peered at the chart of the islands through which we were now traveling, I couldn't help but take note of the many around me now. On the islands in my immediate vicinity, there were places like Boac, Mogpog, Cawit, Sayao, Obung, Gasan, Pamuntangan, Melchor, Pola, Laylay, Ijatub, and Lupac, to name a very few.

Between the Philippines and the islands of Indonesia, I imagine one could find hundreds of thousands of such names. There are thousands of islands and hundreds of different local languages and dialects, so that the variety of different-sounding words and names must be greater than in any other area in the world. Each one seemed to have an attraction. And how I wished we had the time to explore and investigate but a tiny fraction of the places that were now beckoning from every quarter. It seemed such a shame to have to sail through such seas and straits without so much as a single call at some obscure little village or island. But I couldn't spare the time and had to be satisfied with what I could see through the binoculars and by chart gazing.

The type of sailing that we were doing wasn't quite what I had always had in mind when I dreamed of cruising. I could never understand those hearty yachtsmen who would brave hardship and deprivation to sail nonstop or almost nonstop around the world. True, there is a challenge there, and I guess there is a great deal of satisfaction in having completed such a voyage and having broken some sort of record. But that sort of thing would not be for me. Ideally, I would want an unlimited amount of time and want to stop at as many interesting and out-of-the-way places as that time would allow.

Of course, I could consider myself very fortunate in having what limited amount that I did and lucky to be able to embark upon such a hurried journey as we were now pursuing. Yet it hurt to know we were having to pass through such prime cruising grounds as these as a mere transient, and what we would also have to bypass the Palau and Yap islands on our route from the Philippines to Guam. But that I must do and be happy with it.

On Tuesday, May 4^th, I noted we had been becalmed since 2300 the previous evening! I calculated that since that time we had averaged the amazing speed of two hours per mile! This was pretty discouraging for a four mile an hour walker. There was a large pod of a type of small whale or large porpoise entertaining us first thing in the morning. They were about ten to fifteen feet in length, black in color, with a rather blunt porpoise-like nose and high dorsal fin. I thought that they might be what is known as a false killer whale, but I had no way of identifying them. I saw one that had a white face. They were jumping, flapping, slapping, and just generally lazing around in the dead calm sea. They lolled usually with only their dorsal fins and the humps of their foreheads exposed. But sometimes they would float higher, and their whole back could be seen.

Later on in the morning, a couple of threatening-looking rain squalls passed over, but neither one had any wind to speak of. The second one did deluge us with fresh water, however. I bathed and collected plenty of wash water. It was just another slow day. Our day's run turned out to be a mere forty-nine miles, and my hopes of being able to clear the San Bernadino Straits in five days from Manila were beginning to wane. I had hoped for and expected to make my passage to Guam in about a maximum of thirty days. That's when I'd told my wife to expect me. I was beginning to believe that I had been rather overly optimistic in that estimate.

When the rain squalls had passed, we were left more becalmed than ever. I gave up trying to do anything with the sails and quit trying to keep the boat headed in any certain direction. We were just turning in little circles and were completely out of control. There was only the suggestion off air but nothing we could manage to do anything with, and when we could, the rewards weren't worth the effort. When I tried to get her to steer herself, she would go aback every time. I finally threw up my hands in disgust and went below to occupy my mind with something else until a breeze we could handle showed up. Before going below, I had noticed a ship far off on the horizon to the north, headed our way, but I gave it little consideration, as we were as visible as a fly on a ping-pong ball. In any case, without wind we couldn't have done any more than jump overboard had he decided to run us over.

Since nothing could be done topside, I busied myself for a half an hour or so down below, and had forgotten all about the approaching ship, when I happened to glance out the port light and see that the ship had stopped less than a quarter of a mile away! In a moment of forgetfulness, I clambered up the companionway and could see that there were perhaps a hundred passengers lining the rail of the visiting ship, all staring my way. I ducked back down again and quickly pulled on a pair of shorts! I'm sure I must have provided those curious onlookers with a moment of shocked amusement, appearing on deck nude as I had.

On the bridge wing of the ship I could see the captain and officers studying us through their binoculars. They seemed quite interested, for some reason. I studied back through my binoculars, also quite interested. I was afraid to wave, lest they take it as a sign of distress, so I casually went about the business of squaring the sails away, hauling sheets, spinning the steering wheel, and getting the boat a little in hand so they would see we were okay and not in distress.

I could imagine what they had been thinking. They had sighted a small sailboat with all sails set, headsails aback, and drifting aimlessly in circles, all sheets slack, with not a soul to be seen on board. Such a deserted vessel may have been a victim of any number of calamities. The crew might have fallen overboard, died on board, or fallen desperately ill and rendered unable to manage the vessel. Or, they may have been attacked, killed, or kidnapped by pirates.

With the sighting of life on board and apparently normal activity, those watchful and concerned officers soon decided we were okay – just somewhat sloppy seamen – and continued on their way, with no need to aid a distressed yachtsman or salvage a derelict yacht. As they gained way and headed back onto their southeasterly course, I gave them a friendly and appreciative wave. I also resolved that no matter how flustered I get at being becalmed in the future, I'd always sheet in all sails and hoist "OK" flags whenever I go below for any length of time, lest we become the victim of a rescue attempt.

Well-intended rescue attempts upon yachts at sea have, upon occasion, proven rather disastrous to a few yachts that weren't in need of assistance. One such case was related to me by a Hawaiian seaman with whom I once sailed. It had taken place in the North Pacific during a gale. The captain of the ship, having sighted a yacht which appeared to be making rough weather of it, decided that he'd better go to the rescue. At least he was going to get close enough to get a better look.

In doing so, he maneuvered his large ship a little too close in the plunging seas and crash! Sure enough, as of that instant, a rescue was in order! The yacht was now sinking! A lifeboat was lowered, and this Hawaiian crewman was amongst the rescue boat crew. He had just been awakened for the duty, however, and hadn't witnessed what had transpired earlier. When they had pulled the survivors aboard the lifeboat, he had thrown a blanket around one. As he did so, he had commented, "Damn! You guys sure were lucky that we happened to be around!"

At the moment, the irony of his comment was lost on him, and he was surprised that there wasn't a great outpouring out of gratitude from the uncomfortable rescuees. The yacht had been doing fine until the arrival of the rescue ship! The master of the rescuing ship was duly decorated and commended, as was his crew, for the traditional seamanlike manner in which they had come to the rescue and saved the lives of the stricken yacht's crew.

The whole of Tuesday, we remained pretty much becalmed. I could just manage steerageway most of the time. From 1800 to midnight, I had managed to nurse the old gal along about three miles. We were rather close to the small island of Elefende, at the southern tip of Marinduque, when I decided to call it quits for the night. I nursed her around to a southerly heading, away from the land, and tending the wheel with my toes as I lay in the cockpit, I dozed. The air was on the quarter, and the yankee propped out with the boat hook. Soon I was fast asleep, my toes dropped away from the wheel, and the Semangat took over the quartermaster watch herself.

At 0300 Wednesday morning, a strong wind came suddenly up from astern. The mizzen gibed violently, breaking the mizzen awning pennants, and the awning and its wooden slat stiffeners began thrashing violently above my head. Then the yankee spit out the boat hook as the boat began coming about heeling nearly onto her beam ends as she desperately strove to round up into the wind.

All this, with my awakening all of a sudden from a deep sleep, was calculated to throw me in the utmost confusion, as I desperately tried to gather my wits about me and figure out what was happening. The awning and its whipping sticks were thrashing me about the head and shoulders as I held on for dear life to keep from being dumped unceremoniously over the side. At the same time, I was fumbling at the wheel, while trying to duck the merciless blows I was being dealt, in attempt to bring the boat into the wind a bit more speedily. But I had to get away from what awning gone mad! I frantically made my escape from under those merciless blows and found myself in a position to do nothing which would immediately rectify our multiple problems.

Then the yankee began to thrash and snap violently as it lost the wind, and I needed in the worst way to sheet it in. But that had to be handled from the cockpit, and I just couldn't get near the sheets with the battens still in charge! After a couple of frantic moments of clawing fore and aft from stem to stern, waving my arms and shouting orders, I finally got organized somewhat, if not quite mentally collected, and threw myself at the offending awning. Having subdued it to some degree, I was able to toe the wheel enough to get us onto somewhat less radical heading. Then I leaped forward for the main halyard and lowered the mainsail. With that, the major crisis was past.

After getting things under control, I rolled up the battered awning, stowed it, and then lowered the mizzen. Then, I propped out the yankee again, put a preventer on the club jib so they were wing and wing, and ran before the wind until it again died to almost nothing by 0700. Then the breeze absconded entirely, leaving us to bob and drift aimlessly.

After breakfast, a light southeasterly air drifted us, inch by painful inch, out into the Sibuyan Sea. By 1300, I broke down and cranked up the engine and motored for two hours while charging the batteries. We had only made twenty-eight miles in twenty-four hours, and were four days out of Manila already! At that rate, it would be another five days before we would see San Bernadino! It was still calm when I shut the engine down, but a faint breeze developed at about 1600 which enabled us to plug along at a snail's pace in a southeasterly direction.

The next morning I was again awakened at 0300. It wasn't wind this time but the sound of engines! Ship engines – and big rumbling ones at that! I had always fancied, or at least hoped, that by sleeping in the cockpit, I would be awakened by the slightest sound of the machinery of any approaching ship – hopefully in time to avoid being run over. Now, to my discomfort, I discovered that might not always be the case. For, as I sat up to take a look, I saw a ship only about one hundred yards away. He was back on my starboard quarter and had approached from ahead, passing uncomfortably near to starboard. Had he been coming right down on us, I would have had an awakening much less pleasant than the one I’d just had – perhaps to bumping sounds and a shower of splintering wood and salt water! I could imagine looking up at a towering blade of steel slicing through the Semangat. Now that would be worse than a nightmare!

Being run down while asleep is the prime and primary hazard of solo sailing. The solo sailor should always choose his routes with an eye to staying as far as possible from the most heavily trafficked shipping lanes and areas – completely clear of them as possible. I was taking a hell of a risk, and I knew it, by sailing and sleeping at night in these waters. The safest thing would have been to anchor at night and sail only while I could stay awake. Next to that would be to sleep in the day and stay awake and on watch at night when a large vessel is less likely to see a small sailboat and avoid it. But I had a routine established and was reluctant to change it. I wanted to be awake in the daytime so I could read or write and to sleep mostly at night when I couldn't. Until this particular incident, I had always felt I would awaken at the slightest sound that was alien to my vessel. I was wrong. That told me that I had better be a little more careful while in these closed and heavily trafficked waters.

This was another day of calm. But most of the time, I was able to maintain steerageway, and we did manage thirty-five miles from noon to noon. At 1615 we passed two large unmanned bamboo rafts tied together. They were inhabited by a multitude of very large birds but nothing else. Along about sundown, we passed a large fishing vessel alongside a similar raft. I guess they were his and he was using them somehow in his fishing operations – or whatever he was doing. Also, the same evening, I almost rammed a couple of sleeping whales, but, thank goodness, they awoke and moved away just in time. We certainly didn't want to anger any whales!

The water in this area of the Sibuyan Sea seemed to have some sort of mucus matter floating on it. It might have been some sort of plankton, but I'd never seen anything like it before. It looked down right unnatural. Whatever it was, it discouraged me from taking a usual seawater bath.

Supper was red beans and rice, with bacon and garlic for flavor and body. There was cornbread left from breakfast and hot chocolate for drink. Funny thing about those beans. They weren't regular red beans and were called pink beans. I had soaked them in salt water all night and cooked them practically all day, but they never did get soft! They were the hardest darned beans that I'd ever eaten. Yet they must have boiled a total of five hours or more!

An evening breeze came up and moved us gently along. There was about five or six knots of wind, but due to the film on the water that I mentioned above, there wasn't a ripple on it. It was still as reflective as if there wasn't a breath of air. There was a large half-moon above, and the dark half could be seen in the reflection below. The sky was clear, and there was no mark at all to tell where the sky stopped and the sea began. It was strange sailing along at about two knots or more over such smooth water.

Our breeze held rather nicely throughout the night. At midnight it even freshened to a force three or four from the east-northeast. By 0600, we were a mile off Bugui Point on the north end of Masbate Island, and we bore on for the north tip of Ticao Island and the Ticao Pass, the last stretch before the San Bernadino Strait. Here, as we rounded the north point of Masbate, we officially left the placid Sibuyan Sea astern.

The southern tip of Burias was close abeam before the wind died on us and forced us to resort to power in an effort to churn out a few extra miles. But at 0900, another light breeze materialized out of the northeast. But once again, during the early afternoon, I was obliged to resort to power for two hours, and by 1430 when I shut her down, we were just passing north of small San Miguel Island just off the north tip of Ticao Island. We were now in the Ticao Pass between Ticao Island and the southernmost extremity of Luzon, sailing east-northeastward with a light southeasterly breeze.

San Miguel Island consisted of a steep-sided limestone outcropping, and it appeared that most of the larger islands were also formed that way. But San Miguel was unique with its deeply undercut cliffs which gave it a mushroom appearance. Many of the cliffs appeared to be honeycombed with caves. I noticed, too, that the water had cleaned up nicely upon reaching the Ticao Pass, in contrast to the Sibuyan Sea, as there was no more scum floating upon the surface.

At 1545 the breeze slacked off considerably, and we came around to the port tack which put us on a southerly heading down the pass, which tends in a southeasterly direction. Since we were now on a heading that wouldn't bring us too close to land for a couple of hours, I went below and prepared dinner. It was macaroni made with my own special "Ticao Pass Macaroni Sauce." I'll spare the good reader the recipe this time, as I later commented in my journal that, “although it wasn't bad, I wouldn't recommend that anybody make a special trip to Ticao Pass to try it.”

There were two volcanic cones in view, both of rather impressive symmetry and proportions. Mount Mayon was the most distant, but still imposing, and appeared to be a perfect cone. It is 8,077 feet high and last erupted in 1968. The other was Mount Bulusa, 5,115 feet in height, which had last erupted in 1966 according to my 1975 World Almanac. Both are on the island of Luzon. One of the Philippine volcanoes holds the title for being the most perfect volcanic cone in the world. I thought it was supposed to be Mount Bannhao, which I had seen on the day that we extricated ourselves from the Verde Island Passage. It is located north of the town of Lucena at the head of Tayabas Bay, also on Luzon. But from what I could see, Mayon has it beat. But it may be that I had not seen them from very representative angles.

Going was slow through the night of the seventh and morning of the eighth. At one point, after having catnapped, I awoke to find that we were headed back toward the northwest, and I gave up trying to hold a course and hove to for the rest of the night. When I awoke in the morning, I found that we had lost ground for the first time on the voyage. We were seven miles back on our course of the previous evening. That was attributable to a combination of both current, which is very tidal, and the Semangat's own bullheadedness in reversing course on me during the night.

Sunrise was clear and of a beautiful orange color. The sky was a perfect background for the darker blue image of the cone of Mount Mayon in the distance. I could see a very fine wisp of steam or smoke emanating from the crown of Bulusa, indicating that they still had a little heat up there. Of course, with the almost perfect morning, there was also thrown in, for good measure, the almost perfect stillness. It was dead calm.

To make up for lost time, we motored for about four hours. When I shut her down again about mid-morning, we had only thirteen miles to go before we'd be able to see around the corner and through the slot out toward the great Pacific, or the Philippine Sea as it is called locally. Soon a light southerly breeze came up just right so we could head straight for old "San Berny."

In spite of the three encounters, I had been quite surprised at the sparseness of any seaborne traffic throughout my transit of the Philippine Islands. There hadn't been many ships, although I had always been under the impression that this was a much traveled shipping route. Apparently the volume of shipping which uses San Bernadino has diminished as ships have grown in size in favor of Luzon Strait to the north of Luzon between Luzon and Taiwan. There had been very few ships, indeed. In fact, as I write this, I cannot remember more than one or two other than those that I have mentioned earlier. More surprisingly, there also seemed to be a great lack of local ferry traffic. I had only seen a very few ferries once we got out of the immediate vicinity of Manila Bay where there had been many. Even fishermen were very few and very far between in these quiet seas and passages.

All of the sudden, there where two boatloads of people headed our way. They were open, Banka boats and were under power, coming up fast and astern. Again, thoughts of possible pirates flashed immediately to mind, and I armed myself with the ship's artillery just in case. Tales of pirates are common in the southern Philippines, and we would have made dandy prey. But as the boats drew near, it was obvious they were not packed with rough-looking pirate types but with men, women, children, dogs, chickens, and pigs. They swiftly passed on by, apparently headed from some small village on Luzon, probably Bulan, to some island to the south. It had probably been a marketing expedition.

At noon on the eighth, we were exactly one week and six hours out of Manila. The day's run had been a scanty 34 miles, and we'd sailed only 350 miles since departure. That is an average of only about 48 and a quarter miles per day. We'd sure have to do better than that to get to Guam in our allotted time! It was discouraging. But late afternoon found us on the doorstep of the famed San Bernadino Strait!

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Chapter 20

Escaping the San Bernadino Strait

The evening of the eighth found us pouncing down upon the San Bernadino Strait with a fair south-southeasterly force three blowing right into our teeth. From then on, throughout the night and the next morning, it was a running battle between me and the Semangat on one hand, and head winds and strong tidal currents on the other. We tacked seven times in five hours, zigzagging north and south between Calintaan Island and Capul Island at the southwest end of the strait, gaining only seven and a half miles in the right direction. I found it was useless to make long tacks across the channel, as the current, which was running westward, defeated us entirely each time. I found we could tack close inshore on the north side of the channel and gain more easting in the margin of the main current flow.

Finally the tide changed, but the outflowing tide doesn't match the inflowing tidal current due to the fact that San Bernadino is at the western terminus of the vast west setting North Pacific equatorial current. But we were able to gain some distance. During the night, the wind slackened, however, and every yard was slow and painful. By midnight we were abreast of San Bernadino Island, in the east end of the strait, but the current reversed, and by 0600 we had been carried back some nine miles westward! We motored for three and a half hours in an attempt to keep from losing more ground, as dawn had again presented us with a beautiful calm, clear day. Mostly calm!

By 0900 we were 2 miles due north of Biri Head, off Samar Island to the south, and thus we were technically out of the strait, but I knew we were still a long ways from being out of the woods, as the next tide change would undoubtedly pull us right back into the strait. But in a moment of optimism, at noon, I decided to enter into the log that another leg of the journey was behind us and take departure once again, for the sake of the records, from San Bernadino.

Our Manila-to-east-end-of-San-Bernadino-Strait passage had taken eight days and six hours! We'd traversed 406 miles of frustratingly calm inter-island seas and passages and were about to embark on the final and longest leg of the journey – the 1,200 miles of open ocean which now lay between us and the island of Guam. But old San Bernadino wasn't quite through with us yet. No siree!

Our point of departure at the east end of the San Bernadino Strait was latitude 12° 46' north and longitude 124° 22' east. Since the stretch from there to Guam would be more or less a different ball of wax, I elected to treat it as a separate leg of the overall journey. At least there was nothing between us and Guam but one bloody vast expanse of water.

But as indicated above, we weren't quite done with the San Bernadino Strait. It seemed the Philippines were determined to hold me as long as they could. They didn't want to let us go, and the Strait continued to suck at our wake and pull us back into the bosom of those enchanted islands.

For three full days longer, we struggled to free ourselves from the compelling grip of the islands. The gods were surely on the other side, as were the winds they controlled. It was calm much of the time, and we only had light airs the rest of the time. When there was no wind, I would crank up the engine. Each morning the two volcanoes would greet me at dawn, seemingly as close as ever. We would gain distance for awhile when the current was less unfavorable and lose ground when it was flat out against us. From noon on the tenth until noon on the eleventh, although we had sailed and motored frantically, we had a net gain of only 13 miles. But we had actually moved 56 miles, consisting of 34 1/2 miles ahead, 21 1/2 back – the classic three-steps-forward and two-steps-back routine! All the while we had been either sailing or motoring forward and away from the funnel which wanted us back.

From noon on the 11^th of May to noon on the 12^th, we had managed another net gain of only 21 miles, for the wind seemed to have forsaken us entirely. We had, in three days, managed to log 118 miles from departure. But that distance of travel is deceptive, for we had zigged and zagged, gone north and south, east and west. The only distance that isn't included in that figure is the distance we were sucked in and had to recover coming back out again. To look at it in another way, in three full days since departing San Bernadino, we had only reduced the distance to Guam by 27 miles!

Although the morning of the 12^th was the last time that Mount Bulusan greeted us through the dawn mists, it was also another day of frustration and agony. From 1800 the previous evening, until noon, we had been always headed eastward with just enough air for steerageway. In addition, we had spent four hours under power. But the prize for all the effort was not a single mile of easting! We had not lost that much ground though. That was one thing. We had merely been set eight miles northward – having traveled perpendicular to our destination!

Two and a half more hours were spent under power in the early afternoon, after I had lamented in my journal: "With one thousand square feet of sail aloft, it looks as though we might be doing as much as 1/4 of a knot through the water. . . . No telling what we were doing over the ground backwards!"

Again after supper at 1700, we motored for two hours. But then a light northwesterly breeze came up – just enough to move us along at perhaps a knot or so. I broke out the wine by way of celebration, for I had a feeling that we were leaving behind our calm airs and were about to break free of that vacuum that had held us. And even as I drank, there was a heartening increase in the wind until a wonderful force three was moving us along with determination. At last I could lean back and relax and feel, for the first time, the rise and fall of the long Pacific swell beneath the keel. With the broad Pacific before us, we were now truly embarked on the final and what was to prove to be the most difficult and dangerous leg of our solitary journey.

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Chapter 21

The Pacific, and I Lose an Old Friend

I used to be frequent traveler on the Pacific. The first time I ever crossed it was in 1962 on the USS Seminole (AKA-104), when I was in the Navy. The next time was on my first ship as a merchant seaman in 1964. That time it was aboard the research vessel R/V Argo, of Scripp's Institute of Oceanography. After that there was a succession of merchant vessels, as I was shipping out of the West Coast of the United States on ships bound for the Far East. But now it had been five years since I had crossed the Pacific. I had confined myself within the Southeast Asia area since 1971 as a tug and supply boat captain. It was hard to believe that five full years and more had passed since I had felt the Pacific swell under me. But it was a fact. It made me realize that time was flying. I was already pushing middle age at thirty-four. Where were all those years fleeing to? They were gone, no doubt about that, and not likely to return.

It was aboard the USS Seminole that I was first introduced to the Far East, and aboard which my continuing infatuation with the Orient was initiated. It was a wonderful West Pac cruise which took us to Yokosuka, Sasebo, and Kagoshima, Japan; Okinawa, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Subic Bay.

And it was aboard the Seminole that I first visited Saigon. It was our very first port of call. Most of us had never even heard of the place prior to learning of our destination. The Seminole was an attack cargo ship, and we were laden with cargo for Vietnam. Allegedly, it was a cargo of "art treasures" being returned to the country after being on loan from the National Museum. But I suspect that many of those boxes we discharged were filled with much more than art treasures, for we were beginning to take on a much larger roll in what was soon to become our Vietnam War.

I'll never forget the words of our Navigation Division officer at muster on the morning before our arrival. He gave us a little historical background, telling us of the French colonial period, and that Saigon had been known as the Paris of the Orient. He mentioned that the north half of the country was under communist domination. And he said, "South Vietnam is still a nation at war, struggling with a communist insurgency. The presidential palace has recently been attacked and damaged by terrorists. This is a rare opportunity for us to visit and see a nation with an actual ongoing guerrilla war."

The conflict had not taken too much of a toll on Saigon at that time. There were only a few American military advisors in the country then, and most of them wore civilian clothes in order to lower our increasing military profile there. We sailors where quite a rare attraction on the streets of Saigon in our white uniforms. Groups of school children, as well as Vietnamese soldiers and sailors, would approach us for autographs. The Vietnamese sailors wanted to trade hats with us. I was almost put on report for returning to the ship wearing Vietnamese marine cap.

Saigon seemed an enchanting place to us with its tree lined avenues and exotic eastern atmosphere. There were many bars along and near the waterfront, and the girls would beckon to us from behind the front anti-grenade caging of the establishments. If it appeared we were going to pass on by, a girl would likely run out and snatch a hat off of one of our heads and run back inside. Nothing would do but for us to come in, sit down, and have a beer. And the girls were very friendly and enchanting in their flowing ao dais and silken pants.

Ironically, the government had recently instituted some harsh "morality laws" and this sort of fraternization was now strictly against the law. It was illegal for girls to work in the bars and illegal for Vietnamese girls to dance or even walk the streets with foreigners. But this didn't much impact reality inside those little bars. If a "White Mouse" (white-uniformed national policeman) appeared on the street, the doorman would rap sharply on the cage door and all of the girls would temporarily disappear out the back door.

How little did we realize at that time what the future would hold for many of us with regard to that "rare" opportunistic visit to a war-torn country – that some 50,000 Americans were destined to die there. Little did I imagine how that nation and that war would impact and literally shape my life.

***

The force three had held throughout the night, and the following morning there was nothing to be seen of any land astern. We were finally offshore again. Toward morning the wind had veered to the north. I took down the double headsail rig that I'd been using and replaced it with the full rig work. The Semangat found her head at just north of an easterly heading with the wind just about a point forward the port beam.

For a change, the sky was mostly gray with quite an assortment of cloud types. It could be described in the term coined by Ben Pruitt, an old Navy shipmate of mine. He would have called it "strato-various." That meant various cloud types in a multitude of strata. Pruitt was quite a joker, and I remember one occasion when he got a comical double take and perplexed stare from the officer of the deck as he looked aloft seriously, made the "strato-various" pronouncement, and pretended to be entering it in the official quartermaster's logbook.

I didn't particularly like the looks of the sky. It was the sort of sky that could be the forerunner of any kind of wayward weather change. There was a long, low, swell out of the northeast also. But in consideration of the thousands of miles of ocean that lay to the east, I took little notice, assuming it to be the normal West Pacific swell.

Since leaving Singapore, I had consistently been annoyed with the problem of keeping the propeller shaft from spinning while under sail with a good bit of headway on. The only reason for concern was that there was no point in wearing out the reduction gears while sailing thousands of miles using the wind. The problem was easy to solve, of course. I would merely drop a pipe wrench on the shaft and tighten it until it would bind, and there would be no more turning shaft.

The real problem, however, was my absentmindedness – forgetting to take it off before starting the engine and engaging the gears. Several times I had thought of it just in time. Once or twice I hadn't – and wham! I could hear the pipe wrench being thrown off, slamming up against the bottom cabin sole. So far, I had been pretty lucky, and no damage was done. But, I thought, what if I do that one time too many and the wrench holds too well? The result could very well be a damaged shaft or reduction gear.

The previous evening I had done it – thrown the engine in gear with the wrench still on the shaft – and it held real well. Of course, something had to give. Not only had the handle of the wrench bent, but the pins holding the jaws on the wrench had sheered off. Luckily, the engine and reduction gear sounded and worked okay after that stupid act had been performed. But now, not only did I have no usable pipe wrench, which is always a valuable tool to have on hand, but I also had to devise another method of holding the shaft.

Then, after pondering the matter for a few minutes, I said to myself, why not just put the engine in gear, you blundering idiot? I did, and naturally, it worked. I don't know why I hadn't done that before, but I think I was of the impression that it was bad practice. Since I'd forgotten that too, and since it did seem to solve the problem, there was no longer any problem. I did find that the gears would still sometimes turn if it were engaged in forward. But the solution for that was merely to engage in it reverse; then, they never turned.

My breakfast at 1000 was interrupted by a squall from the northeast which brought force six winds. It only lasted about twenty minutes, however, and left us with no wind at all, a confused, choppy, sea, and crossed and tangled fishing lines, not to mention sails flopping impotently from side to side as we rolled and pitched about.

Through the high haze of cirrostratus clouds and between the spaces taken by the lower clouds, I was able to get a few observations of the sun to fix my noon position. I was pleased with the modest fifty-five mile day's run. I was also pleased to note that it had all been in the right direction, as we'd made a course of almost due east good. I'd expected to get set to the north, as the north equatorial current is supposed to sweep northward as it comes up to the Philippine archipelago – that is, that which doesn't funnel into the San Bernadino Strait. I supposed there might be a local diurnal tidal effect which causes a south setting current to counteract it close in to the coast.

Although I knew we would in all probability spend a lot of time beating to windward and therefore sail much further than rhumb line distance to Guam, I carefully began logging the distance to go at every noon position. I was anxious to see the figure decrease as I made my daily calculations no matter how irrelevant it may be. At noon on this date, Thursday, May 13^th, there remained 1,109 miles to Guam, as the crow flies.

Before long a northerly wind returned at a stronger force three that it had been previously. It was just the sort of wind that I hoped we would have for the entire remainder of the voyage. But I knew such hopes would likely prove to be wishful thinking. The Western Pacific, west of the Marianas, falls under the influence of the southwest monsoon of the Southeast Asia land masses. This tends to cancel out the dependable trades which blow throughout the year further to the east. Because of this, during the winter months of the North Pacific, those trades usually fail to blow west of Guam. But although the trades may fail in this region, the trade-generated north equatorial current continues to barrel on. It sets westerly all the way across the Pacific to the Philippines where the lion's share of it bends northward to later become the Kuroshio current before joining in with the North Pacific current which is driven by the westerlies in the latitude of Japan. Then it joins with the California current just before completing its cycle, again bending westward in the region of the northeast trades off southern Mexico and Central America.

This we would have to content with, and I wasn't any too sure how things were going to work out, as it is reputed to be a fairly strong current. We had to have at least some wind in order to keep from being set backwards. I was a bit worried about it, but the pilot charts indicate that I should have a fair percentage of force three winds from the northeast and not too many calms.

That remained to be seen, however. I couldn't help but think, with a good deal of morbid humor, just what a fix we would be in if it proved impossible to get to Guam from where we were. Wouldn't that have been funny, though? I knew that few cruising people or sailing people of any kind, for that matter, had ever (if ever) sailed this particular route. Nobody would be so self-punishing or foolish as to willfully choose such a route as the Semangat and I were attempting.

The more I thought of it, the more of a challenge it seemed it may prove to be. I may be attempting the impossible, I reasoned to myself. A pity that I hadn't thought of it before now – I might not have even left Singapore. I hadn't been able to choose our route or season in the manner of the ordinary yachtsman. I’d had few alternatives. Literally all of them required such vastly increased distances, however, that I wouldn't even think of them seriously. The only one that I had considered seriously was the only other obvious route to take from Manila. That would have been to have headed north from there and gone through the Luzon Strait into the Pacific.

On that route, we could have stayed well north, picked up perhaps more variable winds and descended on Guam from the north. One reason for not taking that route was the increased risk of meeting typhoons. The southern route would tend to keep us south of most of their favored paths. We would pass through their spawning grounds, but hopefully avoid fully developed storms. But now I thought it might have been a mistake not to have taken the northern route, as I almost certainly would have had better luck with the winds than we had thus far experienced on our present track. Now, of course, we had no real choice at all in the matter. We'd just have to buckle down and face up to things as they were, come what may.

Only much later was I to learn that the gods had been with me in my choice of routes, for, in the end, we had to reckon with lesser of two evils. Had we taken the northern route, we would have stood a very good chance – no, it would have almost been a certainly – of meeting with super typhoon Pamela which, after devastating Truk and Guam with two-hundred-mile-per-hour winds, had continued northwestward across what would have been our path.

This was a bicentennial year for us Americans, and everything was bicentennial this bicentennial that. In view of the fact that we were undertaking such an uncommon voyage during this bicentennial year, I elected to initiate the very first bicentennial Manila-to-Guam single-handed yacht race. The fact that we were the only entrant bothered me but little, as I'm sure there would have been very few interested in entering such a race in any case. Not only that, but we would just about be assured of taking the cup. Additionally, we’d most probably have the honor of holding it for the next two hundred years. By then I would undoubtedly be retired from the yacht-racing scene and wouldn't mind losing the cup to a more worthy opponent.

My dried tuna, now over two weeks old, provided me with the base for some more fish chowder, which was served up for both lunch and supper. I ate to the sound of slamming and banging sails and booms, as the wind disappeared and the confused seas, caused by numerous squalls in the area, combined with the swell to make life miserable. Of course, we were drifting slowing westward all the while – back toward the Philippine Islands.

Later on, about 1930, there was a squall coming up from astern and ahead of it was a bit of westerly breeze, which we ran before. I considered taking the main down in case the squall proved to be a violent, windy type, but decided I would just wait and see what happened first.

What happened was the mainsail decided to come down anyway, by itself! I gathered it in, furled it, and found that the halyard had parted at the eye where it was pressed into a nico sleeve. It was the stainless steel wire that had failed, not the pressed sleeve. The thought of the several times that I had gone aloft dangling on that halyard to work on the fittings or inspect the rigging aloft gave me the shivers. And the thought that the next day, weather permitting, I would have to mount my bosun's chair and hoist myself aloft to the masthead and another halyard just like it didn't strike me as attractive at all. But there was no getting by it. It was either that or do without the mainsail for the duration of the voyage. Naturally, that was out of the question, as without the main, I couldn't hope to beat my way to Guam in light winds.

At 2100, the edge of a squall that had been threatening finally overtook us. It provided about a half an hour of rain but no wind to speak of. What little wind that remained was still from the west, so I pulled the mizzen down and propped out the club jib so it would work wing and wing with the yankee. I also threw out my safety warp astern to make the steering a little less tedious. But with no fore and aft steadying sails, the confused seas and swells made for uncomfortable progress. The yankee and genoa would have been a much better combination, but there were still so many squalls in the offing that I didn't want to put up any more sail footage.

By 2230, the sky had cleared up somewhat, and the breeze was holding at a nice force two or three from the northwest. I sorted out my tackle for tomorrow's job, dug up the bosun's chair and line, and rove my handy-billy. I dreaded the job I was preparing for, as I knew I could count on a real swinging time up there – especially if the weather didn't cooperate. But a fellow has to sort of let his hair down sometimes. In this humdrum, workaday life one tends to drift away from some of the spicier activities of life. So why not swing a little? I figured it ought to do me some good.

A small calamity befell me while I was working on the foredeck that night about 2330 switching the yankee and club jib from one side to the other so that we could make a more easterly heading. I had my pipe in my mouth, and kaplop! the bowl fell off into the sea. Only the stem remained in my mouth. It wasn't the only one that I had, but it was an old friend, and I hated to see it go. They all do, sooner or later, however. But I'd managed to hang onto this one for five years or more. It was a "drooper," one of those sagging types, and the stem had been broken two or three times. Each time I had repaired it, it had become a little shorter until it was a stubby-looking thing. When lighting it, I had to be careful of my nose and mustache. The stem had become very loose-fitting over the years, and that was the cause of that evening's disaster.

Ah, such are the trials and tribulations of life that we all must bear up under and survive. Bereavement is always painful, but we all soon learn to live with our losses. And so it was with me and the loss of the pipe. I knew that life would have to go on without it and that before I knew it, another pipe would take the place in my heart of the one just lost.

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Chapter 22

A Dream–a Premonition–and a Swinging Time

During the morning of May 14^th, I had a rather peculiar experience. It seemed to be triggered by a dream which I had been having when I awoke at 0300. (It appears I had a thing about waking up at 0300.) The dream itself seemed to be rather irrelevant to the subsequent feelings which over came me, but I will include a very brief outline of what I can remember of it, anyway. I have no understanding of the symbolic significances which psychologists seem to like to read into dreams and even less faith in many of their theories, but it may be that I could learn something interesting should I consult an expert on the subject.

In the dream, it seemed I and an unfamiliar friend were standing on board what seemed to be some sort of naval landing craft which was moored to a dock. We were eating crackers, or some similar thing, and chatting idly when we heard a sound that, to us, indicated that the craft on which we were standing was sinking. We both casually grabbed a hold of the edge of the dock and hung there as the vessel sank beneath us. There, each of us hung by one hand, and resumed munching upon our crackers and generally acted as unconcerned as could be. We were joking and laughing about what had happened, when a stern-faced naval guard approached with an air of indignation about him. He seemed perturbed at our casual attitude toward the sinking of his craft. We found this very amusing.

So, I awoke in the predawn darkness chuckling aloud to myself – actually laughing. Strangely enough, however, immediately upon awakening in such a jovial state, I was gripped by an inexplicable fear. For the first time during the voyage, I was experiencing a feeling the pain of raw fear. It was as if, at that very instant, I had for the first time become fully aware of how isolated and helpless I was – how small and frail was my craft and how awesomely vast and powerful were the forces of nature about me. I was held, for a lingering several moments, in a state of anxiety and fear which bordered on panic, and it took considerable effort for me to relax slightly and attempt to look at things objectively once again. I had to force myself to systematically assess my circumstances in order to do it.

The things that were being driven home to me where my aloneness and helplessness, which I had always managed to exclude from my consciousness until now, or merely keep them well off on the margins of my mind. It was true that if anything should seriously go wrong with the boat – should it sink or be dismasted, or if I were to fall seriously ill – I could not reasonably expect to survive. However, I had willfully taken that risk, knowing of it all long. I knew that I was vulnerable to an assortment of natural hazards, accidents, and sickness. I had no way of sending distress signals or messages, if the worst happened. I was as isolated as any mariner had ever been, save for my ability to listen in to the outside world on my small receiver. But I had accepted all that, and I had lived with it.

That was part of the experience. It made my endeavor more dangerous and more of a challenge – this isolation, this cutting of all ties from shore and possible help in case of distress. Until this century, that had all been taken for granted by anyone who followed the sea. It was as it should be. But why had this sudden fear gripped me at this particular time and place of our voyage? It gave me cause to wonder, and I thereafter never felt totally free from the latent anxiety, seemingly new to my conscious mind.

Another strange coincidence of sorts was the fact that later on this same day I came upon a passage in a book which I was reading that provides good material for insertion at this particular point. The book was titled Supership by Noel Mostert. It dealt very interestingly with a subject that I thought was far removed from my present situation – primarily with the proliferation of the world's supertanker fleets and the threat that they pose to our ocean environments. Mr. Mostert wrote:

The ship – so perishable upon those infinite and unknown waters – was the true microcosm, (he says of the early navigators)... and sailors the most fateful of men, confronting from their decks, unprotected by the myriad shades, niches, and succours of the land, the fullest view of the whims, confusions, perversities, and sheer helplessness of existence. Once a ship was drawn into itself out upon the wide ocean only two things could bring it through: the stoutness of the ship itself, and seamanship with its appreciation of the monumental power of water, the caprice of wind and current, the devious interactions between sea and shore, and the limiting strains of the vessel's fabric. Any voyage was combat without quarter... (he continues, with references to the seamen themselves and what was required of them), a capacity for hardship, deprivation, brutal suffering, and the constant prospect of some particularly dreadful form of death.

It was particularly curious, I thought, that I should happen upon those passages on the very day that I had been dwelling upon the same subject with regard to my own situation and feelings of helplessness on this vast expanse of water. I had turned to fateful thoughts about myself, in an attempt to come to grips with myself. I had gone over in my mind my chances of survival and death. In so doing, I had written to some length in my journal of the attributes of an obscure and mysterious death and disappearance at sea. And what of it? I would consider it an honorable, appropriate, and desirable manner in which to make my departure from this life. I would very much prefer it to any number of other exit routes, and since one has to cash in his chips sooner or later, it may as well be in the most appropriate and desired way.

I've never fancied the idea of dying in a plane crash, automobile accident, or by other violent means – few of us do. Likewise, the idea of a slow decline in ill health, becoming a nursing home resident and being ultimately rolled out of some hospital on a table, has never appealed to me either. Least of all does the conventional social ritual of a funeral appeal to my sensibilities. I don't want to be scraped up and put into a bag, have my remains embalmed and put on display, or be buried with a great show of solemnity or pageantry. Not that I intent to have a great deal to say about my particular means of ultimate demise. But it seemed that, if I were to have my druthers as to a means of exiting this world, disappearance at sea would be about as good as I could ever hope for. So why be fearful of it? I reasoned.

Odd – that in attempting to come to some kind of compromise with this sudden fearfulness, I should begin by assuring myself that I was properly set up for going off to death in the best imaginable manner should disaster befall me. But it did have something of a comforting effect upon me nonetheless. However, I am not entirely what would be called a pessimist. I would rather think that I am more of a optimist. Least of all am I a fatalist. The way that I usually attempt to describe my own private philosophy of life is with what may appear to be a rather contradictory application of words. I call it the philosophy of optimistic-pessimism, or, conversely, that of pessimistic-optimism. In either case, neither is existent without the other – one always being on hand to temper the other. But, by nature I lean more heavily toward the optimistic side of the equation, for that is the side where all hope lies, and where hope is lost, all is lost.

So, once I had established that it wouldn't be such a bad thing even if the worst should befall me, I began to work upon the assumption that, since it sounded like such a good deal, chances were that nothing of the sort would happen. Thus, I was able to settle myself down once again and look the world in the face. But it was rather a rattling experience.

I am not what should be called a religious person by conventional standards. I practice no religion and attend no church. I have a high regard for lofty religious ideals and a good deal of respect for most of the religions of the world. But my own religious beliefs, if they could be called that, are exclusively my own and rather private. I could, in all probability, be termed an agnostic regardless of what those beliefs might be. Belief is a poor term for this application too, however. Ideas and suspicions might fit the proverbial shoe a little more snugly. Nor am I a spiritualist or one who believes in such things. Yet I have a conviction – or suspicion – that there are powers and presences that the various schools of physical sciences have not yet learned to recognize, appreciate, or even accept as being within the realm of natural phenomena. Their intangible manifestations are that which tend to lend a degree of credibility to the shady arts of spiritualism, voodooism, and the like, as well as the more respectable activities in the field of ESP and the often amazing feats of reputable clairvoyants as well as in traditional religion.

Be that as it may, it did seem strange that on this particular morning, I seemed to be receiving signals, as it were, from some unknown source from within or without, warning me of something. At least, that is the way it appears in retrospect, for at midnight Greenwich mean time, which was 0800 on board the Semangat, that same day, the eighth in a series of tropical storm warning messages were being transmitted by Fleet Weather Central in Guam to all parts of the West Pacific. A tropical depression had been upgraded into a tropical storm, and she was known as Olga.

At the time of my awakening at three in the morning, there were probably navy or air force weather observation planes aloft above the disturbance, transmitting information back to their base on Guam. The storm was located at a position about five hundred miles east-southeast of us, and we were right in the path of its expected westward movement. Those radio signals were in the air everywhere about us. Yet I had no means by which to receive them unless I was able to pick them up through mysterious and unknown channels. In any case, I wasn't aware of them. But had I somehow been forewarned? It does make one wonder.

After having finally managed to suppress the earlier anxieties, I managed to get a few more winks of sleep. I was delighted to awake again to see the Pacific with a totally changed complexion. It was a brilliant, friendly blue once again. The sky was speckled with puffs of small fair weather cumulus clouds. Only far to the south could the remnants of the previous day's sky be seen, dark and threatening but receding. It was the Pacific in the truest meaning of its name. It looked as though the job of going aloft wouldn't be performed under too trying of conditions after all. There was still a swell, but there was enough wind to steady the boat to some degree during my excursion aloft. The confused chop of the previous afternoon and evening's squalls had died down, and only the swell and a small sea remained.

Before breakfast I repaired the halyard by putting a miniature liverpool eye splice in it to replace the pressed one which had parted. Then I lowered the yankee and shackled the top block of the handy-billy (small twofold purchase) securely to its halyard. The lower block was shackled to the bosun's chair bridle and the top block hoisted to the masthead as I paid line to the falls.

With the halyard line well secured around the winch and mast, I boarded the bosun's chair and began the arduous task of hoisting myself up the forty-some-odd feet to the masthead with the newly spliced halyard made fast to my belt (I had donned my shorts for this job). With only the club jib and mizzen sail set in the light air, the boat continued to roll considerably. The higher I got, however, the farther it rolled, until at the top, 180 pounds of weight had added some 7,200 foot-pounds of moment to the upper end of the upside down pendulum motion. The more the boat rolled, the further I swayed from side to side.

Getting up safely was a slow, difficult task, as I went up a foot or so at a time. Each time I would pull the slack through my bosun's chair knot so that should my hands slip or if I had to let go of my pulling part, I couldn't fall more than a few inches before it would fetch up tight and stop me. I also used another safety line which was made fast around my waist and then tied around the mast to keep me from swinging out away from the mast on each roll. Wherever possible, I would make it fast in such a way that should the halyard part, as the other had, I would be kept from free-falling to the deck by the safety line. And all the way up, I was thinking of that little halyard splice up there upon which I was hanging. It was an exact duplicate of the one that had broken under only the weight of the mainsail the previous day.

In spite of the safety line holding me to the mast somewhat, the radical rolling of the boat made the going rugged. I was taking a beating every inch of the way, being whipped against the safety belt line as we'd roll way over to one side, then being violently returned to the other side with a quick thud and bump at the mast on the way past. What compounded the difficulties and made things worse was the fact that the galvanized shrouds were greased. That had been a mistake. I should have used linseed oil or something else that would dry and not make them slippery. As it was, I couldn't help but grab them frequently to steady or stop myself from being knocked and battered more mercilessly against the mast than I was. Consequently, my hands were soon greasy and slippery, and though I had a rag to wipe them with, my grip on the hauling part of the line was a lubricated one, and it became increasingly difficult to pull myself up.

When I got to the crosstrees, or spreaders as they are called in the yachting world, I was able to take a welcome breather. I could see that I had not put the boat on the best heading for this job, as we were pitching as well a rolling. I had brought the boat as far into the wind as possible before starting my climb, thinking that would be best. I could see that it would have been better to have put her in the trough where we would roll but not pitch so much. With rolling and pitching, my troubles were seemingly doubled, and the pitching was far more violent than the rolling.

Finally, after straining and struggling on up, battling every inch, I was able to reeve the repaired halyard through the masthead block and start my slow but much less arduous descent. Soon, I was thankfully back down on the deck, a tired and battered individual. Then and there, I made two resolutions. First, before ever putting to sea again, I was going to have ratlines, or wooden ladder rungs, down the shrouds. Second, I was never again going to grease the standing rigging! This greasing of the shrouds was not done in accordance with any known yachting practice, but was rather due to my experience as a seaman on freighters, where all working wire rope was routinely slushed as a matter of principle. I learned the hard way, you definitely don't want to practice this on a sailboat!

One other thing that I had noticed while aloft was that I had a place to shackle an extra heavy-duty block up on the masthead. Next time I had to go up there, I'd hang a block there and keep an extra halyard in place at all times – a good-sized rope that could be used for the bosun's chair or an emergency mainsail halyard. By a 0915, I had the mainsail back up, and we were again under full sail, but we had very little wind.

I heated up the fish chowder for breakfast but made the mistake of letting it come to a boil which curdled the milk and changed the taste, but I enjoyed it anyway. The morning's activity had made me need some pepping up, and the chowder, curdled or not, did the trick.

We didn't have a very fantastic day's run. Only twenty-eight miles, but at least it was all in the right direction. Things were looking up, with the nice weather and the light but steady breeze that was coming down from the north. By early afternoon the wind had increased to a force four, and we were moving right along.

At 1600 I noticed the barometer had dropped three-hundredths of an inch since noon. That wasn't very much. There is, in the tropics, a daily rise and fall of pressure with two separate highs and two separate lows. The highs occur at about ten in the morning and ten at night, and the lows about four in the morning and four in the afternoon. My low reading above occurred at about the normal time of the afternoon low, and it wasn't excessive. But for some odd reason, I had noted it and was again thinking of the possibilities of typhoons.

As mentioned some time back, I had calculated what I thought my chances of meeting a typhoon should be. I figured they were pretty slim. But then there was something that seemed to be telling me that I could be deluding myself. I reassured myself that, even if I should run into one, I would probably not pass near its center. I could avoid it to some extent once I knew that it was in the offing. Surely I would hear of it on the radio before it came so near that it posed an imminent threat. I listened to the various stations which I thought might carry local weather information. I couldn't receive WWVH, the American time signal station which broadcasts hourly weather synopses for the Pacific, however. It seemed to be always covered by other time signals coming from Japan or some other place in the Asian area and unreadable.

The only station I thought I could rely on was Cebu Radio in the Philippines which was still coming in loud and clear. I figured if any storms were approaching the Philippines from the east, they would give their people plenty of early warning. Since I was still relatively close to the Philippines, I hoped their warnings would be early enough for me too. There was nothing said anywhere of any storms or typhoons. I clung to that small reassurance. But I was inexplicably uneasy, all the same. Meanwhile, at 1200 zulu, which was 2000 on the Semangat, unbeknownst to me, Fleet Weather Central in Guam issued warning number ten for tropical storm Olga, now with maximum sustained winds of forty-five knots with gusts of fifty-five knots. She was heading west-northwest on a collision course with the Semangat.

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Chapter 23

More Ominous Signs and the Exercise of Poor Judgment

At 1700, the wind freshened a little and veered to the northeast. There were signs that our nice clear weather was to be short-lived. The sky had sort of hazed over with a high layer of alto-stratus, and there were some threatening-looking clouds in the south. The general appearance wasn't very promising for continued good weather, but I was glad to have the wind. I sat in the companionway and snacked on popcorn, crackers with peanut butter and jelly, drank a big cup of hot chocolate, and looked warily toward the east.

My night's sleep was rudely interrupted when I was rained awake at 0300. At first the rain seemed to signal the end of the wind, but by the time I'd made a note of it in my log, it had started up again. At 0430, there was no more wind and more rain, and a few minutes later the wind veered to the east and freshened to a force six. I eased the sheets as the lee rail came close to dipping and managed to wait out the blow without having to shorten sail.

And so went the morning and most of the afternoon, with one squall after another, force six winds, rains, and calms. What I referred to as "the Boss Squall" in my journal overtook us while I was trying to boil cornmeal mush for breakfast. It made my endeavors rather awkward, but I finally succeeded in getting the mush done and also fried some bacon and eggs. When the storm had passed, it left a confused, rough sea, which combined with an increasingly high swell to make things uncomfortable as hell.

But the sun peeked down momentarily, and I thought we were getting out of the woods. But a curious thing was occurring around us. It seemed we sailed into some sort of porpoise convention. They appeared to be converging on our location from all points of the compass and acting up in a singularly peculiar manner. There were at least thirty in several small groups around the boat, and they were jumping and thrashing around fiercely. I saw a couple jump as high as about six or seven feet out of the water before arcing back into the water with bodies arched gracefully. Could it have been that they were bearers of evil tidings – trying to warn me of an approaching storm?

At noon I managed to observe the sun through another gathering cover of semitransparent high clouds. I could only estimate the position of the center of the sun and thus had to use the center of it rather than the lower limb of my LAN observation, as I had had to do with my earlier sun lines as well. The fix indicated that we had covered fifty-eight miles in the right direction and that we still weren't being set northward by the expected current. The wind was still from the northeast at a force three, and the barometer was at a normal (uncorrected) 29.90 inches. But the swell was continuing to build, and I didn't like the implications that bore. It was running about six to eight feet in height, and I was wondering where it was coming from. It was from a northeasterly direction which was not unusual, but why was it growing continually higher? It could only mean that there had been a blow somewhere to the east.

Our wind was holding fine, I noted at 1800 that evening. It was now a force five, and though it was kicking up an increasing rough sea, it was welcome, as I could hope for a good night's run – if the wind didn't get any stronger or the seas higher. I noted that the seas and swell were now of such combined proportions that it would have been pretty uncomfortable going for a tugboat or small cargo ship. But the Semangat was relatively comfortable. We were past the critical point of maximum discomfort on a boat the size of the Semangat. We were no longer plunging over and into small rough seas but were now able to ride over them somewhat smoothly. "Smoothly" is relative, however, you must remember. A little spray was coming on board occasionally, but it wasn't bad. The Semangat was a pretty dry boat really, I was proud to again observe.

The nightly chore of refueling the kerosene running lights was one of the most distasteful chores. They are sooty and messy under the best of circumstances. But when the weather is rough and the motion of the vessel as pronounced as it was then, it became a real act – usually of the slapstick comedy variety. It was almost impossible to pour the kerosene when the vessel was heeled over at about a twenty-five-degree angle while you are leaning against something in an attempt to remain near a vertical position. The whole environment is gyrating around and about frantically, and you have to hold the lamp in one hand and the kerosene in the other and pour with absolute accuracy into a hole that is about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, because you haven't got another hand to hold a funnel. You can't hang on to anything either, for the same reason. You've just got to brace yourself against something with your legs and body.

It had to be done every night, too, as I had not yet installed electric running lights, and it was the only insurance that I had, as pitiful as it was, for not being run over at night by another, much bigger, vessel. It was a big ocean out there, but I had sighted a ship just a little earlier, so there was always danger. I don't know what it is that seems to draw ships together at sea like that. There would seem to be amble room to pass without ever coming in sight of one another. I suppose that does happen sometimes too. Of course, I was near the shipping lanes which terminate at the San Bernadino Strait, so I could expect some occasional traffic.

Running lights, naturally, are the least that a single-hander can do to protect himself against embarrassing and dangerous nocturnal encounters with shipping. Preferably, the lights should be carried as high as possible, to insure visibility, and I would highly recommend the red over green lights that can optionally be carried high on the mast of sailing vessels. But I had to keep these sidelights low where I could get to them at any time to refuel or relight them. They weren't very handy and probably weren't very efficient, but I never allowed myself to go slack on the ritual of assuring that they were filled every night so that they would burn all night.

By the nature of solo sailing, it is not possible to keep a proper lookout at all times as is prescribed by the law and the practice of good seamanship (which is just another word for good common horse sense), and I've often wondered how a case involving a single-hander would go in the admiralty courts if it were found that a collision had occurred due to his not keeping a proper lookout or failing to give way to another sailing vessel when he was required to do so by the rules of the road.

He was asleep. There's no defense for that in the courts! I've often thought, and still do, that there should be a special distinctive light and day shape prescribed in the rules for use on yachts which are being single-handed when the crew is asleep. I am quite amazed that it has apparently escaped the attention of the rule making bodies. I hope that during the next convening of the convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), that matter will be brought up and appropriate provisions made to protect the increasing number of single-handers sailing today's oceans and waterways. Of course, the “not under command” lights would do, but what captain wants anybody to think his vessel is not under command?

It cannot be assumed that all vessels will stay clear of any sailing vessel. It cannot be assumed that all sailing vessels are single-handers with no one at the helm or on lookout either. We need a distinctive signal to differentiate between the two. Of course, a radar reflector should always be considered a must on every yacht, no matter how well manned.

Unfortunately such a rule would be abused, just as some sailboats today abuse their privileges by insisting on their right-of-way as a sailing vessel when they actually are powering with their sails up. There would be those who, in spite of having enough crew on board to carry a proper continuous lookout, would hoist the single-hander lights and the entire crew retire below for the night. That is done anyway on some yachts, I am sorry to say. I heard one skipper telling of how he didn't bother to keep a body on watch at night since his self-steering gear seemed to be able to handle everything okay!

Assuming that such a light and day shape as I've suggested above were to be in generally accepted and successful use, there would be only one situation which would still remain very tacky. That would be when, out upon some vast expanse of ocean, the inevitable occurs – when two vessels, both of which are showing the single-hander signal, converge slowly upon their long and lonely passages between widely separated continents, as if drawn by invisible forces of great magnetic attraction, and eventually come crashing resoundingly together in the middle of the night.

At 1900, I estimated that we had passed into minus nine time zone. I was quick to change my clocks, for that always felt like progress. By 1930, though I hated to do it, I shortened sail, for we were beginning to plunge a bit heavily. It was a shame, as we were really bounding along, but some of the holes behind the humps were beginning to get a little steep and deep.

The wind continued to freshen, until, at 2145, it was at about moderate gale force. But we were still moving right along at a good speed, and I still had hopes of a good day's run. At 2300, however, my hopes were further deflated as I felt it necessary to take the yankee down.

So much for that fantastic day's run that I was so hopefully looking forward to. The seas were still building apace with the wind. They were from six to eight feet in height now, and it was difficult to distinguish the swell which was still running a high as ever from about the same direction. The sky was still overcast, though the moon was visible through a thin veil of cirrostratus clouds. I noticed with some concern that the barometer was not coming up as it should have by this time of night. It had fallen from 29.90 inches at noon to 28.85 at 2100 in the evening, and now it stood at 29.82.

That didn't look good at all. The wind was continuing to blow a light gale. I didn't like the way things were shaping up. Still, there was nothing on the news from Cebu. Nothing anywhere else I could get either. As the seas were getting bigger, we were riding easier on the port tack almost in the trough. But occasionally one would break and heel us over, dipping the lee rail as we rolled down into the trough. By midnight, I guessed their height to be in the nine-or-ten-foot range.

I now suspected that we were in a tropical depression but had not yet considered that it would be anything worse than that. Indeed, that was bad enough, but surely it wouldn't develop into much more than we were already experiencing, I thought. But I was perhaps being naive. In retrospect, I clearly should have begun running south or southwest at the first obvious sign of a dropping barometric pressure. But I elected to continue upon my easterly course, come what may, in my belief that if it were anything serious, it would have been mentioned in the evening news from Cebu. It was an unwise decision, and it appears that I was ready to risk all in order to take advantage of the winds to make a little more easting. Had I followed accepted typhoon doctrine at that point, and let the wind hasten us southward, we would have undoubtedly missed the worst of what was to come.

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Chapter 24

A Typhoon Named "Olga"

More tropical cyclones form in the tropical western North Pacific than anywhere else in the world. More than 25 develop each year, and about 18 become typhoons. These typhoons are the largest and most intense tropical cyclones in the world. Each year an average of five generate winds over 130 knots; circulations covering more than 600 miles in diameter are not uncommon. Most of these storms form east of the Philippines and move across the Pacific toward the Philippines, Japan, and China.... The season extends from April through December" (Bowditch, American Practical Navigator). Typhoons begin as a tropical disturbance with an approximate diameter of from one to two hundred miles, and at that stage have a non-frontal migratory character which must maintain its identity for at least twenty-four hours before being classified as a disturbance. But should conditions be right for further development, it may become what is referred to as a tropical depression. In a depression, a low becomes well defined, and the winds take on a decidedly circulatory pattern about the center and may increase in strength until, above a mean average of about 33 knots, it is deemed to be a tropical storm. As it further develops and intensifies, when the winds increase to above 63 knots, it becomes a typhoon.

A fully developed typhoon, no matter what name it may go by (hurricane, baguio, cyclone, willy-willy are other names for the same thing), is something that any prudent mariner will go an awfully long way to avoid, and having failed to avoid one once, he is not soon likely to forget his experience. Some typhoons become so intense that it is doubtful whether any vessel would be able to survive them. What is referred to as a "super typhoon" is one in which the winds reach sustained speeds in excess of 180 knots. I don't know of any ship that has ever reported facing sustained winds of that magnitude. But there are plenty of accounts of vessels both large and small, sail and power, having passed through typhoons of varying degrees of strength. Some are literal horror stories that tax one's imagination to picture such unleashed natural fury. There are many accounts of vessels that have passed through the eye of a typhoon and experienced the dreadful confusion of seas of phenomenal proportions converging upon one another from every point of the compass at once, colliding and combing their strength and size in the specter of relative absence of wind.

Most people who have had the dubious honor of experiencing a typhoon, or hurricane at sea, have been some considerable distance from the center. In these days of instant communications and excellent weather reporting services, there is no need for any modern, well-equipped vessel to be caught by the full force of a typhoon. Fair warning is almost always received in time to either completely avoid the storm or at least to avoid the worst of it.

On the Semangat, however, I was unable to receive fair warning. I mistakenly depended on an unreliable source for warning and would have been much better off had I relied upon my own instincts and the time-honored methods of determining whether or not a typhoon was in the offing. Had I not put some degree of faith in what I was, or was not, receiving on my little radio, I would have had no choice but to assume that we were meeting a full-blown typhoon and would undoubtedly have taken appropriate action immediately upon the combined warnings of both weather and barometer. But I was complacent in my opinion that we were merely in the midst of a developing tropical disturbance or depression, and that we would soon be on the safe side of it.

The actual fact of the matter was, of course, that we were merely beginning to get into the fringe of a storm that was now a full 260 miles to the eastward, intensifying fast, and heading our way – and we were doggedly continuing to head its way, glad to have a little wind for a change.

Fleet Weather Central in Guam, which had been keeping a rather wary eye on a tropical disturbance near Yap for quite some time, had upgraded it to a tropical depression number five sometime on May 11^th. Then, on the 13^th, at 0600z, they had again upgraded it to a tropical storm and dubbed her Olga. Olga had been born some 120 miles west-northwest of Yap but had been tracked as a disturbance and a depression from a point no more than 60 miles southwest of Guam and had had her formative period moving slowly toward the west as she grew and developed.

As she matured into stormhood, she was a bit of a puzzlement and had some very deceptive attributes. She was a wide and sprawling sort of storm and for some time seemed rather two-timing and double-hearted. She kept the navy weather people guessing as to where her heart truly lay. She was tracked for two hundred miles or more at one point, only to seem to become confused and turn back on herself, reforming, with her center turning up some 130 miles east-southeast of where she had appeared to be before. But by midnight GMT on May 15^th, she had her act together and seemed to know where she wanted to go. Thereafter she began to steadily blossom, as she found her head and commenced moving westward at about seven knots. She was still a large sprawling gal, sending her winds out over three hundred miles ahead, and her heart was still not yet well defined, but she had one, and I'm sure that it was a large one.

On Sunday, the 16^th of May, 1976, with the weather being what it was, I didn't bother attempting to sleep very early. At 0100 the following morning, it was still blowing to beat the band. The barometer hit 29.80, a drop of five-hundredths of an inch in four hours and two-hundredths in the last hour. The squalls were frequent, and each seemed to have winds that were a little more violent than the previous one. Finally, at about 0300, they reached what I estimated to be full gale force eight or about thirty-four to forty knots. The seas were still building, and I pegged them at ten to twelve feet in height at that time. But we were fairly bounding, under reduced sail, in a southeasterly direction, as I held on with club jib and mizzen.

At 0330, a small disaster befell us. We'd lost our steering! The stainless steel adapter bracket which connected the reduction gear drive to the rudder stock had broken at the weld! That should have been one of the strongest points in the entire system. But upon closer inspection, I could see that the weld had very little penetration and that most of it had been ground off in order to make it appear a bit more attractive. This was a serious problem, and it couldn't have happened under any more unfavorable conditions. Something had to be done to get the rudder under control before the rudder was damaged by the violent interactions of the seas and the boat.

Here's where I needed that pipe wrench that I had broken only a few days before. Before I could do anything, I had to repair that wrench! Luckily, I found a bolt that I could use in place of the sheared pin that held the jaws in place, and I managed to get the wrench on the rudder stock and stop most of the violent swinging of the rudder. In so doing, I came dangerously close to having my thumb amputated when it was caught between the wrench handle and a propane tank that was lashed in position to one side of the rudder stock. Luckily, only the skin on the pad of my thumb was caught, and a goodly sized chunk of it cleaved off. The power of the rudder acted upon by the sea was tremendous, and the wrench handle was acting as a short, powerful lever. I lashed the wrench in position on the stock so that it couldn't fall off when it went slack. It wasn't a very satisfactory arrangement, but it would have to do until I put the old tiller back on. I thanked my lucky stars that I had saved the tiller for just such an emergency as this.

Replacing the tiller wasn't all that simple of a job, however. It couldn't be done without completely disassembling the entire steering box I’d made in Kuching, and removing it along with the wheel gearbox and steering wheel shaft, etc. I went right to work on it. It was a struggle under the violent conditions of driving rain and sea spray. We were still carrying sail and were running on the port tack with the club jib and mizzen, as I was determined to make use of the wind to the very utmost before it and conditions got too bad to carry any sail at all, and the Semangat kept her head in spite of the disabled rudder. The seas now seemed monstrous and still growing. It was the classic, dark stormy night.

It was quite a struggle in the dark, with the rain pelting me furiously. The droplets felt like little needles stabbing my flesh, but by 0530 I had the tiller back in place. But where the steering box had been, there was now a large hole which could let in water in large quantities should we ever be pooped. I plugged it as best I could with what I could find: a pillow, sail covers, and a board. But its presence wasn't reassuring and much added to my growing apprehension as to the security of our situation.

When I finished, I was thoroughly waterlogged. My hands looked like white puckered brain coral, and I was soaked to the skin and cold. I had no proper slicker, and the military poncho that I did have was far from adequate. It was fine for just sitting, but when work was to be done, it was like trying to operate inside a collapsed pup tent. And, as for moving over the decks, it was a real hazard. The only thing resembling a coat or jacket aboard was a nice wool sweater which was a long way from being waterproof. I was glad when the job was done and I was able to retire below for dry clothing, the tiller lashed and the Semangat gallantly sailing through the roaring gale, still under club jib and mizzen.

Large seas were beginning to break more and more frequently now, but as yet it was nothing posing and danger to the boat, though they were coming at us from the beam. The seas were huge, but fairly long, and only the very crests would occasionally jump up and roll over. Sometimes one would catch us under the weather rail and heel us to leeward considerably, but I was happy with the feel of the boat and was quite reassured by the way she responded to them. The Semangat was taking this stuff in her stride. She was a heavy and well-ballasted vessel, and never did she give me any reason to doubt her abilities.

After drying out a bit, I started writing in my journal with regard to the present weather conditions and commented that it being Sunday and all, with this sort of weather, it was almost enough to make a fellow catch religion and get forthwith down upon his knees and pray. Almost immediately afterwards, as if in answer to such heretical and blasphemous comments, there was a dramatic increase in the force of the wind, and it was time to shorten sail. I took her down to bare poles, and in an attempt to keep the stern out of the seas because of that gaping hole in the after part of the cockpit, I streamed our sea anchor, from the bow.

I wasn't very impressed with the effectiveness of that thing, however. It did little more than insure that we stayed in the trough, as the boat tried its best to quarter the seas and sort of run before the wind. Nonetheless we seemed to be riding fairly well, and although I didn't like the idea of being in the trough of such large seas, it was better than taking a chance at being pooped and taking large quantities of water into the boat over the stern.

Things were beginning to get down right messy now. The wind, even with just bare poles, was keeping us heeled over about ten or fifteen degrees. Water was occasionally being forced up through the sink drain which was on the weather side, and things below were no longer as dry and snug as they had been. A gale makes for discomfort down below, and I don't believe any boat is comfortable in a gale, no matter how "cozy" it may be – or even dry. The noise of the wind in the rigging alone is enough to destroy one's peace of mind right off!

About then I happened to think of my fishing lines and thought that I'd better go up and haul them in. When I did, I was surprised to find a big fish on one of them. He was about three feet long and had apparently been on the hook for several hours and been towed at high speeds until he'd just about given up. He was totally pooped and in a dazed stupor, and when I pulled him in, he cooperated to the fullest extent. But he was too big for me to get aboard with my net, and he flopped out of it. Not by any effort on his part, mind you – he was too tired to try to escape – but I couldn't get enough of his bulk into the net to land him. Then the hook came free as I tried to hoist him aboard with the line. But he was too tired even to go away. He just kept following the boat as it drifted leeward, barely making an effort to swim. I had two more opportunities to land him with the net but failed both times as the net was just too small. But soon he was out of reach. He just didn't seem to have enough strength to keep up with the fantastic speed we were doing leeward, sideways through the water!

Though the wind sometimes lulled to a force six, the squalls kept coming, and the seas continued to build. I was sure that some of them must be topping thirty feet. I pulled the sea anchor aboard and let the boat run under bare poles. By noon the wind had backed a little and was now out of the north-northwest. That was a good sign, as it meant that the movement of the storm center was favorable. That is, I was in the so-called navigable semicircle – that half of the storm where you tend to be blown away from the path of the storm.

In the northern hemisphere, the navigable semicircle is that half of the storm which lies to the left of its direction of movement. In this case, it would likely to be the southwest half of the storm. But applying Buys Ballot's law, I determined the approximate direction of the storm center from me. That is, by facing the wind, the assumption can be made that the storm center, or low, is from eight to ten points (90° to 112.5°) to the right. In this case, facing the wind, eight to ten points placed the center anywhere from east-southeast to south-southeast of us. This could still put me right in its path if I observed that the wind direction veered, that is, changed toward the east or in a clockwise direction. That would mean that I was in the dangerous semicircle. But since the wind was backing toward the northwest, it appeared the center was northeast of me.

Since the circulation of a typhoon is counterclockwise about its center in the northern hemisphere, that meant that the left front part of the storm was the part that we were getting, and it was tending to brush us southward out of its way. I was happy to make this observation, as until then wind direction had been steady, indicating that the storm was coming right at me or, just as bad or worse, slightly south of me. I hoped the backing trend would continue. I didn't realize it at the time, but Olga had swerved sharply northwestward as if she had some sort of consideration for my position. Had she not done so, she would have certainly crossed directly over me or put me on her more dangerous side.

A ship passed to the south of us heading westward. It was a large tanker and was making heavy weather of it. She was running with the weather on his starboard quarter. The seas were rolling right over her decks and she plunged heavily along, and the water was running off her decks in great cascades. She was about two miles away at the closest point of approach, and I was hoping that nobody would spot us lest they think we were in a need of help. Fortunately, apparently nobody spotted us. I didn't want to be rescued – certainly not in this kind of weather!

I estimated that we had passed the thousand-mile-to-go barrier, with about 963 miles to Guam as of noon. I had managed to get some hazy sun lines and a noon latitude. Our day's run was 63 miles. We were seven days out from San Bernadino and had covered 322 miles in that time. The wind was from the north-northeast at forces varying from force six to eight; the seas were running as high as twenty or thirty feet and perhaps higher where they combined with the swell. The barometer was at 29.73 inches of mercury; the temperature 78°F; and the relative humidity 100 percent. Generally speaking, it was a nasty day. But it could have been worse. The temperature was the bright spot in the scenario.

By 1830 I had begun to take heart, as the wind had backed all the way to northwest, and had decreased to force five and six with only occasional stronger gusts in the passing squalls. And the sky had begun to look a little lighter ahead. The barometer had been down to 29.65 but had climbed again to 29.69. This was very encouraging. We got under sail again, with the club jib and mizzen, running east, since I thought the worst was over.

This sure wasn't the weather I expected. According to the pilot chart, barring tropical storms and such, I should have expected little more than force threes most of all of the way to Guam. This was roaring 40s or screaming 50s weather that we was experiencing. But, I reasoned, a taste of this sort of thing was quite necessary to properly round out the voyage and make one appreciate even the calms.

Needless to say, I was spending most of my time down in the cabin as it was far too wet on deck for comfort. Every minute or two we were taking salt water on deck in the form of heavy spray from breaking wave crests. They were salting us down from stem to stern. It was none too dry down below either, and I had to pump bilges frequently to keep up with what was finding its way into the boat from every imaginable point. There were deck leaks that I had never suspected – water was being forced in under and up and over the fore hatch combing. And, in spite of being plugged, the vents cowls were all admitting water; and there was that which made its way in through the hole in the cockpit where the steering box had been.

On Monday, May 17^th we had been running under club jib and mizzen, but at 0200 I took the mizzen down and continued under club jib alone. We were still clawing for easting in spite of all, and since it seemed the storm was now to the north of us, due to the wind having backed further to the west, I felt that, from now on, we should be pulling away from its center.

This observation, I later found, I was correct. What I didn't realize, however, was how close we actually were to the center of the storm at that moment. But the very speed with which the wind had backed was an indication that I was close to its center. The barometer was at its lowest point observed, 29.63 inches. Nor did I realize that Olga was just about to come of age. The Fleet Weather Central's storm warning of 1800 Greenwich mean time, of May 16^th (that was 0200 in the morning on the 17^th on board the Semangat), placed the location of the center of the storm a scant 17-1/2 miles north of our estimated position at that time. Wind's near the storm's center were supposed to be about fifty knots, according to the same message. But she was about to begin intensifying much more rapidly. Of course, I only knew what I could observe from the Semangat, and the winds were diminishing.

By 0530 the same morning, the wind had backed all the way west and was still at a mere force six. The barometer was still at 29.63 and hanging there, and the seas were still as high as ever, but I was lulled into false sense of having seen the worst of it by the continued force six wind. Apparently, I was near enough to the center, or the center was rather sprawling and ill defined, that I was experiencing some of the area of relative calm which could be associated with it.

At any rate, I felt confident enough to hoist the yankee in addition to the club jib to help stabilize the boat as well as increase our headway. We were certainly still in high seas, but they were literally rolling mountains which, at that time, and presented no hazard. We were merely gliding up and down with an easy motion much like it would be to ride a roller coaster in slow motion. But at 0800 there was another dramatic increase in the wind to a force ten, which beside just about flooring us, saw me jumping to the foremast, cleaving to it for dear life, to drop the sails!

The complexion of things took on a dark, sinister appearance, and in no time those round-topped mountains looked overbearing as hell, as their crests began to heave up into great tumbling masses of white water. Spray seemed to become airborne from the crowns of every one, and I watched in amazement the play of the strongest wind that I had ever experienced on land or sea upon the raging spectacle of angry water around me. The sound of the wind in the rigging seemed to me more the sound of a jet engine than a mere howl.

Under bare poles, we were quartering the wind and seas and still heeling very handsomely to leeward. Although the boat was conducting herself well in that attitude, I was afraid of being pooped and thought I'd better stream the sea anchor again from forward to prevent it. While I was braced in the cockpit with my back to the weather, sorting out the sea anchor lines and getting it ready, my fears proved well grounded. For I heard an ominous roar behind me and looked over my right shoulder just in time to see a huge mass of green and white water from a breaking wave descending upon me.

I don't know what I grabbed a hold of, but I hung to it for dear life as the entire stern of the boat was submerged in boiling water. The boat took an uncanny lurch forward and to leeward as the bulk of the breaking wave passed beneath her and the top fairly buried her. For an instant I was practically floating, and I'll never forget the strange, unreal feeling that I had as I felt and saw all that water cascading over the Semangat and the Semangat heeling frighteningly to leeward at the same time she was trying desperately to bear up under the weight of the water covering her. It was as if it were happening in slow motion, so that every detail and aspect of the experience would be clearly imprinted in my mind. I remember wondering if this might, perchance, be the end of it all. Would she recover herself or go on over? We seemed to be falling almost sideways down into the trough, and the water was falling on top of us as if somehow we had been thrust under some great waterfall.

The experience must have been over in a very few seconds, but it seemed an eternity before I knew that we were going to survive it. The Semangat came up like a champ and seemed to shake the water from herself like an indignant hen. I grabbed a bucket from the locker under the cockpit to bail it out and lighten the load – and prevent as much of it as I could from going down into the boat through the hole and companionway. Fortunately, I had put the companionway door in place before I had settled down to work on the sea anchor or the cabin would have immediately taken great volumes of water directly.

The sea anchor lines were in a tangled mess, but the job of getting the sea anchor deployed had taken on a renewed urgency. I threw it all down into the cabin in order to sort it out down there. The only real casualty suffered as a result of that pooping sea was the loss of my port running light. I had taken it off its brackets to stow below and set it temporarily in the forward end of the cockpit seat while untangling the sea anchor lines, and it had been carried overboard into the sea. It was the only one that we had. We had been lucky not to lose the sea anchor. All the lines had been washed overboard, but the ends were still aboard, attached to the sea anchor, and I had been able to pull them back aboard. I wondered how many of those pooping seas would overtake us before I got the sea anchor out and whether the sea anchor was really going to do any good once I got it out.

Once below I checked to see how much water had found its way into the bilge. A lot! I pumped for what seemed ages before I could feel that it was sucking air. There was still a lot of water on the lee side of the bilge that the strainer couldn't reach, but for the moment that was the best we could do.

After pumping the bilges and hurriedly sorting out and coiling the two sea anchor lines, I slid open the companionway hatch and timed the waves so that I could get up to the bow and put the sea anchor over and get back before we did any more submarining. The distance from crest to crest of the waves was what appeared to be three or four hundred feet, and the wave period was long, although I didn't actually time them. My idea was to try to start out when we were at the top of one wave when the following wave didn't appear to be about to break. That would give me maybe sixteen seconds or so to do the job before the second crest would be upon us. Hopefully, the second crest wouldn't break either, but I had to assume that it might.

choosing my wave, I bounded up and out with the sea anchor, and then up to the bow. By the time I got the sea anchor paid out and both lines made fast, my sixteen seconds were up, and I looked toward the next oncoming sea. It was a breaker – a big one! I squatted low on the foredeck and braced myself, with a grip on the inner forestay and port lifeline that must have approached the vice-like grip often attributed to more brawny and muscular individuals in paperback novels. This one was almost a repeat of the earlier experience, except I now observed it from the opposite end of the vessel and did not become and active, or at least totally swamped, participant. But the same unreal impressions were there, along with the slow motion imprint.

I watched in fascination as the stern began to rise to meet the oncoming sea – then I watched the sea break into a seething mass of hissing water right above and crash aboard like a herd of wild beasts in an overwhelming stampede. The frothing mass hit her hard and heeled the boat well over on her beam end and engulfed the whole after third of her all the way over the cabin top. Again she seemed almost seemed to be falling sideways down, down, deeper into the trough, submerging the lee rail, and the fateful question reentered my mind. Will she recover? Is this going to be IT?

But there was a difference this time. She wasn't forced forward into the type of nose dive as she had been earlier, and the stern fell off to leeward much faster than the head. The boat seemed to slew around sideways to leeward and head up to the sea. The sea anchor was paying off! She seemed to recover herself faster, too, as I remained transfixed, literally spellbound by the breathtaking spectacle before me.

When I saw my chance, I carefully made my way to the cockpit and again bailed it with the bucket. I noted, unhappily, that once the boat had recovered and again was exposed to more wind than water, the best the sea anchor could do was hold us beam on to the seas. The sea anchor was leading way back toward our starboard quarter, and I could see that the sea anchor's line was not long enough, as it was on the front side of the next wave near the trough whenever we were at the crest of a big one. That tended to cause us to pull the sea anchor up to the surface, and it would lose its effectiveness until we were well down into the trough. I had to pay out more line.

I got some more lines and made another of those unappealing pilgrimages to the bow and bent on the extra lengths of line. Trying to get the of the line that was fast to the king post off proved to be a real task. The strain that was being exerted on the line was tremendous. I finally got it off by waiting for one of the times when the sea anchor surfaced on the near side of an approaching monster. This time I just put a round turn on the king post and led the lines aft to the cockpit so I wouldn't have to go forward again to tend them. I knew I would have to periodically pay out an inch or so to keep the line from chafing at the same place all the time where it rounded the fairlead chock. That improved things, but I did not have as much line out as we really needed. I'd used every spare line on board, however, and there had to be two lines – the primary, which was attached to the bridle of the sea anchor, and the trip line, which was attached to the apex of the cone, so it could be pulled in point first. But it was now long enough that when we were hit by a breaking sea, the sea anchor was dug in near the crest of the next wave to windward.

When I went below, wet, and tired, I noticed that in pulling on the lines and working with them, the corners of my fingernails had cut deeply into the waterlogged flesh of my fingers, and as the skin dried, they became quite painful. I hoped I wouldn't have any more line hauling to do for a while.

By 1130, the wind had backed further and was from the southwest by west. That meant that the storm center should be well passed and bearing about from north to northeast from us. I figured that it was heading in a west-northwesterly direction. The wind force I estimated at force ten with occasional gusts of greater force. The barometer, too, was on the rise, now standing at 29.75 inches.

Again, my assessment of the direction to the storm center and the direction of its movement proved to be amazingly accurate, as the storm warning of 0000 Greenwich mean time on the seventeenth (0800 on the morning of the 17^th on the Semangat) placed the center about 75 miles north and a little east of our position. My wind force was probably pretty accurate also, as the warning said that the maximum sustained winds of fifty-five knots were radiating to 50 miles from the center, with higher gusts. Winds of 35 knots extended to 150 miles from the center. Olga was still a tropical storm but intensifying. And, although she appeared to be fast pulling away from us now, the worst was yet to come, as Olga gathered strength and expanded in size and continued moving northwestward.

To my dismay, upon going on deck to check our sea anchor lines, I found that the primary line had already carried away under the strain and the trip line was now towing the sea anchor apex first! But even that way, there was quite a drag. Not as good as before, naturally. But when I tried to pull it in, I found the strain on the line so great that it was impossible to pull in. I decided that it would have to do as it was. The only other alternative would have been to cut it away entirely and lose the sea anchor as well as about six hundred feet or more of good poly line.

We seemed to be doing alright broadside to the weather. Seas were breaking and striking us on the starboard side about once or twice every half hour (bad ones, that is), and they sounded like a truck hitting the side of the boat, but we would merely heel over to about forty-five or fifty degrees, and the stern would be slewed around and down into the trough while the inverted sea anchor tended to keep the bow up.

Usually the breaking seas weren't all that bad. Only the very crests were involved, as they would – seemingly without rhyme or reason – fairly jump skyward in a huge gush of foam and come tumbling down. Although there were hairy moments, I never felt we were in danger of being rolled over and driving the masts into the trough. And once I had time to study how the boat acted, there was certainly no danger of pitch-poling. It would have been a different story, I'm sure, for a smaller boat or a light displacement craft, or any type of small-to medium-sized powerboat.

Personally, I believe that in a few cases where boats have been known to actually pitch-pole – that is, go stern up, bow down, and on over – the vessel must have been passing over a shoal area, perhaps uncharted, where the seas would tend to steepen dramatically on their forward side and eventually cave in as the case of combers on a beach. Where waves of phenomenal proportions are involved, the water wouldn't have to be very shallow for such wave action to develop. As for stabbing the mast into the sea and going for a 360-degree roll, I can visualize that happening a little more easily. But I daresay that, in most probability, the vessels that have experienced such rolls were ill-suited for heavy weather sailing. They were either too light, too small, too flat in the midship section, poorly ballasted, or improperly loaded. But some may have been great sea boats up to that certain critical point of weather and sea development – at which point they were no longer suited to the conditions. But with my limited experience, I cannot claim to be an expert in that matter. Though I have been a seaman all my adult life, I carry very little in the way of experience as a yachtsman and have never rounded the Horn or sailed the high latitudes of the southern oceans.

Here I might add a word or two of what my feeling is with regard to the use of sea anchors under storm conditions. Notwithstanding the fact that our sea anchor came to our aid, if I were in another such storm in a vessel such as the Semangat, I would have let her find her own way under bare poles and not employ a sea anchor. The Semangat, left to herself, would quarter the weather and maintain enough speed for steerage and some control over the angle at which she quartered the seas. True, she was frequently pooped, but had she been properly watertight as she should have been, that would have posed no real problem. The problem of pooping seas, however, is a strong argument against a large and deep cockpit aft such as the Semangat possessed – and would speak in favor of a relatively high canoe-type stern. It was also perhaps an argument in favor of the midship cockpit in vessels that are large enough to make that arrangement practical.

But all in all, I think the Semangat would have done quite handsomely on her own. The sea anchor wasn't effective enough to keep the bow up into the wind and sea as is theoretically ideal way to meet them. To do so would have taken a sea anchor of unwieldy proportions such as something about the size of a parachute. The one we had was a standard canvas type with about a three-foot diameter opening with a wicker ring forming the mouth. It may have been quite effective on a much smaller boat, however, in which case I would certainly recommend its use.

On larger boats, where there is an awful lot of sail area built into the forward hull design and rigging, the idea of getting the bow up to face the wind and seas, once no sail can be carried, may as well be assumed impossible. In such instances, however, I think a sea anchor or other type of drogue should be carried and employed, if necessary, both to slow the boat down as she runs before the storm and to hold the stern into the weather. In our case on the Semangat, it was clearly demonstrated that a sea anchor streamed from the bow couldn't do what it was intended to do.

We road broadside to wind and seas throughout the periods of storm when the sea anchor was employed, and though I didn't really like the idea, under the circumstances, it seemed the lesser of two undesirable alternatives. It did have the desirable effect of holding the bow up somewhat as we were clobbered with a heavy breaking beam seas. The force of the water would slew the stern around to leeward and, I believe, prevent us from the undesirable circumstances of being caught broadside by two breaking waves in quick succession.

As the morning progressed, the wind subsided to a mere force eight or so (thirty-four to forty knots), and the barometer continued to climb out its dive. But I kept myself pretty much completely closed up inside the cabin for maximum water tightness, should we ever be completely tumbled over, for the seas were bigger than ever, and as vicious.

For the first time on the voyage, I was absolutely glad that I did not have my family with me. I was glad they were safe and sound in Guam. By now I had little doubt that we were going to weather this storm, but had my family been there, it would have been a miserable and terrifying experience for them, and I'd probably never again be able to coax them into going to sea with me, as I had hopes of doing – and I really wouldn't have blamed them. The proportions of the seas we were experiencing were truly awe inspiring, and the fierceness of the howling wind was really something to behold!

Being all bottled up inside the cabin wasn't too bad in spite of the extremities of the weather without. It was much smoother, for example, than riding close-hauled to a force five, or even a force four, except when we would be rolled over to a extreme by a breaking wave crest. It was rather cozy and would have been downright so had it not been for the fact that everything seemed to be wet. It was also a little on the stuffy side with all the ventilation blocked off except for the louvers on the top panel of the companionway door. But every possible place where water could come in was letting in its maximum quota, and pumping bilges was a regular chore that had to be done every hour or two.

As luck would have it, the bilge pump started acting up again. And to top things off, the toilet mounting pedestal broke and put the toilet out of commission. It was a ridiculous thing. A regular porcelain bowl, but the mounting pedestal between bowl and floor was made of cheap brittle plastic! It seemed crazy to me that the part that would naturally take the most punishing strains should be the weakest link in the unit! Obviously the designer had never tried to utilize a marine toilet during a storm on a small vessel.

At noon, we were being overtaken by another severe squall, and the wind again picked up to a force nine or more for a while. At 1220, we took the biggest sea yet. It hit like a locomotive against the side and went completely over the top of the cabin. I looked up through the skylight to reassure myself that the sampan was still up there. Incredibly, it was. I thought how ironic it was that I'd never been in a typhoon before but should sail right smack-dab into one the first time I put to sea alone on a small yacht. I knew that this storm was probably not a full-blown typhoon yet, but I knew it was close enough for my purposes. I didn't need anything any more terrible than this. I couldn't rightly imagine force twelve winds or anything like a 180-knot wind!

The radio still hadn't given a hint that anybody else but me knew about this storm. I couldn't imagine why. But I knew that the tanker that we'd passed the night before was well aware of it, if nobody else.

It was easy to see we still weren't out of the woods, in spite of the rising barometer. When I popped my head up out of the companionway hatch for a look around at 1330, it was impressive as all get-out up there! The clouds were thinning in patches as they scudded by, and the sun was trying to show through a little now and then, but the wind was still somewhere about force nine. The seas really were huge! I have been challenged upon the matter of the likelihood that the seas were really in the thirty-foot range that I estimated. It was pretty easy, on a small boat, to be overly awed by large seas and tend to overestimate their height. And I'm quite sure there is a strong tendency on the part of many a yachtsman or seaman to exaggerate in order to dramatize their experiences. I have listened to captains speak casually on twenty-foot seas on the South China Sea when I knew that they must have been no more than twelve. I've time and again heard sixty-foot waves referred to in the North Sea yet cannot figure where the necessary fetch needed for such waves to develop can be found in such a confined body of water.

At this point, we had had over 34 hours of force eight and above winds and about 5-1/2 hours of force nine and ten. The theoretical wave height for waves generated by 34 hours of force eight wind over a 380-mile fetch is 25.5 feet. For 5.4 hours of force ten winds over a mere 40-mile fetch, the height is 21 feet (American Practical Navigator). So I don't think I was very far off on my estimate of the wave height.

It is to be conceded that in claiming the waves were in the thirty-foot range that the significant height may not have been any more than twenty-five feet. However, waves are not of uniform heights and have a tendency to be in a series of varied heights with a rather high range. If the so-called significant wave height is, say, twenty-five feet, experience has proven that waves in the pattern of as much as forty-six or forty-seven feet may occur and the top 10 percent of the waves may well be thirty-two feet in height (American Practical Navigator).

Before the wind really began subsiding, we had experienced a full fifty hours of full force eight and eleven hours of winds of force nine and higher with only occasional lulls to force eight. Only twenty-six hours of force eight winds over a fetch of 260 miles are required to generate waves with a significant height of twenty-five feet, and eleven hours of force nine winds over a 90-mile fetch will produce the same results (American Practical Navigator). So I think it quite unlikely that I was seeing overly big when I made my thirty-foot estimate of the wave heights.

At 1400, I stood in the companionway and thought I got some good pictures of those spectacular seas and their angry crests, as the sun momentarily came through. But just as that proverbial big fish always seems to escape, so it happened to the roll of film upon which I recorded those seas. I had just put a new roll of the film in the camera, and the same roll was still in there with about half a dozen exposures left to be taken when I reached Guam. I loaned the camera to a friend to use up the remaining film, and that was the last of it. The camera was returned without the film, and my friend reported to me that not a single photo had come out when he'd taken the film to be developed. I rather think that he didn't know how to properly extract the film from the camera and undoubtedly removed it without rewinding it back into its cartridge. It was a crushing blow to me to lose that film and thus the only photographic "proof" I had of the kind of conditions I had experienced. Such a life!

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Chapter 25

Olga Comes of Age – I Hear of Another Typhoon

By 1500 on the 17^th, the seas seemed to be getting a little more rascally and confused and, consequently, even higher in some instances. The sky darkened again and became more threatening. The confused seas caused us to get pooped more frequently, and the stern began to pound quite a bit in the confusion. Now there was clearly at least two separate sets of seas. One was the wind-driven sea from the southwest, and the other was coming up from the south, which was swell actually, but only very recently wind driven. We were making headway and quartering the seas more than before, and I thought that maybe the hoop of the sea anchor had collapsed, but I was unable to gain an inch on it when I went up to try to pull it in, because the strain was so great.

At 1800, the wind was down to a force eight or low nine, and with the barometer up to 29.77, I was beginning to get itchy about the prospect of getting under sail again. But the wind was still a little too strong. I congratulated myself in that there hadn't been a time when we hadn’t at least been making a little progress in a easterly direction. We'd sailed east or southeast right up to the point where no sail could be carried, sailing right into the storm like a blundering idiot, and then the winds had backed around to the northwesterly quadrant and continued pushing us toward the eastward after we went down to bare poles and sea anchor. At least that was a break.

During the night of the 17^th and the morning of the 18^th, we experienced our worst sea conditions yet. I spent the night mostly lying down on the weather berth of the main salon. I was kept from falling out by the fact that the head of the bunk protruded about two feet under the chart table and was closed in on the inboard side so that my head and shoulders were inside a cubbyhole, there being no other leeboard provision for the bunk. Even so, the lower part of my body would tend to want to fly out when we were hit by a big comber. But the lee bunk was being used as a place to throw everything that wouldn't stay put, since it all ended up on that side of the boat anyway. Also, the weather bunk was handier to the companionway and the chart table, both of which were aft on the starboard side.

At 2240, I logged: "We were just hit by an extraordinarily high breaking wave. It hit hard against the side of the coach roof but did no damage. It also filled the cockpit with water." And again at midnight: "Just hit by another big breaking wave which came close to tumbling us over." It too filled the cockpit. At midnight the barometer was up to 29.79 and still rising, and the wind blowing at about force eight.

And so it went throughout the night. At intervals of from half an hour to an hour, we would be hit and nearly knocked down, on our beam ends, to a resounding thud just inches from my head and on the side of the hull, deck, and coach roof above. The boat would lurch over, and I'd brace myself to keep from falling out of the bunk, as the seas seemed to continue to get worse. Though the hull was of very heavy construction, I didn't have as much confidence in the structural soundness of the coach roof sides. And, in spite of the heavy carvel construction, I was wondering whether the battering that the boat was taking would start to open any of the seams in the hull planking, causing her to leak.

There is no craft better suited to ride out phenomenal seas and high winds than a relatively small, heavily ballasted, deep draft sailing boat that has been properly built and designed to withstand the tremendous pressures of a few tons of seawater landing on deck, and is tight enough to roll 360 degrees without taking a disastrous quantity of water into the boat. Except for the initial lack of confidence I had in the fastenings of the Semangat's hull and the structural strengths of the coach roof, which was sided with one-inch plywood, I would have felt very comfortable indeed. I wouldn't have traded it in for any moderate or very large ship of modern construction by any means.

I don't have much confidence in the sea-keeping abilities and overall structural soundness of the very large ships of today. Many are just too large to have the necessary rigidity to resist the punishment of huge seas. Their scantlings are calculated at far below the standards of conventional steel ships of small to moderate size in proportional to their size and tonnage. True, they may seem to be impervious to weather and seas which would make lesser vessels begin to strain and heave, but I would truly dread the times when the seas grew to such proportions as to cause the least pounding and begin to exert considerable bending and twisting stresses upon their hull. I don't believe the average modern supertanker could be considered as seaworthy as the average well-found yacht under conditions such as we were now experiencing, much less the larger seas that are to be encountered in the great expanses of the southern oceans in the high latitudes.

Of course, the architects are aware of this, and the larger vessels plying the usual oil trade routes are not calculated to experience such conditions as phenomenal seas and swells. A fine compromise is drawn using a relatively short projected life span, cost, and cost recovery and profit projection, balanced against the odds of being exposed to phenomenal sea conditions, as governing criteria for setting scantling standards. If the oil concerns were required to adhere to traditional scantling standards, profit potential would be way down, and, consequently, there would be very few super ships on the seas today, together with their awesome potential for causing devastating harm to the ocean and coastal ecological environments. Because of this, there was no period during the storm when I would have traded the Semangat for a large super-ship.

The morning of the 18^th brought fair skies, which in turn, in spite of continuing high seas and force eight winds, sent my spirits soaring. I prepared a big breakfast of bacon and eggs, which was the first real meal that I'd attempted since the storm had really begun buffeting us around. Since the storm had begun, I had merely snacked on crackers, cheese, and managed on occasion to heat water for coffee or hot chocolate. I had made some cornmeal mush on the morning of the 15^th and had kept some back to eat in the evening as jelled mush, but the weather had set in, and the bowl containing the mush had fallen to the cabin floor and rolled to the lee side where it had stayed intact until I found it on the 17^th and added it to my snack diet.

Having put down a good breakfast, I went topside and, with a great deal of heaving and straining, managed to get the sea anchor aboard. For about forty-five minutes I let the old gal find her own way under bare poles while I was squaring away the gear. By 0800 the wind lulled to a force seven, southerly, and I hoisted the club jib, and we were off again, quartering the twenty-foot seas. It was nice to be able to speed up and increase the distance between us and the storm, which seemed quite visible in a very classic display of distinctive cloud formations concentrated in the northwest, dead astern. The storm wasn't far enough behind for comfort, however, and as I watched in dismay, the darned thing seemed to be spreading our way again!

I began straightening things up about the boat and brought my damp bedding up to air and dry in the brisk wind and sunshine. I hadn't had that stuff up airing for fifteen minutes, however, when the squalls expanding outward from the storm center once again engulfed us, and there was no more sun! Then the rain started, with increased wind momentarily to force eight and back to seven.

It seemed as though the storm had noticed us trying to escape to the southeast and had sent out its tentacles to make things tough on us. Come to think of it, the storm seemed to be much more to the east than it should, and I wondered if it was going to make a little circle and come back just to make sure that I'd got my proper comeuppance. Typhoons seldom pull tricks like that, but such things had been known to happen, and the darned things refuse to be entirely predictable. The hurricanes of the southwest Pacific and the willy-willies off northwestern Australia are notorious for that sort of thing. But typhoons tend to keep to a more predictable script. However, it turned out that Olga had pulled some fancy footwork – apparently specifically for our discomfiture!

The squalls, interspersed with short periods of sunshine, continued throughout the 18^th. I managed to get a noon position, for what it was worth, in the up and down elevator-like movement of the vessel. The position was 12° 41' north and 129° 23' east, for a day's run of 15 miles! The run had, probably been more than that, but in all likelihood, my previous day's estimated position had probably been a little too optimistic. We were nine days, and 385 miles, east of San Bernadino Strait, and 885 miles west of Guam.

The 1700 news from Radio Cebu broadcast the warning of the approach of "Typhoon" Olga, calling it the first typhoon warning of the year for the area! It was strange that we had been so intimate with her without until now learning her name.

My opened box of cornmeal had drawn damp, so I used the lot of it to whip up enough cornbread to last me for a day or two. A funny thing though, although it tasted okay, it came out a grayish brown rather than the customary yellow. It was more the color of spice cake than cornbread. But it was still cornbread, so I ate it.

Disassembling the ailing bilge pump, I found out what was wrong. I found the diaphragms were clogged and partly held open with little pieces of glass! It seemed the hydrometer, used for checking the batteries, had fallen into the bilge and broken into many pieces. In turn, they had been sucked up into the bilge pump. I cleaned the pump out, and once again it worked as it was supposed to. Then I raked my fingers through the bilges and retrieved the bulb and float along with as much remaining glass as I could find. So much for the bilge pump problem. And so much for our hydrometer.

At 0130 on the morning of Wednesday, the 19^th of May, I awoke to the sound of abnormal amounts of water sloshing about in the bilge, and I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. We were taking a fair amount through the fore hatch which was a long way from being watertight, as we were now shipping seas regularly over the bow. But it didn't seem there could be near enough coming in there to fill the bilges in the short time since I'd last pumped them. There had to be another leak, and the ominous thought of leaks through opening seams in the planks again began to haunt me. But with the way the Semangat was constructed, it was easy to inspect most of the inside of the planking, and I couldn't find so much as a crack in the paint over a seam anywhere. The only place I couldn't inspect was in the area of the bilge right under the engine.

After much brain racking and searching, I decided to check one of the more obvious potential problem areas. Naturally, that hadn't occurred to me before. I went straight to the problem – the toilet. At some point I had apparently forgotten to close the discharge valve cock, and since the toilet was on the lee side, and since we had been heeling a good twenty degrees since getting under sail again, the water had been siphoning in through that discharge valve! The problem hadn't been as obvious as it would have been had not the plastic base of the toilet been cracked. As it was, the bowl was empty of water, but the water was steadily draining from the pipe at its base and draining into the bilge. It had been draining silently and almost invisibly –insidiously filling the bilge at the rate of several gallons per hour! And that was the problem! My fears were once again put to rest with regard to the soundness of the hull – she was still as tight as ever.

The night was fairly clear, with only a few stratocumulus clouds and a light haze obscuring the smaller stars in the sky. The wind was down a little and so were the seas. They were now running a mere ten feet in height except for the occasional raries, which were much higher. A few days before, I would have thought these seas to be pretty big, but after what we'd just been through, I was very happy with them. A big half-moon was well up in the sky and seemed to be smiling down upon us – or perhaps laughing at the wildly gyrating lantern that was swinging from the main boom in lieu of running lights. I couldn't see much use in displaying a green running light without the red one to match. The main thing was to be visible, and the lantern gave off enough illumination for that. I was amazed at the lantern's ability to stay lit in the strong breeze. I guess that’s why they call them hurricane lamps.

Once again I was camped in the lee side of the cockpit, where I could rise up and look around at will. The night had a wild peacefulness about it. It was very peaceful, compared to the previous three nights. But it was wild too, as we were plunging over the seas with reckless abandon. The wind was from just the right direction so that the Semangat, under club jib alone, could make a fine course of it just a little south of the perfect heading.

First thing after daybreak, I advanced the clock and my watch an hour to conform with minus nine zone time, which made this a twenty-three-hour day. Then I hoisted the mizzen sail with a reef and settled down to listen to the radio for any further news of typhoon Olga.

Apparently I was feeling a little too good, and too optimistic. I must have been in danger of becoming complacent in having won out in our recent confrontation with mother nature, for the news contained two more worries for me. At 0800 I got a report from the Voice of America that there was another typhoon stirring! This one was named Pamela and was already packing winds up to 200 kilometers per hour and had already accounted for nine deaths in the Truk Islands! What was more, it was headed for Guam and was expected to reach there in about three days. Our typhoon was mentioned too. It was only credited with winds of 100 kilometers per hour.

So now that we had managed to live through a small typhoon, we had to worry about a much more powerful one that was headed for Guam where my family was supposedly safe and sound. In addition to that, we were obliged to live with the possibility that Pamela, too, would head our way, although it would probably (hopefully), re-curve before reaching our patch of ocean. Extending the expected line of travel of Pamela from Truk through Guam would put her well clear of us. And it could be assumed that she would further re-curve the northward once past Guam. I hoped it would re-curve before reaching Guam, so that Chi, Tuc, and the kids would be spared the experience of a major typhoon.

More likely, however, it would pass south of Guam. That would be fine for Guam but would lead it more closely in our own direction. Well, it was just something to worry about. There was one thing for sure, and that was that there wasn't very much that I could do about the situation but wait, hope – and maybe edge a bit southward.

Right after noon, I turned to cleaning up some dried shrimp that had been in a jar which had broken and spilled into the after end of the bilge. They weren't dry anymore, and the contribution of their aroma was making to the damp and dank atmosphere of the cabin was something less than pleasing. My dried tuna was no longer dry either, and I had to jettison the remaining lot of it.

Dinner flew aboard at about 1500 in the form of a nine-inch flying fish which landed in the cockpit. After putting him where he would do the most good – in my stomach – I rebuilt the steering box, cutting a hole in the forward side for the tiller to protrude from. There was still a hole there, but it wasn't as large nor as exposed as the hole through the deck had been.

The wind was down now to a healthy force five, so I put the yankee up, which did a lot for our speed. The wind ceased to back and started veering a little. The sky was again beginning to film over with a blanket of cirrostratus, but I was reassured by the continued climb of the barometric pressure.

The day's run had been a pleasing 50 miles, and Guam was 855 miles away, which wasn't bad considering that it was mostly done by the 115 square feet of the club jib alone. And, naturally, half the time was spent climbing the backs of heavy seas. I hoisted the main and mizzen sails with a single reef, and with the increased speed in having all the sails aloft, we began to take more water over the bow as we plunged through and dipped into the deep and narrowing troughs. Along with the increased speed, and plunging deeply into the far side of the troughs, we were taking more water through the fore hatch than before.

No big problem there, however, with the gusher bilge pump working well once again. But I had once again pulled a silly stunt. I'd earlier opened the fore hatch to pass the yankee up onto the deck and forgotten to latch it again when I closed it. A little while later, the bow scooped up a big lot of water which forced itself under the lip of the hatch, and lifted it up, open, and back. Naturally, it ripped the hatch off its hinges. It ruined the hinges and wet the fore cabin down real good. I put the hatch back in place and locked it in position from below, but now when the weather improved, I wouldn't be able to prop the hatch open to serve as a wind scoop for ventilation until I'd put new hinges on, and I wasn't sure we had any spares aboard.

Nonetheless, some of the comforts were slowly beginning to return to the ship, and it could definitely be said that we were now "out of the woods." I repaired the mizzen awning and put it back in its place beneath the mizzen boom so I could remain in the cockpit throughout the day without getting broiled – for although the sky had not yet returned to its usual blue, tropical self, the sun was beginning to make itself felt again.

Taking stock of the damages wrought by the tempest, I found that, all in all, we had fared quite well. Other than my gouged thumb and sore fingertips where the nails had cut through the skin, I was as whole as ever. The steering casualty, I believe, would have happened sooner or later anyway. I'd lost one running light, a large jar of instant coffee, a jar of little dried shrimps, several slabs of dried tuna, and a hydrometer. The toilet base had been wrenched and broken by my massive weight in the plunging seaway, and the fore hatch had now been torn from its hinges.

Oh yes, and my pipe wrench had broken again. The bolt that I had used as a pin just wasn't up to the job. And we'd sheared the brass bolt that had been holding the tiller on. I'd kept the tiller lashed hard alee most of the time through the storm, and that bolts hadn't been up to the shearing stresses applied to it. So I had to replace all those bolts with steel ones, which I fortunately found in the ship's junk can. But nothing really serious had happened to the boat or any of its equipment. I could be thankful, and I cautiously knocked on wood as the thought passed quickly through my mind.

With supper behind me, I relaxed with a pipe in my accustomed evening perch at the top of the companionway. The wind had died to force four during supper and was now a force three, and I told myself that I'd shake the reef out of the mainsail just as soon as I finished that one load of 'baccy. But just before sunset, I looked toward the north and saw the last remnants of the distant storm still hovering on the horizon and all of a sudden felt lazy and drained of energy, and the reef didn't get shaken out of the main that night. I retired for what I hoped would be my first good night's rest in several days.

My eyes opened at about 0300 on Thursday, and I lifted myself up to see a passing ship, about four miles off, headed toward the northwest. The wind had almost died out entirely, but by 0400 it had returned from the south-southeast at a force three. By 0700 the seas has gone down to a modest three or four feet. The barometer was up to 29.86, but the sky was about 60 percent covered with stratocumulus with a high veil of cirrus. I untied the reef in the mainsail and went below for coffee making only to find that the jar which had broken had been the last full one, and that the other was empty. Right then and there I resolved not to have any more coffee until I reached Guam. I knew that I would miss that morning cup, but coffee has never seemed to do me much good anyway, and I stood by my resolution until the voyage ended.

Once again I proclaimed airing day for the bedding, and I hauled up all the bedding from down below for a good several hours of flopping in the breeze and occasional sunlight, and the Semangat once again took on the appearances of a refugee boat, with sheets and towels, blankets and pillowcases all a-fly. I took the fore hatch off and let the air again circulate through the boat, and the cabin began to rid itself of the damp mustiness that had accumulated since the beginning of the storm.

Our heading was now due east, and I figured if the wind continued as it was at the moment, I should make at least seventy miles noon to noon. I would consider that a pretty good run or anything over that. But I didn't allow myself to speculate much above that figure. Better to be pleasantly surprised than disappointed. We still had the north equatorial current to reckon with, the Semangat and I, so I couldn't expect too much out of the old gal.

The 2000 news from the Voice of America reported that "...two typhoons are causing death and destruction in the West Pacific." Olga had hit the Philippines and was raising havoc around Manila and other parts of Luzon. Pamela was still headed for Guam. I wondered if my wife in Guam, and father back in Illinois, were hearing those same reports.

I reflected on how lucky I had been to meet with Olga safely out at sea rather than in the restricted waters around the Philippines that had held us captive for so long. Had I met her in those narrow seas and passages, the Semangat would almost certainly have been lost or severely damaged.

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Chapter 26

To Yap or Not to Yap

I knew my family must be pretty worried about my safety now that the news of the two typhoons wreaking death and destruction was being flashed all around the world. I wished I had a means of getting the word out that we were okay, but it would be many days before anyone would know that we had not come to grief. My father, who had received a letter from me written in Manila telling of my departure and the proposed route we would undoubtedly be worried. Being somewhat of a worrier and one to jump to conclusions, I later learned he was soon was convinced that we had been lost and had actually scratched me from the roster of the living. Unbeknownst to me, he had already begun to attempt to get a grip on things in the light of having lost his only son to the capricious sea.

When I arrived in Guam, I read a letter Chi had received from him telling her that if she hadn't heard from me by the time she received the letter, in all probability, I would never be seen or heard from again. He had written it on the 22^nd of May. He gave her instructions to make her way with the children to our farm in Illinois, where they would make do, one way or another, without me as best they could. Others, too, I know were pretty concerned about my safety, but my father was the only one who realized that I was right out there where those two typhoons were pulling off their deviltry. He knew we could hardly miss both of them and still be in the right end of the Pacific. Chi didn't become overly concerned until I had become several days overdue, as her limited knowledge of geography and inability to understand English news reports spared her any inclination that we might have been in any unusual danger. Only after typhoon Pamela had swept over Guam, making her wonder how I would be faring in such a blow as that, did she really get worried.

My most optimistic hopes of a good day's run were more than gratified when the noon position showed we'd done 90 miles during the past twenty-four hours. We needed more runs like that. We had made a course of east by south good, which was tending directly toward the island of Yap. I began to consider Yap as an alternate destination should things go too slowly and a re-supply stop appear a desirable. Or, in the event that another storm was reported heading my way, I might try running into Yap for refuge if it happened to be close at hand.

Yap was now 412 miles east-southeast of us, and Guam was about 780 miles east-northeast. I wanted to bear south anyway to insure that we would not have any storms likely to put us on their wrong side, and so we would be near the relative safety of the doldrums to the south. I even considered going far enough south to pick up the equatorial countercurrent that sets easterly in the region of the western Caroline Islands, but discounted it as being too far out of our way. And there would likely be less wind down there too, and we needed wind a lot more than we needed a favorable current.

We continued trying to make as easterly a course as we could. But the wind, being now from the southwest, made it difficult for us to do it without me sitting at the tiller all the time, and I always figured that I had more interesting things to do than steer the boat. So, after a lunch of chicken, rice, and noodle soup, one salt egg, and a glass of lemonade, I propped the yankee out to starboard with the boat hook, and keeping the other sails on the port side with the breeze fine on the starboard quarter, I streamed the safety warp and made her steer herself after a fashion. But east-southeast was the best we could do. It was better than the southeast by south that she'd wanted to do before. The breeze had fallen right down to very light, and we were again, as in days of old, plodding along at about two knots.

The sky, as the day before, had grown progressively more obscure as the day went on, with an overall threatening aspect in just about any direction I looked except toward the southeast. The barometer never had got back up to normal, and it was now standing around 29.85. I was impatient to see it once again up to at least 29.90, as I was still suffering from storm phobia.

The wind almost came to a complete halt as I sat eating my light supper of popcorn and drinking hot chocolate. Being between two massive disturbances such as we were, I could figure on the normal wind patterns of the area being pretty much out of kilter. I didn't know whether the situation was going to work in my favor or against me, but it now appeared we were going to be subjected to the calm after, before, and around, the storms. It was back to the South China Sea routine again with calms and very light airs, except now there was a long low swell running which made it difficult in light airs for the Semangat to hold a heading.

We tacked, and I fumed, and tacked again – changed yankee for genoa and vice versa, trying vainly to maintain a constant easterly heading or at least something in the eastern quadrants. There were squalls, too, and gloomy skies. The day's run to noon on the 21^st was only 33 miles, and on the 22^nd it was a discouraging 10 miles. Guam wasn't closing very fast.

It was frustrating to be becalmed with 737 miles still separating us from our destination, but we had passed the halfway point by about 36 miles. Time and time again, at night, I would awake to find that we had gone aback and were hove to, not doing anything but drifting westward with the current. And many a time I had to lower the sails just to end the incessant noise that the genoa made beating a tattoo against the shrouds and the swinging and popping of the main.

The swells we were now experiencing were definitely the product of typhoon Pamela. They were very long – about four to five hundred feet from crest to crest – and their height must have been ten or fifteen feet. It put me in mind of the rolling expanses of the great Plains of the western United States and their treeless undulations, except these hills were in complete and unceasing motion, in a slow and majestic progression. They seemed to blanket the wind from the sails, but it was actually the slow roll that robbed them of their air. And, lacking any steady air, the Semangat seemed to prefer staying in the trough.

Pamela had struck Guam with a vengeance, I had learned, listening regularly to the Voice of America news reports. Winds had been up to 300 kilometers per hour, and there was much destruction reported, heightening my anxiety about my family. Miraculously, there was only one death attributed to the storm on Guam, and it had occurred, I understood, on the south end of the island, which comforted me somewhat, as my family was at Agana near the midsection of the island.

Olga was playing hell with the area around Manila with winds of up to 120 kilometers per hour. It was dumping record amounts of rain, and flooding was rampant. Twenty centimeters of rain had fallen, and the flooding was driving thousands from their homes. So far, twenty-two deaths had been attributed to the storm, and it was still churning away over Luzon.

During the night of the 21^st of May, there had been another demonstration of porpoises much like the one that we'd witnessed prior to crashing into Olga. They charged around for awhile like a bunch of young bulls (which they may have been), and finally – after failing to impress the bottom of the boat with their great show of masculine agility – drifted off to parts unknown.

A waterspout presented itself for a short while on the morning of the 22^nd, and the spout-sprouting cloud provided us with a few hours of good sailing wind. But it was from the southwest, which meant that I had to sit at the tiller and steer in order to head east. Finally, however, I propped the yankee out to starboard and used it as a steering sail, with the other sails being carried on the port side and the wind fine on the starboard quarter. With the help of the safety line streamed off the port quarter, we were able to make her steer herself. Since the breeze was a force four at this time, we made pretty fair speed in spite of the inefficient arrangement. We'd move right along whenever the yankee was pulling, but the boat would inevitably tend to work her way starboard no matter how hard I tried to find the right place to lash the tiller. When this would happen, eventually the yankee would stop pulling and go slightly aback, which would tend to push the bow again to port until the yankee would again fill and pull away. I also moved our water cans, along with whatever other weights that I could move around, aft to put more drag on the stern. It worked well enough to relieve me of quartermaster duties, and that's what I was after.

Later in the evening, the squall line overtook us, and the wind increased until I had to steer again. Once more we were visited by a large number of frolicking porpoises. There seemed to be a hundred jumping and cavorting around the boat. As it darkened and the rain began, I noticed we were being honored with a display of that ghostly phenomenon known as St. Elmo's Fire, which began playing, much to my discomfort, upon the stay between main and mizzen mast. It meant that my little vessel was a good candidate for a lightening strike, as it indicates an electrical disparity between our masts and rigging and the air. I couldn't think of anything that I'd like to see any less at the moment than a bolt of lightening aimed at our masthead. That would have truly topped the cake! But, the good Lord was just teasing, and we were not struck down by lightening that night.

I had pumped the bilges on the 22^nd for the first time in about 30 hours. It took 80 strokes of the handle to clear the bilge. Quite a few, but I knew we had a slow leak around the stern tube housing which I hadn't been able to completely stop in Kuching. I wasn't unduly alarmed. But the next day, and only 13 1/2 hours after the previous pumping, I had to pump the handle 135 strokes! Ten for every hour since the last pumping! I thought I'd have to conduct another intensive search for leaks. But to my great surprise, it was that same valve on the toilet again! Apparently it had the ability to open itself! Or was there someone else aboard doing the deviltry? Some invisible hand that intended that I should not sleep well? I don't know what it was, for I hadn't touched it since closing it after first finding that it had been admitting water. I kept a close watch on it after that. I never saw anyone touch it. As a matter of fact, I never saw anyone. But I frequently had to re-close that valve, anyway! Some invisible hand was at work, playing games with us.

Today there was a mixture of good news and bad news. The good news was that the barometer finally reached its pre-Olga level of 29.90 uncorrected inches of mercury. The bad news was that Voice of America informed me that Pamela was due in the Philippines in three days. That meant that it should be passing us any time now. I couldn't believe it! She had left one dead in Guam and another fifty persons injured, and 80 percent of the buildings on the island had been damaged to one degree or another. Guam had been proclaimed a disaster area, and damages had been initially estimated at one billion dollars. Olga had now accounted for thirty-five lives on Luzon, and the toll was rising steadily as casualty figures came in from remote areas.

Naturally, I was a little skeptical about the report that Pamela had headed almost due west from Guam. It seemed a highly unlikely turn of events. But I wasn't going to take any chances, and carefully bent our own course a bit more to the south. Actually, Pam had done no such thing. She had continued on her course and curved more northward and finally northeastward before reaching Japan. I don't know where the Voice of America got their false information, but they kindly dropped the whole matter from subsequent news reports and left us hanging, wondering just where Pamela was heading and half-expecting to meet her any time. I heard no more news of Pamela from then and was obliged to merely guess as to her position and direction of travel. Yet I could not entirely discount the report that she was headed west. Thus I couldn't be certain that we would not soon be attempting to ride out a super typhoon, and it wasn't all that pleasant a prospect.

The day's run from noon on the 22^nd to the 23^rd was a welcome improvement over the previous day, at fifty-seven miles. The breezed remained from the southwest at an ideal force four, and I found that the boat would steer herself much better with the mizzen sail down, as that had acted too far aft of the vessel's center of lateral resistance and tended to try to turn her to starboard. Since our course was still carrying us towards Yap, and it appeared we could arrive there on about the date that I had originally expected to make Guam, I made up my mind that we were now going to call at Yap – so I could make a phone call to Guam to see how my family had weathered the storm and let them know that I was alright. I had always wanted to visit Yap anyway, and the present set of circumstances provided the ideal excuse. If the southwesterly wind held, I reasoned, we would be able to ride it all the way to Yap and be there about three or four more days.

But that was not to be the case. We sailed on for Yap for two more days, making 64 miles to noon on the 24^th and a fine 81 miles to noon on the 25^th before the tables took a turn for the worse. Now we were able to get “The Voice of Yap” on the radio, and I was really getting settled into the idea of going there. But the wind played out on us again on the evening of the 25^th.

On that same evening, I learned that Pamela had been the third worse typhoon of the century to hit Guam. The last one of her magnitude had been typhoon Karen in 1962. It was a strange coincidence that I had been in the West Pacific then too – in the navy on the USS Seminole. I remember hearing of typhoon Karen and plotting her movements on a weather chart. I can also remember the swells that we experienced from her on our passage from the Philippines to Japan, as I was impressed by their proportions. It was the first time I had seen huge swells on an otherwise perfectly calm sea. The water was like smooth glass on the day that I recall, and the swells seemed to be fifteen feet high or more, making for a strange and awe-inspiring spectacle. The same report also mentioned that Olga had destroyed thirty thousand homes in the Philippines! What a mean, ornery, storm she had turned out to be! The next account of Olga said that sixty persons had died and four hundred thousand or so were homeless!

The next day was a bright sunny morning on the Pacific. I awoke to a very pleasing sunrise but no wind. The barometer was a reassuring and comfortable 30.01 inches, and I was again breathing easily, assured by the Voice of Yap that Pamela had gone north. The day's run had turned out to be only 36 miles, and it was no longer in the direction of Yap, but Guam. Yap was still much closer, however, so I did not immediately give up the idea of calling there. It was 161 miles toward the east-southeast, as opposed to 534 to Guam.

Our provisions were beginning to show signs of fatigue, however. For breakfast on Thursday, the 27^th of May, I fried my last egg and last link of Philippine chorizo, which I had with cornbread, V-8 juice, and hot chocolate.

That hearty breakfast was needed to brace me up for noon's bad news. Our noon position found us 545 miles from Guam! Eleven miles had slipped the wrong way under the keel during the preceding twenty-four hours! We were two miles closer to Yap, however, but that was small consolation. This was clearly the most devastating day's run of the entire voyage. For once, we had actually lost ground.

The wind, when it returned in very small increments, was now out of the east by south, which meant that we could no longer easily head in a direction that would get us closer to Yap. The best we could do was head northeast which, due to the west setting current, meant we were making good about north-northeast. And so it was that I abandoned, for the time being, my designs on Yap.

For dinner, I had some red beans with some curry and rice left over from the day before, combined in a soup with potatoes, onions, and garlic. Cornbread, as usual, was served on the side, with hot chocolate for drink.

After dinner, I listened to the radio and found a most curious thing. For the past couple of nights, Yap radio had been the only station we had been able to pick up on the broadcast band. That was natural enough, as that was the only place within medium wave band range. But this evening, we could no longer receive Yap, but could receive a host of Australian stations instead! It was as though, all of a sudden, we had been transported to some point just off the coast of that continent down under. I almost had the impulse to go up and take a look and see whether I might be able to detect any lights from the coast off the horizon. It was an odd situation, and I guess it was some strange quirk of the atmospheric switchboard operator's sense of humor.

Another calm night. I awoke at 0030 to see a passing ship in the distance. It was near calm, but we had steerage at the time, and I watched until the ship was safely over the horizon. At a 0515, I awoke to find we had gone aback and were heading southwest!

I stayed awake to watch the sunrise as it promised to be a beauty. The horizon was very clear, so I got the binoculars out to watch the sun's upper rim break the horizon. Soon it made its appearance, and I was surprised to find that the sun had apparently caught a case of green cheeses from the moon. Sure enough, it was green! A livid, apple green. The effect only lasted for an instant before the sun recovered its usual composure and orange color. But I'd sure caught it in a most compromising position.

Though I'd read of the phenomenon known as the "green flash" before, amazingly, this was the first time that I had actually observed it. The green flash is caused by the atmospheric refraction of the sun's rays which, at its maximum at the horizon, tends to separate the colors of the spectrum. On rising, the green image is the one that comes into view first and vice versa upon setting. Conditions have to be favorable. The same thing happens at sunset, of course, in reversed order. The atmosphere and horizon must be clear, and these, along with a temperature inversion, are the three main ingredients. A temperature inversion is where the air at, and near, the surface is cooler than that directly above, and the air is progressively warmer with increased height above the surface. In this case the night air had been warmer than the seawater and was thus causing an inversion effect.

On this day I did some work on the floorboards of the cabin sole, as the easterly force three glided us along on a northeasterly heading. Until now, many of the boards had just been cut to size and merely loosely fitted into place. But now I made them into panels, which were about a foot in width and easily removable with flush-fitting finger brass eyes that would fold out.

Our day's run was 68 miles in a north-northeasterly direction, and Guam was 500 miles off and Yap 175. The next day, Saturday, the 29^th of May, we made a similar course and a distance of 57 miles. Guam was now 479 miles away and Yap 200 miles. It looked as though we were destined to continue on just gaining very little easting for the amount of northing we were making. A quick look at the chart told me that if we had to approach Guam tacking at this angle, we'd have to continue on for another 500 miles before we could hope of making Guam on the next tack. Guam would then be about 450 miles to the south-southeast of us. At our present rate of speed, that would mean almost twenty more days! Not in the least encouraging!

But the light breeze changed to a more easterly direction which permitted us to make easting on the port tack. So we once again turned toward Yap, with the heading of southeast. I would let the breeze ultimately decide where we were heading. It continued intermittent and light. It was frustrating indeed seeing the distance between us and Guam closing at the pitiful rate of from only twenty to thirty miles per day.

The evening news reported that the death toll of Olga had now reached 175. Eight hundred thousand people were homeless, and ten towns were completely under water! And I'd had the crust to think that Olga had handled us roughly!

We continued on the port tack for almost three days, heading steadily southeastward with runs of 24 miles, 63 miles, and 82 miles. By noon on the 1^st of June, we were a mere 61 miles east-northeast of Yap, yet I wouldn't head for the island while I was still able to make some easting. I just couldn't give up that hard earned stuff.

The atoll of Ulithi was only thirty-five miles east of us. But the sky to the south and toward Ulithi took on such an ominous, stormy look, and there were so many squalls in sight in those directions, that I again headed north on the starboard tack just because the sky looked blue and inviting up that direction.

During these days of flaky winds and frequent squalls, I had busied myself as much as possible with little chores and projects that needed attention. After the floorboards, there was the toilet to repair. I dismantled it and glued the plastic pipe with epoxy and made some wooden chocks to better brace up the bowl and reinforce the plastic connector pipe which had before formed the only link between bowl and floor mounting. And, of course, I spent a lot of time reading. But I had also spent a disproportionate amount of time just handling the tiller and trimming sails as the wind played its tricks and as gusty squalls passed.

Time and again I would be rained awake at night and have to man the tiller as the wind gusted and the rain soaked my bedding. Then I would have to retire below for the rest of the night. I didn't like to sleep below, as it seemed that put me too far out of touch with the situation. I liked to be able to just open my eyes and check the course by looking up at the stars or, lacking stars, sitting up and looking at the compass. Usually the first freshening suggestion of air off an approaching squall would awake me too, just in time to shorten sail if it looked threatening enough – or man the tiller to luff her against a gusty blow, while I was also manning the sheets.

A massive buildup of cumulonimbus with huge vertical development had discouraged me from pursuing our course toward the southeast. I had been planning to sail right on down and pass within sight of Ulithi and change tacks to the northeast only after I was well south of the atoll. But now, with a freshening breeze from the northeast, which showed signs of staying around awhile, we were heading north-northeast and making a course good of only slightly east of north. It was blue sky that we were heading for, mainly. I didn't want any more storms, and that sky to the south looked as if anything could develop from it. Since this was a prime spawning ground for depressions during this time of year, I wasn't going to take any chances.

Yes, I was still spooked, and any great buildup of squally-looking clouds was like a flashing red light to me. Also, I thought, if a depression were forming to the south of me, it would likely move off quickly to the west by north, and the tail winds from it would be southwesterlies which would serve us well in our endeavors to reach Guam. But for the time being, they would be northeasterly, which was also all right with me, as long as they didn't become unruly. I could expect them to veer toward the east, then southeast, south, and finally southwest. I had it all figured out to work in our favor, if a depression should start a circulation forming in that quarter. But the first priority was to put as much distance between myself and any such eventuality as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile the barometer remained a reassuring 30.09 inches. However, a squall came up, and the wind increased to a force six for a short while and veered to the east, which tended to lend support to my theory of a building cyclonic condition to the south, and I didn't feel we had changed tacks any too soon.

By noon, the theory and plan were pretty much forgotten as the wind returned to the east by north, and I dropped the forming depression from my list of concerns, temporarily.

Not being satisfied with the almost northerly heading that we were now making, I put the boat back on the port tack and headed southeast again soon after noon, as the dark clouds appeared less threatening by then. But by mid-afternoon, we had tacked once again toward the north. The wind had built to a force five, and it was beginning to get rough, the seas being around four or five feet in height, and things weren't all that nice looking toward the southeast. Also, I could see that we would, in most probability, not be able to get close enough to sight Ulithi before darkness fell, and I didn't want to attempt a landfall at night, particularly a possibly dark, stormy one.

At 1630, still June 1^st, the mainsail came down again all by itself! My professionally spiced miniature liverpool splice had worked out of the halyard! I had been worried about that when I had put it in. I hadn't un-laid enough wire back to put enough tucks in the splice. I only put three in where there should have been at least five! I had thought it would be plenty strong, but, obviously, I'd been wrong about that.

This time I decided not to go aloft. Actually, I hadn't really had to go aloft the last time either, as there was a spare halyard at the masthead. The only problem was that it was rove with the hoisting part on the forward side of the mast. It was the halyard that was supposed to be for the yankee or foremost headsail, and it had been the one on which I had hoisted my bosun chair on the previous occasion. The sheave was built into the masthead, right alongside the main halyard sheave. I didn't use it for the yankee because the wire had an embarrassing way of riding up and over the lip of the sheave and jamming on the outside of the sheave. This was caused by the head of the yankee exerting a lateral lead on the halyard in a stiff breeze, causing it to jump the sheave. On two highly embarrassing occasions in Singapore, I’d had to go aloft to put the halyard back in the groove of the sheave so the yankee could be hauled down! So I had put an independent block at the masthead for the yankee halyard which was now a poly line.

On the previous occasion when the main had come down, I had declined to make the necessary alterations to make the original yankee halyard serve for the mainsail. But since the lead from the head of the mainsail to the sheave would be strongly downward, with very little pull to the side as in the case of the yankee, I decided to take a chance on rigging it that way. After that last experience aloft in a seaway, I was willing to go a long way to avoid another such strenuous and dangerous bit of exercise.

To facilitate the conversion was simple enough. I merely cut the nylon downhaul line off the halyard and used that end, which came down the after side of the mast, for the hoisting part, and spliced the downhaul line back into what had been the hoist end, which was led down the forward side of the mast.

In half an hour, I had the main back up and pulling, and it sure beat having to go aloft. But there was the slight worry of the possible jamming of the mainsail now. I could imagine what a troublesome position I would be in if it became impossible to lower the main sail in a hard blow. That could lead to some rather awkward eventualities which I preferred to dismiss from my mind.

Dawn the next morning again revealed a terrible display of threatening and onimous-looking cloud development which spread over the horizon from the west-northwest counterclockwise through the east-southeast, leaving only a window toward the northeast looking inviting. There were piles upon piles of cumulonimbus with streaks of altostratus and extensive spreads of cirrus above all. It certainly looked as though something sinister was developing – especially to the south southeast. The wind was still east by north, and we were still heading almost due north. It seemed we were just barely keeping pace with the northward development of the storm astern as it was spreading its tentacles. The wind was a force six, however, and we were making good time, plunging right along into an increasingly uncomfortable chop – whether or not we were making much yardage towards Guam – it was delightful just to be moving, period, and every inch counted.

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Chapter 27

Last Leg, and Guam at Last!

The previous evening, while I had been working on that mainsail halyard jerry rig, I had looked up just in time to notice that the yankee halyard had chaffed so bad up near the halyard block that it was just about to part and carry away. I had seen it just in time, and stopped work on the mainsail halyard long enough to lower the yankee, trim the halyard, put a new splice in it, and hoist the sail again. It had been a close call. A little longer and that halyard would have gone adrift, and I would probably have had to go aloft again to retrieve and re-reeve it.

It seemed that everything was trying to go wrong at once, and I thought for a moment, attempting to anticipate what would go wrong next.

The bobstay would break, I thought. That would be one of the most serious things that could happen to the rigging. Holding the bowsprit down, the bobstay took the strain of the entire ball of wax from the aftermost backstays forward. The strain on the bobstay in a stiff breeze is enormous, especially when the vessel is close-hauled, beating into the wind. I always considered the bobstay on the vessel one of the weak points. It should be the strongest piece of rigging of all.

We'd already had a bad experience with the bobstay back in Singapore long before the present voyage had been contemplated. The original galvanized wire bobstay was plenty strong in itself, but one day, while close hauled in a fresh breeze, it had pulled free of one of its stainless steel terminal fittings – with the near loss of the whole rig! As a consequence, I'd lost my confidence in wire and that type of fitting, and had replaced the galvanized wire with a 3/8-inch galvanized chain.

So, I really had had no reason to doubt the strength of the bobstay or its fittings now. It was just that my mind works that way. It seemed we were going through a spell of bad luck with the rigging in general, and that just occurred to me as the likely next step in the continuing cycle of things going wrong. For no other reason than this – call it latent superstition – I was a bit uneasy.

Think too much of the devil and he may just pop out of the woodwork. At 0630, I heard and felt a sharp pop somewhere in the rigging. It reverberated throughout the entire boat and had sounded almost like a small calibre rifle report. I instinctively looked forward at the bowsprit. It appeared to be raised a little higher than it should be. Yet the masts and rigging still seemed to be rigid. I ran forward to peer down at the bobstay. The worst of my fears was almost realized. Almost, but not quite – but too close for comfort.

The head of one of the three half-inch stainless steel bolts which held the bobstay chain plate to the stem had popped off! That sort of a failure hadn't occurred to me. It was the top one, the one that had the most strain pulling up and forward on it by the bobstay chain. The other two bolts, fortunately, had held. But it had resulted in what amounted to be about a half-inch slackening of the bobstay and forestay and had been one hell of a shock to the entire rig.

Immediately I lowered the yankee to ease the strain, and after a closer inspection of the entire rig, I found there had been no apparent damage done. But the thought that the head could be popped off a half-inch stainless steel bolt was slightly unnerving. The chain plate itself was a quarter inch by one inch stainless steel strap. How long until it would fail? It just didn't seem possible that the head could pop off of a half inch bolt. There was a heavy strain on the bobstay all right, but not that heavy. I was fast losing my faith in stainless steel fittings of all types.

The other two bolts appeared to be pretty strong. I knew the middle one to be new, as I'd pulled and replaced it before departing Singapore. But since the old one that I'd pulled had looked to be in such good shape, I hadn't pulled the other two, assuming they would be in more or less the same, like new, condition as the one I'd pulled appeared to be. I knew one of the remaining bolts was through-bolted as I could see where it came through into the inside of the stem. I assumed it to be the lower one, which was good, as it meant that the strongest bolt was still intact.

This stainless steel bolt failure did very little for my confidence in the remaining too bolts. I resolved not to put the yankee back up until the wind was force four or less. I took a little slack up in the backstay turnbuckles to compensate for the half-inch or so lost in the bobstay.

That done, and feeling a little easier about the situation, I re-spliced the main halyard wire so that it would be ready if the mainsail came down again. I hoped I would not have to re-reeve it until we were anchored in a quiet harbor. This time I was sure to put five full tucks in the splice. Then, in addition, I parceled the eye with leather and served over it tightly with twine, well waxed with bee's wax.

The wind moderated a little by 1100, and I put the yankee back up, and again we were clipping along at a fair rate of speed. But we weren't getting much closer to Guam by going north. At noon there were 347 miles of water separating us from that island. We were twenty-three days out of San Bernadino Strait and a total of thirty-one days and six hours out of Manila.

We were now overdue in Guam by one day, and it appeared it would be many more before the voyage was ended. Our passage from Kuching to Manila had lasted twenty-three days and six hours, and we had covered 1,562 miles. That had seemed a slow enough passage. But this one already had it beat, as we had only logged 1,244 miles since leaving the San Bernadino Strait. It was simply an all uphill road to go, and that was all there was to it. We were getting no special breaks or privileges, that was for sure, and I wondered if it might not have something to do with the way I lived. Maybe I just wasn't up to snuff somehow.

The morning of Thursday, the 3^rd of June, started at 0400 when I was rained awake by a passing squall and had to move down below for my last hour or two of rest. Then it dawned fair except for a high film of cirrus in addition to the usual cumulus puffs. The wind was holding northeasterly at force three, and the barometer was standing at 30.11 – and a six-inch flying fish had jumped aboard in order to add himself to my breakfast menu. And he hit the spot.

For the first time we were able to receive KATB, one of Guam's radio stations, so I immediately had the feeling that progress had been made during the night. We were on the port tack now and making good a heading of almost east-southeast, which was the most easterly heading we'd been able to make since the 25^th of May. But, as luck would have it, now it was the eastern horizon that was beginning to look dark and threatening with a growing buildup of cumulonimbus clouds and a thickening of the cirrus forms above them. By mid-morning, however, we had come up with the squally area, and things weren't as bad as they had appeared. The wind increased to force four, and there was a little rain but nothing more except more of the same in the offing.

Our day's run was 77 miles, and the course made good was southeast by east. Guam was 305 miles distant. That distance was slowly but steadily being whittled down. It seemed a lot more slowly than steadily, however, as it continued to be just plain difficult to go east.

The main ship's freshwater tank went dry that afternoon, and I put ten more gallons in from two jerry cans. I calculated that my average freshwater consumption had been roughly 3/4 of a gallon per day since departing Manila.

On the morning of the 4^th, breakfast consisted of my last bit of oatmeal cereal, putting another item on the out-of-stock list.

We had another fair day's run of 70 miles in about the same direction as the previous day. Guam was now 263 miles toward the northeast. It was too bad that these day's runs couldn't have been directly toward Guam. But that’s one of the advantages of a sailboat – quite often, you have to go the long way around to get where you want to go. And the gods seemed determined that it was going to be a long, slow tack, or series thereof, all the way to goal. The breezes now seemed to have pretty much steadied down to northeast – in other words they were blowing almost directly from the direction of Guam. If we'd had northeast winds all along, such as the ones that we were getting now, we'd have been in Guam days ago. Now that we had the northeast wind, we were almost exactly southwest of Guam. Frustrating, but very much in accordance to Carr's First Law. I had expected more easterly winds, really, which was one reason I had continued going east-southeast for so long. According to the pilot charts for the month of June, the winds are from the east 53 percent of the time, so I though I'd sail southeast by east while the northeast wind prevailed and be ready to sail northeast when the wind veered to east again. But the winds hadn't consulted the chart and seemed utterly unaware of the proper percentages.

Early in the evening, the wind did veer a little, and we came about onto the starboard tack. But since we could only make a heading just east of due north, we actually made our headway a tiny bit west of north on the first day of that tack. But we remained on the starboard tack until the afternoon of the 7^th of June, making 70 miles on the 5^th, 74 on the 6^th, and a whopping 94 to noon on the 7^th, all generally in a north by easterly direction.

There had seemed to be little marine life in evidence on this leg of the passage. About the only things we'd seen were a few porpoises and some little fish which swam along under the boat. But now, a few birds were paying us visits again. There was a small type of albatross that occasionally made an appearance and some graceful bosun birds. One of the boatswain birds acted as if he would like nothing better than to land on board, but he was a little leery of both me and the motion of the boat. He would cruise in close, as if to land, and the boat would roll, swinging the mast and sails at him, and he'd let out an indignant squawk, pour on the coals, and speed off, only to repeat the performance a few minutes later.

On the morning of the 6^th, I cooked up the last of the cornmeal for breakfast bread. Scratch another item. Preparing meals was beginning to require less variety and more and more imagination. We still had plenty of rice and red beans, however, so I began leaning more heavily towards those items. One day I might have red beans and rice, and another I may vary the menu slightly by serving up rice and red beans. What I really dreaded most was the day when I would pop the last of our popcorn. Popcorn had become a daily staple to me, as I would almost always have a snack of it and a cup of hot chocolate in the late evenings as I sat at the top of the companionway watching the sails and sky.

On the same morning, I pulled another silly stunt that caused me to have to go aloft again. It was about 1000 when a squall was threatening ahead, and I debated whether or not to drop the yankee as a "better safe than sorry" gesture in case of strong winds. None of the earlier squalls had had anything stronger than a force five maybe a short puff of six. But I opted to play it safe, and went forward after slacking off the yankee sheet so that it could be lowered. But at that moment the squall was upon us and, with the slacked sheet, the yankee began flogging violently. I removed the halyard from its cleat on the mast and lowered away, then quickly went up to the forestay to hand it the rest of the way down. In my haste, however, I had failed to secure the end of the halyard back on its cleat. Up went the bitter end of the halyard!

It was out of reach before I noticed it, and on up it went, the wind assisting by blowing it far out to windward. Through the halyard block at the masthead it ran, and in no time the whole thing had fallen into the sea to leeward! What a pin-headed blunder that had been, I thought! I had a mind to have myself subjected to the cat-o-nine tails, or maybe keel hauled. But, I reasoned, it would be punishment enough just having to go aloft again. That in itself would bear a close enough resemblance to swinging from the yardarm.

With a feeling of great remorse and self-pity, I pulled the downed halyard aboard and coiled it neatly, considering, as I did so, just how to go about the new task at hand. Now there was only one halyard in place on which to ascend the mast, and that was the one that the mainsail now occupied. I would have to use it, obviously, and trust my life to that little wire with its splice.

As I lowered the mainsail, the boat began rolling heavily in the increasing chop and force four wind. So I decided that when I hoisted the top block and tackle up to the masthead, I'd also raise the mainsail again along with it. That way I would have the double advantage of the roll being dampened considerably by the sail area and the sail slides serving as little toeholds to assist me in my ascent on the bosun's chair. The mainsail being up also insured that I would only swing about half as much as otherwise would be the case. I could swing outboard, but the sail would stop me from swinging back all the way past the mast to the other side.

Going aloft this time made the last time seem like child's play. When I started up, the deck was dry. But the higher up I got, the more heavily the boat plunged, and soon the foredeck was covered with water from the spray that was boarding. A slight increase in the wind, or deeper plunging caused by my weight aloft, made the boat fairly pitch into the seas with a will, completely heedless of my thrashing and struggling aloft in the bosun's chair. Before I was halfway up to the spreaders, I knew I'd made a serious mistake in not heaving the vessel to, but I was too far up to turn back. Had I gone back down, I feared, I wouldn't have had enough strength left for another climb starting from scratch. So I persevered. By the time I was at the crosstrees, I knew damned well that persevering had been a mistake.

The strains and struggles that I underwent getting to the masthead in the violent pitching and rolling defy my ability to properly describe. I know that the top of the mast must have been describing twenty-five-foot circles up there. And they weren't nice round circles either. They were anything from a full circle to very flat ellipses with very sharp turns at the outer ends which whipped me around violently. It took all of my strength to maintain just a very mere semblance of control of myself in spite of being able to hold onto the luff of the sail and toe the sail track hanks. In truth, I did very little toeing except that required to land me a little less violently against the sail or mast when I swung into them at high speed. Since the pitching was the most violent motion, the motion kept trying to wrap both me and my gear around the mast and forestays, as I clawed continually for a hold.

Upon reaching the masthead, to my great concern, I found that the shock caused by the popping of the bolt head off the bobstay chain plate had apparently jarred the masthead so violently that one of the glue joints had opened from about a foot and a half below the masthead to two and a half feet down on the after starboard side of the mast. That was bad news, as the mast would probably have to be pulled in order to affect proper repairs.

With great difficulty I managed to reeve the two halyards through their respective sheaves: the wire mainsail halyard, which I had repaired for the second time, and the yankee halyard which was a poly line rove through a standard block shackled to a flange on the masthead collar. I made the yankee halyard fast to the bosun's chair to take down with me as I descended. Then I weighted the wire halyard end with a shackle and lowered it on down to the deck by itself. Then I started lowering myself down.

But my elevator got jammed at the crosstree level! I looked about to discover why and found that as I had been descending, I had been pulling the weighted end of the wire halyard up again off the deck. It had, of course, begun swinging wildly about, and in my terrible efforts to keep myself under control, I'd fail to notice it. And while I wasn't looking, it had begun wrapping itself around and around the starboard mainmast backstay, the main boom topping lift, and the hauling part of my bosun's chair tackle, until it had secured itself well with many round turns, stopping my downward progress. The more I pulled, trying to free it, the tighter the turns got. This was a very embarrassing circumstance, and I was glad nobody was watching.

It was about a fifteen-foot horizontal distance from the mast to the boom topping lift wire at that point, but swinging out there would be easy with the vessel pitching wildly as it was. All I had to do was let go of the mast when the boat went up onto a swell and grab the backstay before I swung past it. Then, I planned to make my life line fast to the backstay before proceeding to swing on to the topping lift. But things got even more complicated when, as I grabbed the backstay, the bosun's chair and I promptly made two complete swings around it, and I became lashed to the backstay. And the next pitch tried its best to wrap us up even more tightly. For a moment I had visions of becoming a permanent fixture of the standing rigging, as things seemed to be getting quite out of hand rather fast.

With none too little difficulty, I managed to reverse the direction of swing around the backstay on the next couple of pitches, and managed to unwind myself. The stay let me go, and I crashed back to the mast, to which I clung while rethinking the procedure. I then swung back to the backstay and tied my safety line to it. I'd had to detach my safety line from the mast in order to do my swinging act. So now, if the halyard my bosun's chair uphaul block was made fast to gave way, I'd shoot down the backstay until I either hit the gunwale or the tangled lines fetched up and stopped me somewhere in between. The trapeze act demanded this breach of safety precautions.

Now, with one end of my safety line made fast to the backstay, and the other end made fast to my waist, all I had to do was make sure it was long enough to allow me to swing from the mast to the topping life at the luff edge of the sail. It just had to be long enough for me to grab the topping lift when I swung back to it, but short enough to prevent me from swinging around the topping lift and further entangling myself. In that way, with careful timing with regard to the vessel's roll, I was able on the next try to swing aft and grab the topping lift wire – bouncing against the mainsail like a vertical trampoline enroute.

Being tied to the backstay, and a grasp on the topping lift, I was able to maintain enough control to unwrap the offending halyard (using my one free hand), and free the tail of my bosun's chair tackle. It wasn't all that easy because those lines and wires seemed to have a mind of their own, and had apparently fallen in love with the topping lift. In more time than it takes to write all of this, I bounced and swung back to the mast and was once again free to resume my descent to the deck, happy not to have to spend the night hanging around the crosstrees like a common criminal.

The entire ordeal had taken two whole hours and had taxed my muscles and nerves to near their limits. I was a battered, sore, and tired sailor. But I was also very happy – and by 1545, we had the mainsail and yankee back up on their proper halyards, and we were making hay while the sun still shined.

By noon on the 7^th of June, we were about 137 miles due west of Guam. Naturally, that's the day that the wind finally got around to blowing from due east. It seemed there was just no winning for losing. It was going to be a tough beat and tack all the way home!

I had intended to continue toward the north-northeast on the starboard tack for a day or two more, but there was a squall ahead which prompted me to change to the port tack. Since we were able to do about southeast on that tack, I decided to keep it there for the time being. At least we had a good breeze, and we were again knocking down the miles and more or less in a desirable direction. At 1800, I had to shorten sail by the yankee, but we were still heeled over about twenty degrees and pounding hard in a short, rough sea. We wouldn't be long in reaching Guam at that rate, I thought, if it would only hold.

Still, in spite of the good breeze, there was something to make things seem frustrating. Without the driving power of the yankee, the Semangat just didn't seem to have the oomph to cope with the kind of seas we were heading into. It seemed we would do a virtual stop each time we plunged out of a trough and into an oncoming sea. Yet I felt I could not take a chance on raising the faithful yankee to remedy the situation in this strength of breeze. If anything drastic happened to the masts or the rigging, where I could not carry the yankee or main, the jig would be up. I knew we couldn’t make Guam no matter how close we were, short of being able to motor all the rest of the way. But we didn't have enough fuel left to run more than a few hours at best.

With the west setting current and easterly winds, the best we could hope for under a jury rig would maybe be Yap. If not that, it would be destination Philippines! Many a boat, broken down off the west coast of Guam, has fetched up in the Philippines weeks later. That's where the winds and currents would carry us if we were unable to sail. No, we could afford to take no chances at this late stage of the game. It would have been a classic irony, had we come so close only to drift helplessly back over all that hard earned mileage!

The wind continued at a healthy force four and five throughout the night with some occasional sprinkles of rain. But there hadn't been enough rain to drive me from the cockpit. However, at 0500 when I sat up and looked around, there was a large rain squall approaching. It hit with unusual severity, the winds going right up to a force seven or eight. I slacked the sheets as the lee rail dipped heavily under, and then lowered the mainsail. The squall only lasted long enough for me to get the mainsail gasketed, of course. Then it went to almost dead calm for about five minutes so I could be subjected to the pitch, roll, and bang treatment for awhile! But then, by 0600, the breeze had resumed where it left off before the squall, a good force five – just a little too strong to take a chance at hoisting the yankee!

Squalls seemed to be rampant in the area, for at 0730 we had almost an exact repeat of the earlier squall. It too lasted only long enough for me to get the main down and furled. The next time I hoisted the main, I put a reef in it in hopes that I could soon put the yankee up also. But the prospects for it didn't appear too promising, as squall after squall kept presenting themselves.

Mid-morning we went over to the starboard tack to avoid a squally area, heading north until coming about again at 1245. We tacked again at 1445 and I put the yankee up in a force four northeasterly breeze. At 1700 we tacked again to avoid a squall, but it got us anyway.

We had a 73-mile day, which wasn't too bad, but it had only got us 37 miles closer to our destination. I couldn't rightly complain, though, for things could have been a lot worse. Guam was now only 100 miles to the east.

Supper was red beans and rice with ginseng flower tea, followed by a beautifully clearing evening with a bright moon. I sat at the top of the companionway and thought of how close we were to the end of our journey. I looked forward to it with an odd mixture of anticipation and regret.

Naturally, I longed to see Chi and the children and my sister-in-law Tuc. I needed to know that they were well and had weathered Pamela okay. And I wanted them to know that I had survived. But there was a deep regret too – for a world would be coming to its end for me, at least temporarily, and quite possibly permanently. I feared the strong possibility that circumstances would not permit the continuation of the voyage beyond Guam, as much as I would like to continue on with the whole family aboard and cruise Micronesia before heading for the Hawaiian Islands and eventually the West Coast of the United States.

Even as I speculated, deep down I knew becoming a cruising family was just wishful thinking. I knew that if I were to go on in Semangat, it would have to be alone, and I couldn't foresee any means by which I could afford to do it. With a family to support ashore, I would have to return to work, and there would not likely be much of that in Guam for my profession. That would mean we would probably have to sell the Semangat, for I could not leave her there for months at a time while returning to work in Singapore. These were painful thoughts, for the Semangat had been a home and, for a very short time, a way of life that I had always dreamed of. I had been fortunate indeed to have been able to indulge myself for as long as I had under our present circumstances. Responsibility to my family would now have to take its proper priority in my life once again.

It didn't seem right that I should be approaching the end of my journey with a feeling of regret and sadness rather than enthusiasm, but I have to admit it. In spite of my love for my family and desire to once again see them well and happy, had I known they were all fine, and had I known them to be free of financial needs and worries, I would have gladly headed for those beckoning islands and atolls to the south – those islands bearing such names as Faraulep, Ifalik, Lamotrek, and Satawal. But duty called, as it always eventually does to those who have known responsibility, and there was nothing that could change it, for few of us are free men at heart and able to cast off life's encumbering bonds.

The 9^th of June was another day of squalls, calms, and confused seas. I awoke an hour after midnight, just in time to see a large squall bearing down. I doused the yankee and bore up to a force seven with slacked sheets, spilling wind and almost luffing. Then, after I'd chickened out and downed the main as well, the wind dying immediately, as usual, upon that sail being gasketed.

At 0200, we passed under a dark curtain of threatening-looking clouds. The main was back up, and we were just inching along in light airs which I was expecting momentarily to change into a roaring gale. Meanwhile, recently squall-whipped seas, in their confusion, kept up a continual sound of breaking water all around. I sat at the head of the companionway, mainsheet in hand, ready to slack away the instant that the wind started up in all its fury. But no fury came.

The breeze merely increased to a force four, and then died down somewhat. But there was something uncanny about it. It wasn't a strong breeze, yet it set up a mournful-sounding howl in the rigging which was entirely out of proportion to the breeze at hand. It was strange to the point of being almost ghostly – having the sound of a light gale in the rigging but with very little actual wind in evidence. It was a low and doleful kind of sound that seemed entirely unfamiliar and alien. The wind could not have been more than a force four at most, and I've never noticed such a wind producing a sound like that before or since. Perhaps it was just that the atmosphere was such that the wind sounded different, or maybe there was a stronger wind in the upper rigging than was evident lower down at deck level. It remains a mystery. That morning it lent an eerie feeling to the already dreary and foreboding surrounding sea and sky.

At supper I cooked up the last of the beans and had them with rice. About the only food left aboard now was rice and canned soups and maybe enough popcorn left for two more evening snacks!

We had made 53 miles from noon to noon on this day, and Guam was only 66 miles away. In 24 hours, we had only closed the gap by thirty-four miles. But, in spite of the cantankerous squally weather we were now experiencing, I was looking forward to sighting Guam early the next morning, as the winds were a little better than they had been on the previous day.

It had been my hope to only have to make one more tack and make Guam on the next reach. The skies in the direction of southeast looked bad, but at 1900, we came about onto the port tack and headed for Guam anyway. I was impatient with heading away from it even though it would all be the same in the end. Now we'd merely have to make one or two more short tacks.

At 2000 we passed through the first of the squalls that had been to the southeast. It didn't produce any wind to speak of and, beyond it, the sky even looked encouraging. There was just a thin blanket of altostratus or maybe cirrus clouds with the moon showing through.

At a 2045, the first tangible evidence that we were approaching land manifested itself in the form of a large aircraft flying low overhead, heading in the direction of Guam. At least that's where I assumed that it was heading. I hoped so!

It had been twenty-seven days since our last sight of any land, and I couldn't help but speculate as to how disconcerting it would be if we failed to find Guam as expected. I had been navigating by sun, stars, moon, and planets for many years and more or less took the ability to do so for granted. But this was the very first time I had been 100 percent responsible for the navigation of a vessel from one point to a small, far distant, point upon the ocean. As a mate on a large ship, there had always been the other mates also navigating and the captain continually checking, so that one could hardly make a serious mistake without catching it. As a captain, there were always the mates assisting with the navigation. I had never had to be absolutely dependent upon myself, as I had been on this trip. Although I took the reliability of my navigation pretty much for granted (it wasn't like so many single-handers and first-time navigators who had to teach themselves as they went, and weren't sure until the last minute when they had made their landfall whether or not they were doing everything right), there was that suppressed doubt that lingered in the back of my mind, what if?

I knew Guam would be there in the morning – right out of the horizon – but what if it wasn't? The prospect of successfully making a landfall at so small a place on such a large ocean would give even me, a long experienced navigator, a gratifying sense of accomplishment that I’d never before been able to enjoy. Of course, Guam isn't really all that small. It is a relatively high island with mountains that reach above twelve hundred feet, and it is some sixty-odd miles long. It would be hard to miss for anybody who knew just a little about how to navigate by celestial observations. But it wouldn't be hard to miss if you didn't know something of what you were doing – or if you were maybe a calendar day off!

It was a grand feeling to think that with just a chart, a sextant, a timepiece, and some tables, I could zero right in on any little point desired anywhere on the globe – and tomorrow would be proof of it. This was a sense of accomplishment that could have never been attained had I not had the opportunity to do it alone.

It wouldn't matter how many years I navigated large ships or tugs, or how many successful landfalls I had made over the years in all parts of the world. The feeling could never have been the same as in this particular anticipated landfall. Navigation is a matter of teamwork on a large ship, no matter how skilled you may be. You could never say "I" did it without meaning "we" did it, or even "they" did it for me.

Even now I couldn't, in all sincerity, say that it was only I. It was the Semangat and I. We did it. But we had done it alone, without backing, encouragement, or communications with anybody else, and I think that was one of the most unique aspects of our journey. There has seldom been a yachtsman who has sailed on a journey of any length and accomplished it as "alone" as we had. From the time of our solitary departure from Singapore, without so much as a single waving hand to bid us farewell, until now, it remained probably one of the most solitary voyages ever intentionally undertaken in modern times. At our two ports of call, there was not a single individual who had expected us or even suspected of our existence until our arrival. And then, the departures were again just as solitary and unnoticed as the one from Singapore had been. So it had indeed been a solitary journey from beginning to end. But it had been the way I had wanted it – an experience exclusively my own – which I now wish to share with those who may be interested.

On Thursday, the 10^th of June 1976, I awoke at 0320 to see that the sky had cleared and the stars were staring down at me. There was a faint luminous glow on the horizon bearing about southeast. The wind was east at force four, and we were making pretty good time under full sail. At dawn I strained my eyes toward the southeast to see the land. I couldn't see it yet, but I knew it was there.

At 0555, land ho! Two points on the port bow! It was still about 30 miles distant and very faint in the morning haze, but it was well above the horizon. At 0600 I advanced clocks two hours to conform with Guam daylight savings time, so it was all of a sudden eight o'clock. We had been twenty-eight days out of the sight of land and forty days out from Manila.

At 0945, the breeze died to a light force three. I cooked breakfast of fried rice and turned to, cleaning up about the boat. By noon we were practically becalmed, so I cranked up the engine, intent on making port without spending another night at sea. Channel fever had set in.

At 1500, we were still motoring and attempting to void several squalls that had developed in the area. But we couldn't miss them all, so I got into one particularly wet one and stopped for a good freshwater bath. The rain really poured, and I soaped up real good on the foredeck. But, of course, I had to rinse off in salt water, because the rain stopped just a little too soon. My soaping up had been the signal for the rain to stop – Carr's First Law.

By 1900, Orote Point was six miles off, the entrance to Apra harbor just to the left of it, and a light breeze sprang up and seemed to hold. At 1940, I shut the engine down and continued under sail. We tacked southeastward towards Mount Lamlam, the highest point on the island. At a 2015, we came about to the starboard tack with Orote Point bearing fine on the starboard bow. Not far to go now.

I popped the last of my popcorn and fixed a cup of hot chocolate and sat at my accustomed place in the companionway for what would be the last time on the voyage. Now, protected from sea and swell in the lee of the island, our final approach to our destination was magnificently smooth and serene. The airs did not fail us, and afforded a truly romantic, and peaceful, climax to what had been a long and sometimes trying passage.

Looking up at the massive rock wall that was Orote Point, my mind wondered back a year. There were vivid memories associated with that landmark and the flat landscape above and behind it. Just a little over a year before, there had been a sprawling refugee camp up there, and there for a short while I, along with my family, had been a resident. Tent 31-C had been our address. The memory just didn't seem real. It seemed a distant dream. And now here I was, returning to Guam once again to be reunited with wife and children.

The period of the last fourteen months of my life had been one of calamitous disruption and turmoil, which was terminating with the end of an experience which I shall treasure for the rest of my life. Not a moment of that time is likely to be forgotten for as long as I live. Nor was the map of the future altogether precise and clear – for our next move, which seemed inevitable, was as yet as unknown as it seemed inevitable, for I did not intend to make Guam our home.

At 2125, we came about to port tack once again, this time standing in toward the harbor entrance, the end of the Glass breakwater on the port bow and Orote Point's jagged rocks off to starboard. Arrival was official at 2130 as we passed easily between the entrance buoys.

Once safely inside the harbor, I lowered the sails, cranked up the engine, and proceeded under power to search for a place to moor or anchor for the night. It's about three miles from the breakwater entrance to the main dock area, and I was unfamiliar with the locations of the docks and yacht club anchorage. I was passing close alongside the Dillingham dock at about 2230 when we were hailed by some crew members on one of the tugs moored there.

They invited me to moor alongside for the night and invited me aboard for a coffee and a shower. I readily took them up on the offer and brought the Semangat alongside the tug and moored for the night. It was apparent that they knew something about yachting, or maybe it was more obvious that I needed a shower than I had imagined, in spite of my earlier attempt while still at sea. Anyway, those fellows made a fine welcoming party. They introduced themselves and were quite surprised when I told them where I had just come from.

There was Captain Erik Harrison, Captain Bill Newcomb, George Quick, and John Falvey. I was delighted to find that two of them, Bill and George, were "yachties" themselves, as they put it, both owning and living aboard their boats there in Guam. It was also gratifying to learn their boats were both among the fortunate survivors of the recent super typhoon, Pamela.

After a brief time, during which they asked some of the particulars of our voyage and told me of the damage that had been sustained by the boating community of Guam, they considerately allowed me to retire, knowing that I must be beat. And that I was. All of a sudden I felt as tired as could be.

Once back on board the Semangat, I didn't find sleep very quick in coming. My bedding was back down on the stateroom bunk again, and the stillness and quiet, punctured with an occasional nudge against the tire fenders of the tug, all seemed too unfamiliar. The idea that the whole thing was over was difficult to reconcile in my mind. Could it really be over? Thoughts, too, of my family, so near at hand now but unaware of my presence, rolled over and over in my mind. How were they? It seemed years rather than less than four months since I'd seen them off on the plane to Singapore.

On Friday, the 11^th of June 1976, when I awoke at 0800, I was sore all over, as if I had been battered around all night in a choppy sea on a hard cockpit seat. Yet it had been an oddly quiet night, that first night in port. I just wasn't used to the boat being so still. When I went up on deck and looked about, the sight that I beheld was one of storm-cluttered docks which had not yet been cleaned up, battered yachts, and foundered ships. But the strangest thing was that all the vegetation seemed gone. Guam's trees and bushes had been denuded, and the few coconut trees I could see from where our vantage were in a sad and sorry bedraggled state. It had the aspect of late autumn or winter in the temperate zone, when the leaves are all off the trees and things look bleak and gray in waiting for the season's first snows.

The tug we were moored alongside had to leave for a run to Saipan with a barge that morning, so we shifted outboard of a barge at the next berth, to wait for the port officials.

A Guam customs and health officer, named Mr. Cruz, came aboard at a 0815 and looked around the boat a little, perhaps with the idea of finding a haul of contraband. I handed him a crew list and a customs declaration. This time it was a mistake to declare the ships armaments – that we had an M-2 aboard. He politely confiscated it, saying I could get it back by applying for a firearms permit and retrieving it at the police armory. But, in fact, that was the last I saw of it.

The customs claimed that since it was an ex-military weapon, and, since I had no documents or bill of sale to prove ownership, it was therefore not ownable by me. I contended that I owned it because it was mine. It had been given to me by a friend in Singapore. It had been given to him before that, and no telling how many times it had changed hands before that. I pointed out that, after all, possession is nine-tenths of the law. They quite agreed and pointed out that it was now in their possession. Anyway, I hated to loose that rifle, though I really had no further use for it. But it was the principle of the thing that I found most disagreeable. I don't doubt that one of those customs officers now has that weapon and calls it his own.

A female immigration officer came down about noon and looked warily down at the boat from the barge deck above. I smiled up at her and invited her aboard, trying not to gaze too intently up her skirt. But she declined to climb down, asking only for a crew list and the passports. She also desired to see all hands on deck. It was a little disconcerting to have to look up at her from my vantage point. In spite of her slightly arrogant demeanor, she was somewhat attractive. And her skirt revealed a shapely pair of legs that went quite a ways up, which I had to try hard not to see.

I went below, saying I'd be right back with the crew list and all hands. When I mustered myself up beneath her, and handed her the list and passport, she peered at the list and at me in turn, with something of a puzzled look, and said simply, “That will do.” She departed without asking any further questions, and I was fully cleared to go ashore. The voyage was truly over.

THE END

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VOYAGE ABSTRACT

Departed Singapore: 1100 (11:00 a.m.), Sunday, 7 March 1976
Arrived Kuching:
Departed Kuching:
Arrived Manila:
Departed Manila: 6
Arrived Guam 2130 (9:30 p.m.), Thursday, 10 June 1976

Total Voyage time, per calendar: 3 months, 3 days, 11 hours, 30 minutes
Time changes: 4 hours, 30 minutes

Sailing times, distances sailed, and average speeds
	Sailing Times	Dist.(nm)	Spd. (knts)
Singapore to Kuching	07d, 06h, 00m	410	2.36 kts.
River Transits	00d, 10h, 20m	40	3.90 kts.
Kuching to Manila	23d, 06h, 00m	1,562	2.80 kts.
Manila to Guam	40d, 12h, 30m	2,259	2.32 kts.
Totals	71d, 10h, 50m	4,371	2.55 kts.
Total time under power	76h, 50m
Total actual voyage time, including port time	93d, 07h, 00m

Air distance from Singapore to Guam: 2,529 nm
Shortest steamer route: 2,934 nm

Original manuscript completed 22 June 1979 on board the Seismic Survey Ship, M/V Patrick E. Haggarty in the North Sea, latitude 59° 12'N, 002° 24'E, doing a survey for Esso (Balder), while I served as master. Manuscript was begun 16 May 1979 on board while doing a survey off the coast of Germany in the German Bight.

William R. Carr
22 June 1979

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Afterwards

Often I have read books similar in nature to this one and come away rather disappointed because of the author's neglect to let me, the reader, know what he did, or intended to do next. I have been left wondering if that was really the end – could I expect a sequel? Were there to be other books about new adventures? Or, did the author settle down to a rather hum-drum, "normal" nine-to-five type of existence?

Whether or not I have succeeded in capturing his interest and curiosity with regard to this present work, I do not intend to leave the reader wondering. Regrettably, however, I can offer no promise of a direct sequel to my Semangat adventure. It would indeed seem that with my arrival in Guam, my all too brief career as a cruising sailor same to an end, at least for the foreseeable future. On the other hand, I would like to assure the reader that I have not succumbed entirely to what might be termed a normal, nine-to-five existence either. Nor will I deny the possibility of an eventual sequel to this text. However, for the time being my sailing career with regard to "sailing boats" has been relegated to the place of so many favored ports-of-call that have become pleasant memories, but still beckoning from afar. Cruising under sail has once again become the dream it had been before, and continues to be.

After a little over a year in Guam, during which I lived aboard the Semangat with my family and worked as a harbor tug captain, I found a buyer for my beloved Semangat. It was a painful decision for me to sell her, and I had continued to make plans for the continuation of my voyage across the Pacific right up until the time when the money finally changed hands and the Semangat was no longer mine. The continued incompatibility of my wife and children with the sailing life was what proved decisive in the matter. However, I had set a deadline. Had the Semangat not sold before a certain date, I was bound to set sail alone once again for points east. The plan was that I'd sail to Honolulu, leaving my family in Guam until I'd arrived and found employment at that destination. Then Chi and the kids would join me there. A suitable buyer had come forth at the eleventh hour, however, and my cruising days were thus extinguished, to my great sorrow.

Yet the sale of the Semangat was not all sorrow and pain for me. It was somewhat like departing from one lovely port-of-call and immediately setting my sights for another, beckoning over the horizon. It presented new opportunities and the potential for going on to new goals and pursuing other dreams, long dormant, but equal alluring. It was just one more turning point upon the road of life.

Since 1967 I had owned a hundred acres of some of the most picturesque real estate imaginable, nestled in the forest covered hills of Southern Illinois. During that time I had often thought of that farm and wondered if I would ever be able to live there and make something even more beautiful and productive of it. I wondered whether I would spend the rest of my life half a world away from the land of my birth; and for many years it seemed that would be the case.

Circumstances had seemed to dictate as much, with my fascination with the Orient remaining undiminished and my budding family seemingly quite alien to, and incompatible with, the prospects of life in rural mid-west U.S.A. However, my circumstances had been radically altered by the momentous events of war and world politics, and all at once, the farm seemed to be the only alternative worthy of my attention. It was a place for a sailor to "come home to" and start afresh. Once again, it seemed that fate had intervened in order to open the opportunity for me to pursue the realization of long cherished and suppressed dreams and ambitions.

Throughout life I had always held that kind of life that I would like to lead, second only to my desire to enjoy the incomparable freedom of sail and the high seas, was one close to nature on the land. Being free upon ones own little piece of ground was, to me, the next best thing to the freedom of the small ship upon the oceans of the world. The comparison is perhaps not as incongruous as it might first seem, for both life-styles can be as demanding, and as rewarding, and very similarly conductive of the feeling of freedom, independence, and self-reliance.

It was September of 1977 when we first arrived at Possum Ridge Ranch, the name I had long before adopted for the farm – and since then I have, to one degree or another, been engaged in the tasks of home and farm building, or simply the occupation popularly known these days – as in days long past – as "homesteading".

The road to self-reliance upon the land is a rather rocky one, however. I have had to make several compromises along the way in the interests of domestic harmony on behalf of my wife Chi, who found the frugality of the life I had envisioned a bit too Spartan and severe for her tastes and capacities. She failed to see the value of the simple and perhaps more primitive way of life to which I aspired. But despite such minor obstacles, life and times on Possum Ridge are still good and vastly rewarding to both Chi and I. The children adapted to the country life quite readily.

One result of the compromises I've had to make has been the necessity of my returning to sea periodically to generate the income necessary to maintain our present standard of living, which includes such luxuries as high electric and phone bills, as well as continued high grocery bills. These things have made the challenges of approaching self-sufficiency even more difficult and demanding. Yet my goal remains to attain a high degree of self-reliance – or the potential for it – in spite of them.

That means that future projects on the agenda include such things as producing home grown electricity, alcohol fuel, and utilizing solar power to the maximum extent for supplemental space and water heating. All of this combines to make life on Possum Ridge even more interesting and fulfilling as time goes on, though I'll have to admit that it also considerably complicates life. The important thing is that we could, even now, survive largely without undue reliance upon outside support if worse came to worse and we were compelled to sacrifice some luxuries. Our garden is usually satisfactorily productive, we produce our own eggs and poultry, have plenty of pork running around on the hoof, and a couple units of mutton assisting with the grass cutting chores. A small beef herd is the next livestock undertaking as soon as fencing is completed. A well equipped woodworking, welding, and blacksmith shop which also serves as my father's residence, insures that we can handle just about any construction, repair, or fabrication job with which we are likely to be confronted, is an asset of significant importance. It also brings a little cash in now and then, and will be put to much more profitable use as time goes on.

One of the most positive points relative to my periodic returns to sea, is the existence of this book, which I could never have found time to write at home during the foreseeable future. There's just too many other pressing projects at home for me to be able to settle down to writing. Reading is another enjoyable pastime which is greatly restricted at home, for when the day's work is done, it is usually late, and I'm usually too tired to accomplish much serious reading. The manuscript from which this book evolved was written in May and June of 1979 aboard an oil exploration vessel then operating in the North Sea. Since then, I have spent very little time with the manuscript, until now, August 10th, 1983 as I pen this Afterward aboard the S.S. Sealand Venture in the North Atlantic – presently enroute from Bremerhaven, Germany to Port Everglades, Florida.

During these forays to sea, I have been spending about three months per year away from farm and family. While I served as master aboard the oil exploration vessel mentioned above, I've since been shipping as third officer on American Flag cargo vessels, and have visited some 24 countries in the course of seven voyages since 1979, including the present one. So, in spite of our homesteading activities, I am still leading something of a dual life, and am still managing to avoid the nine-to-five routine. Of course it is my hope that I will soon no longer find it necessary to go off to sea, and I'll be able to earn a satisfactorily living right up on Possum Ridge. It is also hoped that I'll eventually, once having finally established myself there steadily and permanently, have some spare time for more writing. It is my ambition to write several more books, both fiction and non-fiction based upon my experience of some twenty years as a world traveler and sailor of fortune. Those years have left me modestly rich in experience, if nothing else, and I feel I have something to contribute, modest though it may be, to the stock of the world's maritime adventure literature.

Although I am striving now to retire more or less permanently from the sea, I thoroughly recognize the fact that salt water will probably never be completely purged from my veins. No matter how completely I may become involved and preoccupied with occupations of the land, I know that my thoughts and dreams will frequently return to the sea – it is as inescapable as it is inevitable, and it is equally inescapable that those thoughts and dreams will center upon a small sailing ship. In fact, already, in spite of the innumerable land-bound tasks which I have set for myself which still lie only hardly begun ahead of me, my mind has secretly begun to make new plans about old dreams as yet unfulfilled. They are in the earliest formative stages and are continually consciously being pushed back into the farthest recesses of my waking mind. But herein lies the seed for the future possibility for a true sequel to this previous volume.

My most prominent unfulfilled dream, is the accomplishment of something that was denied me in the case of the acquisition of my first yacht, the Semangat. That is to build, with my own hands, the boat of my dreams – one of my own design, which would be the embodiment and child of my own creation, from the first line to be drawn across a clean sheet of drawing paper, to the completed waterborne craft with sails gently drawing in a fresh sea breeze. I make no promises now – it is just a dream – but there could come a day, in the distant future, when unusual activities will be initiated upon the crest of Possum Ridge. It may come to pass that there will be a considerable amount of curiosity and interest generated in the community, and many people may stand in wonder and astonishment amidst jokes and derision directed toward the unlikely project and person thus occupied, as a latter day Ark slowly takes shape upon a field of broom sedge bounded by dogwoods and oaks. Upon such dreams as these, sometimes realities are born.

William R. Carr
10 August, 1983
S.S. Sealand Venture
North Atlantic

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33 YEARS LATER

Twenty-six long years have passed since the above "Afterwards" was written, and a third of a century has passed since "Semangat –The Adventure." A lot of water has passed under the keel since then. Since the book is only now seeing the light of day, the "Afterwards" begs somewhat of an update – a sequel. And it will appear here in due course.

In the "Afterwards" I had written, "Although I am striving now to retire more or less permanently from the sea, I thoroughly recognize the fact that salt water will probably never be completely purged from my veins." The fact is, however, that I didn't strive very long to retire from the sea. I took 1984 off, but then resumed my seagoing career on merchant ships the following year. That career ended in 2006 when I finally did retire. During that period, I never had the opportunity to own another boat – so there is no cruising or sailing sequel to the Semangat Adventure. At least not yet. During that time I was either at home on the farm, at sea on a ship, or waiting to get a ship. There was no space for a third alternative.

Rather than burdening the reader with an autobiographical sketch spanning these 33 years, here are a few maritime related articles that I've written over the years.

Voyage Two of the Columbia Mariner
A Typhoon Named Hal
Man Overboard!
Vietnam Revisited
Wonderful, Exciting, Galveston

Throughout my post Semangat career, I have continued to think longingly about my original dream boat – the 35 foot ketch, Sea Witch, designed by Hugh Angelman. This was the boat that played a major role in firing up my passion for the sea and cruising under sail. Now retired and slightly frustrated at my continued neglect to produce a Sea Witch for myself (as I once hoped to do), I at least created and host The SEA WITCH Home Page on the World Wide Web by way of compensation.

And speaking of the World Wide Web, I'm also the current webmaster for the "Springhouse Magazine On Line," the domain of Springhouse Magazine, a publication which I helped to spawn, together with the editor and publisher, Gary DeNeal (along with his wife Judy), and another friend, Ken Mitchell, back in the early eighties. In fact, The Springhouse, was in the formatives stages at the very time I wrote the above "Afterwards" in 1983, and I thoroughly expected the M/V Sealand Venture would be my last ship. That was my first taste of container ships after years of sailing on tramp steamers, and I wasn't very fond of the changes containerization was making in the lives of merchant seamen.

Whatever happened to the Semangat? I wish I knew. I lost track of her not long after the Semangat was sold in Guam in 1977 to an Air Force man who was stationed there. Internet searches in recent years have not turned up anything. It is hoped that somebody will come out of the woodwork, through the wonders of the Web, to fill in the long blank.

I can be contacted on this matter, as well as for comments and criticism on this book, or any other subject, at : bill@heritech.com.

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My Boat is Like a Lady

My Boat is Like a Lady,
And that she is to me.
Just watch her moonlit figure
Grace the China Sea.

And my lady is alive indeed,
With a soul that’s all her own;
I can press my ear again’ her mast
And hear her sigh and groan.

She goes ahead without a hand
To tend her tender wheel,
Bounds ahead and on her course
With a jaunty sort of heel.

'Tis as if she really knows
Just exactly where to go,
For you can set'er sails and clear the deck
And retire down below:

'Cause the dipper's fine to starboard
And Polaris fine aport,
And she'll stay right up and on it,
And never fall off short.

At the Southern Cross behind her,
She waves her shapely stern,
For northeast breezes lure her on,
For them her lanterns burn.

A thousand fathoms of water
Caress her ample keel,
While winds from the nor’east quarter
Her seductive sails do steal.

A million stars dance above
And mark her sparkling wake,
Like a clear, romantic reflection
Of their own Milky Way.

The crescent moon upturned in smile
Greets her on her way,
And provides her with a merry light
To keep 'er spirits gay.

Look up ahead, along the boom,
As far as you can see!
How noble high the yankee nods
So thankful to be free.

Doesn't that stately headsail
Resemble a cool white hand,
Stretching forward slightly cupped
Seductive, forthright, and grand?

Like a dancing Balinese girl
Wrapped in tight sarong,
Waving fingers gently,
In cadence with a song.

Like the fingers of a goddess,
The bow points through the night,
Thrusting out! Challenging,
The starry multitudes of light!

She points ahead with vigor,
Waving to and fro',
Telling all the clear the way,
And showing where to go.

Her cut water down below it,
Slices through the waves,
As the seas part to let her by
As docile as loving slaves.

Now follow up her bobstay,
And then on up her fore',
High up to her masthead,
High at heaven's door.

Watch the circles that she draws
Against the stars so high,
'Tis her magic wand you know,
Waving to the sky

For thus she prays to heaven there
To ask it, don't you see?
To let no storm rent her sails,
Nor 'spout uncross her tree.

Twixt masthead and her clipper bow,
Her staysail hums a tune,
While her mainsail leans to larboard
To hear its partner croon.

Behind it all, her mizzen stands,
So patient and so shy;
Content just to follow along,
Etching smaller circles in the sky.

Oh yes! She is a-living,
Beating heart and all;
The little ship's alive tonight–
And she isn’t goin’ to stall.

Her graceful shapely transom,
Facing where we’ve gone,
Bids adieu to port and friend
As her course is lightly drawn.

The wake she leaves behind her
Stretching ever-on,
Is just a fading memory –
Of things forever gone.

I love her like a lady fair,
For that she is to me.
But she’s like some others too,
With things to do and see.

For if I should fall overboard
And but a yard away,
I don't believe she'd back a sail,
But bear on her merry way.

April 6, 1976
South China Sea.

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A WORD ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND THE BOOK

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AUTHOR'S CURRENT NOTES

Author's Introduction

An Unlikely Passage

Foreword

Anxiety and Prelude to Adventure

Chapter 1

Preparations and Non-Preparations

Chapter 2

Getting Underway

Chapter 3

Raking Past Horsburgh

Chapter 4

At Sea At Last!!

Chapter 5

Slow Boat to Borneo

Chapter 6

Borneo Landfall

Chapter 7

The Santubong Channel

Chapter 8

Kuching

Chapter 9

The South China Sea Produces Bound Cakes

Chapter 10

My Boat is Like a Lady; Mr. Dorado Arrives

Chapter 11

Mr. Dorado's Luck

Chapter 12

Sea Turtles and Waterspouts

Chapter 13

A Pirate Scare

Chapter 14

Mr. Dorado's Trials and Tribulations

Chapter 15

The Death of a Swift and Mr. Dorado Vanishes

Chapter 16

I catch a Tuna Fish with a Hank of Beard

Chapter 17

Easter Calms and More Hitchhikers

Chapter 17 b

Standing into Manila Bay

Chapter 18

Manila Interlude

Chapter 19

A Slow Passage through the Philippine Islands

Chapter 20

Escaping the San Bernadino Strait

Chapter 21

The Pacific, and I Lose an Old Friend

Chapter 22

A Dream–a Premonition–and a Swinging Time

Chapter 23

More Ominous Signs and the Exercise of Poor Judgment

Chapter 24

A Typhoon Named "Olga"

Chapter 25

Olga Comes of Age – I Hear of Another Typhoon

Chapter 26

To Yap or Not to Yap

Chapter 27

Last Leg, and Guam at Last!

VOYAGE ABSTRACT

Afterwards

33 YEARS LATER