ROUND THE NORTH ATLANTIC IN THEODORA, 1958-1959. The Diary of Colin Smith, Mate and surgeon, - with additions and comments.

"Theodora", originally "Kindly Light", is a 34 ton, 52 foot Bristol Channel Pilot drawing 7'6" which was built in 1911 to carry the pilot from Barry Island in South Wales to the ships, steam or , which needed to be guided in at that time, however appalling the weather. In those days she was simply rigged with a pole , gaff , , and , and so strong and weather proof, with a self draining cockpit and two small hatches only, that she could be swept by heavy seas without harm. Underwater her lines were those of a racing but still she could be handled at a pinch by one man and a boy. She was rescued from dereliction by Christopher Ellis, a schoolmaster from Radley College and served as the school training ship for some years.

At the time of our trip the previous owners, the Engineers, had fitted her with a reefing and a squaresail , this meant that she could carry a jackyard topsail which extended above the topmast , which was itself 70 feet above the water, and a flying jib from there to the end of the 18 foot .

She normally carried her gaff mainsail, with staysail and jib, and working or jackyard topsail, but with the wind behind she could also carry a 1000 square foot square sail and a 650 square foot raffee topsail, and a 200 square foot studdingsail (stuns'l) at each end of the squaresail yard, which made her extremely fast, though difficult to steer when the wind rose. There were no for the running so plenty of strong arms were needed to work her.

Her speed and seaworthiness were ideal for this kind of voyage, though the rigging meant that there were constant problems with chafing as everything rubbed against everything else. One of my jobs was to keep an eye on this, and move, tallow, parcel and occasionally replace ropes when they were in danger of wearing themselves away.

We only had 10 hours of fuel for the Kelvin auxiliary motor, so we could only use it for short spells. Navigation was done by compass, sextant and Walker's Patent Log trailed astern, and a lead line for sounding. The only electronic aid was a Beme-Loop radio which could tell the direction of a radio signal.

Chris had had a great deal of sailing experience, mostly in old , and had sailed across the Atlantic with the Pyes in "". He was anxious to sail round the North Atlantic in Theodora if he could possibly muster a crew.

I was able to take a year off despite being liable for National Service as having qualified as a doctor at 's Hospital at the end of 1957 I was between my two statutory six month pre-registration housejobs.

Chris had put an advert in the Times for a crew but took none of the 200 who responded. In the end he chose three boys who had just left school: Daniel Brocklebank, Sean Gardner and Simon Odling; Linda Binnington to make us all

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behave and me as Medical Officer and Mate. Looking back I seem to have been a very naive young man in many ways, but at least I was strong and willing.

Final preparations were made in Camper and Nicholson's yard at Southampton.

Most of the inserts in italics below are taken from reports sent to the Guy's Hospital Gazette at the time. Sometimes these overlap with the diary, but at other times they replace it. Comments looking back from 40 years later are in brackets. The official report of the journey appeared in the Journal of the Royal Cruising Club in 1960.

Re-reading it I realise that it is mostly about me, my feelings and impressions, as you might expect from a diary. However Chris was very much in charge throughout the entire trip, and did all the serious worrying. When we did things it was because he had told us to.

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The year is 1958......

Friday 10 October. At last we managed to get away. We hoped to set off yesterday but by 7pm -our ETD- the decks were still knee deep in stores.

A large crowd came down with Chris' patent - John Birkhead, Jeremy Harrold and Peter Stewart & Jim Rickards, not to mention Chris' father & sister Mary. Getting everything organised for the trip has been a great headache and I don't know how Chris has managed. Linda has been very good for all our morales whilst being a very valuable crew member.

(Chris had put the dinghy together in a few days. It had a , and came apart longitudinally so that it could stow on deck, either side of the saloon skylight.)

We decided that we couldn't possibly go last night & Chris' father took us all out to a meal at Tony's. After that we pottered on till about 2 am clearing up the stores and stowing things. Chris wanted to get everything done so that we could sail in the morning. I eventually struck and tottered off to bed, soon followed by the others. It was a miserable drizzly morning when we eventually set off from Camper's at about 10.30 am, with Mr White, the Yard manager, the foreman rigger & one or two others as our departure committee. We beat our way down Southampton Water & then along the Solent, eventually dropping anchor just off the yacht club just east of Yarmouth.

5.30 pm. The shore here looks more foreign than the Congo; the stunted trees are drenched with sun, the sky turquoise and mackerel. It is very calm & we are lying to the kedge for a few hours until the tide changes & we can slip through the Needles. Most people are in bed and the tide guggles by. We sailed with the No. 2 jib & no tops'l; could really have done with a little more, though it was very unpredictable and we had the gun'l under occasionally. (Heeled over till the seas ran along the deck).

Supper soon & then on. We've done 10 of the 10,000 miles.

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10th October. Our eventual departure date was fixed as the 9th of October but late in the evening the decks were still piled high with stores and gear of all kinds, in spite of the enormous quantity that had already disappeared. We had a meal at a cafe round the corner, and then carried on, because Chris thought we should have everything ready to sail first thing in the morning. At 2 a.m. we were still not ready, so we decided to go to bed.

The next morning was cold and drizzling, but at about 10.30 a.m. the yard manager and four or five equally rain soaked employees came to see us off. We cast off our tow after half a mile, and hoisted the mainsail - only to have to lower it again and re-reeve the , as it had been set up crossed in the blocks. Perhaps it was just as well that there was nobody to see us slink out of Southampton Water.

The tide was foul by the time we reached the Needles, so we dropped the kedge for a few hours just Northeast of Yarmouth, amidst a glorious sunset glowing upon an extraordinarily foreign stretch of coast. Abroad at last, with only another 10,000 miles before we should see the Isle of Wight again.

Saturday 11th October. 5.45 pm. Shaking down - or shaking up - has been the operative word for today, not that it has been very rough, but everyone except Chris and Sean have been rather sick. Linda and I are sick but don't mind much & Simon and Daniel have been really under the weather.

We are bouncing about off the Casquets after a day of inconstant and variable southwesterlies. There is a moderately rough sea running, presumably the aftermath of all the gales. My midship bunk is very comfortable & I have spent large tracts of today in it after a very tedious watch from 12 to 6am last night. Chris & I are doing 6 hour watches & the others 3 until we are clear of the Channel. We don't expect to be awake all the time but one of us is to be in charge.

11th October. The next couple of days were something of a baptism and constituted the most unpleasant weather we have had so far. We beat out to the Casquets under main, staysail and No.2 jib (a small one with a chain luff) with the wind Force 4 and a moderate sea. We went about and headed for Start Point, and during the following night the wind increased until it was probably gusting up to Force 7. Linda descended the main hatch beside my midship bunk in a shower of spray and announced that we would have to take in some reefs. The had been heeling over further and further and the water was guggling along the deck overhead, so the news did not come as a surprise.

Unfamiliarity with the ropes and general confusion of wind and water made this a rather lengthly, though not hazardous, business as she lies very quietly when hove to. The scene was illuminated by the navigation lights, and red and green water seemed to be descending from straight overhead in large pieces.

Sunday 12th October, 11.15 am. It has been a night of surprises. We sailed xx miles close hauled, first down to the Casquets, then just North of West to round Ushant & now we have ended up in Brixham.

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The day was tedious with the wind about force 4 & a moderate sea. The first part of the night was pleasant & starry & I was sitting on the weather cockpit seat admiring the scene with one foot jammed in the binnacle only feeling a weeny bit sick. Chris knocked off about 9 pm & the rest of Simon's 2 hours & then Sean's ticked slowly by with the Casquets nearly stationary abeam. The wind began to increase so we took two rolls in the mains'l before Chris turned in. I was dozing on the deckhouse floor towards the end of Sean's trick when the boat suddenly lurched and the flogged; apparently he had luffed up to a heavy squall & been taken aback.

We left the heads'l aweather so she was more or less hove to & set about releasing and taking in the appropriate runners & topmast preventers & put another roll in the mains'l. I forgot to cast off the starboard runner tricing line (the line which pulls the two pulley blocks of a tackle apart) & so broke it and had to re-reeve it. It was after midnight before we finished & so I turned in.

I was lying in my bunk, having slept till about 3 am & there seemed to be an awful lot of splashes & bangs and water running overhead. Shortly Linda descended the main companion beside me in a shower of spray & said I was wanted. All hell appeared to be let loose on deck with water all over the place. The starboard half of the dinghy was in the scuppers; Linda's ventilator cowl had washed away into the scupper together with the nylon warp & water was sploshing all over the place. It was blowing force 7 so we took in another roll and a half, & lowered the jib (Linda, Sean & me), I broke the port tricing line. Chris managed to keep most of the sea off the deck, but one wave - ghostly green in the starboard light - arrived from straight overhead and went on & on.

Start Point was not far away, so we ran for Brixham - on the way the wind first died, then turned northerly. Now we have a huge breakfast and are getting some rest prior to lowering the topmast (which has been nothing but a headache) & devising a more efficient way of lashing the dinghy.

Tonight we took down the topmast. I put a strop on it & guided the top through the mainmast hounds, but Brixham was so beautiful with its tiers of gleaming lights that I stayed up in the rigging far longer than I needed. Now for another nights full sleep - splendid.

It seemed wise to run for Brixham, partly because it turned out to be not very far away and the crew were tired, and also because our tall, graceful topmast had turned out to be more of a nuisance than it was worth.

We spent a few days in Brixham, taking down the topmast and relaxing in those very pleasant surroundings. One evening we went to the local cinema where an excellent film starring Jack Hawkins was showing. There was also an American film about teenagers taking the Great Step into adulthood, which Step, thank God, I never seem to have taken. The following day we set sail for Spain. The Met Office told us to expect a change of wind to West or Northwest off Ushant. This proved to be correct.

Conditions in the Channel were moderate, though it did become necessary to take in

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two rolls during the night. I put her about and hove to by mistake while this was going on, so we decided to have supper in comfort.

Wednesday 15th October 12.40. Now lolloping off Ushant with a moderate sea & not much wind. About a couple of hours ago we shook out the couple of rolls on the mains'l. I can see Ushant from the crosstrees half a point ahead of the Port beam - if I hang on as the whole caboodle jerks about a bit. It is overcast but bright and quite warm.

We stayed a day in Brixham & saw Jack Hawkins in "Gideon's Way". Most enjoyable.

The dinghy worked fine & is a delight to row; it stows very neatly in two halves on either side of the skylight. The only snag is that the starboard half leaks a little. Putting it together in choppy water with one leg in each boat is quite a jape.

We set off at about 10.30 am after ringing the Met Office who promised us Westerly winds force 4 - 5 & sailed closehauled SSW till nightfall. Then the wind veered so that we could lay SE with the sheets eased & we roared though the night like an express. I took a sight on the sun & Chris has been explaining the theories of spherical trigonometry but I haven't worked it out yet. My head is a whirl of azimuths, declinations and altitudes.

Thursday 16 October 1025 am. The Bay of Biscay certainly is not living up to its reputation today. The wind is just abaft the Starboard beam force 4 & we are chuntering along very merrily. We are all below writing our diaries. (Linda, Simon & me) & having a terrific argument about how to box the compass. Simon just didn't know and & when he says two points, usually means half a point. Linda thought she was right & I thought she was wrong but got hopelessly wrong trying to produce a better one. In the end I scuttled to Chris who arbitrated. We were both wrong. Still I was not trying to prove I was right but that Linda was wrong because she was so bloody sure of herself.

The generator is going, the motion easy - long, long swell - & the sun is out. We roared through the night again with no reefs down, averaging over 7 knots for some hours. We are lucky to have such favourable winds. I managed to produce a fairly extensive breakfast without too much trauma this morning & cleaned out the boat somewhat. Also I rinsed out the handkerchief that I have been using since leaving Camper's.

Poor Daniel is still sick though everyone else has got over it now.

Friday 17 October 2.00 pm. Linda is cutting Chris' hair in the cockpit with much hilarity all round. the bits of hair keep flying into her eyes. They moved from the lee side with Linda sitting on the cockpit coaming & Chris inside. It is a glorious day, cloudy with large bright intervals - just like English summer sunny sailing with a slightly bitter wind.

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(Noon. 60 miles to Finisterre.)

The main difference is the very large, gentle waves. The horizon heaves up & slides under; it is the waves on the waves which make us roll. The wind is force 4 or 5 on the Port quarter & we are rushing along at 6 knots in great comfort - especially lying in Chris' bunk in the deckhouse observing the scene in the cockpit.

She is quite difficult to steer with the wind dead aft as it was through the night, & we had cause to be grateful to the on several occasions as she was brought by the lee.

Apparently they only have 2 or 3 days gale a month in this part of Biscay, though admittedly it may blow force 12. Poor old England now is entirely surrounded by gales. I hope Moppett doesn't think we're in them.

I got the noon sight right today, not that that's v. diff; however our position line was up the creek - or the intercept was. More practice required.

Saturday 18 October 9.45 am. Still rushing along with the wind on the quarter & Finsterre abeam. We haven't wasted much time in the Bay!

Last night was probably the most hectic to date with the wind a good force 6 & waves piling up astern. Three large ones came up during my 8 - 10 pm trick & made a noise like Pop chewing celery just by my left ear. Steering was like riding a race horse. SWxS1/2W & she would stay steady for a few moments, then a gust would blow into your left ear & she would heel over & skid round, the card swinging round to S. Forcing the wheel over would gradually bring her off the wind with the evident intention of gybing. I dont suppose she is any worse than any other boat, probably better; but it is hard work. Linda manages it OK.

Later. She is pounding along now, and we have logged 98 miles in 12 hrs. The motion is rather worse as we have turned beam to the sea & a fair amount of water is coming aboard. Fortunately the skylight covers are efficient, as are the swimming pool plugs in the hawse pipe & larder vents so apart from dribbles round the mast wedges & one or two minor ones we are dry below. Bright sunshine makes reasonable what would be unpleasant in drizzle.

The dawn was lovely over the rugged Cap de Villano, & the wind eased a bit then. We are probably making straight for Lisbon.

Sunday 19 October 2.00 pm. We decided to pop into Bayona last night and have a meal ashore. This turns out to be a perfectly delightful little fishing village at the Southern end of Vigo bay. The entry requires care & would be very difficult indeed in poor visibility & if you didn't know where you were. Fortunately Chris has been here before several times. You come in between rocky islets - rather like the Scillies. The village is too like an opera set for words, with madly crazy paved streets winding between tall colour washed or stone buildings with balconies, dim lights at the corners, cats every few yards. The people seem cheerful and the women and children good looking. The kids just run riot but seem reasonably polite.

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We were hampered because only Chris had a smattering of the language, but we had an enormous meal of prawns, omelettes & sardines with cloudy white wine. These were real sardines.

Sunrise over the harbour this morning was beautiful. We set off under sail in light winds & so far we have just been pootling along in brilliant sunshine with the grey green coast slipping by. Sparkling waves, no shirts.

Bliss.

Monday & Tuesday 20th & 21st. 10.00am. The last two days have just been storybook sailing with the so-called Portuguese Trade on our quarter and beam. It is rather a curious wind; the general set is Northerly, but at this time of the year it blows from the NE in the morning, there is a calm about noon for 1 - 4 hours & then it reappears from the NW. It may calm again in the evening & then increase through the night from the NE again.

For instance Sunday was quite calm but during the night it was blowing force 5 plus, & we bounded along in our phosphorescent furrow.

It is sunny all day & this morning I am sitting on the lee side of the foredeck, leaning on the cabin ventilator, the boat making 6 knots with an ever-so-graceful motion. The staysail creaks in the , the wash of the passing waves, an occasional rattle from the loose topping lift tackle. Why on earth do people spend their entire lives working if they can do this sort of thing. Having the topmast on deck doesn't seem to slow us much & it is very useful for hanging on to.

We have been working fairly hard aboard in patches; yesterday I lacquered the bowsprit shrouds & it was sheer joy watching her (Theodora) chasing me. All the bedding came up to be aired yesterday. The idea is to go into Cascais today, ring up the Reynolds, discuss the weather & if this splendid stuff is going to stop soon, as it may, press on to Madeira, which would only be another 5 days. We can load perishable stores and the Reynolds would drive our mail round.

Last night we let the boys lay a course between Corveiro & the Burling islands & then let them gybe her round. It took rather a long time but when all was settled we tottered on deck with our bellies full of omelette & I saw a flashing light on the Port bow. Identified it proved to be on shore about half way between us and the Islands. A little magic with parallel rules & wax pencil soon indicated that we would strike the land about 15 miles ahead. I suggested an alternative course & the poor devils had to gybe her round again & cart that ruddy great nylon warp all round the boat. Still - a lesson learned; they had subtracted instead of added when converting a true to a magnetic bearing.

This Navigation lark is amazing, there are so many uses it can be put to. Chris took a couple of azimuths on the Sun the other day, (taking the bearing of the sun as it touches the horizon at dawn or dusk and comparing it with what the tables say it should be) & from that one can readily calculate the compass error. My own

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technique is gradually improving; if I can find my error it is usually fantastic, like taking 9 from 74 & getting 75.

Wednesday 22 October. We put into Cascais at about teatime, letting all sail down with a run. We lay about a quarter of a mile from the yacht club amongst the fishermen. A loudspeaker bawled that we were only to land at the club till given customs clearance.

The dinghy was assembled & I rowed Linda to the club to find out what was what. There we met an extraordinary woman called Mme Magua & a chap called Marquis or something. This woman went on talking without a stop till about 2.30 am & a very amusing dynamic little thing she was, & seemed much less.

After a steak supper in the club (for which we had to wait an hour while Chris tried to phone the Reynolds') M. Magua took us to her lovely house in Estoril which she is doing up - mostly in greys and whites. For lighting she made vaulting at either end of the room with small lights shining up at them; the curtains were shiny chintz with Dutch print & for colour she had an arch backed with red damask for her collection of splendid little pipes & red upholstery for the chairs. The outside of the house looked like sugar icing.

Another Cognac & chat & then the Marquis drove out to the point in the moonlight to see the British steamer on the rocks. According to Madame there had been a fog & he had been going by radar & was still glued to the set half an hour after the fog had cleared, & went on the rocks which he could have seen if he had looked out of the window. Apparently he tried to bump himself off.

The moonlight was fun in that incredible car with push button windows & hood opening. We hit the sack at about 3 am.

Wednesday Sean & I spent re-reeving the mainsheet & the topping lift & jib halyard purchases. The bosun's store was in a great muddle & it was necessary to clear it out & make an inventory. All this took till 10 pm; meanwhile the others were driven into Lisbon by Mme Magua, met Tony Reynolds and ate themselves sick. Linda especially gorges on shore and is beginning to have difficulty zipping up her shorts.

Sean rowed to the club after we had been hailed (this is a roly anchorage) & tried manfully to cope with the customs who were rather narked at our having gone ashore uncleared, though they kept us waiting 20 hours before they got in touch with us. He came back with a sheaf of papers & the news that we should present ourselves at the Club at 2.30 the following day.

The others came home very late after being swamped on the slip under the yacht club. I was asleep in the midship berth when Linda arrived down the companion obviously beside herself with mirth & told me that it had been so funny watching them trying to launch the dinghy that she had nearly spent a penny on the quay.

(One evening we were walking back to the dinghy in the dark after a meal. There was a huge puddle just outside the yacht club so we all gallantly threw our coats into

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it so that Linda could walk dry shod. Chris upstaged us all by lying down in the puddle so she could walk over him.)

Thursday and Friday 23rd and 24th October. At 9.30 am we set off for Barreiro & the Reynolds. Chris had arranged to go on the mud there & we had to catch the tide; so we rashly ignored the customs and set off.

The Tagus is very lovely, especially higher up. A colossal figure of Christ about 200 feet high is being erected on the South bank just below Lisbon. The river widens here and is dotted with sailing with birch-bark canoe bows & steeply raked masts, all gaily painted, just like an old print. The river becomes flatter round about, instead of rocky, & very wide. We passed Sagres (four masted ) on the way up & I couldn't resist 3 photos of her, as we passed her each view was more beautiful than the last.

Tony Reynolds and Miguel - their splendid boatman - met us up the creek at Barreiro & found a spot for us to take the mud. He took Sean and I ashore & gave us baths & then drove us to the ferry with instructions as to how to get to Lisbon. The Reynolds are quite a family colony & occupy three lovely though unpretentious houses by the water, with palms and bougainvillaea. They have 3 half deckers, a yacht and a launch.

In Lisbon Sean & I separated & the first thing I did was to buy 13 postcards & sit under the statue in the main square & write them. After that I decided to make for the highest part of the town as there was bound to be some feature of interest & a good view. On the way up I found occasional notices pointing to the "Castelo de St Jorge."

This quickened my interest, & eventually I came out at a stone wall 40 feet high with drum towers draped with asparagus trees, & a lovely gatehouse at right angles to it. To my surprise I didn't have to pay to go in & to my enchantment found myself in a walled town with narrow windy streets & overhanging balconied houses of ancient aspect. Everybody was sitting outside & children everywhere; upper halves of stable doors were open, revealing a neat little house with a laid table & dark wood sideboard, or a room draped with cloths of all kinds & a girl bent over a sewing machine.

The highest point was the Largo de Santa Cruz & I slipped into the Church there. There were quite a few people there and a priest at the door. I find it confusing trying to pray looking from the dim well of the Church at the brilliantly lit wedding cake of an altar behind the arch. It was easier & perhaps more sensible just to relax & bask incoherently.

I stood awhile in the darkling square outside under the olive trees & children zoomed around like cannon balls. They were attractive children & one boy with his arm around another's shoulder grinned up and squeaked. I squeaked back; you dont have to know the language.

There was a minute bistro on one side of the square, with two huge barrels behind the counter. I tried the sailor's dodge: "Vino?" Pause. "Ah, coupo vino"; it worked all right; only 40 centavos.

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I wandered back through a devious route, met Sean & took the 7.25 ferry back to Barreiro & joined the others for a delightful dinner with the Reynolds; Bouncer a splendidly amusing and very English person, with a charming daughter Anne. We wined and dined of the best & it turned out an extremely hazy & civilised evening. Except the we received a summons to turn up at the International Police at 2.30 the next day. ( The summons was brought by an extremely embarrassed and rather scruffy looking fellow, who stood in the festive hall, bowing and wringing his hat)

We decided to set off the same night at about 2 pm for Cascais, so that we could sleep on in the morning. Chris and I took her practically the whole way & it was awful because we could not keep our eyes open. I nearly brought Sagres with us. On Friday we spent some time in the Police Office trying to understand - eventually we had to pay 150 Escudos fine.

In the afternoon Linda, Daniel, Simon & I took the bus to Sintra, about an hour inland, up marvellous twisty countryside. There we had a delightful climb up to the castle. It was shut. Daniel & I were trying to find a route up the walls when a large sinister man with jangling keys & a pistol saw us off the premises. We returned by bus to Estoril & train to Cascais.

Saturday 25th. Was uneventful. We spent the day doing Bosun's work around the ship. This is interminable, the battle against chafe, corrosion and just old age. In the course of this we found one of the bottle screws was stripped, the port capstay & decided that some of the others should be tested, though the boat is grossly over rigged. So we didn't set off for Madeira as planned.

Sunday 26th. Sailed up to Barreiro again to see the Reynolds about getting the bottle screws & one or two other items done, as shipyard work is good and reasonable here.

Wednesday 29th Oct. We have acquired a cat. Apparently Miguel knew of one & he is the local cat drowner, so he, Chris, the chauffeur (who does his hair with peroxide and boot polish), Anne and the gate keeper set off in pursuit. After some jockeying for position, they eventually drove it to ground in a lean-to shed.

There was no sign of it when Miguel gingerly poked his head in, so they began to take it apart while Chris kept wicket behind the wall. Cat shot out and Miguel managed to envelop it in two horny hands & disappeared with it still swearing & scratching around the side of the house. Shortly after he returned with it in a bag, holding it by the end of the tape.

It lay quite quiet in the bottom of the dinghy so Chris assumed it was in coma & loosed the neck of the bag, whereupon it streaked straight over the side of the dinghy and disappeared. Chris rested awhile on his oars, but there was no sign of it; he set off again & the cat bobbed up in his wake, swimming strongly. He scooped it up and later hurled it aboard Theodora & set to sucking his wounded fingers. It landed with a splat on the deck & disappeared in a flash down the after skylight.

This spitting, scratching wild cat, which held five fully grown humans in terror,

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turned out after a day or two finding his feet, to be the cutest little black kitten you could imagine; almost as much of a time waster as the television.

Yesterday Bouncer very kindly lent us his two 20 ft half-deckers - Godwit & Gusta - & we had a perfect afternoon's sailing. Linda & I took one & Daniel and Sean the other. We went to investigate a crop of masts we saw beyond the swing bridge up the creek; they turned out to be a "Gazela", two steel four masted , "Argus" & "Creoula" & a lovely old three master "Hortense". They were being laid up after a season on the Grand Banks. The four masters were huge and very low.

Linda is a competent helmsman & knows much more about racing tactics than I do & is no doubt much better at actually sailing the dinghy. To my surprise I found that I was much better at estimating relative courses & the effect of the tide; I suppose that is because those apply to big boats too.

The Tagus is lovely here, it runs mostly in mountainous country & is very broad and studded with sailing barges, colossal things with a raked mast and birch bark canoe bows. One nearly came aboard the other day.

Saturday 1st November, 1 pm. We set off yesterday after a further few days of unobtrusive Reynolds hospitality, with a visit round the dusty, thumping cork factory, lunch & tea.

The wind had gone round to the NW & was blowing quite hard; we sailed on the ebb about tea time, beat from Barreiro & ran free down the river. The scene was lovely in a crisp sort of way. Lisbon on its hills delicately picked out in aquatint, sailing barges ploughing through the green brown white ridged water like an old master. Leaving after a week of the soft life in Barreiro was accompanied by the usual sensations; slight nausea before we even moved (rapidly Kwelled by Marzine), a great lethargy after the initial activity of getting under way (probably occasioned by Marzine). Apprehensions for the unknown.

We roared through the night with four rolls down & the wind force 6 - 7 on the starboard quarter. Waves that seemed very large to me chuckled up alongside and astern, & sometimes slid their lids aboard.

Now it is sunny & mild, but there is still a certain amount of water about & we are making 7 knots with four rolls down. I am writing in the deckhouse now but just now in my bunk I could pick out various boat noises - water swishing, bonking & trickling; locker doors moving a little each way, a chorus of groans, possibly from sheets in & the steering gears; not loud these. Also the swash of the topping lifts against the sail.

Daniel is sick to the extent of being slightly incapacitated; Sean & Chris are as new. The others have all been sick to varying extent. Poor Linda could hardly keep her eyes open at the helm on the 6 - 9 am watch; when I took over, neither could I. Chris is making some soup for lunch, it's his day on. He made some porridge & boiled eggs for breakfast, served to me in my bunk. No sign of the cat.

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Monday 3rd Nov, 6.30 pm. We have been expecting to see Madeira for some time now, but the sun has set into a bank of cloud that might or might not be land. Linda is in the deckhouse bunk with a slightly upset tummy, Chris is sitting on the foot of the bunk playing melancholy airs on the mouth organ. Daniel is in a characteristic posture with his chin on one hand, hunched up & steering with the other. There is expectancy in the (nearly) balmy twilight air.

Three especial things happened yesterday - we: 1. Service, (morning prayer) 2. Found broken link.

31st October. The wind went round to the Northeast again, so we set off down the river like a scalded cat with two rolls in the mainsail. Darkness was approaching and the setting sun picked out the town on its hills, the foam-streaked water and the sailing barges thrashing this way and that, in the delicate tones of an old aquatint.

3rd November. Three star sights had crossed practically at a point on the chart, so by rights we should have been thirty miles Northeast of Port Santo, itself thirty-five miles North of Madeira, but at dusk there was no sign of land, nor did the lights appear. After an anxious hour, an intermittent glow could just be made out on the horizon ahead from a precarious perch on the crosstrees; it was a perfect landfall after all.

Dawn broke as we rounded the Eastern tip of Madeira, throwing the contorted lava cliffs and mountains, with their thick tablecloth of cloud, into clear relief. At 11.30 a.m. we picked up a mooring in Funchal, having covered the 540 miles from Lisbon in three and a half days.

Saturday 8th Nov, Funchal. It was splendid here these last few days, not only because of the attractive surroundings & the lure of the contorted hills above the harbour but also because of the kindness we have met.

Simon had a letter of introduction to the Blandys. Very important people in many aspects of Island trade. Linda pushed him forward & as a result we were driven up for drinks the same evening in their magnificent house way up in the hills, 20 mins charabanc ride. Linda soon got together with Mrs, & after a most enjoyable hour or so we had invited them to supper on Theodora.

Mr Blandy is very tall, benign and clearly very astute. Mrs Blandy is large, at first sight something of a dowager, & in fact perfectly sweet. I met them on the quay side & rowed them 200 rough yards to the boat & supper commenced. The amazing thing was that it was rather rough & as it turned out Mrs B felt pretty sick the whole evening, but not only did she not complain, but made the most jolly company & ate practically all that was set before her - surely a perfect lady. You could not imagine a couple more easy to entertain of any age. Mrs B brought a passion fruit mousse for pudding which was quite out of this world.

Why they should leave their lovely house to spend an evening of physical misery with almost strangers, be so perfectly charming without condescension and to cap it all send us a crate of Madeira, a bottle of concentrated passion fruit juice & some special 12

oatmeal cakes the next morning!.

Linda & I walked up to Reid's hotel for baths just before they came, & we were shown into the same suite, which was rather a good show. Unfortunately we wanted to bath simultaneously as we were in a hurry, & felt that to do so was nearly, but not quite, proper. So I was shown into a separate suite and & had a magnificent bath in a modern bathroom with black & white marble floor & green granolithic walls. I learned one thing; that is if you leave the shower curtains outside the bath you swamp the floor. I felt splendid after my bath and Linda was sweet and glowing.

It is difficult to express quite what an asset Linda has been to us. On the lowest plane she is a winning ambassador on shore and a good cook and caterer; on a higher plane - well one could enlarge; suffice it to say that she looks nice, chivvies us around, scraps in turn, apparently quite unselfconsciously. 'Nuff said.

Nov 10th. (We had a nasty outbreak of some kind of food poisoning.) 0800. Tunny fish eaten 0830. L's head began to bound 0830-1000 Flushed face Generalised erythema Tachycardia.

Symptoms start: L 97.8 116, C 98.9 116, D 98.0 98, Ch 76, Sh 97.8 136 - hypopyrexia

Conjunctivitis Bronchospasm (Simon, mild) Rigors Diarrhoea (?incidental in C) Headache Snuffles. All over, bar diarrhoea in C, Ch & D by noon.

True to form the other bit of hospitality was wonderful. Mr Zino is the brother of a Zino that Chris met here with the Pyes 8 years ago; on the strength of that they took Linda and Daniel (luck of the draw) to the fancy dress ball at Reid's and took us all out the following day for a drive round the island, followed by tea and supper.

The drive was enormous fun in spite of the upper parts of the hills being shrouded in cloud and one of the cars breaking down, so that two of us had to sit in the boot. It drizzled continuously.

We had a large picnic lunch & then went for a walk along a path by a watercourse to a specially constructed terrace on a rock. At first sight there was nothing to see but cloud; gradually a rift would appear and vignettes of a view that beggared description

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opened up. Even then we couldn't see the other mountains.

The general aspect was of Wales with the lushness of Cornwall.

November 11th, Tuesday, 11.30 GMT pm. Set off for Canary last night with a balmy breeze that shifted all round the clock & finally NE force 3 - 5 on the port quarter. We passed close under the of a brightly lit steamer (Santa Maria) & the light closed up, formed patterns & then lost them as they disappeared. The steering gear is now mended and the yard hoisted.

We romped through the night under all plain sail & it blew quite hard in patches. Poor old Daniel is cooking today, when he's not being sick. Lots of spray, little sun; warm.

Forty hours under full sail brought us to Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, a bleak pile of lava and volcanic ash after lovely, lush Madeira. We sailed right in amongst the piers and fishing boats and dropped anchor alongside "Dayspring", another old English yacht that was making the same crossing. The harbour is unfortunately fouled with oil fuel as this is a major oiling port for the ships to and from Africa, but it is very well stocked with delightful and decrepit sailing trawlers. The yacht club is a beautiful place, and was very helpful to us though perhaps better designed for the landward than the seaward side of yachting. There was a wall by a coal wharf where we could lay alongside and touch up the anti-fouling; this was a cold and dirty job, but was completed between the tides.

In the course of applying some grease aloft I dropped the tallow bucket over the side while we were lying at anchor in five fathoms of water. It couldn't be found with flippers and goggles, but it so happened that "Dayspring" had half a dozen aqualungs, and they lent me one, so that I was able to take a closer view of the harbour bottom; that, fascinating as it was, failed to reveal the missing bucket, even after twenty minutes assiduous search.

(This taught me an important lesson. If you swim more than 25 feet down without an aqualung you start to sink rather than rise, and it can be a very difficult to swim to the surface again. I can vividly remember struggling up towards the silver disc of the surface and trying not to breathe.)

21st November. Eventually we were almost ready to set off, after rigging the square sail and all its accoutrements, so, rather to our surprise, we set sail. What was left of our fore-and-aft canvas was sufficient to see us to the Southern tip of the island, and then we hoisted the large, tanned, flax squaresail that would draw us to Barbados. The starboard studdingsail did not prove a success, as it carried away within a quarter of an hour of setting, due to the heavy rolling.

Saturday Nov 22nd. Under way again at last. When we did eventually push off it came as a surprise & I was looking the other way.

Our start was uneventful on Thursday morning except for a beautiful little green with every possible sail set & full of waving fishermen which came in just as we left the mole. Shortly after we bartered some fish from a fishing boat - just

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enough for one meal - for 50 English cigarettes (2/-) She was a sleek little boat (18') with a sail which a chap just gathered up when they wanted to stop; she turned on her heel & accelerated in an extraordinary way when he let it go.

The island was just blue piles of lava & volcanic dust when we left it.

The highlight of our stay was the circus on Wednesday evening. We had been seeing a lot of Mary Jane Park, the 18 year old Park daughter, & they all took us to this show. I have never enjoyed one so much; we were in the front row, & the whole thing was much more intimate as well as well executed than I am used to & we were sucked right in. There was a very handsome & elegant young man on skates who Linda wanted, some girls on skates some of whom we wanted, two English skating clowns & the most extraordinary rubber legged little chap you ever saw.

Now we have what purport to be the Trade Winds on our Starboard quarter, rows & rows of cotton wool clouds in the fading light. Our 1000 sq. ft bedspread & fish tail mainsail set very well & there has been little chafe so far. We are making 5 - 6 knots.

Must go & get on with supper - spaghetti, sauce and mandarin mousse that didn't.

Sunday. Divine service this morning. the helmsman is allowed to sit down but the rest decided to stand. Chris was on leeward side of the deckhouse door, Linda in the space, Simon on the other side; I had one foot braced on the binnacle & the other against the weather coaming, using the starboard sampson post as a misericorde. Sean was trying to stand on Daniel's (helmsman's) right, but every time the boat lurched he half folded up like a penknife.

It was sunny and restful, Chris has a pleasant reading voice, the boat swung along as the waves surge by timelessly.

*** *** ***

It is a wonderful position standing on the squares'l yard. You are personally pulling the toy along beneath you & all the ship's life-lines radiate from you. You are lord and focal point of the boat and 300 square miles of the Atlantic. GCK was right when he spoke about men looking down from towers. ( Reference to the Father Brown story, The Hammer of God)

Linda & I are head to tail on Chris' deckhouse bunk writing diaries and the cat is asleep on my tummy. I am trying to treat them both in general with consideration without undue slop. I spend my time alternately wanting & not particularly wanting her. I wonder if I'll feel like asking her if she could bear to marry me after this - we should know each other mod: well by then..

Tuesday 25th Nov. There are two underlying feelings in this part of the world; one is of eager, vibrant energy as the Trades hustle us along, & the other is constant fear of wear and tear - which has rather come to the forefront in the last day. There is also the constant, slight, deeply embedded feeling that the sea could overcome you with a snap of its

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fingers if it tried.

I came on watch at 10 pm last night, the moon was so bright between the clouds that you could read, but our beloved Trade Wind was dropping so that the pressure in the mainsail did little to check the rolling, & it was banging uselessly from side to side.

"Forty minutes of this will do more damage than a week's ordinary sailing" said Chris, peering anxiously around from the deckhouse hatch.

The first thing to go was the mainsheet, which is an ancient tackle made up from the clew of our heavily reefed mains'l to one of the quarter blocks - it had chafed through unsuspected on the badly fitted cavil where it was made fast. The tackle had a turn round it so it jammed & Linda grabbed the frayed end shortly after the bang & we replaced it immediately. Still the boat rolled, the mains'l filling first on one side & then on the other with a sickening thud.

We decided to rig a preventer rope alongside the tackle, of heavy sisal; sounds simple enough, but the heavy rope was so inflexible that the knot kept slipping. Chris tried to tighten the sheet by hauling up the ; this was difficult as the purchase was twisted as the new rope stretched & he had to slack off on the gaff vangs. Eventually the sheet came tight, but the looard vang would not come tight, the purchase at the bottom was chock a . He moved the upper block up & knotted it on & pulled it tight again.

Satisfied at last, he was just turning in when the whole vang came down with...

Wed 26th. Gave Linda a navigation lesson today & she gave me a cooking one - chicken risotto. This morning Chris & I spent 3 hrs between 4 & 7 am talking, mostly about education. My respect & admiration for him still increases. Brownsealed two more awning battens.

CELESTIAL NAVIGATION, (as taught by Chris.)

Lesson 1. A. Position line method. 1. Assume convenient position 2. Calculate and look up LHA (Local Hour Angle) 3. Apply LHA, Latitude & Declination 4. Get altitude and azimuth of star from astro/nav tables 5. Observe altitude with sextant and precise time 6. Subtract calculated from observed altitude 7. Draw azimuth from assumed position 8. Mark off intercept at right angles 9. That is your position line

Have had some calms this morning, but now we have it aft force 4 - 5 & she is making a steady 7 knots. The mains'l is still down, though all ready for use; without it the rolling is much more marked, though not excessive so we are hanging on without

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it.

The rolling was bad last night, but Linda still managed to produce a roast chicken with all the trimmings & fruit salad dinner for Sean's and Simon's birthday.

This is thrilling sailing.

(About here we threw out almost our entire stock of bananas, as they all went bad at the same time.)

Thurs 27th. Has been a spanking breeze most of today, overcast & with heavy rain showers. Most of us had some sort of bath in one. Not much work has been done aboard because of the weather, though this morning I went around putting chafe pads on the squares'l sheets. I had just finished when Chris said: "I think we could let the port sheet out a bit & perhaps pull in the starboard one."

I took all the pads off.

"I don't know, perhaps they are all right as they are."

He has a remarkable knack at this.

Sat 29th. Last night was a great contrast to the night before; it was dark, squally & pouring with rain. I was called by Chris at 5 am, & tottered out of my bunk. "Got a knife?" I went back and got it, then followed him up to the bows. There was an awful lot of floppy wet squares'l around. "Cut that!" I cut it and the squares'l descended on my head.

A little later when the pouring rain had cleared my blurred senses, I asked him why we had done this. "The wind went right round to the west & I didn't want to drive her too hard through the swell. Didn't it rain!"

The night before was glorious - brightly moonlit, balmy breeze behind, squares'l pulling well, easy steering, room for Great Thoughts, & remembering almost everyone I know & care for. (I still think you are connected with those you love in some way.)

Sunday 30th Nov. I was on the 12 - 2 watch last night & Chris the 10 - 12, so I bagged his deckhouse bunk, arranged an oilskin to keep off most of the drips, read a little of How to Teach Elementary Maths by the chart light, & dozed off as soon as I could get my feet and knees sorted (the bunk is rather short).

Chris arrived at 10 pm, after a confused dream of galloping horses & galloping & announced as he pulled on his carapace that the starboard squares'l sheet had parted.

The boat was bounding forward & the wash of the waves came clearly but apparently at a distance, through the scuttle. I lay inert & absorbed the warmly lit panoply of instruments and clothes that is the deckhouse.

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"I'm afraid my whole consciousness is focussed onto coping with this drip" I mumbled. "The squares'l is a bloody sight more important" he stated, obviously.

He said he could cope, but after a while decided he needed some help, so I put on my oilskins and barged out into the night. Shaugers could just be made out at the helm & the sea was going like a millrace.

Chris had let the go & was trying to the new sheet to the & hold the torch at the same time. I took the torch & he was just able to push the pin through, past the old sheet that blocked up half the hole, & screwed it tight with a marline spike. We pulled up the outhaul & all was well.

*** *** ***

On the second dog watch this morning (9-12) it was still squally & we were plunging along at a good seven knots and more. Occasionally it would rain so hard that the waves would grow spikes like a prickly pear, & recede behind each other like the hills of a distant view. The rush of the water would disappear behind the hissing of the rain.

*** *** ***

Prayers at sea again this morning. The grey Atlantic roaring by a foot from your left leg helps you to be humble.

Wednesday 3rd Dec. The last three days have been fine, with occasional rain squalls & light winds & bright sunshine. Day's run roughly 120 miles, conditions v. pleasant but a trifle enervating. Have two birds following us, a kittiwake & a Simpson's petrel.

We had some practice with Chris' Luger yesterday, shooting at a towed target. I managed to hit it once. It really is a beautiful gun. We all took photos of each other & especially Linda because of the incongruity. It needed a clean so I spent an hour or two stripping and oiling it.

CELESTIAL NAVIGATION, Lesson 2.

B. Noon Sight a) Observe altitude b) 90 - Observed altitude c) Subtract declination N = Latitude

C. Polaris Merely apply sidereal hour angle (SHA) & Latitude correction to observed altitude.

D. Stellar & Planets As in A.

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Find GHA & Add SHA Planets need interpolation

E. Moon Interpolate like hell for GHA & Declination.

This evening Chris trimmed my beard in the cockpit, with encouragement from the others. He seems to have taken about an inch off all round.

Shaugers reached a peak of bloody mindedness yesterday & fortunately overheard us wondering how to cope & has been as sweet as honey today. He is an odd chap - like me only more so. He lives in a world of square riggers too.

Simon is very nearly a saint - much like Albrecht. (Edward Thornton, a school friend.) Daniel has pulled his socks up a lot too & is now a very reasonable human being - not half as idle and hopeless as he was. He's a nice fellow - Eton nearly ruined him.

Saturday 6th Dec. Sitting against Linda's ventilator cowl under the shadow of the squares'l with the Trade blowing as it was meant to blow. General effect beggars description as it beats upon the consciousness like an orchestra through all your senses.

The thrilling rush of the down-tilted bowsprit trailing a leash of foam from its chain ; the downthrust of her stern as the ginger beer forward folded wave crashes ahead under her bows; the constant rumble of the wind; the sunshine; the diamante water & the foam manes chasing each other endlessly in line abreast; the clouds, the heat, the rust, the peeling varnish; blocks, wires, ropes, sails. It is almost insupportable.

Similarly, lying jammed between the bowsprit and the bulwark on the foredeck, with the moon throwing the swaying, billowing squaresail and the ropes & spars into sharp relief overhead, must be a little bit like the peace of God.

*** *** ***

Drank last night to the 2000th mile, only 700 to go; 3/4 of the way.

Have found a splendid place to sleep - between the inboard part of the bowsprit & the bulwarks; lying on the 'l with half ready to pull over if it rains. Jammed tight. Water makes a tremendous noise all night. For general effect imagine as above at night.

At 1600 GMT a steamer called "Iberia" passed on almost the opposite course (SE). We were all very excited as it is the first of any sort we have seen since leaving Las Palmas. We hoisted our signal flags & took a photo but she completely ignored us.

We have almost finished the 2,700 mile crossing, and hope to sight Barbados this

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evening. The progression of mid-day crosses on the chart has turned into a series of gigantic asterisks, as the captain piles star sight upon star sight to convince himself that we are where he hopes we are.

Time has passed swiftly with taking the wheel, stripping and varnishing, the constant round with tallow and chafe pads where ropes and sails rub, talking, eating, reading and sleeping. Chafe is the most important factor under these conditions; we will have rolled nearly half a million times by the time we reach the other side, and each time takes its toll.

It is very hot now, and the men bathe hanging from the bowsprit in a safety belt, with the boat plunging in pursuit and dunking them at intervals. Linda hops about in her bikini while we hurl buckets of water at her; it is a sobering thought that the only water we have shipped green has been water hauled out in buckets to throw at each other.

While in Barreiro we acquired a small, black, half-starved and very wild, cat. She is called Nicolette, after an unexpected change of sex, and has become so much part of the scene that she deserves special mention. She is almost the ideal ship's cat; she uses her sand tray most of the time and the sail locker only occasionally, spends the day galloping around the deck with a frenzied expression beating up any rope's ends or ankles that happen to be lying around, and she makes a pleasant bunk-fellow, apart from a tendency to launch sudden and unprovoked assaults on your armpit in the middle of the night. She has yet to be broken of this habit, in spite of the roar of pain and terror that invariably ensues.

She can eat a whole flying fish at a sitting, ticking like a meter if disturbed, and then will spend two hours flat on her back with all her feet in the air until the effects have worn off.

(To the amazement of the crew, after three weeks out of sight of land, Barbados appeared dead ahead. So all that navigating really worked!)

10th December. It was dark as we crept cautiously along the Barbados coast from South Point to Needham Point, round which the lights of Carlisle Bay appeared. Picking out a convenient place among the boats with the Aldis, we dropped anchor a quarter of a mile offshore, stopped the auxiliary, gave our particulars to the Police launch that appeared, cleared up and turned in, very much in two minds as to whether civilisation had anything to offer after the broad Atlantic.

We stayed several days in Carlisle Bay, working quite hard on the boat, and slipping lazily over the side when it became too hot. Theodora took upon herself the role of the genteel, awninged lady of the tropics with the same relish as she fulfilled her other roles as Pilot Cutter, Ocean Racer, and Hell-ship for schoolboys, to name but a few. Here again we found many friends, both ashore and in other trans Atlantic yachts.

"Dayspring" arrived, and the husky crew soon broke Sean's (our Bosun's) arm in a scrap on shore; there were the Storm-Clarks, who had sailed five hours on and five hours off for 35 days in "Tally Ho" with two delightful little girls; Gerald Smith and

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his adopted Singalese son, Stanley, of "Emonides" who had set off three years earlier from Ceylon in an Austin 7 and were on their way back by yacht. These people are really intrepid, and made our crossing seem like a luxury cruise.

(Gerald had inherited a tea plantation which apparently managed itself and still made enough money to finance their trip. He had read Theology at Cambridge, because that was the only Faculty that he could get into. Stanley was an electronic expert and the little yacht had every conceivable electronic aid, including an organ.)

Our social life is somewhat limited by shortage of money, which is being carefully husbanded against possible disaster later in the trip, so that we have only bought two or three meals ashore since the trip began. However Bajan hospitality more than made up for this by inviting us to parties and into households, and we had the pleasure of combining with "Dayspring" to use up some of our bonded liquor by giving a party aboard our boats for the local inhabitants, and a very enjoyable evening it turned out to be.

Barbados is an interesting island, and different from the other West Indies in that it has had unbroken British connections and influence since the 17th century. People are all shades from black to white, and the colour problem would assume very small proportions, were it not for the efforts of those who, from motives either of snobbery or their own political advancement, keep the flame alive. The island is prosperous and self-supporting, due largely to the intensive sugar cane cultivation, but there is a curious mixture of over population (the island is said to be second only to China for density of population) and lack of labour. This is because of the high birth rate and the disinclination of the average Bajan to work harder than is necessary to keep alive.

Scattered throughout this is a sprinkling of rich and decadent people, dying slowly of sun and rum. Fortunately there is also a number of devoted business and professional people, who, with the fine police force, form the backbone of the island.

The time came when it was necessary to take on stores before making our way up to Antigua - where we were to spend Christmas - and to do this we motored into the Careenage, alongside the wharf, amongst the trading schooners of Bridgetown. This proved to be a mistake, as we were constantly forced to move by the lighters from the big ships in the bay, and spent an anxious few hours while Chris and Linda coped with the shore side.

The climax came just as we were moving from one berth to another, and the engine burst into flames. Chris dragged Daniel out and set to with the deckhouse extinguisher, and I hove a line ashore and attacked through the after cabin. There was a merry blaze which succumbed to a dozen squirts of Pyrene, and it was all over in about 30 seconds. Another minute and we would probably have lost the ship.

(The problem was that Chris and Daniel had been servicing the engine. Daniel had dismantled the carburettor to clean it, replaced it, and thought that Chris had tightened the nuts, and Chris thought Daniel had. There was always an electrical storm playing amongst the sparking plugs when the engine was running, and this

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ignited the petrol that was pouring out of the carburettor. )

In the vibrant dark after supper we set off for the little island of Bequia, taking as passengers Ian Gale, editor of the Barbados Advocate and his delightful and bouncy wife Margaret, who is scrub nurse to Mr Jack Leacock, Director of Surgery at the General Hospital. They were hoping to launch their 26 foot schooner that was being built there.

Fourteen hours with full mainsail and squaresail carried us round the tip of the island just as dawn was breaking, and later into the little landlocked bay which is the natural harbour of the island. We dropped anchor just astern of four schooners moored to the beach, and set out to explore the few square miles of delight that make up this enchanting island.

The hills rise steep out of the harbour, which is rimmed with palm-shaded, glistening sand. The atmosphere is lush and lazy, the people friendly and have imbibed the atmosphere. Rum is still pretty cheap, water scarce, time irrelevant, religion fun and the birth rate astronomical. In the weeks before Christmas rhythms, with dimly recognisable carols beneath, break out on all sides and at all hours of the day and night. The Seventh Day Adventist preacher in his dark blue suit and trilby hat chants chunks of the Bible in rhumba time to a ring of faces glistening in the light of the pressure lamp, just beyond the fishing boats drawn up on the shore. Even the Anglican service on the Sunday before Christmas was exalted by the gusto of the singing, and the view through the church door; Bougainvillaea, blue blue sky, and the masts of the schooners beyond.

"Simbie", the Gales' little schooner, is a gem. She was not quite ready then, but even though she was unorthodox, she was obviously going to be a stunner. She is a miniature of the "America", the first winner of the cup that caused so much heartache last Summer; hard chine, shallow drafted and very roomy for her size. She was up on stocks outside Goff's shack just above the beach, and formed the backdrop to a memorable party one evening. Goff is a schooner captain with a talent for marine frolics.

The Gales' rum punch is characteristically potent, and after an hour or two (I forget which) of idle chatter, wrinkling the sand with our toes to the chirp if the crickets and the hiss of the Tilley lamp, the bottom of the demijohn was almost awash and life had taken on a better and a rosier hue. The transition from land to water was scarcely perceptible and we found ourselves with Linda and Margaret on our shoulders, yelling, barging and grunting as they strove to bring about each other's downfall. One moment the grate of sand on your chest, feet firmly planted in the small of your back, dazzling whorls of phosphorescence in your eyes and a certain difficulty in breathing; the next a gasp and a splutter, and the gradual emergence of the beach, sky and sea out of a chaos of sensation, as the water streams from your burning eyes.

The only sane feature of the occasion was Goff, seriously trying to construct towers and pyramids in the surf out of recalcitrant human flesh.

Reluctantly, the following evening, after dark, we slid out of the little bay,

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accompanied by hoots and cat-calls from the splash of light that marked Goff's shack. We replied in kind and set about the serious business of threading the Windward Islands on our log line, like beads on a necklace. St Vincent, St Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, Guadaloupe and eventually Antigua rose up one by one, straight out of the stamp album. We lazed our way up the lee of them, basking in the sun with one foot on the wheel, drinking in the splendid mountain scenery with its little towns and hutted villages; catching our breath as the Trades whisked us the odd hour or two between them.

The entrance to English Harbour, Antigua, is difficult to find, even in the daytime, and we were fated to arrive off the rugged, unlit coast after dark. Chris had never been there before, and we were very apprehensive when he ordered us to close to within fifty yards of the (ironbound) shore. Suddenly he said: "We go in here", and sure enough, there was the entrance only two or three boats lengths wide. It seemed like a conjuring trick to us, but I made him explain, and it turned out to have been a remarkable exercise in coastal navigation.

English Harbour is where Nelson's dockyard still stands, on a little promontory up a minute creek amongst the prickle covered hills. It has been extensively restored, and is now a yachting centre, visited by yachts from all over the Caribbean, and is almost a Mecca for boats from all over the world. The place is quite unspoiled, and the yachts make a beautiful picture where once the men-o'-war were crammed.

Fri 26th Dec. Chris' entry into English harbour last night was really very clever, as the entrance was quite impossible to see, being only 50 yards across. The coast is very mountainous, though fortunately with no outlying dangers. The cliffs slipped by 100 yards away until we suddenly the hole just appeared & we turned into it.

The way he did it was to identify the rough position of the entrance & then close in to find the most obvious feature to windward, & then run downwind the requisite distance till the hole appeared. The way the coast changes direction is the great thing - is the spot on a point or in a bay etc:?

We ate a huge Christmas dinner in Freeman Bay, just inside the entrance & were invited to join the party the Nicholsons were giving up in the old dockyard. We anchored & tied stern on to the quay & then went in and drank, jollied and read our mail. They thought we were going to miss Christmas, but we made it by a couple of hours.

Mon 29th. Dan & I went to St John's the other day (Sat) by one of those little Morris buses. Only 75c return as against $10 by taxi! The town is hot, dirty & not unattractive - much less civilised than Bridgetown. I found £50 waiting for me in the bank, & sent a telegram to Dr Byers saying I wanted to work in Barbados. Extensive enquiries showed that there would be no boats or schooners back before Jan 6th. The view over Falmouth Harbour is quite lovely, not unlike Ullswater, wide landlocked bay, the odd fishing at anchor or on the beach, surrounded by hills.

(The public toilets at St John's were the most disgusting I have ever come across, literally swimming in shit.)

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In the afternoon everyone went off on various walks. Dan & I took the dinghy off for a gander at the reef. It was very interesting & there were quite a few fish around, though no sign of George, the 8 foot Barracuda. Fan corals, brain corals, gorgonians - but it was not the thrill it ought to have been as I've seen it all on the films.

I got an urchin spine in my thumb so Dan rowed me back & I managed to pull it out. He still has a sore finger from one he got 2 weeks ago. Then I rowed off full pelt to Freeman Bay, as I wanted to scale Shirley Heights to get a photo before the sun went down. I pulled the dinghy up & found that the brush was impenetrable in bathing shorts and gym shoes as everything had very large prickles. In the end I tried for the nearer hill & after treading on numerous prickly pears & getting proper scratched, eventually climbed up a rock among the cactuses & found a splendid view of the harbour. I stood on top like a statue by Rodin for some time, wrapped in contemplation, & two little black children came bustling by, one with a tin can on his head, without seeing me.

I shoved off again just as Edward Allcard came in in "Sea Wanderer" & wished him good evening as I paddled across to Fort Berkley on the opposite point. The fort was a splendid little job with nineteen embrasures in a figure 9 on the point. There was a ruined house on the point & the old magazine in good order on the landward side. In one of the embrasures gaping out to sea is an 18 pdr cannon, with 1818 on its iron carriage. It was hot with the evening sun & a lizard was laying in the muzzle. A beauty (the cannon) but a bit big for me.

(I have always had a bit of an obsessions with cannons.)

In the evening we had Brita & Sten Holmdahl for supper. Delightful and capable pair. Next morning Mrs Nicholson took us all to the local church; delightful, lots of kids in their best - singing with gusto - & a paternal, black, middle aged lay preacher. There were some splendid old crones in white.

Must mention v. pretty fair girl staying in officers quarters at EH, Janice I think, wife of Mollyhawks skipper. We all went quite silly - sort of grinning sheepishly etc: Still, we got a smile or two back.

Set off at 8.45 pm after Viking meat balls, with engine ticking over, but we only had to give one short touch. Chris wanted to a good quiet getaway with no shouting, & we almost achieved it. We set off into Trade wind force 5 - 6 as the moon was rising & averaged just under 9 knots to the northern tip of Guadaloupe. Since then this has continued, with patches of near calm, even ten miles under the lee of the islands, especially Dominica with its 4,000 ft Mt Diablotin.

31st Dec. After a slow run down Martinique we decided to put in to Fort de France for a few hours & arrived at 10 am. There is an extensive & well buoyed bay, with the port just inside the Northern extremity. The town is quite attractive & distinctly French, with a magnificent and very large fort extending out into the bay.

To get gas bottles filled costs about $15 (3000 Fr) & takes 2 days; the place is 117 rue

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Lamartine. This area is achieved by turning left (W) at the cathedral & walking a few hundred yards. The large, cheerful covered market is here too. They will exchange BWI money at the Credit Martiniquais, Rue de la Liberte, just across the savannah from the steamer harbour.

We had a remarkable white rum punch in a little bistro with the tailor who was so helpful. 35 Fr & you help yourself.

At 9 pm we set off again, having bent the no.2 jib, & damn it if we haven't been plagued by calms & light winds ever since. Now, 12 hours later, we are only just emerging from the St Lucia Channel & cannot lay Barbados. I'm in a hurry to get there & start work.

There was a ruckle on the surface of the usual remarkably smooth emotional running of the crew. the matrix of the occasion was poor winds, & the precipitating factor a grapefruit.

Chris, for better or worse, made porridge for breakfast. He feels that whatever he, or any other cook, dishes up should be eaten without comment, mostly out of politeness, but also for simplicity. Linda doesn't like porridge, thinks its silly to eat porridge in these climes & wants a grapefruit, of which we bought 2 dozen yesterday. An impasse. When Linda took over the helm from me, her voice had gone harsh at the edges with supressed emotion, on the subject of what she wanted for breakfast. I really think she feels as passionate about grapefruit as I do about afternoon tea.

As a sequel to this, Dan subtly appropriated the other half down below, to be told by Chris that he couldn't have it. "Whoy?" grates Dan, loudly; "Only girls have grapefruit. "Whoy?" "Because girls are different from boys." "WHOY?" Chris said no more but was clearly angry as he looked so unconcerned.

Saturday 3rd. Rest of the run uneventful. One lovely moonlit gentle sail. Slight scare last night as a man came round in a dinghy to say that heavy seas were expected. Made preparations to move; awnings stowed, decks cleared, radio watch on Trinidad, swam to shore & phoned Chris who was out to supper with the Tomlins (Dan's idea). Linda in bath.

Did move & swell came as predicted, due to a disturbance far away, so no wind. Weighed anchor & moved a cable off shore. Bent heavy anchor. Only real trouble turned out to be difficulty in landing dinghy at Aquatic club due to surge. V diff on beach.

Got my job after some preliminary phoning which failed to connect up. $280 & a house & a black maid - Fancy being wanted! The Super is a droll dear. V. pleasant. That cat is all ears, eyes & legs & is at the moment busily engaged batting a fountain pen round Lloyd's Register.

Linda has a fortnight's job & she & Chris are now at the Colony Club angling for day charters.

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Had after lunch whisky on Lorissa with Mr & Mrs Laason (?) He & his brother made her, a delightful little centreboard with bow & poop rail. Charming pair. He writes articles & draws adverts. Came via Marsailles, Majorca, Gib & Las Palmas.

*** *** ***

We had a hectic sail back from Antigua, and now I am installed for three months as a house surgeon at the General Hospital, Barbados. There were no vacancies at the UCWI (University College of the West Indies hospital in Jamaica), but for the first time in my life I have been really wanted; presented with a delightful little house for a mere pittance, and given unrivalled opportunities for surgery, that might not come my way for years in England. There are always at least three people in the ward a portion of whom the Gordon Museum might be pleased to acquire.

There are certain snags; gross overcrowding (there may be seven shared beds in a ward of twenty) shortage of staff and very poor facilities. My particular set-up gives me immense pleasure, with Mr Jack Leacock at the helm. He is a fine surgeon and a very dynamic and delightful man. A yachtsman, of course. Various criticisms are levelled at the hospital from time to time, mostly ill-informed, but I have never been happier, if that is any answer.

*** *** ***

(Theodora and the rest of the crew finally sailed off into the sunset.

I was given a little house made of coral rock (you can saw it when its fresh) in the grounds of the old Barbados General Hospital (BGH) with humming birds in the hibiscus and a mouse living under the washing up as it dried. Mrs Bostik fed me on yams, breadfruit and a fish called dolphin.

Jack Leacock was an amazing general surgeon who had sharpened up his craft in England during the blitz. He was incredibly deft and slightly manic so that he would turn out more patients than there were beds, and the surplus had to share or sleep underneath. He was tall, with a fine brow and those glasses that shrink your eyes and make rings round them. He started early in the morning in the private clinic, worked all day in the hospital and was always to be found living it up in the night clubs late at night. It was said that at times he became so manic that his colleagues used to fill him up with sedative injections and put him to bed for a week to quieten him down.

The anaesthetist used to shoot the rats in the storm drains out of the theatre window with an air rifle. I was surprised that the operating theatre windows were always wide open with the Trade winds blowing through, but was told that the air outside was far purer than the air inside.

Margaret Gale was his scrub nurse. She used to come over to my house in the lunch hour to share her thermos of chilled egg nog with me. She was a kind of tomboy, always laughing. I thoroughly enjoyed assisting Jack Leacock and think I was the only house surgeon. It was incredibly busy by day and I had seven calls to casualty

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one night.

I had to do a lot of Ds & Cs on my own, leaving a syringe of Pentothal in the patient's arm and rushing back from the other end to give another squirt if the patient started to twitch. It was said that the local abortionists used to start a little vaginal bleeding and then send their clients up to the hospital as incomplete abortions, so that we would finish the job.

I learned the beneficial effect of "letting the light in" to people with tuberculous peritonitis, and how to strain and replace intravenously the blood found in the abdomen of a woman with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy.

There was a very jolly Canadian registrar and a Gynaecologist who invariably used to fall asleep during dinner. We did everything, including screening patients with an ex military X-ray machine on wheels before and after plastering fractured limbs. This machine must have been leaking X-rays everywhere.

At weekends we used to sail or swim or picnic and Margaret was always in the middle of any fun that was going. Her two little boys, one black and one as fair as fair porpoised around like mer-kids.

Moppett came to stay and improve my diet and Jack lent us his Morris Traveller so that we could get about a bit. I was on my own, filling up with petrol one day when a pretty young Barbadian women came up. She was wearing a floral summer dress and straw hat. She wanted to be my woman and see to my every want on board. She assured me that she was clean and went to the clinic every month for a checkup. "Fore God I'd like to lie along of you" she said.

Powerful words for someone whose natural randiness was beginning to emerge after a lifetime of continence. I wonder what Chris and the rest of them would have said if I had signed her on. I declined her offer as graciously as I could.

The British Council people had a place up the leeward coast and we had some wonderful Sundays there drinking long rum punches and swimming out to the reef. If you felt a little tired on the way You could just lie on your back in the gentle swell and close your eyes to the sun. There was some excitement as "Dr Zhivago" had just come out; probably the first real literature from Russia since the start of the cold war.

Celia and cousin Anne had joined the yacht while I was working. They arrived to stay in my house and I totally ignored them. Celia says her first impressions of me were appalling. she found me rude and offhand, and one morning I turned up to breakfast on the verandah one morning wearing only a tablecloth.

We went to a circus where they had a headless woman with tubes in her neck. Only medical people were allowed onto the stage when all the plebs had left. It was all done by mirrors, but they asked us not to let on.

Finally Theodora came back for us. Simon has gone home, and John Glover and Robert Knight joined us for the rest of the voyage.)

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*** *** ***

It was with deep regret that I left the General Hospital, Barbados. I had never expected to see the risus sardonicus of a boy with tetanus, or to feel the crackle of gas gangrene under my fingers; nor had I expected such support and friendship from those with whom I had the good fortune to work. It was difficult at times with a hundred patients in the wards, casualty duties on alternate days and one night in four, and six operating sessions a week. It was maddening too, on occasion, but never remotely dull, and the clinical material was amazing. Sometimes I thought I was being hard done by, but was always chastened to find that my superiors were even more hardly done by, as far as working hours, than myself. I shall always be grateful for my three months in Barbados.

After sailing 2,700 miles and spending two months cruising between Trinidad and Antigua, Theodora spent a week swinging in Carlisle Bay to recuperate, looking her old graceful self with her topmast now in position. Once again her lockers were filled with tins and her tanks with water and fuel in preparation for another long journey, this time to Washington.

Sunday 12 April. After the 3 months in Barbados we have set off again at 11 am for Martinique. It is a lovely day & the Herons & Sprats were chasing round the bay as we made preparations to set sail. Tortle was at the back & Margaret gave us a wave.

I'm reasonably happy now we are away & am lying with the cat on my chest in the saloon - a little dry in the mouth after 2 Largactil & 1 Stemetil, but not sick.

We are coming out of the lee of Barbados now & a stiffish breeze on the starboard beam is keeping the lee scuppers mostly awash.

God I had become fond of Margaret, though there was damn all I could about it! She has boyish femininity, intelligence, strength of character, crazy vitality, and a great emotional warmth towards anyone she liked - this latter might prove her undoing, as Ian is loved most of all. She was fond of me too, as her last kiss showed when we said goodbye at their place. I hope I haven't made her too unhappy. Damn. Now I am making myself miserable again.

The Claytons escorted us out of the bay in Red Buster. Another charming pair, he a diver. I wish I had more chance to get to know them.

Monday 13th. Arrived Martinique after breakfast & spent the day in Fort de France bay. Had a bit of a job avoiding gybing & avoiding the Diamond Rock which loomed up in the pre-dawn.

Lunched well at Chez Etienne with red wine & hors d'oeuvres & veal & peach melba, filled half a white lady with red wine. I spent the morning sorting out the paint locker & thinking miserably about Margaret.

Slid out of harbour after tea, loaded with gas for cooking. Supper pleasantly domestic,

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chicken risotto by Linda.

Linda has been especially sweet to me lately, I think because she really is after Chris, knows it & knows I know it.

We had a brisk start out of the bay after the Herons () had finished racing at lunch time, and by nightfall the long, low outline of the island was well out of sight and less poignant memories fast fading. Breakfast saw us at anchor under the formidable shadow of the Fort de France in Martinique, and we spent an enjoyable day picking up Calor gas, laying thirty litres of vin ordinaire for our immediate needs, and having a good lunch at Chez Etienne, during the course of which we shamelessly dropped ice into the wine, as the hot season was well under way.

Am lying in lee saloon berth in sheet @ 9 pm. Shaugers in opposite bunk. Celia reading Bafut Beagles. I like her - quiet, amusing & hard working. The pain of leaving Margaret is much less now & I trust will soon be gone, just leaving a warm friendship. I do hope I haven't made her unhappy or unsettled.

Tues 14th. Have given myself the splendid job of syphoner emeritus to the white lady full of wine. Unfortunately it kept on stopping & I had to keep on sucking more through. Tant mieux.

(As we didn't have a fridge, somebody had advised to mix cheap wine with equal quantities of mixed tinned fruit juice for a cooling drink in the tropics when you have no ice. It worked remarkably well. The white ladies were 13 gallon polythene fresh water containers which floated, so they could be towed full behind the dinghy and had lugs to hoist them aboard.)

Decided during 12 - 1 starry, exhilarating night watch on my lonesome between Martinique & Dominica to write high flown renunciatory letter to Margaret, somewhat as follows:

"The practically intolerable pain of leaving you (which could only have been matched by not doing so) has now dimmed, leaving behind a kernel of warm affection that will stand the test of time".

Sounds corny in the clear light of day. Am more inclined to say:

"Barbados - Martinique: mis Martinique - Dominica: better Dominica - Guadaloupe: lesser mis."

Have no idea how I'll feel when it comes time to write.

Wed 15. Hit English Harbour this morning after a slow sail across from Guadaloupe. Was awakened to help hoist tops'l, which we just got up nicely in time to come galloping into the harbour, execute various crafty manoeuvres, & then take it down again with the rest of 'em. Worked splendidly & fortunately we had an audience.

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Various yachts - Dayspring, Tally Ho, vast black schooner Freelance & colossal 130 ft white ditto Te Vega. Dayspring's crew have left except Danny the aqualung. Sitting under the awning, 10 pm, Linda typing, boys absent, Dayspring alongside.

Have raging thirst but am informed no hope of cadging beer at this time of night. Cooked supper with Dan. Gloomed a bit this evening. Wrote to Margaret in quite different vein, but was explicit.

Thurs 16th. Cat had flexibilitas cerea for the greater part of the day after an energetic night out. Thought he was dead as no response to stimuli, but was puzzled by beatific smile.

We canted the boat to about 15 degrees each side, against three tyres by the chainplate, putting a on the main halyard. It took 28 stone on the purchase to haul her down. The wale was 2" under water & 2' 6" of Kobe was exposed. John & I scrubbed the bottom which is really in a very good state, though the Kobe is very thin now in patches. I squeezed round under the down side to see if she was bearing on the wall & Shaugers said:

"Are you staying down there while we haul her the rest of the way?" I didn't know he loved me so much.

Drank gin & tonics with Phil Brooks et al on Gemini, then had v. pleasant duck supper with Nicholsons aboard, then the Geminis arrived & we drank whisky till 1 am & learned all about the USA. Apparently 7 eligible girls to 1 boy in Washington. Wacko!

Fri 17th. Now have all conceivable & inconceivable gear set up, with topmast & square yard.

Quite a chatter to John Staniland, the man with the most cultured voice I know, this morning. Cheered up a lot by likelihood of good conditions.

Set off from the wharf at EH with main & tops'l, & hauled up stays'l & No. 1 jib as she had her stern pulled in by Cmds Nicholson et al. Much goodwill on all sides, especially from the Nicholsons. Wind died as we approached the entrance, but just returned in time to blow us round fort Charlotte point, so we got out in one after the initial one.

Theodora knew her own way up the lee of the islands to English Harbour; fortunately the wind was light enough for us to put up the jackyard topsail, just so that we could come sweeping into that minute creek, take it down again and round up to anchor beyond Nelson's Dockyard. We were told that it was worth it by the audience we had hoped for, consisting as it did of other trans-Atlantic yachtsmen.

Two days sufficed for loading the provisions and gear that were waiting for us, and assembling and hoisting the squaresail yard, but we had to press on, so saying goodbye to Dayspring and other of our friends, we hoisted virtually every available

30

sail and sailed away from the quay and down between the hills and cliffs of the creek.

As we rounded Fort Berkeley and came onto our Westerly course, we came under the baleful eye of a solitary cannon, protruding through one of her grim embrasures. It did not take much imagination to see the haze of smoke from the smouldering slow-match and the red hot roundshot glowing in braziers in readiness behind the battlements. No wonder the French never succeeded in capturing the place.

Now a glorious night, wind on the quarter, 4 - 5 knots & negligible motion. Aim to pass to windward of Nevis & St Kitts.

Sat 18th. Glorious sunny sailing with squares'l, making about 3 knots. I rigged up a board on the end of a rope from the bowsprit end, great fun with goggle but not entirely satisfactory. All the boys had a go; Daniel's costume kept coming down till in the end he took it off & passed it up.

Lots of groaning, rumblings & creakings down here in the saloon.

The thing about Margaret was she slid so well into my scheme of things, - similar outlook & heartiness, that I accepted her as a companion immediately. If I had gone as soon as the job was over I would have been sorry to go, but would have left on the crest of a wave of cheerfulness & goodwill. But hanging around & moping for a week, when she only appeared occasionally instead of being almost constantly present - & things took on a very different perspective. I missed her terribly while she was still available.

Still - the pain has mostly gone now, & the cursing of fate - "What fun we could have had if I had met her first" sort of attitude - & only a faint yearning remains. I'm not trying to kid myself that sex didn't enter into this, because it did.

(I needn't have worried for Margaret as soon after she and Jack left their respective partners and married each other! The sex was all in the mind.))

Wind v. v. light east, dropped completely. Spent most of the time lolling about & swimming. Some Luger practice.

Wind reappeared northerly - took down squares'l, freshened so took down jackyard tops'l. Now sailing 7 knots with wind abeam.

Passing thro islands.

Tried out Smith's towing board Mk I, fun but not entirely satis. Boys v, excretorily minded.

Sun 19th. One of the most idyllic days to date sailing into St Francis Drake's channel in the Virgins.

Just like the Scillies only marvellous weather.

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Daniel's modification of Smith's towing board - Mk II - came into use & worked admirably.

We towed from the bowsprit & could get right below the forefoot & see bottom trundling by - mostly flat & sandy with occasional coral outcrops & bluejacks. Tows best at about 3 knots.

Light winds carried us to the Virgin Islands, and enchanting ring surrounding what is practically a lagoon, known as Sir Francis Drake's Channel. Daniel and I rigged up a board which we towed from the bowsprit; it was arranged in such a way that one could make it dive by pressure of the forearms, and wearing mask and schnorkel we watched the coral reefs drifting under her keel as we broke through the ring. After some practice we were able to swoop up and down at will, though until we had the technique we were liable to come up under the bilges and it required a lot of kicking and wriggling before regaining the surface.

Entered Trellis Bay - idyllic spot with slipway & small hotel & one or two cottages only. Run by Alan Batham who sailed over from Belfast to Antigua in "Falcon" a year ago.

(There was an aged American sugar daddy and his sugar chick staying in the little hotel. They went sailing in a dinghy together. Neither seemed very good at it.)

Tues 21st. It's very hot here - the heat hits you as you climb the companion, & the deck is like a frying pan.

Yesterday we popped her up on the slip as Mr Batham managed to fix it, & all worked hard, scrubbed her a little as not much required, & in about 2 hours six of us had the bottom & ourselves liberally antifouled.

She was launched again (spars bouncing and rattling as she trundled down the slipway into the sea) just after tea & the three boys & I went coconut hunting, to the great danger of all concerned.

In the evening the Batham's came for drinks & supper & then we pushed off to the club on the Cay for rum punch, chatter & music. Celia & I sat at the back & made cynical remarks & chatted about our respective homes. In the middle I gave Mrs B. her typhoid inoculation. She's a dear - one of those sensible & attractive middle aged ladies one bumps into from time to time. V. cultured & well informed. He is a slightly rougher diamond (men always are) but quite but quite delightful, a good yachtsman & very helpful & sympathetic.

The boys were incredibly anal swimming back with the coconuts with groanings & moanings & farting noises & producing coconuts with great glee. Eventually we swam under Chris' (model) schooner & released them as inverted depth charges. (Later we bombed the girls from underneath when swimming back from the shore)

As soon as we left the bay we hoisted the squaresail and half the hands sat along the yard swinging their feet, awed by the timeless beauty of the islands, picked out

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against the lucent blue of the sea by the falling sun. A belly full of supper restored more normal spirits ( we now have four recently ex-public schoolboys, three girls, the captain and myself) and we turned in to the soothing creak of the gear as the remnants of the Trade Winds blew us on to Puerto Rico. The following day we sent the raffee topsail up for the first time, and our first glimpse of American territory came into view; we also had our first contact with the US Navy when a small warship was too busy to acknowledge our dipped ensign; the only time I have know a warship of any nationality fail to do so.

Thurs 23rd. Slid into San Juan estuary last night after a gorgeous sail from Beef Island. Sitting at the masthead as we sailed gently between the islands, with the boys sitting on the yard & chattering & singing was v. pleasant.

We set the squares'l just after leaving Trellis Bay (Alan Batham came out to see us off) & have had it up almost ever since. The boys managed to get the Raffee tops'l up as Puerto Rico came alongside & we were making 7 - 8 knots with a force 4 wind aft & virtually no sea at all.

(I wanted to be alone with my thoughts, so I spent a lot of time up the mast. My attention began to be drawn towards Celia's pink pedal pushers as she lolled on the after cabin skylight.)

Wrote to Moppett but not a very satisfactory letter somehow. Lacked something. Still, it took a fair time to write & contains some news so it'll go just the same.

Arrived 10.30 last night - terrific phosphorescence with glowing jellyfish which Robert schlooped up and put in the bucket. Now 10 am & the doctor hasn't arrived yet. Hope he comes soon as we can't go ashore till he does & we are pushing on tomorrow.

Fri 13th. Really under way again at last. The boat has taken on sailing trim & become a beautiful and complete organism again. When everything is orientated towards sailing & disciplined by the motion, she becomes clear cut & efficient.

As usual, though no-one was conscious of having left anything about, it took 2 or 3 hours hard work to get her shipshape & Bristol fashion.

Celia is supine on the Starboard saloon berth & I am leaning on the after end of the swinging table (She has nice legs I do believe!). We are making about 4 knots with the wind on the Starb'd beam & the jackyarder up. The motion is slight. The charging motor is going, the lee stays'l sheet rattling spasmodically. The girls' cabin door is creaking. Had a Gauloise tonight after supper - something a bit funny about it; it tasted scented.

Yesterday we went into San Juan shopping & I traipsed comfortably behind Ann & Celia. The city is very pleasant & a cross between Lisbon & Funchal. It rained pretty hard most of the time & the locals seemed to find cause for mirth in my beard & large bunch of green bananas. I also had a gay shirt, shorts & a Leacock hat, so may have been something of a sight.

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(The young women were all beautiful, their natural Latin looks enhanced by the best American cosmetics, and the back streets seemed to be cobbled with lapis lazuli. Someone was playing Beethoven's Minuet in G. )

We wandered about, tried to get in various forts, saw a marvellous shanty Casbah under the battlements with a pig being slaughtered. Met Chris & Linda, drank fruit juice & then went to "Island in the Sun" & "Sing Boy Sing".

The city is still very Spanish, though most can speak English. Nice things in shops, not hideously expensive. Bread 17 cents a lb, which is expensive.

While we were away John, Robert & Daniel cadged 72 charts off an American Boat due to be broken up in Japan & today they cadged 4 more off USS Albermarle, a huge seaplane service boat.

Club Nautico, by whose pier we were moored, v. plushy tho' pleasant. I saw little of it save the showers. Lots of expensive motor boats with huge fishing rods in pens. River narrow at this point with low bridge & airport just opposite. Theodora clearly a curio that would make a fine pet, but upon whom one wouldn't dream of sailing. No deep freeze etc. (There were lots of pelicans on the piles.)

Sun 26th. Yesterday the first time for many a day a thrill of fear ran through the boat. In the first part of the morning the wind was very light & dead aft - we were making about 3 knots with the raffee up. In the afternoon the wind increased until we were roaring along at about 8 in brilliant sunshine. Quite suddenly it became very light & dead ahead, pressing the raffee against the mast.

As we lowered the raffee & squares'l & hoisted the stays'l & No. 1 jib, ragged, squally patches began to appear but the wind remained light Northerly. The sea became confused & there was a distinct Northerly as well as Southeasterly swell. Lightning began to flicker.

We were sitting in the saloon chatting after tea as the wind began to increase, and one of the boys announced casually that Chris was considering the possibility of a hurricane & that we would probably be shortening sail, & possibly shipping the squares'l yard & reefing the topmast.

The barometer had dropped by 0.04" in 3 hours. In these regions 0.02 in an hour means that a hurricane is very likely.

Chris made a rueful face over the deckhouse.

"Better have the tops'l & jib & squares'l yard down while it is still light".

It had been raining extremely hard in patches & the No. 1 jib was soaked stiff as we stuffed it down the forehatch. The wind was increasing all the time & while Robert was sitting on the stem he was more or less lifted off his feet by a big splurge of water.

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We took in 2 reefs & lowered the yard, lashing it to the shrouds. We didn't replace the jib.

"Might as well have the topmast down, it would be a good exercise".

With all the loose & the starboard loose the topmast waved about with the ship's motion. We tried to hoist it with the heel rope without loosening the port shroud, but were unable to lift it so that Sean could knock out the fid. Even as we were trying, the wind began to lessen rapidly, so we tightened up the rigging again.

The mood had been one of great cheerfulness & loud singing while hauling on the ropes, but everyone was quite worried.. As the wind dropped the glass rose & the mood lifted.

The night was almost dead calm & now we are making very good speed with the wind just free, battling into a head sea & taking on a fair amount of water. I am feeling slightly sick.

Monday 28th. Prayers again at 11.30 y'day. Started brisk but became calmer. Made goodish speed without tops'l. Changed jib pennants. Old one almost rusted through. Gulf weed everywhere. (Indicating the proximity of the Sargasso Sea).

Read Father brown stories & second half of Revelation out loud between us. Boys sang rounds & songs from Scout songbook with much gusto.

(We went swimming in 2000 fathoms or so over the Puerto Rico Trench; it was a weird feeling as part of your mind could see you wiggling on the surface of this vast hazy blue mass of water like a mosquito larva)

Today sunny & cloudless. Wind slightly freer. Making 4 - 5 knots.

Gorgeous night watch. Thought of Margaret & splendid times at Barbados. Singing, shouting, sailing, laughing, the Drummer Boy (a contemporary carol), dancing, drinking, swimming, operating.

Had the impression that thinking in this manner was suffering, as the stars glinted & the sea swashed, but I suddenly realised that I was enjoying the process very much & it had just that spice of gloom to complete & perfect it.

Worked out some of last night's star sights. Got a cocked hat 10 miles on longest side. Not too good.

This aft: sat in saloon & read Just So stories.

8th May, Friday. 4th - Calm with lightning ++, reefed x4. Damn all happened. 5th - Heavy sea off Cape Fear.

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6th - Shark hunt with Luger.

(I shot a hammerhead from the squares'l yard and its friends ate it.)

The run from San Juan has been notable for the variety of conditions and wind directions. In general they have been light, at times entirely absent, giving splendid opportunities for swinging outboard on the squaresail outhaul and plummeting into the sea, or being towed behind in a bosun's chair; however there have been a few sudden and dramatic storms.

On one occasion we had been becalmed for the greater part of a day and a night, and as dawn broke there was a large, black bank of cloud to the North. It was growling a little and at intervals it glowed, suddenly and picturesquely. At first it seemed inclined to pass by to the West, but it was only feinting, because with no further warning it extended its left forepaw and scooped us in. We were already taking in sail but in no time the cloud burst, laid us practically on our beam ends and flayed us with lashing rain; exhilarated by this after hours of inaction, the crew fell upon the and sails (or rather the other way about) as first we rounded up to take three rolls in the mainsail and then bore away, flying before the hissing seas so as to lower the big jib in the lee of the mainsail. To heighten the dramatic effect our cloud obligingly flung jagged, crashing bolts of lightning all around us; it must have been a little put out to see the crew leaping with joy, and covering themselves and each other with detergent, frothing in the driving rain.

As suddenly as it came, the wind left us in a colossal rumbling cavern, with shafts of sunlight pouring through ermine fringed tears in the roof, as if probing for El Greco's Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. Soon we bobbed out of the mouth of the cave, and began to heel gently to a light southwester, enabling us to hoist all our light weather canvas, and dry ourselves in the sparkling sun.

That was some days ago, and since then we have passed through the Gulf Stream, and are beating round Cape Fear in the sombre bottle green sea. Our immediate destination is Beaufort Inlet, where we enter the inland waterways that will carry us to Washington. We are practically becalmed again now, just off Frying Pan shoal, but yesterday we were making heavy weather, plunging into the short, unpleasant sea that the strong Northeaster rapidly stirred up.

7th - Entered Beaufort Inlet - almost perfect landfall. Just like Chichester. Beaufort a village - nice white wooden houses around. Moored on lee quay between fishing boats. Fuel & water available. People friendly. Milk shake. Lift bridge at high speed. Mud. Off again. Made supper with Celia. Read Shakespeare. Anchored fore 'n' aft & tied to posts in canal.

This stretch of the intracoastal waterway is quite lovely - just like the Norfolk Broads only a thousand times more extensive.

The chain of lakes & canals are surrounded with natural woodland, mostly coniferous, with a strong, resinous smell of.... is it juniper? in the air. The peace of last night was indescribable, with stars exactly stationary overhead. Why rush about

36

the sea? Started at 6 am today, breakfast 6.15, all famished by 9 am. Thrashing out of Neuse river into Pamlico Sound.

Stuck on mud in Pamlico Sound - got off after 1 hour's hard work.

The intracoastal waterway enables small commercial traffic to travel from Florida to New York without going out to sea. We entered it at a small town called Beaufort and followed it the few hundred miles up to Washington. This stretch is a chain of rivers, canals and huge Sounds, of great beauty and wildness, not unlike the more beautiful parts of the Norfolk Broads, though far more extensive and unspoilt. The surrounding countryside is woodland that used to be a source of good quality timber, but it has never been properly cared for, and now only yields poor quality wood for pulping. The area is a great centre as it abounds with game of all sorts, from quail to bear, and there is even an occasional alligator; we spent a certain amount of time crashing through the undergrowth, blazing trails in the approved (and very necessary) fashion, but never saw a living creature.

Native common sense and a knowledge of the buoyage systems of the rest of the world was not sufficient to see us through the waterway without up to the minute charts, and we took the ground eight times between Beaufort and Bellhaven, out first stop about sixty miles up the waterway. We draw nine feet, and it is not always as deep as that in the channel, se we became quite expert at laying out kedges and running up the topsail at a moments notice, and we never failed to get her off within an hour; we took good care to obtain proper charts at Bellhaven.

Here we stopped for four days and repainted the topsides and deck, as this might well be our last chance to do so. Bellhaven gave us our first taste of typical Southern hospitality, which we have since found not to be confined to South of the Mason-Dixon line as they led us to suppose, and we were treated like kings. The town is small and composed of neat, white painted wooden houses, except for the main street, which is just like any other main street. We attended the little Episcopal church, and were greeted by, and shook hands with almost the entire congregation. The obverse of the coin was Lemmie, a delightful, dissolute, delinquent American teenager. He told us that he had been a juvenile, but one day found himself looking through the bars from the inside, so he had retired. He looked at Daniel, our Etonian, and said to us:

"He's mean...a real mean cat. He's got eyes like a Yankee hoodlum." all of which delighted Daniel no end. It was some time before his pal, who was strictly non-delinquent and an acolyte at the Episcopal church, could prise him out, as a mixture of Barbados rum and Scotch made him rather aggressive.

9th May. Spent night in bay at mouth of Pungo river after another stick.

Set off this morning & stuck on mud again. Got off with main halyard on winch on nylon warp (to kedge) with engine in astern.

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(We sailed her aground so often that we became pretty skilful at getting her off. After sounding all round with the lead line to determine which side the water was deeper, we would hoist the jackyard topsail to heel her over, send all spare hands to the end of the bowsprit to tilt her heel up and we could usually sail her off into the deeper water, and carry on until we stuck again.)

Spent today painting like hell.

Belhaven a nice sleepy little place with clapboard houses. Haven't seen the shopping bit yet. Moored alongside one of the three quays, free. Stuck on end of it.

Everybody pleasant. Met Al - nice, mildly drunken youth & Lemmie, a real drunken, dissipated American juvenile. Our accent gets them. Lemmie was almost straight out of a film. Al apologised for him.

We've beaten the weather up here & it was piercingly cold this evening but we feel it is a sacrilege to wear anything except shorts. Succumbed to polo-neck & end to ended with Celia on port bunk under blanket with small glass neat rum. Feet not warm till after fried chicken supper.

(The Pizzet, as the cat was now called, took a great delight in sneering at American cats until they leapt aboard and chased him round the deck with murderous intent. After a few circuits he would shin up the rigging to a convenient spot to watch the now baffled cats racing round and round until they finally realised that he had disappeared and they slunk off ashore.)

May Saturday. Stay at Bellhaven example of considerable hospitality of type south of Mason-Dickson line.

Went to little Episcopal Church. Delegation of charming l'il ol' men & women arrived in afternoon to see boat & gave us a pink hydrangea.

Pete Westerbeck & sister in Dutch costume gave us flowers & flogged us a bucket of eggs at 25 cents a dozen.

They drove us round to Bath & over the county & then took us back to their 400 acre flower etc: farm for hot dogs cooked on bamboos over open fire. Learned baseball from Case - nice boy of fourteenish & friend Dick. Assed about, rode to barn & back on car. Played Streets 'n' Alleys then went inside & sang. 2 old Dutch mommas, various other girls, Jane (16, real purty) & Mary et al.

Lots of Dutch blood around, much respected thereabouts.

Saw "Inn of 6th Happiness" with Ingrid Bergman & Kurt Jurgens. Unusual & most moving & enjoyable.

Painted topsides & decks x 2 & inside bulwarks & rail.

Invited to lovely dinner with Rotarians; (They earnestly sang "Home, Home on the

38

Range, where the deer and the antelopes play...." before supper. We were a bit surprised, but joined in con brio). Chris gave slides & chat.

Met Dr Tom Suther. Ate in private house out of town. Tom drove me to a house call in a little clapboard farm house - 4 rooms with many rockin' chairs. Dad li'l ol' man in dungarees & check shirt; Mom a pudgy bunned bundle. Their boy hasn't been feelin' too good with pains & shivering. Go up narrow staircase & into bedroom; huge bedstead, large rickety painted dark chest of drawers with large oval mirror above. Son turns out to be dark, lean, unshaven bundle. Has been on a drinking spree, now on Antabuse. Both examine him carefully but OK. gave him 1.5 grs Seconal injection as run out of barbiturate pills. Tell him to come to office for urine test. Mom & Dad press us to stay & give Tom nuts, strawberries etc.

(Tom introduced me to the proprietor of the wine store, who strode across the shop with a broad smile and outstretched hand: "Mighty glad to meet you Doctor Smith, Yes Siree!" I never knew people really said that.)

We see little hospital, deliver baby, drink beer & talk till 3 am.

Theodora goes early next morn. We go to hospital & office, lunch, then to club airstrip at Washington NC as has little 4 seat Ballanca Cruisemaster ($18,000) & wants to fly me round county; pilot's away so snooze in ramshackle clubhouse. Then he does a couple of circuits & I watch.

Home again via hospital, eat at neighbours', watch TV. Bed.

Up at 6. Tom Stancil has flown plane over & landed on highway 5 mins away. Say goodbye to lovely Betty & there plane is beside road & Highway Patrolman. Roar down road & take off. Fly just below scud; country v. desolate. Alligator Pungo canal off like arrow. Over Albemarle Sound, see Theodora just entering North River, buzz her three times, then on to Coinjock. Lift from strip to swing bridge in prison truck.

I deserted the boat for a couple of days, to go round with Tom Suther, an American GP, who was a fine doctor, worked very hard, and was very similar to his British counterpart, except that he could practise real medicine, and was well loved and well paid for it. In addition to his beautiful young wife, and baby girl, he had recently acquired a four-seater private aeroplane in which he flew me on to overtake the boat and show me the countryside.

The plane landed on the main road five minutes drive away during breakfast, and after looking to left and right, we swung out on the road, roared along for a hundred yards, then banked steeply up and away. We flew over scraggy woodland and winding creeks with the stormscud of the cloudbase about us, along the golden streak of the Alligator River Pungo Rriver canal, the horizon blue and hazy on all sides. Across the wrinkles of Albemarle Sound at 180 knots, and just in the entrance of North River we spotted Theodora in a pool of sunlight and fell away to buzz her three times at deck level with all aboard waving like mad things.

We landed a few minutes later at a prison landing strip near Elizabeth City, and I

39

was given a lift to Coinjock, where I could catch Theodora as she went under the swing bridge.

I was taken in a prison truck; the warders were lean rangy fellows and didn't talk much. I asked them what sort of criminals they were looking after and one said:

"Mostly long term boys; lifers or double lifers. They're felonies, which means they're shootable. We divide them up into felonies and misdemeanours; you can’t shoot a misdemeanour. If he escapes you have to catch him and put him back in the can."

Coke & biscuits. Place almost like Thames. Nice bridgemaster thinks another war. Theodora appears in an hour. We go on up lovely waterways, stop & blaze rail through jungle & back, go on as mosquitos +++ & stop at Texaco station.

Off early, reach Norfolk - ships ++ & 2 huge lift bridges before lunch. Tie up at Hudgin's wharf.

Go to town. Lovely constructional kits $1.00 each. Pretty girl unloads lots of li'l Horribles.

Go to "Shane". Much enjoyed. Utterly delightful little boy, beautiful photography, classical Western. Alan Ladd goody, Jack Pallance sinister baddy. Good brawls. Definitely a superior Western.

Chris found John Smith, Navy Coot.(?)

Cooked fish with Celia. Bed @ 10.30 after shower.

Up at 5.

We motored gently up to Norfolk, Virginia, sailing where we could; this was a rather grim industrial and Naval dockyard, so we did not stay long, and at six the next morning we sailed very slowly out into Chesapeake Bay.

(There were lines and lines of mothballed warships in Norfolk, left over from the war.)

Now sauntering up Chesapeake Bay. Felt great surge of pro-American feeling on seeing lovely old passenger ferry, Baltimore - Norfolk. Many waved.

*** *** ***

By eight o'clock we were turning into the Potomac River, and commenced a hair raising beat through the bitterly cold night. There are too many buoys for us, most of them unlighted and therefore merely a menace, and stretching from the edge of the deep channel were hundreds of fish traps, through which we had to thread our way.

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All went well and two mornings later we lowered sail and motored the last quarter of a mile into Washington and tied up among the quays and pens of the Capitol Yacht Club.

Washington is a very beautiful and well ordered city, so extensively planted with Japanese cherry trees that there can be no houses in sight right in the middle of the town. If you stand at the foot of the colossal obelisk in memory of George Washington. the Capitol rises white above the trees half a mile away, and if you walk to the other side of the monument, the square temple of the Lincoln memorial is a similar distance in the opposite direction, and across the river on your left hand the equally white cupola of the Jefferson memorial; another beautiful Greek temple in which Thomas Jefferson looks distinctly uncomfortable. The city must be almost unique, as it is wholly directed towards the government and its departments, mostly housed in huge and very impressive stone buildings, and there is no industry at all.

During our few days stay here we have had many memorable visits and parties, and have met several distinguished people, practically all of whom appeared to be quietly dedicated to their jobs, but friendly and with their eyes wide open. We had the good fortune to meet the Vice-President, Mr Nixon, who was being taken out for a day's sailing. He was charming and friendly, but looked terribly tired, as if he was in need of a day's sailing on the Potomac, followed by several good nights' sleep. He had the sail and I hope he gets the sleep too.

We were shown round the Capitol by Congressman Joe Barr of Indiana, and given lunch in a private room there after a glimpse of Congress and the Senate in action He had to dash out to vote for spending half a billion dollars in order to put a man in orbit round the earth. He is young and cheerful, and once again has this dedicated approach that seems genuine without being ingenuous. I do not know whether this will make much difference to them, but I am impressed by the stature of such members of the Government as I have met; the Capitol does not by any means enshrine the rough house we are sometimes led to suppose it does.

(We were shown round the White House by President Eisenhower's adviser on religious matters, and had a poke around the Oval Office. He also arranged for us to attend the funeral of John Foster Dulles in Washington Cathedral.)

Baseball is an excellent game, and risking being refused re-entry into England I think it is vastly superior to cricket (a game at which I never shone and was usually bored to tears) though it is not strictly comparable. It is played with great concentration and lack of emotion among the players; in fact if you swear at any one of the four staid, blue-suited umpires, you are sent off to pay a fine of $50. There is a crisis of some sort about once every five minutes and the players are colourful people. We saw the Washington Senators beaten 5 - 3 by the Cleveland Indians; Washington has been bottom of the league for many years, and are making their comeback, largely because of the advent of Herman Killebrew, who may well beat Babe Ruth's record of 60 homers in one season. He hit one for us.

Jazz is of more interest to me now, having heard the St Louis Blues and similar numbers played in expert traditional style, and on being told that the trombonist,

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whom we had complimented to the gravel-voiced leader, was "Cool, man, cool".

We have a few more days here, and then we carry on to New York. I have been indulging in a little civilisation for the last couple of days by spending the weekend with an American family who have been friends of my family for some years (the Sherers). I am in the happy position of being able to explode the popular myth that American households are run by children with a couple of shotaway parents lurking in the background. It simply is not true; they are just like us except that their children are nicer and their parents nicer still.

*** *** ***

(Celia and I spent some time with Sam and Nancy Marsh who tactfully left us together at times, to give us a chance to canoodle, which we did. We were beginning to fall for each other and there was no chance to get close on the boat.

We had various adventures in Washington, and were taken around by one of three Commissioners, who are sort of joint mayors. They took us to see George Washington's lovely old house at Mount Vernon, the military cemetery at Arlington, (where the soldiers on duty had chrome-plated helmets and rifle parts) and arranged for me to visit the National Institutes of Health at Bethesda. They drove us round in air conditioned limos with two way radios.

We were invited to an enormous party in a hotel where Celia sat beside a bigwig who propositioned her. He was in charge of the alcohol problem in Washington, which was appropriate as he was half seas over. Celia won’t tell me what he said to this day.

The band played "Stormy Weather" at our request.

We had our first mint juleps.

Chris was given a golden key to the city and a baseball signed by the Washington Senators. I'm not sure why they made such a fuss of us.

After a couple of weeks it was time to move on.

On the way down the Potomac we tied up in the naval base on the right bank just below the bridge and were invited to see NORC, the Naval Ordnance Research Computer. This was a house with its walls made of racks and racks of valve banks, with a young woman with dark frizzy hair and a beret sitting at a kind of organ console in the middle of the room. It was being used to track moon rockets. We were amazed.

When we set sail we couldn't find the Pizzet so we had to set off without him. A few miles down river we looked back and saw a coastguard cutter the size of a small destroyer charging down after us, waving something in the air. It turned out to be the Pizzet, who had gone to sleep on the bridge. We were sailing quite fast with the wind aft, so the cutter kept station parallel with us, put the cat in a bag, heaved a line

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across to us with the bag attached, and we hauled him in. He was a bit fed up as he had been dunked several times on the way.

Then the cutter sheered off and raced back home with much cheerful waving,

After leaving Chesapeake Bay we sailed up outside New Jersey. A cheeky ocean racer with a huge overhauled us, so we hoisted the raffee topsail and charged past her. I was sitting on the yard at the topmast head. )

*** *** ***

June 7th. The early morning sun had no warmth in it, so we wrapped up well and brewed some hot tea to sustain us. Away on the starboard bow there were some vertical blue slots in the haze; as we approached, these grew larger and more clearly defined. We were seeing Manhattan Island and our thoughts were following varied and changing courses. Ann wanted to go back to her bunk, to be called when there was something interesting to see; Chris was looking upon them as articles of architectural beauty, and feeling it was the most splendid thing in the world to be sailing your own yacht up New York harbour. At first I was surprised at how clean they were and later how dirty, and later still how much nicer that made them, in this land of hygienic cellophane wrappers, and homogenised, vitaminised milk.

The harbour was quiet, with only a few tugs bustling about and the huge Staten Island ferry gliding inexorably to and fro. We sailed past the Statue of Liberty (surprisingly bright green), into the East River, and tied up alongside one of the commercial quays on the southern tip of the Island, with the chains and cables of Brooklyn Bridge a quarter of a mile further on. The only disadvantages of this situation were the dirt and the heavy washes from passing tugs; some friends on Governor's Island (the Klevans) lent us their house for doing the laundry and taking baths, entertaining us royally whenever they saw us.

During the fortnight that we stayed in New York most of the crew stayed ashore, but the two girls and I stayed on the boat or Governor's Island and explored the city from there. We were determined to find the spirit of New York, having first made the assumption that there was one. Putting on as Beatnicky clothes as we could manage we tramped the streets by the fish market, through Chinatown, the Bowery, out into Fourth Avenue and across to Washington Square and Greenwich Village; we listened to long-haired young men reading their own compositions in the Gaslight, Mc Dougall street; we rattled hither and thither on the screaming subway, visited the Natural History Museum and admired the wonderful dioramas (or is it dioramata?), browsed in bookshops, saw David Niven in "Ask Any Girl" at the Radio City, stared at the amazing lights of Broadway and the extraordinary way in which steam issued from every one of the numerous cracks and crannies of the streets.

As a result of our wanderings, we came to the conclusion that the Spirit lurked somewhere in or around the second hand bookshops of Fourth Avenue, notably the Pageant bookshop, hard by Eighth Street (proprietor Sid Solomon). Here we found a deep, genuine affection for this strange cosmopolitan city, especially the seedier parts, and a willingness to tell us about them. It was a pity the books were such a

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terrible price, but so was everything else. The only thing we did not do was to see the top of the Empire State Building, which by a sustained effort we managed to avoid.

*** *** *** (This exploring was done by Celia and me, hand in hand. Native Americans were appalled to hear that we had been wandering at night through the toughest parts of New York; they would never have done so. We never had a moment's anxiety, except perhaps when the fly zip came off the rails in the subway, and Celia had to shield me from other passengers on the platform while I turned my back, failed to wrestle it back on again, finally solved the problem with a safety pin.

Our longest excursion on foot took us through Chinatown, Yiddisher town and various other such towns to the Henry Street Settlement where some dedicated people were trying to organise medical and social care for a few blocks of impoverished people. Whenever we suggested that a National Health Service was a good idea to better off people they reacted with disgust at the idea of "socialised medicine" for no apparent reason. We had a memorable seafood supper at Sloppie Louie’s, South Street.

New Yorkers are incredibly friendly. I met one in a shop who invited me to his apartment, plied me with drink and dropped me off at the cinema where I saw my favourite film, Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal".)

*** *** *** One of the high spots of our visit was attending a meeting of the Church of Divine Metaphysics. This remarkable organisation was housed in a minute apartment amongst the cinemas of Broadway and has apparently about a dozen members. At one end of the room is a broad pulpit with the mystical letters "OM" inscribed on it; this is flanked by standard lamps that can be turned down to a blue glow. Little Buddhas contemplate their navels round about, and pictures of the enlightened soul adorn the walls. The flame of enlightenment burns on his brow and he is surrounded by concentric circles of Divine radiance.

The lights were turned low and the service begins. In a dry voice with a pronounced Indian accent our cadaverous host exhorted us to meditate, and led us through the successive stages and planes towards the absorption in One and All Knowledge. At intervals we broke into a chant: "Ommmmmm, Ommmmmm, Ommmmmm.... from the North, from the East, from the South, from the West, from above, from below peace comes to me, power comes to me, joy comes to me, life comes to me, love comes to me, riches come to me, Christ comes to me, my own comes to me...."

"Now we are passing deeper in silence and time; the sixth sense and the third eye are opening as we come to the psychic, the astral, the spiritual plane (whoever is taking notes would be much better advised to tune in to the astral plane with us). Shaaaaaanti, Shaaaaaanti, Shaaaaaanti...... "

When we eventually arrived at the astral plane the hat was handed round and rustling noises followed, and occasional chinking noises as we contributed. The lights were turned up again, and the first speaker arose and addressed us in quite a

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scholarly manner on Zen Buddhism.

He was followed by a strange, exophthalmic man who elected to tell us how to diet. He told us that we should confine ourselves to foods with high vibrations, and distilled water. He had himself spent three months on such a diet in 1939, and found that his sense of smell became so acute that he could detect what organs were diseased in the people he met, and whether they had changed their underclothes the night before or not. He eventually gave this diet up as so many of his friends smelt of death. The trouble with America today is that too many people eat spices, which are carried in the bloodstream and stimulate the sex glands. This is not altogether a bad thing as they liberate hormones which travel up to the brain and cause electric currents to flow between the pituitary and pineal glands; this in turn causes the third eye to open, and enables you to foresee danger and financial disaster. (They were offering a Doctorate of Divinity after a fortnights course.)

*** *** ***

(We were fortunate to have Herb Becker aboard in Cape Cod Bay. He worked for the State Department, but was a photographer by inclination. He and I were cast adrift in the dinghy while Theodora disappeared over the horizon, to come thundering back time and again so the he could take some wonderful photographs.)

*** *** ***

July 19th. We are now a long way from New York having sailed by easy stages up to St John, New Brunswick, in the Bay of Fundy. The coast of Maine and New Brunswick is of fir covered granite, deeply sculptured into a system of islands and estuaries which are in Summer almost perpetually shrouded in fog. The last 150 miles have been particularly trying; forty-eight hours with visibility not above three boats lengths in an area with strong tides and many rocks. The winds have been for the most part light, and there has been nothing except greyness, dampness and an occasional foghorn.

*** *** *** (We stopped off at several delightful spots on the way up, including Oven's Mouth, a little bay in a granite, fir clad creek overlooked by a single log cabin.

The fog was so thick in some of the fjords, that I had to sit in the clear air on the cross trees, shouting down to the boat, invisible under a white blanket, if I saw an island ahead. Chris navigated with an extraordinary mixture of dead reckoning, running fixes on passing diaphones, and occasionally homing on to a lightship with the Beme Loop radio. I managed to a sight on Mars through a hole in the fog.)

*** *** ***

Of several anxious moments in this period, the most dramatic was three days ago, when we were just approaching the northern tip of Grand Manan Island in the Bay of Fundy. The wind began to increase at about supper time, and Theodora was becoming difficult to steer with the jackyard topsail up and the wind on the quarter.

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We were just stuffing ourselves with the welcome supper (for the weather was very cold) and the great diaphone was becoming louder and louder as we approached the end of the island, when Chris yelled down for us to lower the topsail. As we ran to the halyards, John brought her round into the wind and she heeled over onto her beam ends. I scampered up the inside of the lee rigging (waist deep in water) until she righted herself. The topsail came down, objecting strongly, and we were just getting it under control when the lookout cried: "Land ahead!".

The moon had torn a gap in the fog, and was outlining a three hundred foot granite cliff, about three hundred yards away. We bore away sharply and lowered the big jib, then hove to under the lee of the cliff as the diaphone thundered in our ears. It was an exhilarating few minutes and enough to make us supremely grateful for good navigation and seamanship. We reflected on this as we retrieved what we could of our suppers from the saloon floor.

*** *** ***

(The tide rises 70 feet at the northern end of the Bay of Fundy, and almost as much at St John, New Brunswick, so that if you tie up someone has to adjust the mooring ropes all the time. Above the port there is a reversing waterfall, which we crossed at slack water into the most beautiful river, winding through gentle fields and hills. We stopped off for a party at the Kenebecasis Yacht Club, and “gammed” with the Cruising Club of America in a bay further up river for their Summer meet.

Bored with our gam I swam across to a posh yacht, clambered aboard and dripped all over the cockpit, where a youngish woman sat alone. "My, but you're quite sumthin," cooed this woman admiringly, handing me a drink. Whilst I startled her rather, I think I made a hit.

We sailed back down the river, down the Bay of Fundy and round the tip of Nova Scotia)

*** *** ***

Fri 24th July. Rushing along up East coast of Nova Scotia in thick fog with raffee topsail set. Robert announced that of the last 12 days only one had been free of fog. Carved my model this evening, giving it to Chris to see as he keeps changing the shape.

He says: "When the boys are making something at school, they will bring it to me expecting a pat on the back. I usually say: 'You will have to take a bit more off here' & they are most disappointed. Still - it's good for them".

This was apparently a crack at me.

Celia mended my zip as I was at the helm.

Fog closing in again & everything beginning to drip. Windward squares'l sheet

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boomed out with awning batten. Sailing with wind only 2 points abaft the beam & fixed spreaders.

I had a passion about tea today as Ann would bring up tea & biscuits but not bread. The only thing I get really passionate about on this boat is my tea & am liable to dash down & put the kettle on myself.

Had a navigation lesson of the first order yesterday as Chris was cooking & leaving it all to me.

We were approaching Seal Island on the Southwest tip.

Mon 27th. Couldn't find the entrance to my sleeping bag liner; grovelled round and withdrew it like a stream of ectoplasm.

*** *** ***

Ran fast out of Halifax, affectionate farewell to Gerry Dale & pregnant wife.

Great fun y'day sailing round harbour with a dozen locals. Later Hot Dogs. One family: Jimmy & Joy Mackingtosh with 3 little girls: Gay, Mary Jo & ?

Scrounged topmast , miles of 2" manila, twine, pencils, pads & log book off cable ship on Sat. "Lord Kelvin" also in.

*** *** ***

As we left in brilliant sunshine, blue bar of fog on horizon. Cold wind bit nose. Fog let sun through today. Beautiful clear night with raffee up. Jupiter sight only 12 miles out. Wind dropping.

Celia's b'day cake delish with madeira stuffing. (Since it was baked on the port tack it was triangular in section. Celia cut it obliquely, rotated the top half, filled with cream and we ended up with a cylindrical cake with a sloped filling.)

*** *** ***

(After Halifax we sailed to Cape Breton Island and through the beautiful Bras d'Or lakes. At Pony's Point we spent time with the Hon Edward & Mrs Russell, a very British couple. This is an account I wrote at the time.

August 3rd 1959. Yesterday we went across to the MacDonalds to see the kids that had been born early in the morning. I went in the Jeep truck with Mrs Russell. We talked about Pony's Point and why they were taking all this trouble about it. The obvious benefits are that it is an enjoyable way of increasing the value of such moderate capital as they possess, by buying up useless land and developing it so as to create something of value for the children that the government wont pinch. It is of great educational worth to the children, a beautiful place, and they have managed to give six relatively impoverished English families a complete summer holiday in the

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last five years.

The kids were quite sweet, and one of them couldn't stand on her front legs and the umbelical cords were still dangling. It seemed more sensible to leave them for another few days. Dolly was a perfect, proud and fussy mother (though her sides were hollow) and was drinking the milk as it flowed out of the side of her baby's mouth while being fed from an aspirin bottle with a nipple on it.

The human kids were in the hayloft playing with the four new kittens and their mother; soft grey, with white nose, bib and paws. The hay was sweet and the sun made dazzling pencils through the roof. The barn was full of harness, barrels, old rope, and behind one partition two four wheeled pony traps, getting dilapidated. Birds were nesting and singing in the roof.

The goats are charming. Peter has a broken shin bone and the ends have not knitted, so he can only wobble about (which is fortunate because he is a great butter) but is in no pain. He is very affectionate, and humorous in a dignified and slightly cynical way. As we were trying to build an extension onto his house for the babies, he kept on tottering into the square of the foundations and butting us gently but firmly out. He loves to be tickled and scratched behind his ears, and follows us about to join in the fun.

Celia and I had a marvellous walk in the morning of the day before. I copied a map from an aerial photo, and Hon. Eddie drew in our course in red. We took a compass, some beer and sandwiches and set off up beyond the house. At first we went along a track between young Christmas trees, and then we turned off left at the ruins of an old barn, on a completely overgrown track up to the brook in the ruined orchard. We crossed the brook and turned East in the direction of the swamp (which we "couldn't miss"), and since we couldn't find the start of the blazed trail, followed a compass course and missed the swamp.

The woods were conifers that had been left too long to their own devices, and were tall and spindly, and falling dead into each other and across the trail. This is like the sinister giant spider country of the forest of Mirkwood, but we did not see any. When I thought we must have missed the swamp, we turned North and quite soon, through very thick undergrowth in which we had to crawl, we came across the Pine Brook in its ravine. This was babbling and frothing over the boulders in the manner of mountain forest streams, and I stripped off and had a swim in one of the pools, but could not induce Celia to do the same. She said she wouldn't like putting her clothes on wet, but I suspect I must have looked something like a satyr grinning bearded out of the rocky pool in the dappled sunlight.

We scrambled down the rocks until we found a spot where the sun was bright (the water was bitter cold) and ate our lunch and talked, mostly about the box (Delawarr's Diagnostic Box) and Eddy's theories as to how it works. They without doubt have scientific and philosophical support, and in spite of playing with the box quite a bit and hearing about how it evolved, I remain in an open mind, as I have not been personally shown any results at all, either convincing or unconvincing. I find it difficult to get the technique required; not because I cannot make the diaphragm click

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when I stroke it, but because the thing requires so little alteration of touch to make it click that I cannot get a uniform response, even when the machine is turned off.

After a talking awhile, we carried on down the brook until we came to the sea. I put the two remaining bottles of beer in the stream to cool, and we lay on the fine shingle beach in the sun and nuzzled some of our fever away. Celia called a halt to the proceedings by pointing out that the beer would now be cool so I fetched it and we had a bottle, though she doesn't like it much, which is fortunate. It was quite a lengthly and energetic walk along the beach, past the bathing wharf to the great pond, as it was necessary to climb over lots of fallen pine trees and mounds of earth.

We stopped to knock pieces off some lovely amber coloured rock, which later turned out to be gypsum. We met gypsum again when we walked through the woods from the pond to the house (which didn't look very far) in the form of the plaster pits, as again we missed the trail and had to proceed by compass. these pits are anything from two to two hundred feet across, and two to a hundred feet deep, in the crumbling white gypsum. They are so close together that it is like walking on the edge of a honeycomb, and heavily wooded too. The biggest pit had a pond at the bottom, and a rather smaller one had a frigid cave.

After a steep, rough climb, we suddenly arrived just above the house as the Russells were making tea. Very welcome beverage at times.

Last night I sailed around in Diana's dinghy, which went much better without Anne, and watched Mrs R painting. which she does with some competence. Celia and the big boys are working on the boat, while Anne, Sean & I are loafing here. It would have been nice to have Celia here, but I have no doubt that things are going pretty smoothly on the boat and there is not much to do now for the return trip, which starts this weekend. Diana is much brighter and more forthcoming since her trip to England, and doesn't put up the crusty barrier she used to. Very nice girl.

Had a lot of fun with the Suttons and their children, Andy & Carroll, who are completely unshy and playful, and not too cheeky, though cheek (like beauty and plunging necklines) is in the eye of the beholder, so it may be more difficult to be cheeky to me. Carroll is six, and looks like a cherub; not one of the plump, curly sort, but one of the fringy sort. Andy is nine and doesn't look like a cherub. Mr is a lawyer from Philadelphia, and with Mrs we have drunk beer in their luxurious outhouse, and discussed education etc.)

THE FINAL CROSSING

8th August. The lethargy of the sea is upon us, as always at the start of a passage. The boys are asleep with John's radio playing swing & jazz, so that it is difficult to imagine the sea so close outside our box. Sean is reading a paper backed historical novel in the saloon with the cat on his outstretched knees. Ann is piled up in the

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forward corner, asleep all over the icebox. Celia is doing accounts with Chris in the deckhouse.

We had to motor out of the marine railway in the end & then dawdled off the quay hoisting all our fore 'n' aft canvas. Mr Turner (who gave us communion) & white haired Mr Reid (who caulked the counter) were among those waiting to see us off. Those fishermen were kind, monosyllabic, unembarrassed & genuine.

The sun was shining after a fashion, so we were drying out our cat peed bedding etc, & it was very difficult to get everything properly battened down.

The denoument came as the wind turned round into our teeth (so early), blew so that we tore the flying jib on the crosstrees & then it died. Since then we have had a little wind in the night, but are now becalmed again having covered about 50 miles in 23 hours. Foggy. Has just been raining hard.

Sun 9th. Wind has freed a bit & after blowing well most of the day has dropped somewhat.

Chris aiming to pass about 100 miles South of Cape Race to avoid Labrador current ice & fog, to pick up Gulf Stream early & have plenty of sea room.

Told Celia about Amahl last night, discussed plays we had acted in. (Amahl and the Night Visitors, a wonderful opera about a crippled boy and the three kings of the Epiphany written for television by Gian Carlo Menotti, and broadcast every Christmas by the BBC at that time)

Cat crapt in Robert's bunk.

Seasick (not severe) wearing off the crew.

Tues 11th. Shambling along SSE in light wind & heavy swell. It's going to take us a hell of a long time at this rate, but at least it is better than remaining at a standstill, as we have been doing quite a bit of the last 24 hrs.

We had quite a considerable blow last night, & lowered the tops'l, square yard & topmast, & changed the jib. We had a difficult time with the reefing gear & I had squitters on the stem but took some opium & kaolin later. It was pouring with rain & the bumph was passed out in wodges which were sodden balls by the time they got to me.

The wind dropped to nothing in Dan's watch, leaving her rolling in a heavy, confused swell - it gradually came up from the SW, & we're making 5 knots with two and a half reefs down, in the right direction.

However this break only lasted a couple of hours & now at tea time we're at it again. Morale is good, if resigned, & people spend most of the time reading & sleeping. We are more nearly bored than we have been so far.

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The glass is rising again now; it really is about time the westerlies started in earnest.

Wed 12th after lunch. Wind has risen again. Hoisted topmast, jackyard topsail & now squares'l. Thank God we are moving again after doing 36 miles in 48 hours. The sea & sky are still grey & mizzly though it is not cold.

Sang rounds & songs & played recorder with Chris last night.

Cat's cremasters OK. (The cremasters are the muscles which hoist the testicles when you tickle the inside of the thigh. The Pizzet turned out to be a boy after all.)

Sean said of the flying jib halyard: "I think we had better refer to this in future as the raffee halyard."

Fri 14th after supper. Put raffee up after lunch y'day. Turquoise blue water, light airs & bright sunshine on the GRAND BANKS.

Carried it through the night (with trepidation) making up to 7 knots, & also today even faster.

Took it down this evening as having to steer too far north, now doing 8 knots with jackyard topsail.

Morale v. high; overcast & drizzly on deck. Prunes gave me immediate squitters. Much discussion of Perkins family today. Chris tells boys not to mock Ann's way of speaking.

Model coming on. Spent long hours this morning & now have hull almost complete except for tricky bit round rudder.

Celia helping Chris with washing up. Reading "Kicking Canvas" by Captain Bestic.

Sunday 16th. Running like hell with the wind on the port beam & the swell building up. Strong winds since noon y'day with slowly but steadily falling glass. Sea iron grey & curly. Boat hard to hold when she's thrown up into the wind by a wave. Broken strato-nimbus with an occasional peep at the sun.

Been nearly reefing ever since last night but decided to hang on. Making up to eight & a half knots with full main & No. 1 jib.

Robert got the boiling egg water on his arse. Celia will lean on the table with the result that most of the breakfast things jumped off the table. Otherwise she is more rugged than the rest of us. Cat on good form. Pouring with rain now, though it has been dry till now.

The weather makes me think of sitting by a warm fire at home - like Bilbo. Water dripping onto the diary. Thank goodness my bunk is dry except for the cat. Soon get home at this rate. Hooray. Tops'l halyard parted y'day aft - fortunately. Immediate pre breakfast reefing panic died down. All hands except those on watch

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horizontal.

Teatime. The expected gale has materialised after the glass had been steady for several hours at 29.42. It is still blowing from the North

Just before lunch we put in 2 reefs & changed . The wind rose as we did it, then we had to take in 3 more. After soup & corned beef sandwiches we struck the topmast & square yard. All this took time & the seas rose.

When all was well & the topmast heel eventually lashed the sun came out (& has appeared often since) so we took rugged photos.

A little later the jib outhaul snapped, so we stowed the No. 2 jib.

We are now half hove to with the wind on the port beam, under 5 reefed main & reefed stays'l. I am lying on my bunk with a drip on my tummy & the wind is sighing & moaning in the rigging, boat jerking (though not too badly); occasional large dollops of water on deck. Water racing by my right ear & overhead.

Kettle's just boiled & Celia's making a cuppa. Let us commend ourselves to God, have a cuppa & read "The Port of London Murders."

NB The seas must be at least 20'. One of the thoughts that sustains me is the honour of having been through a gale, also that pilot cutters were built for this sort of thing.

*** *** ***

When I first came on the dog watch I was amazed at the size of the waves, with curling emerald & ermine tops & streaky grey sides. It seemed impossible that Theodora could climb them.

As the time passed my awe decreased a little & it became clear that even the biggest came only a few feet higher than the gaff jaws - say 20'. (I crawled around the deck, checking what I could, but all was well; we were like a seagull with its head under its wing. There was nothing to do but lash the wheel and wait.)

Now at 7.30 it seems that conditions have eased a little, the wind is still blowing v. hard & has gusts, but there has been less water crashing aboard, in fact scarcely any, & my drips appear to have abated.

Better turn in now as it is growing dark & since the charging engine wont go properly we aren't allowed any light.

Mon after lunch. Gale unabated & largely unchanged though there have been hints of a swell from foreward & the wind has gone round from N to NE. We are now sailing, though with the stays'l aweather & making about 5 - 6 knots in the right direction, with the wind 1 - 2 points ahead of the beam.

Chris thinks this is caused by a slow moving v. extensive depression that has come up

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behind us & is making off SE. He suspects that there may be a secondary approaching, which would be heralded by a falling glass, shift of wind to the E, & then a strong blow from N or NW. At present glass is rising rapidly & has been since last evening.

Watch last night exciting. Celia said: "Sometimes the moon comes out & it's rather dramatic." Just as she handed over a grinning, gleaming tiger wave, with flecks of green, came leaping straight at the cockpit. I ducked - but it disappeared under & nothing happened.

Boys mostly in psychological hibernation, John most, though he seems to be sickest. Girls practically as normal, Ann slightly improved.

Eating Marzine t.d.s. Slightly queasy though not off food.

Have partly coped with drips by jamming mattress to looard & sleeping between it & the bunk board. Most of them fall over me onto the mattress, but still have to sleep under my oilskin.

Biggish one came aboard just then.

Tomorrow will be roughly half way. Hooray.

At first it was calm, and we were tired, and the lethargy of the sea descended on us like a shroud. This mood was sharply interrupted when the wind suddenly turned ahead and strengthened into a squall. In our haste to lower the flying jib, we tore it on the crosstrees; this sail was so ancient and decrepit it was amazing that it had lasted so long. Bedding, airing in the sun, was hastily stuffed down the hatch.

The wind remained ahead for five days, varying from nothing at all to a moderate gale force, as we clawed the three hundred miles Southeast out into the open Atlantic, a hundred miles due South of Cape Race, the Southernmost tip of Newfoundland. This gave us plenty of sea room in case it came on to blow hard from the South, as the coast around Cape Race looks extremely sinister on the chart; also there would be less chance of meeting icebergs, less fog, and we should leave the Labrador Current earlier for the warmth and assistance of the Gulf Stream.

We hissed steadily across the Grand Banks, cutting a milky streak through the gently undulating turquoise of the sea. It was hazy, but the pure white of the square topsail glistened above the expanse of the square sail itself, benign and brown as a Franciscan's habit. Bedding strewed the deck; some were washing in sea water and detergent, others scraping and varnishing the boom; the cat sunned himself glossily on a sleeping bag. The helmsman kept a wary eye on the weather clew of the topsail.

All through the night and the following day this continued, though a note of apprehension crept in as the wind increased and the glass fell; the topsail halyard lay off its pin, ready to be cast off instantly if the wind should catch us aback; the cat wandered restlessly from knee to knee. By nightfall we were running hard with the wind on the port beam and the square sails stowed. By next morning the sea was

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marching, iron grey from the North, and a hint of spindrift touched the advancing surface of the waves. Shortly before lunch the wind dropped, and there was relative silence for the space of about half an hour.

The wind returned at its previous force and direction, and then increased in proportion as we reefed; before lunch we took two rolls in the mainsail and changed jibs, but no sooner had we finished than we had to take in three more rolls. After soup and corned beef sandwiches we lowered the yard, reefed the topmast and reefed the staysail; shortly after the jib outhaul parted, so we ran off the wind and stowed the jib while the foredeck swooped, climbed and paused dizzily, high above the lengthening troughs.

At the height of the storm the scene was of a beauty and ferocity for which it is difficult to find words. The burgee vibrated like a tuning fork against the tearing clouds, through which sudden floods of moonlight picked out the whirling petrels, and the emerald that gleamed between the curling wave crests and their foam-streaked sides. From the crest the view made one pause in breathless admiration, as white capped hills seethed into the night; from the trough one had to exert all ones will power to heave the little boat up the next wave. Down below all was wedging tight and avoiding the drips, punctuated by an occasional crash as water came aboard.

The drama only lasted twenty four hours, and then the wind died away and left us lolloping in the sun. A friendly cargo boat circled round and cheered as we exchanged signals; with the respite we came out of hibernation, ate heartily, dried clothing and bedding as far as possible and caulked up the places through which the water had dripped or poured. This was as well because it soon came on to blow from the South, with not quite so much vigour, but for longer.

Tues 18th. gale moderated midday y'day approx, shook out 2 rolls at supper time & have been making 5 - 6 knots ever since.

Cloud units became higher & sparser (though they had never been slow or solid) & after a glorious, frigid moonlit night, the sun appeared brightest yellow, casting sunbeams above & below a huge ridge of nimbostratus, & with rose tinted cumulo-stratus overhead & just a tinge of storm scud.

Now (after breakfast of gorgeous porridge) the sun is bright, the wind brisk & cold, sky English blue, sea bottle grey-blue-green, lumpy & irregular. Seated in my stateroom the wind is whistling heartily in the backstays. Cumulus clouds, glass high..

Wed 19th. Y'day aft & night a brisk sail with wind on port beam & high swell. One largeish wave came suddenly in the cockpit last night drenching Dan & Robert. I heard thunderous crash & leaped out of bunk & shouted to D & R who were laughing & swearing so I looked in the bilge in case there was more to come, to pump out same.

"What you got the bloody light on for?" from John. "I'm looking in the bilge to see if

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we've made any water". "What you got the bloody light on for?" He was clearly mostly asleep.

Wind & swell both dropt today & now we are virtually becalmed, with terrific mares tails astern, so expect more wind & rain - hope so as must get home.

MV "Inishowen Head" circled round & waved. We exchanged halting morse asking them to report us & it appears they understood. She wished us Bon Voyage & zoomed off. In ballast.

Lowered mains'l & reorganised lacings, hoisted topmast, re-rove tops'l halyard, dried sails & generally mucked around. Climbing mast is tedious in the swell.

Tues 20th. Zooming along at great speed after tea. Celia at wheel talking family with Ann. Crisp, brisk sea; squares'l set; wind force 5; overcast.

When steering this morning Robert (cook) kept on throwing out huge cardboard boxes and egg shells with a: "Take that yer fockin' bastard“. (Cyrus field language).

Feeling a wee bit queasy, probably due to loafing about too much, as conditions otherwise v. moderate. Chris' foot improving a lot.

(Chris had grazed his bare heel on the propeller shaft while checking the engine, and the constant soaking in salt water had turned the graze into a nasty ulcer. His tummy was playing up too, so I made him some medicine out of olive oil, bicarbonate of soda and dried milk. It worked! Well, he didn’t ask for any more.)

Cat had orgy on my right arm in MID AFTERNOON. Nice Celia chocolate cake for tea.

Beginning to get a little panicked about being late for possible job at Guy's. Rapid progress v. satis.

Splendid after dinner conversation - lost ourselves completely from our surroundings (we are now making 7 knots with a gentle following swell) & in our glowing casket laughed & reminisced about Theodora's past; anxious days before departure, the numerous girls who nearly came, people we should have written to. Two people who crop up a lot in the conversation are Ray King & Sebastian Chamberlain - one a house beak & the other a boy, apparently.

Fri 21st. Day's run 169. Charging along all night with the weather clew of the squares'l lifting (to starboard).

Chris did a typical Chris in the night, waking John & Sean to take the squares'l in in the pouring rain, & then when they had cast off the outhaul said: "Wait a bit, the sky's clearing, we'll leave it for five minutes." After a while he decided she could take it & the boys sauntered grumbling back to bed.

Been foggy & mizzly all along but now at noon (convenient for a sight) the sky is

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clearing to cumulus & cumulostratus & the sun is shining weakly.

Huge & playful porpoises around the bow y'day aft. (You could lie on the foredeck and watch them playing under the racing bobstay. Once one did an incredible dance wiggling in time to its friend who was doing exactly the same upside down underneath. Somewhere about here we were gliding through a foggy bit and a loud huffing wheeze turned out to be a whale that came alongside for a while.)

Noon to noon run took a goodly chunk out of the chart; 4 degrees long, & we are well over the fold. England looks accessible. Some discussion of why when you get over half way the remainder of the distance, it decreases much faster than a similar bit would have earlier on.

Celia making delicious frying noises & smells in the . Spaghetti Bolognese & Instant pudding for lunch! Excellent breakfast of podger AND baked beans on toast, by me.

Sat 22nd. Blew really hard in the night, up to force 8, & we splurged along with the SW wind just aft port beam. Overcast & rainy. When Celia & I took over (5 - 9) it was already diminishing & by lunch time flat calm with just the remnants of the swell, making squares'l flop & main bang. Making less than 1 knot.

'Twas sunny this morn & a certain amount of bedding drying went on, though the squares'l sheets kept on flipping up & splattering everything. This is MADDENING after our splendid run yesterday. It is now overcast & there is quite a bit of altostratus, some of it blackish in the SW, where the swell comes from - so please God may there be some wind soon.

Nearly teatime thank goodness - then its a snooze. Didn't get much sleep last night, what with dampness, a feeling of immanent departure from my bed, mild apprehension & having to take in 3 more rolls (5 in all) & down jib. Arduous day cooking etc: y'day too, though Celia did most of it.

Sun 23rd. A soft breeze from fine on starboard bow sprang up in our watch, which shortly went round & by noon was blowing 6 - 7 on starboard beam. We are proceeding at great speed - rigging thrumming - & there is a heavy swell, at times sending a few hundredweights of water aboard & banging the table against its stops most of the time.

I am reasonably comfortable with the mattress jammed against the bunkboard. Feel slightly off colour but ate a hearty lunch. Expecting Chris to order another couple of rolls soon (we have 3) more because of the sea. Took No. 2 jib down when we reefed at the gentlemanly hour of 8 am.

Most enjoyable service at 11 for which we bore away, so little water came aboard though the scene was wild enough. Hymns: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God almighty! Eternal Father strong to save! Lessons: Naaman & Gehazi (2 Kings 5; v 20)

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Good Samaritan (Luke 10; v 30)

NB. I always though Gehazi must be an Indian warrior because Kipling wrote a poem about him.

Glass surprisingly high & steady.

Only 80 miles y'day, but now England & home & beauty drawing rapidly closer.

Mon 24th. Blew hard all night & we made great speed with four reefs, stays'l & wind on starb'd beam with much spray & occasional dollops. Difficult to stay in bunk so slept poorly.

4 - 6 watch in which wind & sea clearly moderated. Clouds lifted & there has been some sun since.

Glass now v. high (teatime) 30.31 & still rising. Hoisted topmast & set working tops'l after tea & now making good speed with beam wind & no sea.

Two Breton tunnymen in sight with 3 tan sails - not v. big - & whiskers.

Boys cooking colossal meal with great gusto. Found Robert juggling with huge ball of dough. Oaths & yells pouring from galley with washing up noises, cooking noises & sudden very strong smells of curry powder (3 & a half heaped dessert spoons). It will be hot.

Throwing away our dirty clothes now, only 300 miles to Bishop. Robert's pants went latest. Clothes un peu grubby by now, but don't have many. Trimmed beard & Celia cut hair. Molto scurfioso, not surprising as only two washes, both in sea water, since Cape Breton Island.

Tried drugging the cat today, 1.5 grs Chloralol. Cat salivated wildly & then vomited about 10 mins later. Feeling dopey in 20 mins, remained so for an hour after application, not much effect left after one & a quarter hours. Trying again tonight with 2.5 grs after a large meal.

Cat Monday

Given quarter pill 1950 Appears dopey 2030 Put in locker 2040 No noise 2045 2115 Retrieved from locker having made no sound & apparently been to sleep.

Wed 26th. Bloody calm all yesterday only 160 miles from Bishop Rock! Had an urge & cleaned out galley bilge with Robert. They were knee deep in Celia's rice. Another urge & laced on jackyarder with Sean & John & hoisted same in place of workers. (Working topsail.)

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John & Dan playing with engine which mostly made petulant poppings. Flaked them out.

Slight HEADWIND sprang up at teatime, strengthened through the night, took jackyarder down before breakfast. Now plunging into short head sea that slows her down a lot. A plague on all anticyclones.

Getting mildly frantic about job - if only I knew. May have to persuade Chris to put in at Brest, as that seems to be the way we are going. I dread to think what would happen if they gave me a job & I simply failed to turn up, without a word.

(This song was sung many times by the boys, especially Robert)

M.T.A. (Boston Metropolitan Transport Authority) Now I'll tell you the story of a man named Charlie On a tragic & fateful day He put ten cents in his pocket, kissed his wife & family Went to ride on the MTA.

Chorus: But did he ever return? No, he never returned And his fate is still unlearned - He may ride for ever neath the streets of Boston; He's the man who never returned.

Charlie went down to the Kendall Square station And he changed for Jamaica Plain. When he got there the conductor said: "Just one more nickel." Charlie just couldn't get off of that train.

Chorus: But did......

Now all day long Charlie rides thru' the stations Crying: "What will become of me? How can I afford to see my sister in Chelsea Or my cousin in Roxburee?"

Chorus: But did......

Charlie's wife goes down to the Sailly Square station Every day at a quarter past two; And through the open window she hands Charlie a sandwich As the train goes rumbling through.

Chorus: Did he......

Now you citizens of Boston, don't you think its a shame

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The way the people have to pay & pay Like the fare increase. "Vote for George O'Brien To get Charlie off the MTA." Or else

Chorus: Did he......

Sat 28th. 2 days beating with the winds 3 - 5, tops'l up - down, driving her fairly hard & not quite having to reef.

Much thinking of the Scillies & D-Ss (Dorrien-Smiths) but even though we are only about 10 miles away there is such a hurry to get me packed off to Guy's (sic) that I wouldn't have time to see the D-Ss anyway & it would mean going in at night. Damn sad, would love to go there again.

QM passed us at enormous speed this am, looking v. splendid & slightly antique. (The Queen Mary was charging towards us, funnels in line, but had to alter course or she would have run us down.) Chris signalled: "THEODORA LOVE TO NEW YORK" which they acknowledged. That'll give them something to puzzle over.

So looks like Newlyn tomorrow am.

When the wind died away, we were two hundred miles from Bishop's Rock, the wind went round to the east and we had to beat right down to the bay of Biscay before we were able to sail up into St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly as dawn broke, just 22 days out of North Sydney.

END OF THE STORY, back home at Branksome.

At around midnight we were beating up with the wind NE & the Bishop flashing on the port bow - it emerged from among the bobbing fishing boats, 2 ev 15 secs.

The wind went round to the E, Newlyn still 40 miles dead beat & St Mary's only 10 miles N of us, so Chris had us put her about, haul the stays'l aweather & proceed slowly so that we shouldn't reach St Mary's before light. It was blowing quite briskly & I could only doze for hanging on to my bunk.

Slept as she bore away, then we were all roused to get ready to anchor. We pulled on clothes & tumbled up & it was quite a while before we realised that what looked like a particularly nasty wave ahead was St Mary's.

The Isles looked very grim.

In through St Mary's sound at 6.30, a slight kerfuffle about lowering the jib (we didn't hear Chris' shout & he didn't luff long enough) & we dropped anchor about 50 yards off the mole, closely followed by RYS.

Drugged cat, cleared customs. I went ashore & phoned the Abbey. Commander Tom replied & burbled slightly & then asked me to lunch - poor fellow never realised that

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he would have me for 5 days & nights.

Took the shag boat to Tresco & it was just the same - warm granite & glistening sand, heather trees gorse dungy smells (I felt like rolling in the first dung heap) & as I passed the farm three ladies on horseback approached. I had to get quite near before I recognised Tamara, who looked dubiously at my beard, so I said who I was in case. Teona & Whizz also present, riding bareback.

Strolled & chattered up the lovely drive with its magnificent trees & rhodos, through the warm grimness of the stable archway. Not paying too much attention to the children - as I think one gets on better quicker with strangeish children if you let them size you up rather than bounce at them. That is if you have anything to offer at all.

Next few days at the Abbey a great pleasure, though Tamara is rather unsettling to have around because although very beautiful & vivacious & whimsical & intelligent, her melancholy desire for freedom & the companionship & love of younger people makes her so.

Abbey exactly as remembered.

Teona now 12, v.tall & leggy - taller than Tamara, long straight fair hair with Alice band (as also Whizz & Charlotte) will probably look much like Tamara. Whizz 10ish, fair freckled, v. mischievous indeed, kept pulling huge pieces out of my beard. The urchin of the family, Tom called her. Robert 8 very fair like border terrier, very bright & chirpy; asthmatic taking pills regularly, seems to enjoy fussing & looks v. appealing in bed (crafty). Came out in generalised eczema quite suddenly, getting better with hydrocortisone quite quickly. On one occasion suddenly appeared in lounge in dressing gown, did something horrid to Ned & vanished with a tinkling laugh.

Charlotte (Nyim) 5, only darkish one, not so good looking as the others but chirpy enough.

James 2 v. pretty little chap with long curly fair hair (like me at same age!) inclined to beat pedal car with rubber axe.

Tom is thinner, v. bluff & pleasant & organising. Demon at billiard fives. Much concerned with the hotel being built at Old Grimsby.

Ned, 22 (surname Ram) law student, served vs Mau Mau, lives in Falmouth (?). Godson.

Simon (Goon) Simon (Monkey)

Robert Lutyens, portrait , wizened little old man with steel specs. Painting Tamara in repose, sitting looking at Mexican saddle with rocks & dunes of Tresco in background. ?ABG.

Henry (the butler) as ever. V. confused by large numbers of people appearing &

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disappearing.

Cast Seine net in St Agnes cove in middle of night after going up lighthouse. Rope broke & we stood around chilly while repaired. Tom shouting illegibly & flashing torches. Sand cold & wet. Raced Tamara to water's edge. I was coiling wet coir rope on sand. Lots of people. Meteoric dustman from lighthouse there. Goodish catch of Sole Salmon Turbot Mullet & Rays. 1 huge Monkfish.

Returned in launch with whisky in horn mugs & interminable (but amusing enough) "You'll never getta Heaven", soloist Dan.

Chopped & sawed up huge trees with the boys as part payment for hospitality.

Leisurely ride with Tamara on Corky (Hydrophobe) in Mexican saddles. V. comfortable almost got trot - difficult after big gaps.

Took most of the Abbey for a marvellous gentle sail round the islands with Willy as skipper & Tom at helm. Grazed numerous rocks but hit none.

Tamara had two especially marvellous dresses in the evening - a) a Spanish getup with Mantilla, b) tea coloured antique silk full dress with jewelled stars on it, necklace of pearls at intervals, pearl cross amidships with tear drop emerald hanging from each arm.

To me she really seemed sorry when we had to go.

Tamara & children started off with us & we dropped them at Cromwell's Castle. Teona had trotted horses round. Last sight of Tresco: silhouettes of people & horses near King Charles' castle. Stayed a long time. We fired three red Verey flares.

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Journey to Southampton pretty uneventful, light head winds, used the motor a lot, took a longish time to get across West Bay, dead reckoning by me hopelessly inaccurate, but Portland Bill suddenly appeared 4 pts on Port bow about 8 miles distant. Much shipping.

Just got favourable tide thru' Needles & anchored for the night in Yarmouth Roads. Chucked over dinghy, boys got fuel in morning, but sailed off overtaking all RCC to Southampton. Met in Southampton Water by Chris' people in somebody's new yacht with "Wotcher" hoisted. We returned "Cok".

Dan's Dad & Robert's people at bifurcation of Itchen. Smiths & Perkins' didn't know we were coming due to a hitch.

Churchill waved us all around but later let us tie up off end of quay & unload most of stuff. Rang Pop. House full of people. Arrived with Uncle Bert, met him as I was bringing a dinghy load ashore, decided to push off at once.

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Vivid picture of Chris as I lay in his bunk helping con her through the Needles. He deep in "Night Runners of Bengal" lit up his wrinkles & chubby, rabitty face by reflection from chart lamp. Bunk comfortable, motor going, me drowsy; details of deckhouse in outer darkness......

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APPENDIX 1

Theodora’s construction, dimensions and taken from Colin's contemporary notes transcribed in June 2018. (Extra additions recalled today in Italics.)

Construction: Keel: Oak &/or Elm. Bilge strake 3" Oak. Planking 1.5" pitch pine except for top 4 strakes of Oak. Topsides 2", Rubbing Strake 4". Ballast: cement (internal only) Deck: Pine, 2"x4", Beams Oak 6"x4". Ribs: 5"x5" tapering to 4"x4" every 16" Boom: BC Pine.

4 Iron floors put in in 1948

(See accompanying diagrams)

Dimensions: Length overall: 52'5" Length waterline: 47'5" : 8' 9" Beam: 14' 6" . Counter to bowsprit cap: 70 feet. Bowsprit: a) outboard 16', b) inboard 8'. (Total 24 feet) Deck to Masthead: 42'; Doubling (with main mast) 9'. Masthead cap to topmast truck 26'.

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Boom length: 31', diameter: 7" (26 lacings on jackstay). Square sail yard length: 34'. Raffee (topsail)yard: 11' Jack yard length: 19'; Jenny yard length: 18'6"; Crosstrees: 13' (hinged at one time). Gaff: 23.6" (17 lacings). booms 16'; doubled for 5'. Gaff jaws to Hounds: 5'; , 26 lacings. Goose neck to deck: 3'6"; Mast Hoops: 12" apart. Bulwarks: 1'3", Gunwale 4.5". Waterline to topmast truck: 70 feet.

Sails: Main: 22.5 oz cotton canvas; area 825 square feet. 20 vertical cloths; hand sewn; luff phosphor bronze or stainless steel. One row of (347), 12 hoops , none for bottom 4. Staysail: 22.5 oz cotton with 1 row of points; cloths diagonal; parallel to leech and foot. Jib 1: 15 oz American cotton 46' x 18'. Jib 2: 18 oz American cotton with chain luff, 35' on forestay. Spitfire: (Jib topsail on fore topmast stay) flax. Jackyard topsail: 350 square feet; luff 10' above truck and 1' below jaws.

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