Atlantic Crossing

A page in my log lists in detail my resources for the crossing, and would be an appendix in a book.   If you're in Brunswick you can borrow a copy of the original log: just ask me.    Here's a blog-size summary:
WATER: 43 gallons in 2 tanks, enough for 6 months, because I could use a little ocean in soups, rainwater could be caught, most canned goods contained some water, and I washed myself and dishes mostly in salt water and rain.    Other liquids: 18 liters of fruit juices, 5 liters of Spanish red wine (at 8 cents a liter).
FOOD: 105 1-pound cans of varied fruits and vegetables.   42 cans of corned beef, Spam equivalent, and sardines.    A one dollar 92 pound stalk of initially green bananas. 18 eggs and no refrigeration. 14 pounds of potatoes, which lasted a little longer. 6 pounds of crackers and bread.   13 pounds of rice.    Forgotten quantity of oatmeal.    Small amounts of condensed milk, coffee, condiments.   Some rice and spinach (the opposite of chocolate) lasted until Florida.
MEDICAL:   Usual first aid supplies.   Benzadrine, sedative, dramamine, and cold tablets.     Bought for $1 in Las Palmas: a glass syringe and needle, four 200 milligram vials of dry penicillin, 4 vials of saline solution.   Morphine.   DDT.   "Mexican poultice".
CIGARETTES:  65 packs of Pall Malls.
PROPULSION:   7 sails.   120 liters of diesel fuel, enough for 400 miles in calm water or 200 miles in moderate waves and swells.
NAVIGATION:   Sextant.   Time signals from a 160 kc - 4500 kc radio receiver.   Watch, bought for $7.20 in Tangier, but quite accurate because it was kept in one position on cotton and wound every two days, with the deviation from radio signals charted and compensated.   Swedish compass with compensatable errors.   Cheap compass and alarm clock for reserves. Lifeboat chart of North Atlantic and 10 charts of West Indies, Bahamas, Florida.   Walker Excelsior log with spare rotor (see Holland chapter).   Pilot books for West Indies, Bahamas, lower Florida.   HD486 altitude and azimuth tables.   Abridged 1957 Nautical Almanac.   Slide rule, triangles, etc.
COMMUNICATION:   Receive yes, transmit no.   I expected to reach the New World, but not call for help and endanger others.   A few years later the captain of a yacht in trouble off New Jersey radioed for help.   All aboard survived, but two crew members of a blimp that went to their rescue did not.   Many times in the White Mountains of New Hampshire hikers have called for help, subjecting rescuers to considerable expense and danger.

The 7 segments before this one were from letters, notes and memory.   From here to the USA the text from my daily log is abridged and edited for clarity.   The log had to be written carefully to project how long my supplies would last.   Also it was important that I not lose a day.   For about half the crossing I could receive BBC radio time signals, and the last half I relied on USA stations, although they gave only the precise time, not the day.   An error of a day in making navigation calculations could spoil the accuracy of my navigation, which was not important far at sea, but vital as I neared land. 

April 6, 1957:   I sailed away from my mooring at the Las Palmas yacht club about noon. I was bound for Florida, rather than an intermediate West Indies island, because I had only nine dollar  s remaining. I wouldn't need money enroute, but I surely would need it when I reached any civilization.   It would be simple to get money in Florida, not in the islands.   Because of its eternally favorable winds and currents, my route was close to that of Columbus.

Rick took pictures of the departing Swalker and sent me copies of the few that were successful.

The moment was so unusual, like a dream, that it was like looking at myself from outside, and asking, "Is this real ?"   Perhaps one feels that way receiving a Nobel Prize or facing a firing squad.

About dusk, 3 miles off Morro de Colcas light, my last landfall until the Western Hemisphere, I changed to the self-steering tradewind sails and went to bed.

April 7: Abbreviated from my log: "Hot and almost calm all day, so travelled only 3 1/2 miles, plus an estimated 10 miles of current. At dusk a wind from the west, the worst direction, came up.   Kept changing sails and catnapping in the cockpit".

April 8: "At 4 AM woken by slatting sails and banging, so lowered sails and slept. 6 AM: wind up, raised sails, had my last glimpse of distant Gran Canaria island.   14,000' Tenerife volcano disappeared over horizon to NW after noon. Bananas are ripening faster than I can eat them.   Ship steers itself close hauled (as close as possible to the wind), using mainsail and genoa (sail) and shock cords on tiller.   Wind has been changing from dead ahead to NW, so I am steering SW and making better progress.   Mileage 77/28: meaning 77 since departure, 28 today".

April 9: "Perfect sailing conditions. Wind NW force 4 (Google: see Beaufort scale), course SW at 6 knots.   Ate typically today: BANANAS, soup, corned beef, carrots, bread, jam. Tonight after many trials I invented a self steering rig for a broad reach.   That's with the wind from the side, as it is gradually veering around to the trade winds going my way.   During these trials I broke the topping lift again.   Oh God, must I climb the mast again ?   Mileage 168/91".

April 10:   "The sail arrangement worked like a charm, so I had a much needed good night's sleep.

Sextant readings at sea require that it be dark enough for the astronomical bodies being observed - stars or moon or planets - to be visible, but light enough so that the horizon is clearly seen.   That leaves a very narrow window at dusk or dawn, which makes the job difficult.   However, our sun is a star, so I devised an enhancement of M.K. Hart's methods, and measured the elevation of the sun when I prefigured it to be nearly due east or west, and when it was nearly due north.   I adjusted for the movement of the boat through the water, and the current, between the 2 observations. There was no third shot to confirm the other two, but the map distance between any two locations figured this way agreed closely with my elapsed distance by dead reckoning.   Mileage 283/115. Position 19.20 W, 25.23 N   Translation: I can't make the degree sign on this machine, so 19.20 W means 19 degrees 20 minutes West Longitude. 25.23 is Latitude.

April 11: "I didn't know the Swalker was capable of such sustained speed in only Force 4 and 5 winds. Beautiful, photogenic, thrilling. Had my first cooked meal of the trip. Dressed a worsening knee infection. Cool nights, warm breezy days. A tenth of distance to Florida elapsed, but have used less than a tenth of resources".

April 12: "Although I take vitamins and eat a reasonable diet, I am tired all the time, so must be missing something. Probably sleep, because I must do that "with one ear open", ready to come on deck to change sails or something else. I try to sleep mostly in the daytime, because, although I am not on a standard shipping route, it is better to be vigilant at night when the crew of another ship couldn't see me.... This was not a good day. The wind died to Force 1 (bad) but continued its progress towards a following trade wind (good). I replaced the mainsail and genua with the twin jibs, breaking the topping lift again. It took considerable effort to make the jibs work well, and until the wind backs further, I am travelling 45 degrees left of my desired direction.... I crave sweets, so improvised "fudge" of cocoa, sugar, condensed milk and water. The result was inferior syrup, but I consumed it all".

April 13: "Slept well. Spliced wire and rope and installed a jury topping lift from the crosstree, safer at only half the mast height. My infected right knee makes it painful to stand, for that old Mexican poultice didn't work. I dissolved 150 mg of penicillin in the special saline solution, and injected 120 into the deltoid muscle and 30 directly in the boil. I spilled 2/3 of the iodine on the floor of the tossing ship. I must cure this thing myself. Mileage 654/71. My passport expires today".

April 14: "Knee no worse, no better, but lymph node in groin is swollen and sore. I will give this one more day to start improving. After tomorrow I will be beyond where I can cut across the trade winds and sail to a doctor in the Cape Verde Islands, for which I have no charts. With difficulty I got out of bed and cooked some food. I improvised a hot water bottle from a vegetable bag and rubber band, and applied this off and on for a few hours, while the boat pitched 30 degrees right, 30 degrees left. I injected 150 mg of penicillin saline solution in the right buttock, and (pointless, said a doctor later) sprinkled 30 mg of penicillin powder on the boil. Evening: the knee is worse, so tomorrow I will take morphine and whiskey to operate on the infection, and probably head for the Cape Verdes".

April 15: "A beautiful pink sunrise signalled a significant improvement in my prospects. The inflammation has decreased within the inked circle I drew, and I can stand and bend my knee comfortably. Ship was heading for the Cape Verdes, but I corrected it for Florida. Afternoon: I got a huge amount of pus out of the boil. The moon is full".

April 16: "Mainsail chafing through, so I placed 5 split tennis balls on the port shrouds for protection. Water accumulating in bilge, so I put the transmission in reverse, which stopped the prop from turning, which stopped the leak. Don't think I'll write those letters and articles, nor learn German, for there is too much to do, monitoring and repairing and occasionally steering, and sleeping in 2 to 3 hour snatches. I am reading my last book, de Tocqueville's remarkable Democracy in America".

April 17: "Wind, high barometer reading and clouds indicate I'm being passed by the anticyclone that BBC said was off Spain 2 days earlier. Passed through first shower of the trip, which removed salt crust from sails and boat, and cut wind to Force 1. Changed from mainsail and genoa to twin jibs again. Sail changing, and operating the tiller to minimize sail wear and give a straighter course than self-steering, take a lot of time. In afternoon rain arrived while I was eating oatmeal, so I quickly went on deck and lathered up for my first shower. Then the rain quit, so I removed the soap with sea water and a bit of precious drinking water... My first flying fish came down the hatch, so I revived him and threw him back... Threw overboard the last of the bananas and eggs. Mileage 956/122. 122 was a day's run that I never reached again. Rain resumed at midnight, so closed hatches and went to sleep. No lights, no moon, hurtling along in the dark. Position at astronomical noon 22.37 N, 31.00 W".

April 18, 19: More of the same. "Knee almost healed. Lips burned and sore. Beard and sun tan growing. Estimated Florida arrival: May 18. Spent 3 hours re-sewing worn-out seams in mainsail".

April 20: "Passed 1/3 point.... Took 2 (of very few) photos.... Made shorts out of suit pants torn in Holland.... A school of about 12 dolphins (the fish also called mahi mahi, had thought they were sharks) has been following me night and day. I cast a spinning lure on the water, and immediately a dolphin broke it away..; A jib sheet (control rope) broke, causing a great fluttering of sails, and bringing the boat to a halt". I fixed the sheet, which subsequently I had to do every 7 days.

Going downwind in mid-Atlantic, pulled by twin jibs made in Holland.
Note rope on extreme right of right (starboard) jib, connected over
pulley to tiller, making for easy self-steering.

April 21: "Rain and wind varied, so several times I woke to find the sails askew and the bow headed into the wind. Once I saw an estimated 200 fish about a foot long simultaneously leap from the water near the boat, mysteriously coordinated like migrating birds, the reentry to their element sounding like sudden rain: plop plop plop ... They were going my way, and repeated this every hundred yards or so for a while. Their aerial excursions perhaps were prompted by a predator".

An easy lunch in the cockpit: vegetables, cheap red wine, very fresh fried fish.

April 22: "Getting harder to get time signals from BBC.   Climbed mast to place last 2 tennis balls on upper port stay.   Sailors palm (a thimble worn like a glove, used when sewing sails) and sunglasses broke, and I fixed them.... Flashlight shone in water at night revealed many, maybe hundreds, of fish around the Swalker.   I wonder why no fishing boats come to this fish-rich part of the sea.   I speared 3 of them, although I regret that the first one got away, scarred.   They are about 18" long.   Live they are a shimmering light green, and in death 5 minutes later they are a dull grey-black.   All the fish blood makes me feel guilty, but a few minutes later I am eating delicious fried fresh fish, with red wine".

April 23: "Still repairing mainsail.   Today's location by sun shots seem off by a degree of longitude, so I took evening shots of Jupiter and Sirius for the first time.   Today I crossed the 40th parallel of longitude. 2300 miles to go, about 60% of total.   Noon position 39.48 W, 20.59 N".

April 24: "Progress slowing: mileage 1469/53.   Caught and ate another fish, perhaps needed to stretch food supply.   In evening got NY station, 286 meters, for the first time.   No time signal, but I will try them again soon.   Took self-photo: tricky".  That photo of me, shirtless and smoking and mending a sail on deck, was removed because it was copied and grossly misused by someone in some country recently.   The name of this blog was changed slightly as a result: it took hours.

April 25: "Ran all day with mainsail and twin jibs for the first time.   This combination does not self steer, so requires constant attendance at the tiller.... What a big thrill I had this afternoon.   A black pillar of smoke appeared on the northwest horizon.   At about 4 miles distance they apparently saw me, and suddenly veered 30 degrees, toward me.    I dashed about, displaying the US flag, stowing drying laundry, preparing message on 9"x12" cardboard; 'Please notify... that Swalker OK'.   Ship was the Orinoco, out of Genoa. Its name and course indicated it was in the Europe - Venezuela trade.   A voice using a loud-hailer called in English, 'Do you have a message for us ?'   I showed the sign.   Reply: 'Can't read it' (with binoculars).   They were going too fast for me to use my poor Morse code, so I waved, they waved, and the ocean was left to me again".

"Just before sunset I heard an apparent steam valve go off, and saw a glistening black island rise less than 100' to the right.   No tail or head were visible, but from the shape and the 30' that showed, I estimated the whale was twice as long as the Swalker.   When it submerged I rushed to retrieve my camera.   Then another black island appeared to port, only 20' away, sounding the same long whooshy respiration.   I was so spellbound I forgot to push the shutter button".

". ..have bounced the spear off several fish, so the school seems to have learned to be repelled by a spotlight, rather than attracted as before.   Nevertheless I retrieved two, some to be eaten immediately, some saved for breakfast, and some to be salted and air-dried in the tropic sunlight, if they don't rot first.... Sighted lights of another ship".

April 26-27: "Winds ever lighter and progress ever slower.   Lit cigarette without shielding.   More repairs, sail changing, and ship lights seen at night.   Storage batteries dead, so hand-cranked engine and motored for 2 hours.  My ribs are showing.  Inventoried diminishing food - lots of space in previously crowded lockers.   Average daily ration, which will make food last 4 weeks:

1 can each: meat, vegetables, soup or beans

1 cup rice and 2/3 cup Quaker Oats

2 small potatoes

Very little bread, jam, cocoa

Unlimited coffee, sugar, fresh fish"

April 28-29: "More and more light winds and calms, which are hard on slatting sails, delay arrival in Florida, and create discomfort (no air conditioning). Speared and landed 38" dolphin: 1/4 for supper, save remainder for breakfast and the experiment in drying fish".

April 30: "To replace spears lost to fish, have made 3, using broken fish spear, peened brass screw, bent and sharpened brass bolt, flattened and sharpened beer can opener, egg beater parts, mop handle, boat hook, wire. Diagrams in log. Other improvisations necessary as various boat fittings are damaged".

"I was busy in the cabin so didn't see the big white passenger liner, the Amerigo Vespucci, until it was close and sounded a tremendous blast. I rushed on deck, fortunately with my pants on, because the decks on my side were lined with waving passengers. Some burst out cheering, and some in song. I waved the "I'm OK" sign  (hands clasped over head), and the ship resumed its course".

The Amerigo Vespucci in mid-ocean.   Note passengers, who are singing (what ?) to me.

May 1: "Near calm. Mileage 1684/1.   That means the boat went 1 mile through the water in a day, to which must be added about 10 miles daily of favorable current.   Position 45.05 W, 20.52 N.   Apparently I am in the area known as the Sargasso Sea to Columbus when he travelled approximately this route".

The replica of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to what is now Massachusetts, travelled this route about the same time as I did.   I saw its detailed log years later, and figure we were once about a hundred miles apart.   That ship is still on exhibit at Plymouth.

May 1:   " In a flat calm the Monster arrived.   It was a hammerhead shark about 13 feet long, slowly undulating, surrounded by a retinue of zebra striped pilot fish and other piscatorial scavengers.   After a brief examination of the food potential of the Swalker, it went away in leisurely random circles, only his big black triangular dorsal fin showing above the glassy surface.   Then he came back, resting under the stern overhang, where I could have touched him.    Because of my preconceived revulsion, which I have since regretted, I drove my biggest spear straight down on his head with all my force.   The sharp steel point bent at a right angle, but there was no apparent effect on the shark, which slowly swam away.   I took one photograph of it from directly above".

It is commonly supposed that a long period of isolation, enforced or voluntary, can drive one temporarily or permanently bonkers.   Well, it didn't happen to John McCain nor to Nelson Mandela nor to Thoreau nor to me....   How many people find their best thinking is done when alone, as on an early morning walk or in prayer or in bed at 3 AM with eyes shut ?   How many have said, "Just a minute, I'm thinking" besides Jack Benny (Your money or your life !) ?...   It is said that to love others one must first love oneself. I think the same can be said about understanding, and that in solitude one can discover what one really is....   I admire those who can speak clearly while thinking clearly.   I think better with my mouth shut, as my wife would emphasize...   The first week out of Las Palmas I was lonely, like my first days of hiking the Appalachian Trail, but gradually I came to welcome the opportunity for reflection...   I think the ability to stand alone and unsupported makes one stronger.

Some solo sailors don't agree with that, and have written in their books that they talked to themselves, and Saw Things.  To a limited extent, that happened to me.   If I missed a nail and hit my thumb with a hammer, I would say a few appropriate words, as you might ashore.   And just once, I Saw Something of which marine biologists were later skeptical.   As they were before the coelecanth was caught, before the ivory billed woodpecker reappeared, before continental drift was proven.   On May 1 the Swalker was becalmed on a glassy sea, with "water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink".   My cigarette smoke rose straight up.   There was no escape from the oppressive heat.   Then I saw close to the boat, and sketched in the log, "a little brown frog with wiggly cat's whiskers about 4 inches long", slowly frog-kicking on the surface between stagnant stretches of Sargasso seaweed.   I regret I didn't scoop it up with a bucket, and preserve it in some hard liquor that came with the boat.   Odd that Columbus was supposed to find strange sea creatures out here, but didn't, and I did.

May 2-3-4-5:  "Wind gradually returning.   Mileage May 5: 1808/45.   Forty-five is less than the maximum day's run of 122, but a lot better than the 1 or 2 on a few recent days.   Eating an average of 4 pounds of food daily.   Oh Joy !: I found 10 cans of beets and carrots of which I had not been aware.   Estimated docking in Florida: May 30".

May 6-7-8-9-10:   More of the same. 2005:   Maybe if this progresses to a book I'll photo-reproduce a page or 2 of insightful trivia from the log.

May 11: "Last night was the most beautiful of the trip.   After a Force 2 wind arose I went to sleep on the foredeck.   If I were religious or poetic I'd be so here.   I remember vividly the bright moonlight on scattered white clouds moving across diamond stars set in deep blue, the straining sails above my head and the gently tossing deck under my back.   Schools of plankton-lit dolphin darted through the foam on parallel courses on each side of the boat.   Without getting up I could check the sails (overhead), my course (North Star on the right), approximate time (moon), and weather.   Right now I am in less of a hurry to get to Florida.   This was interrupted by black clouds, rain showers, erratic increasing wind, a falling barometer, and appropriate wave action.   I hurried below and finished my sleep...   As day came, the wind was the strongest of the trip: Force 6".

May 12: "Am reducing the previous rations. 300 miles south of Bermuda.   Navigation accuracy increasingly important as I skirt the West Indies and close in on Providence Northeast Channel in the northern Bahamas.   Miles 2223/96.   Position 57.38 W, 22.30 N".

May 13: "Used flying fish lying on deck for bait, with large hook on 45 pound test nylon line.   A big dolphin bit, broke the hook off, and left.   If this really is May 13, as my log says, there will be a lunar eclipse tonight..   It arrived on time, followed by clouds of a strange type I'd never seen before.   There was a moderate ring around the moon, and a huge lenticular halo at the zenith, flattened on the south side, extending to 20 degrees of the east and west horizons".

May 14: "What's missing from my diet: food... How primitive is man, night bringing romance and dawn ambition, often..   How dependent we are on one another, for here I can only survive for a while with a limited supply of what others have produced.   Passed the 60th west meridian of longitude...   Last night I speared a dimly seen fish solidly, but it was so big that it tore the entire spear from my hand, leaving it bloody".

May 15: "Weather is getting more and more capricious as I near land.   700 miles to Providence NE Channel, 850 to Florida.   Speared a fish in the afternoon, but he took my last spear away.   Then he lost it, so I motored back and retrieved it, as it floated.   Most of the dolphin still following me have distinguishing marks where my spears failed, so I will stop trying to catch the poor things.   Am about 300 miles north of Puerto Rico".   Skip to:

May 19: "I found gold ! One can each of pineapple chunks and grapefruit juice in a neglected niche, so work stopped while I consumed it all.   Threw overboard the last of the potatoes, all rotten.   Twelve days food left at this reduced rate.   I am seeing 2 or 3 ships a day, at a distance where they probably don't see me.   Still repairing things, changing sails to cope with changing winds, staying vigilant at night, catching an occasional dolphin and drying some.   The dried fish is a success, like tasty shoe leather.   Today's dolphin was 45" long, a welcome extension of my food supply".   Skip to:

The Chaloma or Paloma: see text

May 26-27: "Hundreds of land birds around. They're wasting their time, for I eat all my garbage.... At 23:45 Greenwich Time, dusk, a small freighter appeared to the NE, southbound.   She had just passed me when she changed course and made for me.   I turned on all my running lights and light-signalled "ALL OK" in Morse 3 times, but she came on.   American voices asked, anyway, if I was OK, because I couldn't read their fast Morse reply.   I shouted a request that they, the Chaloma, ask the Coast Guard to inform my family of their sighting. Yes they would. I shouted, hoarsely now, my profuse thanks".   The Coast Guard's letter to Maine reported the position as just what I had figured: 25.10 N, 73.53 W.

May 28-29: "The Paloma, an apparent sister ship of the Choloma, passed close by and waved. Got my last sun-shot position for the next few days, which were cloudy.   Navigation getting ever more complex and more crucial. The book shows a 1.0 knot current here, and my calculations agree, but as the Providence NE Channel is approached the current seems to have increased to about 2 knots.   Sunken reefs flanking the Channel entrance are an extra cause for vigilance...    As I now am on a northwest course, the air gets cooler, which makes more bearable my restricted diet.   I don't mind the dozens of bugs I picked out of my rice today as much as the excrement I didn't find".

May 30: "Land Ho ! Considering the likely range of all the unknowns, I settled on a course midway between running onto the reefs south of the Channel entrance, and overshooting it to the north, which would bring me to Georgia, for which I have no port charts.   Squalls all night, calms alternating with gales, so I got no sleep.   So that I could see better I showed no running lights.   My first contact with dry Earth in 52 days, but where on Earth was I ?   I saw flashing lights, but none were the coded light of the Eleuthera Island lighthouse.   At dawn I could see low land, which could be either Eleuthera or Great Abaco.   I climbed the mast to see better.   That and sun shots confirmed that the wide Channel entrance was just ahead.   A mile off the northeast corner of Eleuthera, the entrance to the Channel, I set the twin jibs, and slept, confident of my course.   Passed 5 miles south of Great Abaco Light. Dolphin have all left me".

May 31 - June 1: "Used alarm clock to sleep in 2 hour snatches.   Fatigue made me fall asleep almost instantly each time.   I don't want a capricious wind to have self-steering lead me to a grounding.   Never before on this boat have I had to change sails so much, because the wind changes so much in speed and direction.   I think that's because land weather is offsetting the trade winds.   Several ships pass, but none stop to enquire, because the proximity of land makes it look like I'm OK, which I am".

June 2: Because of the strong Gulf Stream between the Bahamas and Florida I steered all night for the lights of Miami, but crabbing toward Fort Lauderdale.   A series of thunderstorms were exciting, with many blinding lightning strikes, each arriving at the same time as its deafening thunderclap.   A steel ship would seem vulnerable to lightning strikes, but oil tankers aren't, and the Swalker wasn't, because of a cable running from the hull to the top of the mast.   Of course I took Benzedrine to cope with all this.

June 3: I entered the Port of Palm Beach, and tied up to the Customs and Immigration dock. Here were earth, people, ice cream.   My bony chest looked like a washboard, and would not have attracted cannibals.   The only food remaining was a few strips of dried fish, a cup of rice with moving protein in it, and 7 cans of (ugh) spinach.   At the rate I had been using it, a month of drinking water remained in the tanks.

See how close the first voyage of Columbus (the route through the Canary Is.) to the New World paralleled mine, on this map from www.columbusnavigation.com/v1.shtml.

The transatlantic track of Columbus's first voyage, drawn on an isogonic chart.

Me just before 9 weeks of beard were removed.

I arrived at the Port of Palm Beach at noon on June 3, 1957, very happy and very hungry.    I was gaunt and bearded.

At the Customs and Immigration dock bystanders said the officials saw me coming, then went to lunch and left instructions that I stay on the boat until they returned.   My opinion can be imagined. I immediately went to the nearest little store, bought a half gallon of ice cream, and ate it all.   

I was tidying the ship and answering bystanders' questions when the officials returned.   They said nothing about my unauthorized shore excursion, but noted my passport had expired in April.

Bob Ray, who interviewed me on WPTV in Palm Beach.
This friend later convinced us to go live in Cuba, which we
did until the situation  got too hot under Fidel Castro.

With the remainder of my $9 I phoned for money, and got a haircut, which included shaving off my Santa Claus beard.   That immediately attracted a newspaper photographer, and reporters.  I was interviewed on that new medium, television, by Bob Ray of WPTV.  Bob died in November 2009.

A hotel owner offered me free room and food for 2 days, which I gladly accepted.  Lowell Thomas, the newsman who became famous by making Lawrence of Arabia famous, broadcast the news of my arrival.   Later people sent me associated clippings from newspapers around the country.   According to the Slocum Society I was about the 60th person to solo the Atlantic.   Joshua Slocum, the 6th to have done so, was the most renowned sailor to do that, but it was just part of his journey around the world in his sloop Spray in 1896.   Now dozens of people solo the Atlantic yearly, because of more widespread affluence and superior technology: manufactured self-steering rigs, GPS, and more.

After 58 days at sea, my body and subconscious had become quite accustomed to the conditions. Readjustment had two odd effects.   Sea legs: It took several days after June 3 for solid earth to stop going up and down while I walked on it.   I wonder if would have noticed had there been an earthquake. Seasickness.   The degree to which this is physical (fatty foods, position in the boat, etc.) or psychological is much debated.   I never had the least twinge of seasickness on the Swalker, nor used the Dramamine that was aboard.   Yet when later I took a ferry to a Maine island, Monhegan, I seemed to be the only passenger who was very queasy.   It's significant that only on the Swalker was I in charge.

I moved Swalker to Bahia Mar, the Ft. Lauderdale marina, to be nearer my daughter Carol.

While simultaneously trotting barefoot across a parking lot there and watching a very pretty girl, it gradually dawned on me that I had slammed a foot into a concrete divider.   The doctor said it wasn't worth splinting the broken big toe, so I tried to ignore it.

The Swalker was too scruffy and slow to sell in Florida, so on July 5 Frank Bering, a hotel heir who owes me a free room in Chicago, and I "left jetties at Port Everglades at 11:30 EST", bound for New York.   Nightlife to 2 AM had made us tired.   The pleasant wind changed from southeast to south, so I raised the tradewind jibs even though beyond the tradewind area.

July 6: We switched back to mainsail and genoa at dawn, and went to the approximate center of the Gulf Stream, as indicated by the passage of an occasion commercial vessel, whose captain would know better than we where that is.   "We're not on watches yet: one just sticks to the tiller a little longer than he can stand it, then calls on the other".   We ran out of cigarettes, as both of us had planned. Skip to:

July 8: "Frank sick, loses 2-tooth plate overboard with his lunch, then is normal again.   Night: Thunderstorms with lightning strikes apparently 100' from boat". Skip to:

July 10: Paraphrased from log: "Just as Frank came on deck near dawn, a bright light appeared dead ahead.   We're too far offshore for that to be land.   Not a ship, for no red and green lights.   From whence did it come on this clear night ?   In 5 minutes the mystery is solved.   It is a submarine newly risen.   She passes us to starboard, a green light finally showing".   Skip to:

July 12;"Around 4 PM sighted several porpoises, then struck a 2" x 10" plank 12 feet long.   At 5 PM sighted Virginia Beach.   Frank says he is overdue and wants to get off.   A launch with 4 youths comes over from the moored pilot vessel named Virginia, and offer to take Frank ashore.   First they speak to the captain, who says, 'We're not running a passenger service', and threatens to report us to the Coast Guard for unspecified violations.   We follow his directions to the nearest dock, but missing lights and unpredicted stakes made us suspect the captain was trying to beach us.   So we returned to the ocean.

July 13:   It was dangerous trying get Frank ashore.   We entered Assateague Inlet, Maryland, for which I had no chart.   We were briefly grounded on an incoming tide, so we headed to sea again, touching bottom a few times in surf.

July 14: "At 38.26 N 74.41  The sport fisherman Three Sisters, from Milford Delaware, approached us.  They took Frank, but the offshore swells made the transfer difficult.   He wasn't prepared, and forgot his watch, so I will mail it".

July 15: "While sleeping, in the cockpit so I'd probably wake if any ships neared, I was woken by a bright Aldis lamp shining down on me.   "Where are your lights ?", the voice demanded from the freighter deck above me.   He was right and I wrong: I lit the lights.... I sighted whales about 8 times this day, right off New Jersey.   Each had a fin relatively close to the tail, and was long.   Obstacles increasing; fish stakes far at sea, missed unlit fisherman's buoy by 2 feet, wore long underwear because of the cold, variable wind sometimes dead ahead so sometimes used engine". Skip to:

July 17: "Entered New York Harbor.   Much traffic, especially ferries which ignore rights of way.   I was thrilled to exchange salutes with the departing Queen Mary.

The original Queen Mary salutes the Swalker in New York Harbor.

 I tied up at a dirty dock in Brooklyn, flying the flag showing that the boat and I were American.   A customs agent arrived, unnecessarily because I had come from Florida USA, and ignoring me, ordered, 'Someone find out what language this guy speaks'".

July 18: I motored up the East River, under the (click):   Brooklyn Bridge ,

Going north on the East River.    Brooklyn bridge ahead.  Manhattan skyscrapers on the left.

Me on the sandblasted and painted Swalker at a City Island boat
yard, with IP630 registration added.   Swalker was sold from there. 

past the United Nations complex, through the whirlpools and turbulence of Hell's Gate, to City Island, where I left the Swalker for overhaul and sale.   The broker, Leo Keane, had just been ditched by his girlfriend because he was blind.   Festoons of  marine growth that had significantly slowed the Swalker were removed from the hull, and it was painted white, with a required new number attached.

After "Why did you do it ?", the question most asked about this trip is, "Would you do it again ?"   The answer is no but I'm glad I did it.   I wouldn't do so now, because I'm older and married and have other passions of the mind.   The heights of euphoria I felt, the pleasure of overcoming problems, seem impossible to communicate.

Forty years later my wife Margery and I chartered a float plane to see the giant grizzly bears of the remote Katmai National Park in Alaska.   We saw several very close, then helped a young man, Timothy Treadwell, pack up his summer camp surrounded by grizzly paths, load the gear into our plane, and gave him a ride back to civilization.   On the way he said that although many people said his bear friends would kill him some day, it would have been worth it.   I felt the same way about what I did.   A few years later the remains of his partly-eaten corpse, and that of his girlfriend, were found at his camp, and the documentary Grizzly Man, about him, was widely shown.   I've been a lot luckier.

The ethical basis for solo sailing has been debated at length.   One side says that since proper seamanship requires that a crew member or officer be aware of the vessel and its surroundings at all times, and since it's impossible for the solo sailor to avoid sleep, then solo sailing is wrong.   I believe that if the solo sailor endangers noone else, then he is acting ethically.   Shortly after my ocean crossing, a blimp went to monitor a yacht in trouble off New Jersey.   The sailors survived, but the blimp went down and two occupants died.   I feel about that as I do about winter climbers on Mount Washington calling for help on their cell phones in hazardous conditions.   That's why I had no radio transmitter on the Swalker. Otherwise I passionately support the right of anyone to take any risks, or his/her own life, if that doesn't hurt others much.   So I think it wrong for a parent of young children, or a doctor with unique life-saving skills, to take extreme risks or hisher own life.   Nobody needed me then, but I took reasonable precautions to minimize or avoid risks.   The occasions of greatest danger, and that was usually to the boat and not me, were not in the middle of the ocean.   "But such a small ship" is irrelevant: ping-pong balls are quite seaworthy.


To see the final segment (because of blogger.com peculiarities)  click here