as
“Don’t forget the guava jelly
, OVER !” The photograph reproduced in these pages is the forlorn result of attempting, on a cloudy day, to capture the
Tau
, headed adamantly across the same sound Captain Bligh passed through on his determined, legendary voyage. That night, another fine dive having been consummated, a sadness overtook the departing members, and the thought of going anywhere without Vane to guide me and Bindy to console me, and of leaving Jack and Drue, was a cruel capitulation to the world of getting and spending. The lot of them boarded an ancient open bus to see us off at what is called the airport. Our fourteen pieces of luggage were segregated and weighed outside a thatched hut where lukewarm orange soda was available. The terminal’s scales were brought out. The device was what you get from Sears, Roebuck for the guest bathroom, and one by one the bags were weighed (and a careful calculation made of the overweight) and lugged into the belly of one of those airplanes Clark Gable used to fly over the Hump; and we headed downwind, because into the wind would have required taking off uphill, and we were, miraculously, airborne. Suddenly it was sunny, and all the blue, and the coral reefs that have decimated the merchant marines of the world, spread out ahead, carpeting us the 150 miles to Suva, where the maw of convention was waiting, impatient to swallow us up.
3
Six weeks after Fiji came Christmas-cruise time. Dick Clurman advised me, over the phone, in clipped accents, that he and Shirley would meet us at JFK rather than attempt the trip to the airport in a single motor vehicle with twenty-six pieces of luggage. This detail is not entirely extraneous to ocean sailing. The summer before, I had sailed the Aegean and one of the company, whom I had known since college though he is a few years my junior, arrived with a single moderate-sized duffel bag plus a wafer-slim briefcase good for one issue of the Paris
Tribune
and maybe three paperbacks. Every day of the week he was with us he turned up in serviceable but modish costume, and at night there would be a fresh shirt and colored pants or white ducks. Dick (Coulson) had sailed competitively since he was a boy, and twice he raced the Atlantic aboard a boat whose skipper is notoriously demanding. His disposition is quiet, he is organically unexcitable, and when he goes cruising he sees no need for chestloads of gear. If he finishes the books he brings, there are always others on board. If his laundry gets scarce, he washes it and it is dry the next morning. He has hisown foul-weather gear and one extra pair of Topsiders, and doesn’t go to sea other than to go to sea.
Clurman and I are gadget-minded. He, for instance, even brings along his own voltmeter. He has, usually, three radios, and the paraphernalia that go with them. Then there is the fishing equipment. If he could catch a single fish per snare or hook he brings aboard, he would empty the Caribbean of underwater life. And now that we are onto scuba diving, there is that inventory. He reads at the rate of a book a day (I saw him begin Herman Wouk’s
Winds of War
one morning and finish it at noon the next day). And mind you he does not do all of this in Carthusian circumstances. He talks at least three times as much as the rest of the crew combined, though he is always available to undertake any chore; he receives, transcribes and analyzes the news for us, explores the lives and problems of the crew, expresses his preferences on a) where we should sail to, b) when we should eat, and c) what we should eat. Then of course there are the magazines to catch up on—about forty, and they range from
Playboy
to
American Scholar
. He is perhaps happiest on the radiotelephone, calling his endless list of friends, discharging his responsibilities as a counselor to them all. No doubt he came to the habit of being constantly in touch with all points of the globe during his long tenure as chief of
“Don’t forget the guava jelly
, OVER !” The photograph reproduced in these pages is the forlorn result of attempting, on a cloudy day, to capture the
Tau
, headed adamantly across the same sound Captain Bligh passed through on his determined, legendary voyage. That night, another fine dive having been consummated, a sadness overtook the departing members, and the thought of going anywhere without Vane to guide me and Bindy to console me, and of leaving Jack and Drue, was a cruel capitulation to the world of getting and spending. The lot of them boarded an ancient open bus to see us off at what is called the airport. Our fourteen pieces of luggage were segregated and weighed outside a thatched hut where lukewarm orange soda was available. The terminal’s scales were brought out. The device was what you get from Sears, Roebuck for the guest bathroom, and one by one the bags were weighed (and a careful calculation made of the overweight) and lugged into the belly of one of those airplanes Clark Gable used to fly over the Hump; and we headed downwind, because into the wind would have required taking off uphill, and we were, miraculously, airborne. Suddenly it was sunny, and all the blue, and the coral reefs that have decimated the merchant marines of the world, spread out ahead, carpeting us the 150 miles to Suva, where the maw of convention was waiting, impatient to swallow us up.
3
Six weeks after Fiji came Christmas-cruise time. Dick Clurman advised me, over the phone, in clipped accents, that he and Shirley would meet us at JFK rather than attempt the trip to the airport in a single motor vehicle with twenty-six pieces of luggage. This detail is not entirely extraneous to ocean sailing. The summer before, I had sailed the Aegean and one of the company, whom I had known since college though he is a few years my junior, arrived with a single moderate-sized duffel bag plus a wafer-slim briefcase good for one issue of the Paris
Tribune
and maybe three paperbacks. Every day of the week he was with us he turned up in serviceable but modish costume, and at night there would be a fresh shirt and colored pants or white ducks. Dick (Coulson) had sailed competitively since he was a boy, and twice he raced the Atlantic aboard a boat whose skipper is notoriously demanding. His disposition is quiet, he is organically unexcitable, and when he goes cruising he sees no need for chestloads of gear. If he finishes the books he brings, there are always others on board. If his laundry gets scarce, he washes it and it is dry the next morning. He has hisown foul-weather gear and one extra pair of Topsiders, and doesn’t go to sea other than to go to sea.
Clurman and I are gadget-minded. He, for instance, even brings along his own voltmeter. He has, usually, three radios, and the paraphernalia that go with them. Then there is the fishing equipment. If he could catch a single fish per snare or hook he brings aboard, he would empty the Caribbean of underwater life. And now that we are onto scuba diving, there is that inventory. He reads at the rate of a book a day (I saw him begin Herman Wouk’s
Winds of War
one morning and finish it at noon the next day). And mind you he does not do all of this in Carthusian circumstances. He talks at least three times as much as the rest of the crew combined, though he is always available to undertake any chore; he receives, transcribes and analyzes the news for us, explores the lives and problems of the crew, expresses his preferences on a) where we should sail to, b) when we should eat, and c) what we should eat. Then of course there are the magazines to catch up on—about forty, and they range from
Playboy
to
American Scholar
. He is perhaps happiest on the radiotelephone, calling his endless list of friends, discharging his responsibilities as a counselor to them all. No doubt he came to the habit of being constantly in touch with all points of the globe during his long tenure as chief of
Similar Books
![Carter's Tryck [Brac Pack 17]](https://fs.collectorofbookboyfriends.com/474078/thumbs/152x264/carters-tryck-brac-pack-17.jpg)
