Log Book:
He thinks a government official will take me in while the boys go to a hotel. Consequently I stay on the plane while the others go back to find out. They’ll pick me up later.
In the meantime a ham sandwich is food. I don’t dare take pictures lest the people see I am present.
The plane rides at her moorings and the waves of passing launches knock the pontoons with hammer blows. Water is very hard.
At last the gang comes for me. It is decided to go to a small hotel in Dartmouth. It is Sunday, and Orchard Day, besides being the King’s birthday. Consequently, no one much is at home. We have difficulty finding the proprietor of the hotel even. He has no rooms in the main building and we are shown to the Annex. It is very informal. The key hangs behind the door for all who know where to find it. A strange billiard table rests in the main hall. Our rooms are on the third floor.
This country would be grand for camping. Real solitude with lovely little lakes and bays. The pine trees don’t look attractive as landing fields, but do for outings. Slim says in this connection that he was glad of pontoons for the first time, as he looked over the landscape.
12 P.M. Two reporters and camera men are in the next room trying to persuade Stultz and G. to dress and have a flashlight picture taken. I am displeased with their thoughtlessness in keeping the men (Bill and Slim) awake. I don’t know whether the newspaper men know I am here so I am not shouting my sentiments.
It is now 9:45. We are out of Halifax about 15 minutes. The take-off took one minute in a perfectly calm sea. We loaded 100 gals. of gas after we had waited since about 7 A.M. until 9 for its arrival. Any other day in the year, I suppose, would have been better to get it. I wandered around and looked over the station, stopping a few minutes in what I was told was Commander Byrd’s home when he was in charge of the station during the war. Major Harrup is there now and while the station is not active just now, is going to be soon, with several seaplanes assigned to it.
We had many encounters with newspaper men this morning. We were called at 5:30, and the hotel served us a little after six—unusual service for a holiday. Slim is feeling ill still, but managed to eat something. We had two pictures taken before breakfast; interviews at, and pictures and interviews afterward. When we arrived at the station we met more camera men and reporters.
We went over to the plane in the tug which carried the gas. I chatted with the men who handled it and was assured that rubbing gas and oil on one’s hair made it grow and was good for it every day. We spilled some fuel on the water and I thought of the accident to De Pinedo’s ship caused by throwing a cigarette on the water afterward.