We had begun to feel that the small circle of visibility in which we moved was the only clearing in an otherwise opaque world, when suddenly a distant foghorn metamorphosed into a very large and close ship. It seemed to erupt full blown from the curtain of fog, complete with navigation lights, and passed us to port. Silent as a ghost ship it glided by and vanished gradually like the Cheshire cat, on the other side of our tiny circle, until only its stern remained, glowing more and more remotely. Yet, as the ship disappeared, the bellow of the foghorn doubled in volume, because its warning was now being carried to us from upwind, with far more urgency now that the danger was past.
We stood double watches, sounding our bellows continuously all night, but even when I was off duty I got precious little sleep.
In the morning we altered course to north-northwest, to pick up the Jersey coast, still operating by dead reckoning. We passed Scotland Light at 1000 and started the engine to go up the channel.
Just after noon we pulled up to the dock at the U.S. Quarantine Station at Staten Island, 19 days and 1,500 miles out of St. Thomas. I don’t know about the crew, but Barbara tells me she had a lump in her throat at the sight of the U.S. flag waving over the buildings—and I felt pretty lumpish myself.
14 EVERY KIND OF CRUISING:
NEW YORK TO PANAMA,
BY THE CORKSCREW ROUTE
“A man must stand up for what he believes.”
At Rosebank, the Quarantine Station for the Port of New York, we were given another example of the unreliability of hearsay predictions. In St. Thomas we had been warned that it would be foolish to enter at New York City, since it was not only dangerous for sailing craft (a point we were now willing to concede) but because the treatment given yachts was high-handed and arbitrary.
On the contrary, we were cleared in less than half an hour, and invited by the officials to move to a more secure spot inside the docks where we could relax for a day or two before going over to Manhattan. We were happy to accept, especially since it included showers and a chance to get in touch with family and friends by telephone.
In no time at all representatives of various “communications media” got wind of our arrival and began beating a path to the main hatch. Also, the families at the Quarantine Station, which is a surprisingly isolated community, were interested in the Phoenix, and most of them came on board to pay a visit, sign the guest book, and more often than not, leave a youngster or two behind to climb the masts or chin themselves on the ratlines.
Our first act was to get in touch with Tim, who had come into New York to await our arrival and now lost no time in joining us. It was our first meeting with our older son since he had left us back in Japan in ’53, and naturally we had a great deal of catching up to do.