We squeezed out of tiny Lahaina harbor about noon on May 1. Making the sharp right-angle turn, we broke through the surf and crept under power through the narrow channel against a head wind. It was a quick overnight trip in fresh trades to Oahu, and by midnight we were once again laying off Diamond Head, marveling at the lights and color. This time, however, we were looking ashore at familiar landmarks and could identify the myriad flashes and beams.
The next morning we entered the yacht harbor, and after a couple of temporary tie-ups were assigned to a berth, where we began leisurely preparations for our last long leg, to Hiroshima. The yacht harbor is jammed with craft, almost all of which never have—or never could—go outside. Unfortunately, most of the available harbor space on Oahu is in Pearl Harbor, and not available to private yachts.
It was our plan to leave in about a month; it was not until almost two years later that we were able to make the long haul back to Hiroshima. The Phoenix was not quite idle during this period—she sailed over 6,000 miles during 83 days at sea—but our sailing was of a different nature than that of a casual family cruise and does not enter into this account. In brief, we sailed into the Bikini nuclear bomb test area, then to Kwajalein, in the Marshalls, and finally—without the Skipper and Jessica aboard—back to Honolulu. But, as I say, that is another story (told in The Forbidden Voyage).
On April 26, 1960, we set out again, ready in all ways for our long passage across the Pacific to Japan. The weather was fair, the trades generally moderate, and our hearts were eager to reach Hiroshima, which we think of as home. Our route lay just north of one we had taken in 1958, to the forbidden zone near Bikini, but this time we were unmolested, since the bomb tests had long since been concluded.
It was on the whole a quiet trip, although there were a couple of incidents. Also, we did a lot of experimenting with the sails, partly for the fun of it and partly because our sails were in such delicate condition that ingenious adaptations were necessary. We very soon tried the jib which Bill Huntington, of the Golden Rule, had given us, and it worked fine. A little later we set up for the first time a spinnaker, which we had bought secondhand in Honolulu. It also worked well, but we were spoiled by long years of lazy cruising and just didn’t have the racing man’s attitude. I’m afraid we never gave the spinnaker the attention it deserved, and when it began to demand too much attention we just took it down.
Log entries are meager during a fair-weather passage, and the entry on the tenth day stands out prominently: “PHOENIX’S SIXTH BIRTHDAY!” A couple of days later, we hit our first “bad” weather—a mild line squall. Things were so quiet, in fact, that one morning I took a nap and officially made Jessica the Captain—for a period of two hours. She promptly took over the keeping of the log book, and her entries follow:
0700 Cap’n Blob takes over command. 0730 Cook mutinies, refuses to get out of bed. 0825 Wind from more or less aft. 0845 Former Cap’n refuses to do dishes. Ruled guilty by Majority of One, will be thrown in irons, if any available. 0900 Took morning shot. Presiding Cap’n goofed. 0931 Cap’n turns over all responsibility to Skipper, and resigns from active (or inactive) duty. Sigh.
One more entry:
1700 DATE LINE crossed. (Beep, beep! J.)
So we lost May 11 out of our lives. That night we saw what must be a very rare sight, a “moonbow.” A full moon aft and a shower forward combined to produce this phenomenon, with actual rainbow colors quite visible.