Our location at anchor was well out from shore and had its drawbacks. Rowing in presented no difficulties, as tide and current set strongly toward the shore, but getting back was a different matter. The first night, when we went ashore for our celebration dinner, we met a genial old codger who was just full of anecdotes.
“Terrible current out there,” he told us proudly. “Hardly a month passes but what it puts some ship on the reef—or takes them off to sea. Wretched holding ground—slick—nothing for an anchor to grab. And as for getting out to your ship—why, just a couple of weeks ago two men were rowing out to their lugger—got caught by the current and swept off to the westward somewhere....” He gestured broadly. “They sent out a powerboat, but never caught up with them.... Yes, it’s a terrible current!”
I resolved to make arrangements as soon as possible to bring the Phoenix up to the dock. Meantime I spoke to the proprietress of the Royal Hotel, where we were dining, and reserved a room for my womenfolk for that night. They deserved a night ashore—and I had no desire to risk getting them back to the ship after dark.
Barbara’s diary account of their accommodations was well worth the pound I paid for their one night’s lodging-with-breakfast:
First you try to find the entrance to the overnight accommodations. (The façade of any Australian hotel is all Pub and every visible entrance leads to one bar or another.) Finally we were rescued by “Miss Marie”—pronounced Mahry—the manageress, and escorted up a creaking stairway which led from the lower side veranda to a wide upper one, off which opened all of the bedrooms. Every door was wide open for ventilation and most of the guests seemed to be sprawled on their beds in full view, in various states of deshabille.
Our own room was at the extreme end of the front porch, next to a room marked “Ladies’ Bath.” How very convenient, I thought, looking forward to an extra dividend in the form of a Hot Bath.
Jessica and I waited on the porch until we saw the masthead light wink on out in the harbor. Then, knowing the men had made it safely to the boat, we prepared ourselves for bed: a simple job, since we had brought no nightclothes and not even a toothbrush.
The Ladies’ Bath turned out to be nothing but bath—and with cold water, at that. No soap, either. And there were no other facilities visible, so I had to go downstairs and seek out Miss Marie again to ask about the W.C. Greatly embarrassed, she led me back up the stairs, along the two sides of the upper porch to our own room and there—presto!—she crawled under my bed and produced a porcelain chamber pot, child’s size!
My night ashore, to which I had looked forward for many weeks at sea, turned out to be anything but a restful one. The bed was considerably harder than my bunk on the Phoenix, and the snowy mosquito netting which we were driven to drape around us shut off most of the air. Since the “Ladies’ Bath” was the only room beyond ours, I left the door open at first, but after two or three very raucous males had wandered past and spent varying lengths of time in the Ladies’ Bath, I pulled the half-curtains across the opening, even at the risk of losing what feeble breeze there was.
The night was hot and stifling, although we had been assured that this season is pleasant compared to the summer months (November to March), when the wind blows from the other direction and puts this side of the island in the lee. Every time someone walked across the porch—or even when Jessica turned over in her sleep—the floor shook as though an elephant were doing a fandango. I couldn’t help thinking how ironic it would be if we had sailed thousands of miles and survived the North Pacific and the Great Barrier Reef, only to die in the shambles of the Royal Hotel in T.I., on the night the upstairs sleeping porch collapsed into the Pub below.