“And now I’ll really surprise you, I think,” went on the engineer, resuming his pencil. “In all of that first eleven hundred and sixty miles you’ll hardly be out of sight of land. You’ll have capes, islands, buoys and lights as steering points nearly all the time.” Ned’s eyes opened and the engineer arose and led him to a big, great-circle chart of the Atlantic ocean. “I suppose,” continued the calculator, “that you think, after leaving New York harbor, you’ll pass out to sea at once.”
“Of course,” exclaimed Ned. “Where else could we go?”
“You’ll go east on Long Island sound to S. Norwalk, Connecticut. Then, you’ll start over the land, cross Connecticut a little south of Hartford, pass over Massachusetts ten miles north of Boston and come to water again off Ipswich, Massachusetts, near Cape Ann. From that point you’ll begin to take a calculated course, shaped from Thatcher Island lights, and steer over the Gulf of Maine N. 65-1/2° E. till you raise Matinicus Island. There you’ll veer to E. N. E. 1/4 E. till you’re over Grand Manan in the mouth of the Bay of Fundy. Sailing ahead E. by N. you’ll pass up the north arm of Fundy to the town of Amherst in Nova Scotia. A new course E. 1/2 N. will take you across Northumberland Straits and Prince Edward Island to Cape Anguille in west Newfoundland, and then to the east coast at Fogo Island.”
“What’s that?” asked the interested Ned.
“Only a name,” was the engineer’s answer. “But it ought to be better known for it is the exact place where a direct line from New York City to London cuts across the easternmost sea line of our part of the world.”
“And then?” continued his rapt listener.
“Fogo Island is 50° 5´ west longitude and 49° 43´ north latitude. With an initial true course from this point of E. 1/4 S. you’ll hit one of the Arran Islands in Galway Harbor, west coast of Ireland. In these short courses across the states, the Gulf of Maine, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, a true course is exact enough considering your land and sea marks—you’ll pass over islands and light houses every few miles. But, when you leave Fogo it is another story. By night I’ll have you a plotted chart of your ocean leg showing the magnetic variations and the alterations you must make in your true course.”
“Then it’s almost a land journey for the first thousand miles?”
“On which you can watch summer guests at Mt. Desert Island, shore yachts along the Maine coast and, like as not, deers scampering over the pine tree covered rocks of New Brunswick. You could almost do it without a compass.”