And the Sea Will Tell

by Vincent Bugliosi

  But unflappable Mac thought the trip was going quite well. The favorable winds increased their speed, and there’d been no equipment failures or breakdowns. Even in such heavy weather, he was invigorated by fast, flawless sailing. The days were mostly steel-gray, but Mac’s vision of the adventures that lay ahead brought a silver lining to any overcast. He whistled a lot these days. The tune he was stuck on was an old favorite: “The High and the Mighty,” the title tune for a 1950s movie about macho pilot John Wayne bravely pulling an airliner through a crisis.

  Each night, comfortable and snug in his bunk (and with the automatic-pilot steering device keeping the Sea Wind on course, which could be verified by periodically checking the compass in the cabin), Mac would turn the light switch off, and by the soft glow of a kerosene lantern, read An Island to Myself, the true story of a man who had lived alone on a tropical island. If only his Muff, sleeping fitfully in her own bunk nearby, could share in his excitement….

  On May 25, 1974, at the height of Hawaii’s famously idyllic spring, they arrived off the western shore of the massive Big Island. They had sailed more than two thousand miles in only eighteen days, one of the Sea Wind’s best legs ever.

  Dropping sail, they proceeded under power through the narrow channel of Hilo’s Radar Bay, glimpsing the varicolored bright blossoms whose riotous profusion gave the island one of its nicknames, the Garden Island. The docking area could barely accommodate a mere dozen boats, but Mac spotted a suitable anchorage adjacent to the concrete quay.

  They moored next to a sailboat owned by Curtis Shoemaker. A short, sinewy man in his mid-fifties with a bronzed, weather-beaten face that looked as if it had been fashioned with a blunt instrument, Shoemaker had been sailing since his days as a Sea Scout in Hawaii in the 1930s. Now a telephone repairman, he lived in Waimea, a mountainous outback about forty-five miles northwest of Hilo, and was an avid ham radio operator.

  Mac and Muff instantly hit it off with Shoemaker and his wife, Momi. They frequently visited back and forth. When the two women went shopping one afternoon, Curt checked out Mac’s two-way radio and liked what he saw, deeming it a first-class setup. He suggested that they establish a radio communications link with each other as long as Mac and Muff were on Palmyra.

  “You could get in real trouble on an island like that all by yourself,” Shoemaker cautioned. “It might be a good idea to keep regular contact with the outside world.” He explained that he had a high-powered radio at his mountaintop home and that they could fix a predetermined schedule for communication.

  Mac was never one to admit he might someday need emergency aid, but he liked the idea that his and Muff’s relatives and friends could get word to them in their secluded paradise via Curt’s radio.

  While in port, Mac undertook some essential last-minute fix-it projects. After Hilo, there would be no other ports of call for a long time. They would have to rely entirely on the supplies and equipment they took to Palmyra.

  More than one friend had teased Mac and Muff about the large supply of medicine they stashed on the Sea Wind. But in far corners of the world they couldn’t call the family doctor or visit the corner drugstore, so they carried their own floating pharmacy, complete with pages of typed instructions and recommended dosages. A former Sea Wind crewman was responsible for the instructions and the plethora of drugs, such as Pyribenzamine, Aralen, sulfadiazine, and the like. A medical doctor, he had signed on for the world cruise in 1961 and left behind his black bag when he and his fellow crewman deserted Mac in Mexico.

  Neatly put away in the storage areas were enough tools and spare parts for Mac to open his own boat repair shop. He had everything from pipe fittings and bits to bolt cutters and deck fittings. He had not just one electric drill, but four. There was an electric generator and 1,100-watt portable alternator. And, as the hardware store ads say, much, much more.

  Muff was equally well outfitted for her considerable chores as cook and all-around boatwife, challenging roles aboard a small boat at sea for months at a time. She had a full arsenal of pots and pans for cooking and baking, as well as some convenience gadgets which, because of battery drain, are not often found on boats, such as an ice crusher, food processor, blender, electric mixer, and pressure cooker.

  There was also a permanent maritime reference collection aboard the Sea Wind. Titles like The American Practical Navigator, Dictionary of Fishes, Medical Emergencies in Pleasure Boating, and Pacific Islands Yearbook revealed the scope of the couple’s readiness for a self-reliant life at sea.

  And there were weapons aboard, as well. Mac had a .30-caliber Marlin rifle, a small derringer, and a powerful handgun, the latter kept below deck in a special hiding place beside his bunk. Even lying there, he could slide back a panel in a cabinet, revealing the narrow shelf upon which lay the handgun, one of the most potent ever built, the Colt .357 magnum, capable of blowing the arm off an intruder. Of course, Mac was a man comfortable with guns, having learned how to handle them during a brief Army stint in the 1950s. Muff, as anyone who knew her would suspect, was leery of firearms, but she had come to accept the need to have them aboard after a terrifying incident on their round-the-world cruise.

  It had happened after they cleared the Straits of Gibraltar and were cruising off the coast of Morocco after dark. Mac was especially vigilant at the helm that night because pirates in trawlers had reportedly been ramming sailboats in the area, boarding them, stealing everything of value and killing everyone aboard, then scuttling the boats. Suddenly from the darkness, Mac had heard the sounds of a large ship’s engine. To his horror, the outline of a trawler headed directly toward him. When he quickly shifted the Sea Wind’s course, the trawler followed suit. Mac saw that the two craft were headed for collision. He raced below, grabbed his rifle, and flipped the switch for the two powerful spotlights mounted halfway up the front mast. Yelling to sleep-dazed Muff, he scrambled back topside and stood directly under the spreader lights’ white beams as Muff scampered in the shadows to take the helm. Mac snapped up the rifle, aiming at an unmoving shadowy figure on the bridge of the mysterious trawler. Illuminated like a frog about to be gigged, Mac knew his actions could be clearly seen from the trawler. If it did not change course within moments, the Sea Wind would surely be rammed, perhaps even sunk. But before that happened, Mac intended to shoot. He’s going to get us but I’m going to get him, too, Mac thought as he slipped his index finger inside the trigger guard. Time seemed to freeze as the two vessels silently converged. How close could he let them come before he had to fire? Was the other man drawing a bead upon him? Then, in the next instant, the trawler veered sharply away, only narrowly missing the Sea Wind. Someone, in this eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation, had blinked. It hadn’t been Mac.

  They survived that threat, Mac came to believe, for two reasons: he had the right instincts when it counted, and they had the proper equipment aboard—in this case, bright spotlights and a handy rifle. The incident reinforced Mac’s confident belief that a person made his own luck, as well as his conviction that ocean sailing was not for the weak or ill-prepared. Despite his close call and others he and Muff had experienced, Mac did not doubt his ability to survive whatever challenge their new adventure would offer. However severe.

  June 4, 1974

  Dearest Mother,

  We’re staying in Hawaii until we have a full moon for the trip. When we do leave, we’ll be going to Palmyra. We’ve heard a lot about how the island used to be, but really don’t know what to expect now. I’ll give Mac six months (or even less) there and he will be ready to leave. You know how changeable he is. Anyway, after Palmyra I can write you and you will be able to write us, as the next places he wants to go have mail service. I hate it being like this, each of us having to worry if the other one is well and safe.

  Your loving daughter,

  Muff

  June 24, 1974

  Dear Jamie and Marie:

  I was down the whole trip from San Diego to Hawaii, thinking about leaving our frie
nds. I still get lumpy in the throat when I think of all of you.

  We’re all stored up and ready to leave for Palmyra, and we even have a full moon. Mac is afraid we might miss it—such a small place in such a big ocean. I pray we have a good trip there.

  Till later, take care of yourselves. Will write when I can.

  Love,

  Mac and Muff

  JUNE 24, 1974

  THEIR RITUAL of leaving port hadn’t changed over the years. Muff dutifully played the supporting role assigned to her. Mac was captain and she was the crew.

  On this clear blue morning, just as the last threads of sunrise disappeared from the sky, they went through the exercise as they had hundreds of times before. He’d already rechecked every item of equipment, using a mental checklist that was ingrained in his memory by now. No airline pilot in the world was more careful in his preflight than Mac was in preparing the Sea Wind for sea.

  Today, as always, he waited until everything was just as he wanted, peered out through the bobbing craft in Hilo harbor to visualize his course to the big blue, and smiled a self-satisfied grin.

  Gruffly, assuming a pose that landlubbers could dismiss as pompously theatrical, Mac spoke over his shoulder. “Muff, let’s do it.” Perhaps he was playing a bit to Shoemaker, who stood on the wharf ready to release the boat’s lines.

  Muff was standing just inside the companionway, poised beside the ignition switch. “Okay, honey.”

  In the cockpit, Mac turned the key. “Hit it.”

  She flipped the switch. Mac pushed the starter button and the engine caught right away. Letting the engine idle so the oil would thin out and properly lubricate all the parts, he weighed anchor. He then waved to Shoemaker, who untied all lines but one, a stern line. As Mac pulled in the lines, he dropped them into perfect loops on the deck.

  When he was satisfied with the pitch of the engine, Mac cut the suspense by announcing for all to hear: “Casting off!”

  Shoemaker dropped the last stern line and Muff gathered it in. The Sea Wind was on her own.

  As unruly squads of sea gulls mewed and wheeled overhead, Mac engaged the engine and they began creeping forward. Behind them, the faint sounds of Hilo’s bustling early-morning traffic became ever more faint, a steady hum of civilization they did not expect to hear again for a long time. Low in the sky, the rising sun was blinding. It washed over the huge Chinese banyan trees that lined the bayfront drive and guarded the verdant acres of Liliuokalani Gardens. But these features of the landscape rapidly grew indistinct.

  Despite herself, Muff sensed immediately that the reality of being under way would drain away some of her fears and misgivings. They were on familiar territory and Mac was in full command. She had done her part, and she’d continue to do her part. She was determined not to misstep or fall a millisecond behind. Sailing depended so much on proper balance and timing. Mac needed her, but every minute of the day, he was the skipper, and she needed him even more.

  Her husband sat at the helm, his back straight as a board, his brown hand resting on the wheel, sharp eyes glancing 180 degrees to take best advantage of any eventuality. He felt the morning sun warm on his leathery neck, the refreshingly cool spray of water from the offshore wind on his face.

  As they edged their way through the Radar Bay channel, Muff took over the steering and Mac upped sail with practiced efficiency. First the mizzen, then the main and jibs. They all billowed out instantly in the gusting breeze, snapping the halyards musically against the masts.

  Back at the helm, Mac looked up at the sails. It was a move as automatic and unconscious as that of a cautious driver checking the rearview mirror. The wind was fresh and steady, and all the sails were taut and full. He shifted the engine into neutral. He would allow it to idle awhile longer before shutting it down, but they were under sail now, and for Mac, there was no feeling like it in the world.

  Charged, now fully alive, the beautiful craft surged forward, heading out the channel into the open sea, straining anxiously to fly upon the rolling surface.

  Mac and Muff went about the steady work of joining forces with wind and water. Breezes rose and fell and shifted, but slowly even the tip of mighty Mauna Loa peak, rising more than thirteen thousand feet above sea level, sank into the shimmering sea behind them.

  When Muff brought cups of piping hot coffee, they sat together in the cockpit, Mac at the helm, enjoying the radiance of early morning. The day passed without incident. Long before sunset, they were alone upon the watery bowl of visible ocean. No other craft could be seen. They moved across a bright, unruffled sea.

  As the air cooled, then became chill, a powerful northeasterly began to blow, urging them strongly and precisely in the direction of Palmyra Island.

  Mac, at last, had what he wanted. They were heading into the unknown, and he was exuberant.

  CHAPTER 7

  THOUGH DESIGNATED AN ISLAND on some charts of the Pacific, Palmyra is in fact an atoll, the very rim of a steep-faced volcanic peak in a gigantic underwater range whose mountains, hidden deep within the ocean, are among the world’s highest. Unlike actual islands, atolls are virtually flat, with no hills or mountains. Palmyra’s highest elevation is only six feet above sea level.

  A horseshoe curve of more than a dozen islets are spaced like jewels on a long necklace surrounding a protected lagoon—the old volcano crater—a configuration common to atolls. Each islet is composed of hard sand and constantly growing coral, carpeted with a dense growth of shrubs and coconut palms.

  For centuries this ancient atoll lay undiscovered, six degrees north of the equator, near the zone where the northeast and southeast trade winds meet and tussle.

  On the night of June 13, 1798, Edmond Fanning, an intrepid American sea captain, was sailing his ship, the Betsey, northwestward toward home from a trading trip to the Orient. Fanning, a well-known sailor of fortune, had already discovered a Pacific island that now bore his name. Suddenly, struck in his cabin by a compelling premonition of danger, Fanning hurried on deck and briskly ordered the helmsman to heave to in the darkness. Astonishingly, the first dim light of early dawn disclosed a low reef, dead ahead. Fanning’s ship would surely have foundered there had he not trusted his mariner’s sixth sense. With heady relief, the Betsey’s crew upped sail and carefully rounded the reef on its northern flank. Fanning climbed aloft to the crow’s nest high atop the mainmast. Through his spyglass, he saw a small, unprepossessing island on the opposite side of the reef. This is the first recorded view of Palmyra, and the Betsey’s brush with destruction became the first omen of danger to be associated with the island.

  The island was officially christened when a second ship chanced by and gained credit for the actual discovery, Fanning having failed to make a timely report of his finding. On November 6, 1802, a Manila-bound American ship, the Palmyra, was thrown off course in heavy seas and pushed near the island by the elements. When the weather cleared, the crew went exploring ashore, and occupied themselves on the atoll for about a week. It took nearly four years for a dispatch from the Palmyra’s skipper, Captain Sawle, to be relayed from one vessel to another and finally reach home with the news:

  New island, 05° 52' North, 162° 06' West, with two lagoons, the westmost of which is 20 fathoms deep, lies out of the track of most navigators passing from America to Asia or Asia to America.

  Fourteen years later, a Spanish pirate ship, the Esperanza, kept a grim appointment with destiny in the waters off Palmyra. Sailing with a rich cargo of gold and silver artifacts stolen from Inca temples in northern Peru, the vessel was attacked by another ship, and a bloody battle ensued. Surviving Esperanza crew members managed to sail her off with the treasure intact, but soon wrecked on submerged coral reef. As the ship sank, the pirates successfully transferred their treasure and provisions to the nearby deserted atoll: Palmyra. The following year the stranded men built rafts, split into two groups and, after hiding their treasure, sailed off in opposite directions for help. It is known that one raft sank.
An American whaler found and rescued its only survivor, seaman James Hines, who soon died of pneumonia. None of the crew members on the other raft was ever heard from; it is assumed all died at sea. And since no one has ever reported finding the Inca cache on Palmyra, it might still rest there, a collection of Mesoamerican objects several times more valuable in today’s art market than the gold and silver would be as precious metals.

  The litany of disasters had scarcely begun. In late 1855, word reached Tahiti that another ship, a whaler, had wrecked on Palmyra’s treacherous reefs, but an attempt to find the missing ship and her crew was unsuccessful.

  In 1862, Hawaii’s King Kamehameha IV granted a petition from two subjects of his, Zenas Bent and J. B. Wilkinson, for authorization to take possession of Palmyra under the Hawaiian flag. Bent and Wilkinson treated the island as virtually their own, building a rudimentary house, planting a vegetable garden, and leaving “a white man and four Hawaiians” there to “gather and cure biche de mer,” an edible sea slug prized in the Orient. Later that year, Bent sold his interest in Palmyra to Wilkinson, who in turn willed his proprietary interest in the property to his Hawaiian wife. Palmyra was included among the other Hawaiian Islands when they were annexed to the United States by act of Congress in 1898.

  In 1911, Judge Henry E. Cooper of Honolulu purchased Palmyra for $750 from the heirs of Wilkinson’s widow. He kept Palmyra and adjacent properties until 1922, when he sold off all but one islet for $15,000. The old judge apparently believed a rumor that the treasure of the Esperanza was buried under a banyan tree on that islet—called Home Island. The new owner of the remainder of Palmyra, Leslie Fullard-Leo, a South African diamond miner turned building contractor, had heard about Palmyra shortly after moving to Honolulu and thought it likely to be a peaceful refuge far removed from the rigors of civilization. But Fullard-Leo visited his uninhabited island only twice in seventeen years. When he died, Palmyra was inherited by his three sons, who also rarely visit it. Home Island has passed on to Judge Cooper’s descendants.