Alone at Sea : The Adventures of Joshua Slocum (9780385674072)

by Spencer, Ann

  Slocum thrived on the challenge of rough sailing; it was spells of becalming that tried his temper and patience to the limit. He hit one such spell in the horse latitudes. When sailing through a storm, sailors sense they are at the mercy of wind and water, but they also feel that it is within their power to affect the situation. A sailor who is becalmed quite literally has the wind taken out of his sails. He must sit helplessly on the spot where the sails went slat. A boat that is becalmed doesn’t enjoy the regular patterns or predictability of a boat that is moving through the water. For days on end the boat may never sit level. With no wind to keep the sails filled, the booms, gaffs and sails slam about aimlessly; this puts an incredible strain on the canvas, which in turn strikes the halyard, which gives a shock to the mast. That shock is transmitted down the mast and the standing rigging to the hull; thus, with each blow a shock is registered throughout the hull.

  A spell of becalming is even harder on the nerves. Bang! every four or five seconds when all the sails go slat. Clunk! because the waves are still rocking the boat but there’s not enough wind to fill the sails and keep the pressure on them. This destructive and infuriating inertia can bring out the “Type A” personality traits that lurk in many sailors. Some react by frantically trying to tighten sails and looking for ways to keep them from slatting. Then after a time the frustrated sailor realizes that he can’t make the wind blow. He just has to make the best of it and manage his boat properly while he waits for conditions to change. And waiting in a flat calm on a hot humid day under a blazing sun feels like slow torture.

  Slocum knew the kind of attitude that becalming required, and he found a certain amount of pleasure in the surrender. Of his enforced stay, he waxed philosophical, comparing this trial to earlier ones he had suffered: “I had almost forgotten this calm belt, or had come to regard it as a myth. I now found it real, however, and difficult to cross. This was as it should have been, for, after all of the dangers of the sea, the duststorm on the coast of Africa, the ‘rain of blood’ in Australia, and the war risk when nearing home, a natural experience would have been missing had the calm of the horse latitudes been left out. Anyhow, a philosophical turn of thought now was not amiss, else one’s patience would have given out almost at the harbor entrance. The term of her probation was eight days. Evening after evening during this time I read by the light of a candle on deck. There was no wind at all, and the sea became smooth and monotonous. For three days I saw a full-rigged ship on the horizon, also becalmed.”

  During moments of clear sailing the captain found a deep peace, and a connection with a greater power. On fine days he sailed by the positions of the stars, the sun and the moon. He had his sextant for taking early morning, noon and twilight sightings. Slocum was well versed in the subtleties of celestial navigation. Along with his skillful readings, he trusted his intuition to guide him with accuracy: “I sailed with a free wind day after day, marking the position of my ship on the chart with considerable precision; but this was done by intuition, I think, more than by slavish calculations. For one whole month my vessel held her course true: I had not, the while, so much as a light in the binnacle. The Southern Cross I saw every night abeam. The sun every morning came up astern; every evening it went down ahead. I wished for no other compass to guide me, for these were true. If I doubted my reckoning after a long time at sea I verified it by reading the clock aloft made by the Great Architect, and it was right.”

  Slocum’s accuracy was astonishing. When he first sighted the Marquesas group of Polynesian islands, he was confused by a reading that told him the Spray was hundreds of miles west of where he knew she was. He took a second set of readings an hour later that confirmed the first. Frustrated by information that clashed with his intuition, Slocum consulted the logarithm table and there found the error that had thrown off his calculations. He corrected the tables and felt he could continue to sail with his “self-reliance unshaken, and with my tin clock fast asleep.” He was delighted with his skill and couldn’t help but boast: “I found from the result of three observations, after long wrestling with lunar tables, that her longitude by observation agreed within five miles of that by dead-reckoning.”

  Slocum gloried in the precision of the universe and marveled at man’s ability to read its signs. Of the skills of the lunarian — the old-fashioned navigator who without a chronometer could ascertain the longitude of his ship by calculating the angle between the moon and certain fixed stars — Slocum wrote simple words of praise: “There is nothing in the realm of navigation that lifts one’s heart up more in adoration.” Out in the middle of the Pacific, the connection to nature was heightened, and Slocum came to a deep understanding of how things were and had always been for sailors who really knew the ocean and the sky. And this feeling of perfect knowledge filled him with satisfaction: “I was en rapport now with my surroundings, and was carried on a vast stream where I felt the buoyancy of His hand who made all the worlds, I realized the mathematical truth of their motions, so well known that astronomers compile tables of their positions through the years and the day, and the minutes of a day, with such precision that one coming along over the sea even five years later may, by their aid, find the standard time of any given meridian on the earth.”

  Slocum’s deepening connection with nature affected his view of the creatures he encountered. In the Strait of Magellan, as he watched ducks flying past the Spray, he contemplated the joy of a good stew. But even this mouthwatering thought was not enough to make him pull the trigger: he simply did not have the mind to take a life in such a desolate landscape. He countered a native Samoan’s suggestion that he carry caged chickens on board for slaughtering when desired: “To kill the companions of my voyage and eat them would be indeed next to murder and cannibalism.” His dietary code of ethics had its limits, however; he drew the line when hungry-looking sharks circled the Spray as she traveled close to islands and coral reefs. His justification for killing them was self-defense and a kind of unspoken creed that he adhered to as a member of the nautical brotherhood: “Nothing is more dreadful to the mind of a sailor, I think, than a possible encounter with [these] ‘tigers of the sea’ … In the loneliness of the dreary country about Cape Horn I found myself in no mood to make one life less in the world, except in self-defense.”

  Slocum’s long journey was as much an inner voyage through the psyche as an outward voyage over ocean waters. Pondering both depths brought him face to face with his own strengths and shortcomings. Alone at sea, he had to know who he was. Surviving such a plunge into solitude required courage and honesty. As he stripped away the sea’s layers and penetrated its mysteries, a deep spirituality awakened that had always been part of him. By the end of the voyage, he was embracing each descent into solitude as an opportunity for spiritual growth: “I was destined to sail once more into the depths of solitude, but these experiences had no bad effect upon me; on the contrary, a spirit of charity and even benevolence grew stronger in my nature through the meditations of these supreme hours on the sea.” Later Slocum expressed to Clifton Johnson, a magazine writer, how these shifts affected his written account of his solo voyage. His bouts of solitude had distilled for him the essence of his story: “Everything in connection with the sea would be eminantly respectable and be told in spirituality. No man ever lived to see more of the solemnity of the depths than I have seen and I resent, quickly the hint that a real sea story might be other than religeous. I cannot down my sensitiveness on this point.” Throughout Sailing Alone Around the World he recounted moments of epiphany and awakening. He wrote to his cousin Joel Slocum about the spiritual connection that is felt on the waters: “Old sailors may have odd ways of showing their religious feeling but there are no infidels at sea.”

  Any great journey, no matter what instigated it, becomes a journey of the soul. Slocum could not have sailed around the world by himself without being transformed. At every solitary turn, whether battling loneliness, stormy sea or daily routine, he was discovering what made se
nse to him in the world and what was beautiful and important. He had the skills to meet the challenging power of nature. He tested and stretched his abilities, which were considerable, and in doing so discovered where his limits were to be found. With no one to witness his astonishing feats of seamanship, Slocum took comfort in the knowledge that he had one constant companion at all times, besides the Spray. As Slocum told it, “I sailed alone with God.”

  Captain Slocum was what we may call an uncommon man. He was extremely intelligent, and in his love of roaming and adventure reminded me of the celebrated Moorish traveler, Ibn Batuta, who wandered from Cape Spartel to the Yellow Sea, making friends with white, black and yellow; always observing, making men and manners his study, and living by the gifts of those whose ears he tickled with his tales of travel and adventure. Slocum, like Batuta, was a friend-maker, and everywhere he went the best of the land welcomed him, bid him to the board, and gave attention, while in his inimitable way he spun yarns of his voyages. At Gibraltar he was the guest of the Admiral; at Montevideo the Royal Mail Company repaired his sloop without a charge; in Australia and New Zealand they gave him sails and stores; at Cape Town the Government passed him over its railway lines; and even old Kruger handed him a cup of coffee. From port to port he voyaged everywhere welcomed and entertained …

  — from Thomas Fleming Day’s tribute to

  Joshua Slocum in The Rudder, January 1911

  9

  Ports of Call

  Though I do not feel oppressively lonely on my solitary voyage, I am always glad to get to port. I am, paradoxical as it may seem, really a sociable man.

  — J.S., to a reporter

  The hope of landfall sustains a sailor on a long ocean passage. But keen as he is to see it, the appearance of land on the horizon may disappoint more than excite, and bring the realization that the destination may not have been why he first set sail.

  The sheer scope of Slocum’s voyage meant that he could sail with greater freedom than most sailors: the occasional landfall wouldn’t overshadow his broad vistas. The Spray was his home, and his address was wherever she happened to be at the time. Circumnavigation was his definite goal, but he felt no hurry. He had no prearranged schedules to live up to, and no one was waiting in port for him. He often sailed as the spirit moved him, even when he had been at sea for extended periods. After sailing for days to make an island in the South Pacific, he changed his plans close to landfall. Most people would have been ready to make port after spending more than a month at sea. Not Slocum, who was caught in the rhythm of a good passage and was reluctant to break it to go ashore. “To be alone forty-three days would seem a long time, but in reality, even here, winged moments flew lightly by, and instead of my hauling in for Nukahiva, which I could have made as well as not, I kept on for Samoa, where I wished to make my next landing. This occupied twenty-nine days more, making seventy-two days in all. I was not distressed in any way at that time.”

  Aboard the Spray, Slocum was a floating citizen of the world. Any port was home for as long as he wished. With each landfall he entered a completely different world. He sailed into scenes that were exquisite in their beauty, and others just as remarkable for their bleakness. He sailed into pristine harbors with sun-bleached cliffs, steep grassy slopes, volcanic rock formations, and white beaches. Although a seasoned world traveler, some of the changes startled him. On sighting the Keeling (Cocos) Islands after twenty-three days at sea, he recalled the excitement of spotting a coconut tree sticking out of the water directly ahead of him: “I expected to see this; still it thrilled me as an electric shock might have done. I slid down the mast, trembling under the strangest sensation; and not able to resist the impulse, I sat on deck and gave way to my emotions. To folks in a parlor on shore this may seem weak indeed, but I am telling the story of a voyage alone.”

  A sailor of experience and sensitivity knows the signs that land is approaching. Slocum would have noticed the smell of land, often described by people who have made long passages as the scent of vegetation. Or he would have noticed certain seabirds overhead. No matter how prepared, a sailor often feels terribly disconnected on making landfall. There is an exhaustion about getting into port that begins to settle in as soon as the anchor is down. A sailor can feel dulled and overwhelmed once his body registers that it can finally rest. Slocum liked to approach a port on his own terms, to observe it from a distance before getting caught up in the rhythms of life ashore. His pace of adjustment could be slow, as he admitted on casting anchor in Samoa on a summer day around noon: “My vessel being moored, I spread an awning, and instead of going at once on shore I sat under it till late in the evening, listening with delight to the musical voices of the Samoan men and women.” This was all the contact he wanted after seventy-two days alone at sea.

  When he arrived in Cape Town, he again chose not to hurry: “I preferred to remain for one day alone, in the quiet of a smooth sea, enjoying the retrospect of the passage of two capes.” As his trip progressed, he often found that word of his bold endeavors on his seaworthy little boat had arrived before him. Thus, when Slocum sailed in, there was frequently a crowd assembled to greet him. People wanted to meet the “plucky Yankee,” as one Australian reporter referred to him, and to cheer him along on his world adventure. At every port that stamped his yacht license, Slocum made quite an impression, and his daring exploits began appearing in the headlines of major papers en route. In Sydney, the Morning Herald hailed the captain as “the hero of the solitary voyage around the world,” and added that “he was enthusiastically cheered.” The enthusiasm over his visit was echoed in Tasmania, where the North West Post ran this news item: “So much interest has been attached to the daring voyager and levelheaded Yankee skipper, that when it was made known by means of handbills that the Spray was to arrive on Sunday, the beaches at Devonport were fairly lined by persons, waiting to catch a glimpse of the tiny boat and its intrepid commander.” Slocum was exciting imaginations everywhere. On the small South Atlantic island of St. Helena, the Spray’s visit was a major event, and the local paper caught the exitement of the moment: “The news of her arrival [caused] a commotion among the members of our apathetic community as is seldom witnessed, and crowds of people have gone to see and visit the vessel in which a feat requiring rare pluck and skill has been so successfully accomplished — a feat which, in its extreme daringness, would appear foolhardiness.”

  Slocum rose to the challenge of his burgeoning fame with proper aplomb, seadog charisma and natural flair for making the most of circumstances. The Gibraltar society column for August 23, 1895, reported that “the gallant Captain’s miniature galley and ‘state room’ were inspected with much interest, and tea for a dozen was made at the small stove.” By all reports he was a traveling showman and raconteur worth coming out to see. A Tasmanian newspaper ran a feature article entitled “An Intrepid Navigator” that described the sea captain’s charm: “Five minutes in his company, and a person feels quite at home, and in drawing out snatches of his history one becomes faced with the fact that for daring this solitary seaman is hard to beat.”

  Just how real a glimpse his admirers were getting of the captain is hard to know, for Slocum played many roles with ease. He could be Captain Slocum the old seadog, the intellect, the dashing world adventurer, the lone but gregarious traveler, or simply Joshua Slocum the humble, God-fearing sailor. He also knew how to play a crowd, as evidenced in one story out of Melbourne: “During his sojourn … he was the means of creating much excitement at St. Kilda by capturing a huge shark, 12 ft. long.” He displayed his impressive catch on deck as evidence of yet another spunky deed performed on his voyage.

  Traveling from port to port, Slocum could enjoy company for as long as he wished and always on his own terms. When he tired of one place, he had only to pack up and sail away to another, having stayed long enough to be admired, but not long enough to be known intimately. He controlled his own image, and there were certain aspects of Slocum the solitary sailor th
at he wanted to keep intact. It mattered greatly to him that people appreciated his navigational skills. His adamant response to a newspaper story that questioned his ability and integrity may have given people a true indication of just how ornery and insecure he could be: “By the way, some one in Melbourne started a rumor that I could not possibly handle the vessel by myself, and that I had two men with me who were stowed away on arriving at a port. This is quite untrue, and I wish you to state that anyone is at perfect liberty to fumigate, search, or turn steam into the vessel, and I’ll guarantee that nothing will be found.”

  Other misconceptions along the way must have given Slocum reason to chuckle to himself. Some of the situations he sailed into were downright ludicrous. His arrival off the island of Rodriguez, in the Indian Ocean east of Mauritius, coincided with the biblical teachings of the local abbé. The islanders were contemplating the coming of the Antichrist when the Spray sailed into their harbor like a white apparition, her sails taut before a strong wind. The good folk of Rodriguez scrambled from shore, certain that the Antichrist had arrived. To prove he wasn’t the Evil One, Slocum set about introducing himself, hoping to calm the commotion. Convincing as the old salt could be, fear of the ancient prophecy had a powerful grip on a few souls. He later recollected that one elderly woman “when she heard of my advent, made for her house and locked herself in. When she heard that I was actually coming up the street she barricaded her doors, and did not come out while I was on the island, a period of eight days.” The governor of the island was entertaining that evening and invited the “destroyer of the world” — as Slocum now jokingly referred to himself — to share some of his adventures.