1962 Arnold W. Mantyla SIO Cruise Journal
Transcribed by Arnold Mantyla’s son, Paul Mantyla, October 2026.
SIO is Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Note: It’s sometimes hard to read Dad’s cursive writing, especially proper names. I used AI-based OCR and did the best I could but there are likely to be some transcription errors.
Arnold was born 31-July-1936 so he was 25 & 26 years old when he wrote this. He died 22-July-2021, aged 84. Here’s a picture of some of the people on the Argo; Arnold is on the left with a beard. The original is from Flickr.
Notes concerning my experiences on the Scripps Indian Ocean expedition “Lusiad”.
Finally completed loading the Argo today. It’s been a long, fatiguing experience getting all of the gear ready for the general marine chemistry and hydrographic sections of the 14 month cruise. Dr. Chow’s lab assistant Mrs. Mary J. Johnstone did most of the chemistry work and ordering lab equipment. I doubt if I could have gotten ready in time without her help.
Marge & I went down to the Argo to check out the DV (DU?) and also some last minute work shortly before noon. After spending about an hour trying to find the Standard Oil fuel dock where the Argo was supposed to be taking on fuel, we spotted it out in the middle of the bay slowly going around in circles, apparently testing navigation gear.
So, seeing that we couldn’t work aboard the Argo without swimming over to it, we decided to have lunch. Went to Wong’s Nanking Cafe for some authentic Chinese food, my treat in appreciation for all the work Marge put into getting the chemistry ready for this expedition.
After a thoroughly filling & good lunch, we went down to the Argo, which was fueling at the Standard Oil fuel dock behind the Westgate Packing Corp (?). Everything seemed to check out OK, hope it all works OK later.
Finally found out what “Lusiad” meant by way of the morning paper. It’s named after the epic “Lusiads” of Luis de Camoens, Portuguese poet of the 16th century, whose poem celebrates the exploits of Vasco de Gama, Portuguese discoverer of the sea route to India.
Much more romantic & interesting than say 6203-H H.
Kind of a gloomy day, rainy and cloudy, for the Argo to leave on such a grand expedition. Barb & I left early and had a very pleasant seafood lunch at Anthony’s and then went down to see the Argo off. She didn’t get off at 12 sharp, some electronic difficulties, but then, I’ve never known a cruise to get off right on time. They did leave about an hour later, then with one more stop at Pt. Loma to pick up explosive for the seismic work, they’ll be off on Leg “0” of the Lusiad Expedition with Dr. Bien in charge of this leg.
Well, looks like the Argo had another slight delay at Pt. Loma. Got to the office this morning to learn that Jan Lawson, the technician on leg “0” had been back up to the office and left a note “Jan was here—took 3-hole punch to Argo.” It figures, it’s the only one in the office. Probably needed for some project with importance equivalent to checking to see if the gold on the BT slides was on the right side.
The offices received a radio message from Jan today. It seems that, although with only three hydro casts to do on leg “zero,” a little plastic sampling bottle with three thermometers was lost: “Exact cause unknown.” OK well, looks like we’ll have to hand carry some gear on our flight to Singapore after all. That’s the only way the fragile deep sea reversing (?) thermometers can be transported. More fun!
Received radio message from Dr. Bils (?) today. Sez he would like to keep Jan aboard until Singapore instead of getting off at Manila in order to show oncoming people how to use plastic bottles. Kind of sounds like Jan’s nose is turning the color burnt umber again.
Found out today that Betty Lusk doesn’t have all of our flight schedules settled yet. Thought we were leaving Monday the 18th, but it appears that we might leave then or on the 19th or possibly even Wednesday morning of the 20th. Wonder if we’ll ever make it?
Went to La Jolla today to pick up our (Dave Farrell, Bob Brennen & mine) flight tickets. Only the MATS travel orders hadn't arrived yet. Having been in the service once myself, I don't know why I expected them before the last possible minute, but I did. Should be here tomorrow I guess. Commercial tickets were available though, so I grabbed them while I could. We’ll fly by United jet to San Francisco, leaving tomorrow evening at 6:45 PM.
Had dinner with Tom and his pal Pat at the Rheinlander in La Jolla as a sort of send-off for me, a very enjoyable dinner and evening. Committed myself to writing both letters though. Oh well, it'll do me good to break my lazy habit of not writing much.
Picked up the MATS [Military Air Transport Service] travel orders from the Directors office in La Jolla today, only it wasn’t just three sets of orders, but 14! Seems that about eleven of our people are in San Francisco already, So I'll have to carry their orders up for them.
Also, there were books to take over for Bruce Taft, and about 500 special plotting forms for Dr. Knauss. This is on top of the new Nansen Bottle conversion kits I have to carry over—looks like my luggage will run a bit more than the 65lb limit.
It did—my luggage weighed 103 lbs. Oh well, I’ll get reimbursed for it when l get back, whenever that is. Found out today that instead of being on for just the first leg of the expedition of 3 months, I may stay aboard for another 4 months for leg II. I won't know for sure until sometime during the cruise.
We left San Diego by United 720 Boeing Jet at 7 PM and arrived in San Francisco before 8 PM, a nice, smooth, fast flight. Looks like fan Francisco and San Diego switched typical weather conditions. It was foggy from San Diego to the Catalinas, but San Francisco was beautifully clear and warm.
We're staying at the Drake-Wiltshire hotel on Union Square. Went to a few bars with Dave and Bob, the most interesting of which was the Domino Club with a “gallery of over 200 world famous paintings”—all nudes. A rather popular club, understandably.
Got in touch with Gene Gilley this morning and got rid of all eleven MATS travel orders, left it up to him to pass them out since Bruce Taft hadn't showed up, and Gene knew most of the other personnel.
Took a taxi to the Greyhound Bus depot for the trip to Travis Air Force base from which we'll pick up a MATS flight to Saigon by way of Honolulu, Wake [Island], Guam and Manila. There is now some doubt as to whether we'll be able to get off on schedule or not. It seems that there are some high altitude A-bomb atmospheric tests being made near Christmas Island and no trans-Pacific travel is allowed within 48 hours of the blast.
Sure ‘nuff on arrival at Travis, we found that the flight had been postponed for 24 hrs. So we stayed at the Transient Bachelor Officers Quarters for the night. It was uncomfortably hot and boring—absolutely nothing to do. Tryed [sic] to buy a magazine at the passenger terminal but the cashier refused to sell it to me without an I.D. card. Seems a civilian cannot purchase a single thing on the base, the lowest recruit on base apparently has more privileges!
Nothing much to do, so wandered aimlessly round the base for awhile. Found a frostie stand open & had a snack, then went back to the barracks & hit the sack. Morale rather low.
Our flight doesn't leave until 1900, so slept ‘til ‘bout 10 o'clock. Another hot day in the making—typical of Air Force bases I understand. Dr. James Gast, currently with Humboldt State College and participating on the first month of the Indian Ocean cruises, dropped in this morning. From him we learned that a copy of our travel orders would serve for purposes of I.D. and would even get us into the Officers Club, Good news indeed!
A major crisis arose later in the day when I tried to check in my baggage. They absolutely would not allow me to board the plane with a single pound of overweight baggage unless I had an overweight authorization on my travel orders! Where could I get such authorization? They didn't know but try the navy ATCO way down the hall past the finance office on the left. Ok, I tryed [sic] there. The Navy Lt. would not authorize any overweight baggage. He said that the office that wrote up the original set of orders was the only place that could (or would I guess) make such an authorization. Since this was the Office of Naval Records in Washington, and it was now 6 P.M. there, a phone call would do no good. So I seemed to be stuck. Back I went to join Gene Gilley and the rest of the group for a pow-wow. It was decided to get back my baggage and try to distribute the heavier pieces among the other fellows in their handbags that were being hand-carried aboard.
So, after obtaining my suitcases again, we formed a circle in a dark corner where I opened my heaviest suitcase and took out the metal nansen bottle conversion kits, steel rods for some, and a few books and spirited them around to several of the other fellows. We estimated this to be about 20 lbs and my small handbag was 20 lbs, so if I didn't take my handbag to be weighed, we'd have it made. Back to the weighing counter with two slightly lightened suitcases. They weighed in at 63 lbs; we made it with 3 lbs to spare. Now if I can smuggle my 20 lb handbag aboard, we’d be on our way.
I held my breath while the WAF gal checked my MATS boarding pass, but she moved me through with a bored expression so I made it! Yipee!
We boarded on L1049 World Airways Constellation (photo). It wasn’t very comforting to know that a Constellation had failed to get off the runway that very same morning. But after what seemed like an awfully long run down the runway, we were airborne and on our way to Honolulu.
Arrived in Honolulu International Airport in the wee hours of the morning after a tedious 8 hours plus flight. With only two hours in Honolulu, there wasn’t much else to do but wander around the airport in boredom. Went into the coffee shop and had a Hawaiian fruit boat which is half of a pineapple slit lengthwise and hollowed out, then filled up with diced pineapple, papaya & bananas with a scoop of sherbet on top. A refreshing treat but not quite as good as the ones I remembered from my trip to Honolulu last summer. Wish we had more time to spend here this trip. Oh well, maybe on the way back. Wrote 7 brief postcards & then it was time to board the plane for Wake [Island].
Crossed the International Date Line on the way to Wake Island, thereby losing 24 hours for a few months. That's O.K., we'll get it back on the way home.
Flying at 10,000 feet is nice in that we had a nice view of the ocean and clouds and all, but we also ran into a few uncomfortable air pockets now and then. Noticed a few service men got sick and breakfast was delayed for about an hour until we got into smoother flying.
Wake [Island] finally came into sight after an eternally long 9 hours in the air. It's a very small coral atoll type of island with a beautiful green lagoon in the center contrasting with the deep azure blue of the surrounding ocean, barely enough room for a runway. The temperature was 95° and the humidity was at least that high also, making anything approaching comfort impossible. We were only there for 45 minutes which was fine by all concerned, although it would have been interesting to explore the lagoon & coral reefs. Remnants of World War II were still clearly visible in places, especially near the end of the runway where a Japanese ship the Suwa Maru was sunk. The bow of the rusting bulk still protrudes from the water very close to shore with the sign of the rising sun prominently displayed. (photo)
From Wake [Island], it was about a six hour flight to Guam, a lush green island reminiscent of some of the islands in the Hawaiian groups, coconut palms were in great abundance, and here too were signs of World War II. I understand that only very recently did the last Japanese soldier on Guam surrender. Although the island isn't very large, the lush growth & cover afford innumerable hiding places.
We only had one hour in Guam, so again, no time for sightseeing, unfortunately. So, aboard the plane again, heading for Clark Air Force base in Manila. Along the way, new forms to fill out for the Philippines Gov't concerning baggage customs, money on hand, destination, purpose of trip, etc. We've already had two passport checks, and it's beginning to be a nuisance. Be kind of glad to get aboard the Argo finally.
Arrived at Clark Air Force Base in the middle of the night, this time for a three hour layover. We've now been in the air for 32 hours solely traveling over the Pacific, I'm beginning to appreciate the immensity of the ocean.
Here at Clark, we went through the most thorough customs check yet. All forms passports, immunization records, etc. were carefully scrutinized at three different windows. Having that taken care of, my next interest was some way to clean up a little and shave. American money cannot be spent on this base, it must be converted to the military payment script. So I converted one dollar to the script. A shave and a haircut wat 50 cents, so I had 50 cents left which turned out to be good for two highballs at the Officers club. By then it was time to board the plane again for Saigon.
Saigon is inland from the coast a ways, and we got a nice view of the countryside while flying over. It’s a lovely country, undeveloped to a great extent, but with clearings here and there for small farms. Much of the land is of a rain forest type, with an abundance of palms scattered about. Even from this height we could see evidence of war-like conflict—bomb craters here and there, burned villages, and a military convoy on a dirt road.
As we got closer to Saigon, the farming became more intense with neat symmetrical fields mile after mile, interrupted only by an occasional road or stream.
After landing at Saigon Intl. Airport, we were taken to a briefing room while the customs officials looked over our pansports, which had been collected aboard the plane. Everything was in order, since we were through passengers on our way to Singapore, no visa was required for Viet-Nam. So after about 30 minutes, our passports were returned. and we were allowed to claim our baggage. One suitcase was lost, Gene Gilley and Pete Bensen had almost all of their clothes in it and a polaroid camera.
The Pan American office in Saigon was closed, so we weren't able to confirm our flight to Singapore tomorrow, or to take the trip we’d planned to Angkor Wat, Cambodia, which was a big disappointment.
We were put up in a hotel used as bachelor officers quarters in Saigon. lt had a bare minimum of furniture, but it had an air conditioner which was a great comfort.
On the bus ride to the hotel, we noticed that the windows were screened in. At first I thought that this was just to keep people's arms inside the bus since my last bus ride at Clark Air Force Base had large signs posted to keep one's limbs inside. However the Army major chaperoning us on the bus ride quickly dispelled such safe thoughts. They were there to keep hand grenades from being thrown in, we were informed. About that time we drove by the palace and saw the buildings that had been bombed in recent communist attacks. We asked Major Robertson how could they tell the difference between a native and a communist. He replied: "How can you tell the difference between a Democrat and a Republican? You can’t. The only way you can recognize a communist is if he picks up a gun and shoots at you.”
I was beginning to appreciate the obstacles our army “advisors” were up against.
I enjoyed my brief stay in Saigon, nonetheless. We had a very fine Cantonese meal which I thoroughly enjoyed. The Vietnamese at the adjoining tables had quite a laugh over my efforts to use chopsticks. The waiter finally had pity on me and brought silverware, but by now I was determined not to let those darned splinters of ivory get the best of me. I finished the meal with the chopsticks finally, to my great satisfaction.
Ate breakfast in my room this morning, cost me a grand total of 18¢ American. Got all packed and went downstairs to pay my bill, which was only 15¢ (the army paid for most of the bill). I think that this was the first time in my life l gave more in tips than my food or lodging cost.
A Mercedes Benz bus picked us all up, sent over by Pan-American. We'd finally gotten ahold of them this morning by telephone and confirmed our flights.
At the airport we had to go through still another customs check and fill out more forms, declaring amount of money on hand.
Our 707 came in right on schedule, boy that sure was a sweet sight after chugging along all across the Pacific at 261 MPH.
From Saigon to Singapore was less than an hour on a very smooth flight. It was raining when we arrived in Singapore, a typical tropical summer soaker.
After going through still another customs check, we rounded up our baggage and got ahold of 3 taxis (Plymouths with right-hand steering). With that we were off to the dock area to try and find the Argo. Here in Singapore everyone drives more or less on the left side of the road, tho double white outer lines seem to have no real significance here. The drivers drive with wild abandon, constantly leaning on their horns to clear away careless pedestrians or bicycles. It was pretty surprising when we reached the dock area without an accident. The Argo wasn't anywhere in sight, but we soon learned that it was parked out in the channel in deeper water on the other side of the breakwater, about 3 miles out. Fortunately, a boat had been chartered by the Argo to go from Clifford Pier to the Argo every two hours on the even hour. It took 2 boats to get us and all of our gear to the Argo.
No one stayed aboard very long, work would start soon enough, so back to shore to find a nice hotel to stay for the three remaining days before we had to leave. Several of us stayed at the Raffles Hotel, mostly because of the old British colonialism atmosphere, and several of the others stayed at two other hotels which were more modern and had better accommodations.
The Raffles had huge cavernous rooms. Dave Farrell and I shared a room that cost us $35 Malayan, or about $6 each American per night. The ceiling was about 25 to 35 ft high with two large ceiling fans lazily moving the warm air around. No air conditioning, but it was cooler than the outside.
We ate dinner in the Raffles Hotel dining room that evening. The service was exquisite, but the food was rather mediocre.
Went shopping afterwards, the streets were just packed with vendors and small shops. After Saigon, the prices were pretty disappointing. On some items, the prices were about the same as in the U.S., but on the average, they were about 1/2 of the U.S. prices. Many tailors, tailor made suits start around $40 American. Also many fine Balinese wood carvings as well as jade and ivory. May be tempted to buy some before I leave.
Enjoyed sleeping as late as I felt like this morning. I guess the Raffles has seen better days, the place is deathly quiet, apparently very few quests. Also enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, before my conscience got the better of me. Decided I'd better go out to the Argo and check with Jan Lawson about the status or needs of the equipment on board.
When I got out to the Argo, Jan had already left, by air, for Manila & S.D. I had understood that the only reason he had stayed aboard the Argo from Manilla to Singapore was to show the oncoming technicians how to use the new plastic sampling bottles. Oh well, he’s gone, and that's always good news. Kind of feel sorry for the guy, he didn't have too easy a trip across, from what I hear. The bottom grabber had closed on his foot, cutting an artery. That accident, along with getting sick, layed him up for a few days. The Argo seems to be unlucky for him.
Since there didn't seem to be too much to do, I went back ashore and loafed around, did some shopping, until about dinner time. Jim Baker had been busy finding out the best places to go in Singapore for a fine Cantonese dinner, and on his suggestion we went to the ? [sic] for the finest oriental meal I’d ever eaten. There were about six courses, including shark fin soup with chopped crab meat, roast duck, sweat & sour pork, shrimp, and a couple of dishes I couldn't quite figure out. But it was all good, and I got a little more practice with my chopsticks.
After the meal, about five of us decided to go to the Singapore Bar, a local hangout for sea-faring men. It was a bit disappointing, not a single brawl while we were there. After 2 rounds of beers, we decided to see what the New World Amusement center was like. It was supposed to be a sort of Asiatic Disneyland with Balinese dancers. We got there just before midnight, and since the local ordinance closes everything down at midnight, all we had time for was a beer. But the local Gendarmes were closing the gates and we had to depart.
Though the New World was closing we had heard from a taxi driver that there was a place in Singapore that never closed. That was Bugis (pronounced boogie) street. There, supposedly, one could buy a drink any time. So on to Bugis street to see a little of the local color. The place wasn’t hard to find, it was a brightly lit side street with tables crowding into the street and twist music blaring out from an adjacent record store. We walked into the street and were immediately besieged on all sides by men trying to get us to patronize their particular establishments. We selected a table off to the side where a view of the street was available. A round of beer was ordered, then came an onslaught of street vendors selling everything from straw hats to watches to cigarette lighters. They didn't seem to understand the word no, so we tried another tactic. For a wrist watch offered for $5, we would offer 50¢. After awhile they would give up temporarily, only to return later and try again. Another pest was a small boy with a piece of chalk and cardboard, wanting to play tic-tac-toe. Dave Farell tryed, and found he couldn't win. He would either lose or draw, the kid seemed to have every combination memorized. Loser paid 10¢, so the boy was about a dollar richer when he left our table.
In the meantime, our other two companions, Kern Kenyon and Charles Jerde had struck up an acquaintance with a British couple that had arrived at the table next to ours about 3 AM, so I went over and joined them. They were here for the same reason we were, to soak in a little of the local color. We bought each other a few more rounds of drinks and tryed to make up for some of our Anglo-American differences. They were quite British, in their mid-thirties, he in the British army (some kind of an officer) and they had been in Singapore for 3 years now.
They could forgive us Americans for the Boston tea-party, but they didn't like the fact that the U.S. had started the downfall of the British Colonial Empire. But what they disliked most of all about Americans, was the use of the word “limeys" for all Britishers! I tried to explain that the term only applied to British sailors, but I couldn't convince him that was true. They did like Kennedy & Jackie. I briefly expressed my feelings on the matter and the subject was changed.
By now it was getting to be about dawn, and about time to call it a night. But the British couple wouldn't hear of it until we'd gone over to their place for a couple of drinks more. I’d already in the course of the evening drank far more than I'd ever drank before, but by this time I was beyond caring. So off to their place for a few rounds of brandy and a very fascinating conversation. They were extremely hospitable, a very charming and gracious couple. They raised my estimation of the British in general a thousand-fold.
By now it was dawn, and their two children, both boys about 7 and 8, were up and thinking about the unpleasant task of going to school. Now it was time for us to leave, besides Charles had been asleep for the past half hour. The whole family and the three of us piled into their little English car and were off for our hotel. But our hosts had one more little surprise for us. They took us by way of a scenic drive above Singapore to the top of a hill where an Asiatic couple living in a shack there brought out a coffee table, chairs, coffee and pop for the kids. We sat there in the still early dawn, sipping coffee, and enjoying the splendid view. Off to our right, right below us, was the straits of Malacca dotted with tropical-type islands, and, way off in the distance, Indonesia was visible. Off to our left was the city of Singapore, home to 2 million people. This was easily one of the best views I'd ever seen, and I said so.
The British Army Officer (I didn't really know his name yet, and I’m sure that he didn't know mine–they were just friendly people with curiosity about yanks) replied that the view was even nicer from the air and asked if we'd ever been up in a small Cessna and if we'd like to go up in one today. I never had, and was delighted at the opportunity to do so, even though we'd probably imposed upon their hospitality for too much already. But once we’d expressed interest, he wouldn't take no for an answer. He belonged to the British Singapore Flying Club and it would cost us all of $6 Malayan ($2 U.S.) each. Charles reluctantly backed out, having some work to do aboard the ship that afternoon. The poor guy was pretty well wiped out anyway, after the long night's events. Strangely enough, I was in pretty good shape, even though I had consumed several times as much alcoholic beverages in one evening as I ever had before, and hadn’t had much sleep. None, come to think of it.
We were dropped off at the hotel 'bout 9 in the morning, and were to be picked up again at 11. Only two hours, not much point in trying to catch any sleep, so went up to my room and had a big breakfast sent up.
Our British Army Officer was there right on time and we were soon off to the Singapore International Airport. There was about an hour wait at the British Flying club because the only 4-seater Cessna was in the air with a student at the controls practicing take-offs and landings.
So, a couple of cups of coffee were enjoyed in the very British Colonial Empire atmosphere. Then, after signing a form releasing the club from any responsibility in case of death or injury, we were off into the wild blue yonder. It was a magnificent day, and the visibility was just perfect. As we took off, the lushness of the tropics became more apparent, a profusion of palm trees and everywhere the landscape was green. The city, with its skyline of tall buildings next to the harbor full of merchant ships, spread out beneath us. A hill with concrete horseshoes turned out to be a Chinese cemetery. A particularly neatly landscaped hill with a mansion on it was the governor's palace. Row after row of tall apartment buildings were going up in a neat slum eradication program. We were now high enough to see the entire island of Singapore, part of the Malayan peninsula, and Sumatra across the Straits of Malacca. We then dove down into the straits, leveling off only a foot or two off of the water. The water itself was a rich emerald green in the deeper channels, to a bright light green near the coral reefs, of which there were a great many. It was a gorgeous view, but I could also see where the Straits could be pretty treacherous for shipping. After flying low over a few sparsely inhabited tropical isles, we were back over the city for a few more lazy circles, then, all too soon, back to the airport.
It had been a fascinating experience, and we couldn't thank our hosts enough for the hospitality they'd shown us. I promised to have a copy of the picture made and sent to them that I took from the air. They were in a hurry to get home now to meet some social commitment, but wouldn't allow us to take a cab back to the hotel. I just hope that if this family ever gets to visit the U.S., that someone will show them the same courtesy, friendliness, and unbeatable hospitality that they showed us.
The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping for curios for the folks back home, and getting off a few last minute letters before deciding to call it a day. I'd been up for 40 hours without as much as a catnap and was pretty fatigued. Didn't have much trouble falling asleep.
Slept late this morning & got up fully rested. Not even any delayed hangover. Had a leisurely breakfast in my room and packed up to return to the Argo. Word was she was leaving at noon, so we had to catch the 10 o'clock boat out. It was only a five minute ride out to Clifford pier, where there were many familiar faces. Also there to catch the last taxi (water type) back. It was obvious that it would take two of them [boats] for all of us, but that wasn't any problem. One thing Singapore doesn't have a shortage of is taxis of any type.
Arrived out at the Argo and soon learned that she probably wasn't leaving right at noon. I hadn't really expected her to; I’ve never known a Scripps ship to leave on time. Reason the ship wasn't leaving on time was 'cuz the captain wasn't aboard yet. Word was Captain Phinney and the Chief Engineer had had some sort of squabble and Tripani had flown out from La Jolla since one of them wasn't going out on the Argo. Since chief engineers are easier to replace than Captains, Captain Phinney soon came back aboard, and we were off by 6PM, Singapore time which is -7¹/₂ zone of all the silly times.
Still steaming up the straits of Malacca, threading our way between countless small lush green islands. The bottom of the straits are uniformly shallow, less than 40 fathoms so far.
Began to check out some of the gear, getting furious at the previous technician aboard for leaving without a word or even a note about where he had left what. Things I had carefully and neatly arranged aboard the Argo in San Diego were for now anyway, lost. It was a big treasure hunt trying to locate things again. Oh well, I guess he had his trouble too.
Began to make up reagents for the different analyses to be made. I seemed to be extremely accident-prone today. After numerous small cuts and abrasions from miscellaneous reasons, some unknown, I spilled some CONCENTRATED H₂SO₄ on my left hand, burning one finger fairly badly. So I went and found the Doc again. (I had already gotten a box of band-aids from him—I wonder what his impression of me was?) We put some picric acid on the burn, which removed the pain anyway, but left an ugly yellow stain on my hand. Decided to call it a day before I lost a leg or something. First station won't be for a couple of days anyway.
Finished making up reagents today, no more accidents. In scavenging around for gear, began to meet more of the ship's crew. They're all very cooperative, able and willing to help. Also getting to know Dr. Gast a little better. He's here from Humboldt State College to collect seawater samples for boron, copper, iron & other analysis. While he's aboard, from Singapore to Zanzibar or Mombasa, he'll help me by doing the silicate and nitrite analysis. He's a bit critical of our setup for chemistry on this ship, it's in the outer lab which is about 30°C, not very good conditions for good chemistry. The inner lab where all the electronic gear and the gravitometer are, is at about 20°. In defense of Scripps, I lamely pointed out that this leg was primarily an equatorial current system study, and the chemistry only incidental. Not much of a defense really, but we intend to make the best of what we have and do as good a job as possible under the circumstances.
Finally cleared the Straits and are heading SE along Sumatra towards our first station tonight on the Equator at about 96°30' E. It's nice to be in water deeper than 60 fathoms finally, makes one feel a little more comfortable.
Talked to Dr. Knauss, our expedition leader, for awhile today. He'd like to have the data processed as fast as possible so that he can get the dynamic heights ΔD soon after the station. With such a large scientific party and several UNESCO Fellows, he felt it should be possible. I agreed that it would be possible, but decided to wait and see how things worked out.
He set up two Teams of 4 men each to work the hydro stations, 2 on and 2 off:
Team 1:
Team 2:
Myself on phosphates for all of the stations plus whatever processing I could squeeze in.
Dr. James A. Gast of Humboldt State College, Arcata, Calif. will be responsible for the silicates and nitrite plus whatever he collects for his own work.
Besides the hydrographic work, there will be the following:
Moored Buoys:
Current measurements:
Carbon Dioxide Project:
Gravity and magnetometer:
Biology:
With Dr. John A. Knauss, University of Rhode Island, Kingston R.I., as expedition leader, that makes a grand total of 23 people in the scientific party. Quite a few for a ship the size of the Argo. My two-man "statesroom" "has six people in it. It's currently known as the meat-pit. The bunks are hung 3 high submarine-style by short lengths of chain. Ah well, such is the life of those dedicated to science?!
Finished our first hydro station last night, had to stay up all night to do it though. This is worse than a student cruise, every phase of our work must be taught individually to each of the other people on the team. The UNESCO Fellows do not seem to be willing to assist very much in the work to be done. They seem to take the attitude of interested observers. I asked one of them to do something for me and he just turned around and walked away. I was stunned by this. I was so surprised. I'd expected anyone participating in this expedition willing and able to work along with the rest. I learned later that Brennen & Farrell had had the same sort of experience with them.
After I’d run my phosphates, I found the oxygen sample sitting on the lab bench abandoned. Everyone had gone to bed except for Brennen and myself, and Brennen had to run the salinometer. Looked like I was stuck with them, so I ran them and finally got to bed 'bout 6 A.M. Looks like it's going to be a pretty busy cruise.
Finished our fourth station, two of them to the bottom, today. Am beginning to process some of the data. Some rather interesting features in the water column to the bottom. Am looking forward to seeing what the current measuring station shows tomorrow.
They launched the moored buoy or radar target this morning. This device gives a fixed reference point in the open ocean so that the ship's motion or drift can be accurately computed and subtracted from the current meter readings to obtain the true velocity of the current. The mooring is made by suspending a buoyant steel ball about 1 meter in diameter about 200 meters under water. It is anchored to the bottom of the ocean about 4,000 meters below by 600 lbs (22 links of anchor chain) of steel and a drag anchor. The steel sphere ball exerts a strong upward force keeping the wire below vertical and taught. The radar deflector is then anchored to this steel ball, as if it had been anchored in only 200 meters of water instead of over 4000, giving a fixed reference point in the open ocean. Pretty tricky these current measuring people.
Preliminary results show that there are currents at depths here, but not nearly on the same scale as in the Pacific.
Finished up the busy station today, not without some excitement, tho. One of the wires on the current meter direction indicator got crossed and was reading off very high velocities in the opposite direction to that expected. The error was soon found and the correct readings were only about 1/2 a nautical mile per hour to the east at 100m. Pretty sluggish compared to the Cromwell current in the Pacific. Now comes the question, if you don't have a sub-equatorial countercurrent in the Indian Ocean as you do in the Pacific and also in the Atlantic, why don't you? Perhaps by the end of this cruise we will have some tentative answers, and those answers should help explain the existence of the Cromwell current.
Underway again, working routine hydrographic stations at 2º latitude intervals, alternate stations to the bottom, 4,000 meters plus, the others to 1,000 meters. It's about 9 hours between stations, but that's not quite enough time to get the data from the last station processed before we arrive on the next station. The Indian, Pakistani & Egyptian are next to worthless as far as participating in getting work done. Apparently in their countries they have droves of little people to do their work for them. The Japanese fellow however, seems to be very helpful. He's eager to learn our techniques and knows quite a bit about oceanography himself. I’ve been working at least 12 hours a day trying to keep from being buried by the mass of data, but the only relief that comes are the 2-day buoy stations, where we almost got caught up on our paper work.
The day that all of us polliwogs had been dreading arrived today. We’d crossed the equator several times in the past week and were beginning to wonder when we'd get our summons to appear before his Imperial Majesty King Neptunus Rex. Today we received them (photo). My summons charged me with (1) Trespassing (2) Loitering (3) generally meandering on and about the Royal Seas (4) for lowering unclean and filthy implements into the royal depths for the purposes of prying (5) Plotting unknown numbers and things on the high seas. All without Royal Permission.
All of the polliwogs were rounded up in the galley and blindfolded in groups of four. We were advised to take off our shirts before we were led out to the fantail of the ship. I could hear the fire hose going and fully expected to get doused any moment, but the water was for another purpose, I soon learned. I could also hear the moans and groans of the previous group to go before King Neptune and his court; as well as laughter from the shellbacks, upon the upper deck enjoying the spectacle.
The deck was slippery and I was having a hard time keeping my balance on the mildly rolling ship, when a powerful pair of arms grabbed my shoulders and sent me sprawling on the deck with a raucous roar ringing in my ears "On your knees before His Royal Majesty!" I managed to get back up on my knees, but no farther. Any attempt to rise met with strong resistance, verbal as well as physical. We were clearly outnumbered, and resistance seemed futile for the moment anyway. Our blindfolds were removed, revealing before our eyes King Neptune Rex and his Royal court. It’s surprising how well a ship’s crew can do with materials at hand when sufficiently motivated. At the risk of inviting disaster later in the cruise for offending His Imperial Majesty, I must say that his court certainly looked comical.
Dr. Knauss was King Neptune, as to be expected, dressed in a bright reddish strange canvas cape and crown holding a makeshift wooden fork. The fork looked innocent enough until we noticed the wires running down the handle and to the tip of each tine, connected to a small tin plate. The other end of the wire went to a little hand generator being held and cranked by the "Queen." The Queen was our chief engineer, a sort of heavy set fellow. He had a white T-shirt stuffed with a couple of balloons and a couple of nipples painted in appropriate places on the T-shirt. His, excuse me, her hair was an old mop and the skirt was a large dish towel worn sarong-style. When the old bag grinned, as she devilishly did as she cranked the generator, she revealed a missing tooth adding to her lovely appearance.
As the Royal Secretary Davey Jones (Gene Gilley) read off the charges to each of us in turn, King Neptune prodded us with his fork. However, it didn't seem to work on the others. I was on the end, the fourth one, and felt safe as each of the others failed to respond to the prodding fork or Triton as it’s more properly called, I guess. Then it touched my knee and I must have cleared the deck by a few feet, I got such a jolt. I soon had company as each of the others received the same despite their efforts for evasive action.
The guards were dressed as buccaneers complete with eye patch and a stiff cardboard broadsword painted red. As the charges were read for each individual, they all roared in unison "How plead you—guilty or not guilty?" And if the response wasn’t quick enough, the poor fellow would be besieged and whacked on the behind by the broadswords and jolted by the royal Triton in front, and woe to those who refused to plead guilty to the various charges. For he would be declared guilty by Court decree and punished all the more severely.
For instance: they were allowed to kiss the Royal Baby first; or perhaps forced would be a better term. The “Royal Baby” was the biggest man on the ship, dressed only in his shorts, with a great big blob of blue-grey graphite grease on his stomach. It looked almost obscene. You guessed it, that’s where we had to kiss the Royal Baby! I didn't believe it at first. They had to be joking! But then I saw the first poor soul get his face shoved into the gooey mess and come up with his face & hair a mass of black grease, and I knew the joke was on us. Being the last of the group, I fared best, there not being much grease left. I began to think that perhaps the initiation was over, but no such luck. As I was wiping the grease off of my face with someone's T-shirt, the Royal witch began to work on me. She was represented the scroungiest (only 1 shower since Singapore it was rumored) crewman aboard, and surprisingly he has a fair artistic talent as I noticed him putting the finishing touches on a large skull and crossbones painted with orange spray enamel on the back of the fellow preceding me. Now she was doing the same on me. He actually looked like a she now, if you didn't look at his head, for he was decked out in a fine bikini-type outfit, with an ample bra and very brief panties made of the same brilliant orange material as the cape of King Neptune. On the back-side of them he had written in a flowery handwriting "This is the End”: What was written on the front will have to remain censored.
While the paint job was going on on my back, I was given a cup of vile green looking fluid to drink. It made my stomach curl just to look at it. It was a heavy avocado green with bits of white raw egg floating around in it, all giving off a putrid odor. I wasn’t about to drink it, particularly after seeing someone else try to gulp it down, his eyes bulging out and trying to make it to the rail of the ship. He didn't quite make it in time, but when he did he stayed there, bent way over the rail.
I tried to sip some of mine, but it was just too horrible to tolerate, so faked it out & headed for the rail in the same desperate manner as the others, whereupon I dropped my cup into the ocean unnoticed and remained leaning over the rail pretending to lose everything inside of me, including part of my stomach. At least now the ordeal was over, for the next group of victims were being led out blindfolded. Now, I too was a shellback, and after grabbing a Coke to try to rid myself of that vile taste, and my camera, I went up to the upper deck to watch the rest of the festivities.
The cook, who was responsible for our Neptune cocktail, was up there, as well as the ship's doctor. They both said it was quite harmless "all in the mind they said". The ingredients included water, pepper, garlic, raw egg, flour, and a little green food coloring. I doubt if the cook had sampled any of it himself.
The doctor however, had never been across the equator before either. Heard he didn't even get started for the rail, just exploded like a geyser.
Now that I was a spectator, the whole proceedings were uproariously funny. Took 'bout a full roll of film, of all phases of the treatment. Finally all 20 or so pollywogs had been initiated and things began to break up and people going back to their various posts aboard the ship. Dave Farrell got a small amount of revenge when he got ahold of the firehose and doused the legs of the Royal court. Someone prudently turned off the water quickly lest his Imperial Majesty become angered and bring about dire consequences to our expedition.
Been pretty busy this past week, almost holding my own against the ever mounting paperwork. The chemistry has been going smoothly, aside from the nuisance of having to be up for every station to handle it.
Had many troubles today, the deep hydro cast came up with numerous "assholes", kinks, and twists in the last 360 meters of wire. The wire was partly unwound with gaps in the middle of it, looking like it was ready to part at any moment. The ship was rolling enough to do it too, there were 10 foot swells with a 25 knot wind kicking up spray from a gale a few hundred miles away. There was still valuable equipment on the line: an Edgerton Pinger (‘bout $5,000) plus 3 nansen bottles (‘bout $500 a piece). This equipment was far more valuable to us than just the replacement cost, for there was no way of replacing them way out in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The pinger is the only one we've got, and it's indispensable for getting our hydro casts close to the bottom.
Gene Gilley managed to rig up a come-along on the line and inch the twisted portion in, which he chopped off and then spliced the wire together with a couple of nico-presses. After going through that several more times, he managed to get the rest of the cast up without any loss of equipment. It had been a close call, and no one was really sure what caused it. Usually this sort of thing happens when we hit bottom, but the pinger was intact, and there wasn't any sediment in the bottom nansen bottle. It's possible the cast was lowered too fast and the pinger floated back on the cable, twisting it as it went. Who knows. And tomorrow is Friday the 13th. Hope this isn't any indication of things to come.
No serious mishaps today. Saw our Pakistani Navy Lt. got seasick today. Coming over to Singapore on MATS, saw an airman get airsick. For the services, it figures, I guess.
Everyone is beginning to get a bit groggy from overwork. Bruce Taft fell asleep at the calculator while it was dividing out a number. I misplotted two points, then 3 more, and then found I’d misplotted two I’d just replotted. Decided to call it a night.
Busy station all day. Dr Knauss woke me up this morning ‘bout 10:30 AM and asked if this wasn't the day I was going to get all of my hydrography caught up. I looked at my wristwatch and smiled ruefully; yes it was.
Did get a great deal done, almost completely caught up, and we have another day on the busy station yet. They had a bit of bad luck today, causing them to lose about half a day of valuable time.
They were lowering the heavy weight and drag anchor for the steel float sphere, about 4300 meters worth. They had 4000 meters of wire out when they ran out of wire on the winch. So they got out a spool that had a few hundred meters of wire on it. Gene Gilley bolted a steel clamp onto the wire going over to the edge of the ship, and chained it to the A-frame of the fan-tail. Then, letting some slack off on the winch, he cut the wire in two and spliced the wire from the spool to the wire on the winch with a nico-press. It took about 2 hours to wind the wire from the spool onto the winch, then the end was spliced to the wire chained to the A-frame with a nico-press again as the winch took up the slack in the wire, everyone held their breath to see if the splice would hold. It did. As Gene removed the steel shackle from the wire, he remarked, "Anyone have any doubts about nico-presses now?” A remark he was soon to regret. The first one did, but when they got to the second one, about 300 meters later, it gave way. Kind of heartbreaking to have it happen within 50 meters of the end.
Everyone stood around in stunned silence with their mouths wide open. Dr Krauss shrugged his shoulders and said in a tired voice "Well, let's all have a cup of coffee".
The time wasn't all wasted though, a hydrographic cast to the bottom was made while Gene & Pete Benson wound another spool of wire on the aft winch. The next attempt to launch the buoy was successful.
No let-up on the work yet, it just keeps coming in. About the only time I really relax is after supper. Most of us migrate back to the fantail of the ship and enjoy the evening sunset. Evenings have been the nicest part of the day, the monsoon winds have been rather pleasant, keeping the temperature down to a comfortable level. All the sunsets have been individually unique, there are always some clouds in the sky, often on three levels, each level giving a beautiful display in turn as the sun sets. The lower clouds have a unique yellowish color at sunset, never getting red as the higher ones do.
Then as the sun has set, the planets become brightly visible and then the stars. I’ve never seen stars so bright and distinctly colored before. Tonight I saw the constellation the Southern Cross, since it was pointed out to me tonight. I’m told that at about 5° north one can see both the Southern Cross and the North Star at the same time. Shall have to make a point of looking for them after we leave Mombasa.
Our last current measuring station for this part of the cruise, and it brought its share of troubles. On our deep hydro cast to the bottom, the meter wheel counter broke a spindle when we had about 4000 meters out. Nothing else to do but bring the cast back up and try again after the meter wheel is fixed.
Then our salinometer started acting up, having difficulty getting consistent duplicate runs in cells 1 and 2. Found out cell 1 was broken and leaking out into the kerosene bath. Nothing like running on 5 cells when there’s 60 salinity samples to be run in duplicate runs from the last two stations.
Even the current meter gave the boys troubles, behaving very erratically.
What else could go wrong for one day? Oh well, things have got to get better tomorrow.
They did, everything smooth as silk today.
Running south to Mombasa all day, bucking the Somali Current. Trying to get all of our data caught up first, I think we’ll make it O.K. All observed temperature, depth, salinity, oxygen and 𝛿𝜏 (delta T) entered on the form 8, all properties interpolated from the form 4.5, and all of the computed values including ΔD (Delta D) entered and checked. About due for a rest I think.
Arrived in Mombasa at 8 o'clock in the morning, a British pilot boat meeting us outside the harbor and a few British naval officers boarding the ship to guide us in I guess. It took several hours before we were cleared to leave the Argo and go ashore. We were at Shift pier on Kilindini Dock, which was quite close to town. Very convenient. We got a taxi and went into town to a bank to change our money to the British shillings and pounds. Just made it, the banks being open only from 8:30 to 11:30 A.M. Soon found out most of the rest of the stores close up at mid-day until two in the afternoon. Mombasa turned out to be an island in Kenya, near the border of Tanganyika. The city was surprisingly well kept and clean. And absolutely no odors such as in Saigon and Singapore. So already we'd gotten a favorable impression of the place.
Wandered around looking at the miscellaneous carved elephant ivory and African wooden carvings at the various curio, gem & tourist shops. Had lunch at the Fontanella bar & restaurant, a nice indoor-outdoor patio with a small water fountain off the main street. After lunch about 8 of the scientific party took a walk through old Mombasa, through outdoor vegetable and meat markets, down narrow alleys and side streets, finally ending up on the other side of town & the island near old Fort Jesus. The small side streets had contained countless numbers of small tailor, upholstering, goldsmith and misc. tiny one-room shops, all closed up for the noon hour by heavy, ancient padlocks. It had been a fairly long walk, and most of the guys decided to take a taxi back to the ship. Phil Ballard and I decided to take a look at the fort, since it was right there in front of us.
It cost a shilling to get in, but we found it rather interesting and well worth it. Ft. Jesus had been built by the Portuguese late in the 16th century, apparently to guard their trade routes at the time. At one time it had been under siege for 3 full years. The British came into control of Mombasa late in the 19th century and the fort abandoned. It is now in the process of being restored and preserved. There was a fine museum there and a wonderful view of the city & ocean from the roof-tops. It was a nice quiet tour, we were the only visitors there aside from numerous multi-colored lizards scampering around.
Back to the ship to freshen up to go out to dinner.
A group of about 8 from the scientific party decided to try the Oceanic Hotel's dining facilities. It's a new modern plush hotel, each room with a splendid view of the ocean. It was a no-admittance without a coat & tie sort of place, and I wasn't wearing a coat. Fortunately we met Jim Faughn, one of the assistant directors of Scripps and Scripps's advance man for the Argo, in the lobby and he kindly loaned me one of his since he was staying there at the Oceanic.
It was a splendid multicourse meal in the very British manner, and a nice 4 piece combo played dining & dancing music for our pleasure. A very pleasant experience.
After dinner I joined Dr Knauss & Jim Faughn for an after dinner drink in the Oceanic's fine modern styled bar. We noticed a couple of chameleons on the wall scampering around. I'm beginning to get used to such sights, for in this part of the world, lizards are considered useful to keep down the flies and spiders, particularly here in Kenya where the Tsetse fly abounds in most areas.
Returning Jim Faughn's coat and gratefully thanking him for the consideration, returned to the ship. The rest of the fellows had gone to one of the local dives, Nelson's Bar on Kilindini Road.
I wasn't in any particular mood to join the festivities or to get drunk, so I returned to the ship. Besides, early tomorrow morning was to start our trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro and the big game country.
Up early to get off of the ship by 6 A.M., since it was being moved off of the dock and parked out in the channel somewhere. The port authorities weren't satisfied with our explosives locker since it wasn't self-flooding, so the ship had to be moved out to mid-channel. Twenty thousand pounds of explosives could be a potential hazard I guess, tho I'd forgotten all about them at sea.
The Afro-Tours Agency obligingly picked us up an hour & 1/2 early at 6 A.M., so we got a nice early start. This worked out nicely, because we had more time to stop and look around. There were twelve of us: Dave Farrell, "Iggy" Ahmed, Vernon Chi, Lee Waterman, Frank Manley, Bill Holland, Jim Baker, Kern Kenyon, Chuck Jerde, Dan Kimble, Phil Bedard, and myself. Bruce Taft didn't make it, apparently being detained by the evening's activities. We found out later that he hadn't gotten the word that we were leaving early. Fortunately, he was able to go with another group that left at the regular time.
The Afro-Tours supplied a Volkswagen bus that seated 7 and a Peugeot that seated 5. Our VW bus had a canvas top which folded back, allowing a standing up view of the terrain. It was over two hundred miles to Kilimanjaro, so as we got underway, most of us napped, trying to regain lost sleep.
The paved road soon deteriorated to a dirt road, well maintained, but still slowing us down somewhat. I was finding Africa quite different than I'd previously imagined, probably because my previous impressions were from Hollywood movies, not the best of sources. As the road gradually climbed up away from the coast, the vegetation gradually changed from the lush tropical vegetation to a sparser brush type country. It was a pleasantly warm day, well into the dry season, as evidenced by the dryness of the shrubs & bushes. The dirt itself was brick-red, similar to the pineapple fields in Hawaii. Aside from a few strange types of trees, the climate and country could have been parts of San Diego County. There were strange thin trees with top branches flattened uniformly at the top, as if some powerful wind had not allowed them to grow any taller. Then there were the occasional grotesque massive trunked trees that quickly tapered down to nothing at the top, with few tiny branches at the top, all out of proportion to the strange top. As Kimble said: "Those look like the trees I used to draw when I was a kid. Never thought I'd see one though." That describes them perfectly.
It was in this brush country that our African guide spotted the first elephant for us. Stopping in the middle of the road, he pointed them out for us. Expecting to see a nice clean grey elephant like in the zoo, it took me awhile to spot them. They were brick-red in color, from the local dust, and looked like hairy pre-historic mastodons off in the distance.
We spotted more wild-life along the way, but tomorrow was the day for the big-game country, so we didn't stop very many times.
We arrived at the Marangu Hotel at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro shortly before noon, just in time for a splendid lunch. The British seem to make themselves comfortable no matter where they settle in the world. No simple soup & sandwich lunch here, but a 9-piece silverware multi-course meal.
Unfortunately it was too cloudy yet to see Mt. Kilimanjaro, but we had hopes of it clearing up by evening. We were in Tanganyika now, having crossed the border from Kenya without ceremony or red tape, only a small wooden hand painted sign to show that we'd traveled from one country to another.
After having settled things in order in each of our individual 2 or 3 person cottages, we were rounded up for a trip to a local native village and a waterfall.
The road up to the village wound continually uphill, presumably towards Mt. Kilimanjaro. The vegetation was lush & green, some pine-type of trees beginning to appear. There were numerous groves of banana trees with coffee bean plants planted between the banana trees. Soon we arrived at the native village where it was evidently market day. The clearing was thronged with people & goods for sale. Large clumps of bananas, corn and bright printed cotton cloth hanging from lines. The houses were circular with cone-shaped roofs made of grass. Pretty much the same as those we'd seen dotting the countryside all along. All in all, it was no more primitive than many a Mexican village I'd seen in Baja Calif, or villages in south east Asia. Nothing like I'd expected from postcard pictures of bare-breasted natives in run-down dusty shacks.
After everyone had snapped a few pictures, the guide led us down a narrow path through the coffee-banana plants to a beautiful clear stream and waterfall. The falls were only about 20 feet high and almost as wide, but very pretty, with everything green and cool in the vicinity. It was very pleasant, and all too soon it was time to be off again.
The guides took us on up the road to the top of the small peak we were climbing. This was a large well-developed Catholic mission. There was a huge church with stained glass windows constructed of stone blocks, a stone bell-tower, large wooden buildings for the priests, a nunnery, and the grounds had immaculately-kept vegetable gardens, also flower gardens and large lawns.
The head priest, an American, was away at the time, but the priest in charge was quite pleased to show us around the grounds and the school there. The parish consisted of 15,000 people in the neighborhood. He himself had been born within a few miles of the church and had gone there. It was nice to see that an African negro could rise to such a position. He was obviously a very intelligent man and spoke very precise English, as did most of the Africans we came across, our guides for instance. Their English was quite good, no slurs or drawls, and I never heard any of them say "yeah" for yes, as I often do. English is taught in the schools since the native language, Swahili, does not have terms in it for science and medicine.
Off towards the front of one of the buildings, we could see a group of little girls prancing back and forth and singing gaily. They sounded so happy, we went over to watch what they were doing. The ground had been freshly turned over in front of the building and they were going back and forth packing the dirt down with their bare feet to keep the dust down. They had made a game of it, chanting and singing in a rhythmic fashion, stamping their feet down hard on each third note. The sound of their voices was infectious, it made us smile and feel happy to see and hear how happy they were. The priest told us that the words of the song meant: "When work is fun, work is not difficult", a whistle while you work sort of thing. Everyone thought that this was certainly the highlight of the trip to date, and regretted that no one had a portable tape recorder along to record it.
Back near the church we asked the priest how close and in what direction Mt. Kilimanjaro was, since the low clouds had prevented us from seeing it so far. He looked way up in the sky to the right of the church and pointed to the top of the cloud banks. There, where it appeared to be another cloud, was actually the glacier covered peak standing way above us and the clouds. It was really an impressive sight towering so high above us. No wonder the natives of the country have such a high regard for it! It is indeed a beautiful sight.
All too soon it was time for us to leave. As we were leaving, another Afro-Tours V.W. bus pulled up to the mission. Sitting in the front seat was Bruce Taft, we were glad to see that he’d made the trip.
Back at the Marangu Hotel at tea time for tea & crumpet on the veranda. Then dinner at 8 P.M., another fine meal in the old tradition. I'd never thought much of the British tradition of tea time, but I kind of like the idea now. After a hectic and busy day, it serves to relax one and by dinner time around 7:30 to 8, you've unwound enough to really enjoy your meal.
Towards sunset, the clouds had cleared away to reveal Mt. Kilimanjaro and an adjacent snow-covered peak, which from this viewpoint, actually looked higher than Kilimanjaro. The evening sun cast a soft orange glow on the snow of the peaks, a very lovely sight.
Up at 4 A.M. for an early breakfast and a nice early start to the big game country and Tsavo Game Preserve. Our day was made at 7 A.M. when the driver spotted a couple of lionesses in the brush and took off after them. As we got closer, we saw that there were several lion cubs with her. Soon we were right next to them, snapping pictures wildly while they growled back at us unappreciatively. This was a sight we really hadn't expected to see, several lions staring at us face to face. They didn't like our company much and moved on to thicker brush where we couldn't or wouldn't dare follow them.
We saw thousands of impalas, kudus, and various types of deer-like animals, a few baboons & monkeys, many multi-colored birds and guinea hens, several zebras, and a couple of dozen elephants on our drive through the preserve. One elephant, only about 50 ft from the road, didn't seem to like having his picture taken, and with a mighty trumpet started to chase us. We departed rather hastily, and the elephant stopped, evidently satisfied that he'd scared us off, which indeed he had.
The guides took us to a spring and stream where some hippos lived. We stopped under a grove of trees near the springs, in which a few dozen grey monkeys were flitting about. The male of the species caused quite a bit of color photographic activity since he displayed a bright turquoise blue scrotum.
An observation platform had been built over the stream, from which we had a nice view over the perfectly clear stream. There were a number of hippos in easy view and one crocodile on the opposite shore. In the water directly below us were dozens of carp-like fishes swimming about, all about a foot in length. Next we were led to an underwater viewing spot where we could get an underwater view of the hippos between all the fishes that were hamming it up in front of the glass plate.
We went on, looking for a rhino, but all we saw was a tame baby one at the park headquarters. This one apparently thought he was a people [sic] and demanded affection. Seemed kind of ridiculous petting a half-ton rhino on the horn, but he seemed to like it, and seemed truly sad to see us leave.
It had been an exhausting day, and there lay a long 200 mile drive back to Mombasa ahead of us yet, but it had all been well worth it. By far the nicest stop I'd ever made on any cruise.
Found out today the welcome news that we weren't leaving until sometime tomorrow so that some of the crew men could get some time ashore, since they'd been busy moving the boat around.
Spent the day leisurely shopping around for African carvings—wooden, ebony, ivory and stone.
In the evening I went to the New Florida Club, where I had dinner of lobster curry. Not too bad, tho a bit too spicy for my tastes. Dr Knauss, Bruce Taft and Tim Barnett, a student from SIO, came in after awhile. I joined them at their table for a few rounds of Tusker Beer (at Singapore it had been Tiger Beer) and a ringside seat to the floorshow, a Turkish bellydancer. A rather mediocre performance according to Bruce. Never having seen one before myself, I found it interesting.
Afterwards, I joined Dave Farrell and a number of fellows from the Argo and went to the New Brunswick bar. A crowded place, the beer flowing constantly, the jukebox going continually, and numerous unescorted females. One of them latched on to me in no time flat, so I bought her a beer and danced a few dances with her before I could manage to escape and grab a taxi back to the Argo. Dave and the others had disappeared by then, for places unknown. Since the bar was in a pretty tough looking neighborhood, it wasn't any place to be without friends anyway.
Departed Mombasa today, for what promises to be a pretty busy work schedule. In order to devise a more efficient work routine, we decided to have just one person doing salinities, Brennen, and Farrell and myself working the hydro stations, since I still have to run all of the phosphates, Dave will do the 6 deep stations, and I'll do only shallow casts. We’ll have only two persons helping us, all of the rest being on definite hours of processing, in an effort to keep up to date with the paper work. We'll be doing two cross section from 5°N to 5°S at latitudes 53°E & 62°20'E before reaching Colombo:
17 stations, awfully close together, it's going to be pretty hectic.
Happy birthday to me. Too much work to stop & celebrate. At least He remembered—a nice total solar eclipse today. 3 gold-plated BT slides made an excellent viewing glass to look at the sun from time to time as the moon passed over it.
The shaft in the meter wheel broke today, causing a 5 hour delay. Stations have [been] going kind of slow anyway because of high wire angles, I had one of 50° on one of my stations. Seems to be a strong eastward current at 3 to 5°N.
What a day—as I was putting down a 1000m cast in the wee hours of the morning, I'd just put on the last Nansen bottle, when the messenger slipped, tripping the entire cast prematurely. Nothing else to do but bring it back up & start over. Probably surprised a few people with my self-directed profanity. Was pretty disgusted with myself, but only lost ½ an hour as a result of that fiasco.
After we'd left the station and the ship was underway, the steering chain on the ship broke. It took them 6 hours to fix that, another long delay!
With all of these delays, we're beginning to wonder if we'll be able to stop in the Seychelles Islands after all. Sure would be a shame to steam right by them without stopping.
More hydro winch trouble—the potentiometer starting to overheat, taking forever to bring up the deep casts.
The current measuring people are having their troubles too, everything that could possibly go wrong has at some time or another. It's surprising that they're able to come up with the good data that they are. The Hi-Tech current meter is considerably more sensitive than the old Roberts meter. The Roberts meter wouldn't be able to measure some of the low velocity currents that the Hi-Tech is measuring well. Should be a pretty good cross-section.
Something rather striking is beginning to show up in our data. The sea surface sloped upward towards the equator, steeply from 5°N to 3°N, which yields a calculated geostrophic current to the east of about 2 knots. This we'd anticipated. But tho 𝛥D 0/1000 at 5° was 1.47 and at 3° it was 1.74, which means that the sea surface is 27 cm higher at 3°. This is quite a bit more than had been anticipated, but what is even worse, when we'd occupied the station at the equator only a couple of weeks ago, the 𝛥D 0/1000 was only 1.54. Now the question arises—will the 𝛥D drop from 1.73 to 1.54 from 3°N to the equator (which would indicate a geostrophic current of 12 knots) or has the features at the equator changed that much in only 3 weeks. Quite a puzzler, but we'll know when we get to the equator.
Now that we've repeated the station at the equator just 3 weeks after having occupied it the first time, there have been some very striking changes. The 𝛥D did drop at the equator, but only to 1.66, not to 1.54. This would still indicate a geostrophic current of 5 knots, but we didn't observe anything over 2 knots. This is probably the first well documented example of a current not in geostrophic equilibrium. Other features of the station had changed markedly also. The surface temperature was 1.8°C warmer at the surface, and also warmer all the way below 500m! In just 3 weeks. Most of the properties looked more like those of the station 120 miles to the east on the equator. Things certainly change fast here, perhaps acceleration terms are at least as important as density gradients.
Stopped at the Seychelles Islands for a very welcome rest stop. They're a lovely sight, every bit as beautiful as any of the Pacific islands, surrounded by coral reefs, the water is a beautiful clear green color. Surprisingly, the islands are granite, not volcanic or basaltic. Always thought granite was more typical of continental land masses. Lush green, Flame of the Forest trees, numerous coconut palms, make it all appear like a tropical island paradise.
The illusion was spoiled when we spotted a Navy ship, American, at the dock. There were 250 sailors on liberty there, somewhat more than the small town of Port Victoria could comfortably accommodate. I did my best to ignore them, pretend they weren't there, and enjoy the beauty of the islands.
Went over to the opposite side of the islands to a lovely calm lagoon, and spent the entire day just loafing on the wave-scalloped white sandy beach. There was a 49ft sailing yacht anchored in the lagoon, the Tí-Si-Té or Sí-Té-Sí, 2 years out of San Diego. The owners weren't aboard, so no chance to meet them. Have to admire folks like that—leaving all care and worry behind, sailing off to unknown lands, wherever their fancy takes them.
Wish we had more time to spend on some of the surrounding islands. There are large land turtles on some of them, just like those in the Galapagos. Another island is the home of the strange twinned coconut, the coco-de-mer. Tortoise shell and the coco-de-mer supply the materials for much of the tourist trinkets made by the islanders.
Lovely as the Seychelles are, they lack a certain charm as compared to Hawaii and Tahiti. There is no race native to these islands. The present inhabitants are a strange mixture of Portuguese, French and Africans, originally brought to the islands as slaves.
The Argo was due to leave early this morning, so I didn't go back to shore again today. Chatted awhile with Dr. Knauss & Mr. Stommel, watching Dr. Knauss anxiously counting heads as each boat brought more of the ship's party back. By 10 o'clock, the time the Argo was due to leave, 8 from the scientific party hadn't gotten back aboard yet. Everyone was aboard by noon, and we were finally on our way. Our Chief Engineer looked like he'd gone through a meat grinder, as his face was a mass of bruises, and he doesn't remember how it happened! Interesting, the first time on this cruise that there's been this sort of incident, and it happened in a port where 250 of our American Navy was on a "Goodwill Visit".
Bad day today—lost 3! thermometers on my station. I'd never had a thermometer broken on a station that I was on before. And now 3 broken! Worse yet, I don't know how it happened. The cast went down O.K. and came up with both protected deep sea reversing thermometers badly broken in one nansen bottle and another protected with the auxiliary therm broken on the bottle right above it. The mishap occurred after the bottles had tripped since all the thermometers could be read, tho broken. The winchman swore the bottles didn't hit the bucket; I don't think they did either. There weren't any marks on the nansen bottles whatsoever, to indicate a shark might have tried to take a bite of them, which I'm told happens sometimes. I don't know, it's a mystery to me!
To add insult to injury, I'd just made up a new thermometer arrangement sheet, putting in the last good spare thermometers into the rack, leaving us with 9 malfunctioning therms as spares. Luckily Dave Ferrel was able to repair two before the next station and one later on. I hope they'll last until we meet the Horizon in Cochin and can get some spares.
Been pretty dopey today—Dave got a piece of rust in his eye while putting down the shallow hydro cast on the deep station, so I had to finish his cast for him. I was just about to turn in when it happened, so I was pretty groggy and tired. That's my only excuse for putting the hydro (deep) cast down in reverse order. A couple of quick calculations showed I wouldn't have to repeat the cast, only one unprotected thermometer was off scale, and a couple of separated protected ones.
Things have been very hectic this week. Worked two days and 2 nights straight with only a single hour's nap. I didn't plan it that way, it just worked out that way. Things came up that had to be done. The 14 different oxygen titrators had used up the entire 14 month cruise's supply of bi-iodate standard. It took me several hours between stations to make up a liter and check it out to make sure it was the same as the previous batch. Then there were hydro stations to do, phosphate samples to run, processing and curve-drawing to be done, new phosphate reagents to make up and a new calibration curve for the new reagents, and then after all that, Dr Knauss put me on a 4 hour current meter watch. I couldn't refuse, I'd asked him to do so quite some time ago (when I had slightly more idle time) so that I could learn about the current meter. Unfortunately it came at a pretty poor time. The current meter wasn't working well, and I was wandering around like a zombie by then anyway, so I didn't learn much. After that watch, breakfast and one last batch of phosphates to run and finally to bed. Had to get up 6 hours later for another current watch, but the hi-tech meter had been lost in the meantime. There had been a tiny pin hole in the sea cable, and since the cable has D.C. current going down it, this set up an arc welder when it was grounded by the sea water, cutting the core of the cable. So the rest of the stations will have to be done with the more insensitive Roberts meter. I've caught up on my sleep again, resolved to limit myself to no more than a 12 hour day, no matter what!
We've finished our last station of part 2 Leg I Lusiad Expedition, and heading in towards Colombo where many of the students will depart to get back in time for classes. Dr Knauss, Henry Stommel, & Dr Charney will also get off.
The first evening out of Mombassa, Dr Charney had given an informal seminar in the ward room on a theory he was trying to develop to predict the equatorial current system in the Indian Ocean on the basis of the wind stress. I didn't understand much of it, the mathematical reasoning was far above my head, but it was a rather interesting experience to hear a theory presented right on the ship that was going out to make direct measurements of what the theory was trying to explain. It turned out that the observations were not in agreement with the theory, but Dr. Charney continued to putter around with his equations, attempting to scale different parameters to the proper order of magnitude.
It's interesting to note that Dr. Tsuchiya had received a copy of a paper from Dr. Hidaka, a well known Japanese oceanographer, in Mombasa attempting to predict the presence of a Cromwell-type current here in the Indian Ocean. Dr. Tsuchiya read it and gleefully showed it to Dr. Knauss, saying "he is wrong, he is wrong", since we had not observed any Cromwell-type current here.
Now that we had a couple of days running time into Colombo, more seminars were held by Dr Charney, Hank Stommel & Dr Knauss. Quite interesting, makes this cruise especially worthwhile. I think I've gained a wider perspective on the whole field of oceanography.
Both Bruce Taft and Jim Baker have said that I ought to go back to school in oceanography. Bruce even mentioned assistantships that were available at Scripps. I'm strongly considering doing just that in another year or so. Dr Gast had made a couple of interesting offers also. He’d said that I could go up to Humboldt State and work with him anytime I wanted to. Later he mentioned he’d like me to help him do some research on sea-water chemistry, as a chemist. An interesting offer, but my chemistry is pretty rusty, besides there’s a lot I can learn at Scripps yet. I think Dr. Gast was more interested in good working habits than just knowledge in the subject. Knowledge comes from hard work in the field. Anyway, it’s nice to be well thought of, it gives me a little more self-confidence, which I seem to lack so.
Arrived in Colombo in the late afternoon, the white tall buildings of the city being visible far out to sea, even before the island itself was visible.
Jim Faughn had arranged a press-conference and cocktail party afterwards this evening, and there was to be an ambassador’s luncheon tomorrow.
Any other port, this would have sounded fabulous, but this time, I wasn’t even tempted. I’d looked forward to seeing the isle of gems for a long, long time, and I intended to spend every minute trying to find fine rough gem material for sale.
It was dark before the customs officials allowed anyone to leave the ship.
I didn't have to worry about finding a guide, there were numerous Ceylon Tourist Agency "Official" Guides waiting at the bottom of the gangway excitedly crying out "come with me, I show you city", like so many pimps. I accepted the services of the first one that reached me, and walked with him the short distance from the passenger pier to the heart of Colombo. As we walked along the guide gave me a running commentary of Ceylon history, customs, religions, etc. The first large building we came to was the Senate building, and then the president's palace. He explained that since gaining independence from Britain recently, the country had drifted towards socialism and Communism, to the great disadvantage of the country. The premier was a woman, and she was rapidly nationalizing all businesses and losing money at it. For example, before the bus companies were nationalized, they paid over a million rupees a year in taxes. After the first year of government operation they had lost over a million rupees in the red! Also, 19 double-decker buses had just disappeared! No one knows how or where. There is no maintenance done on them, no one owns them, so no one cares, and civil service workers are extremely unreliable.
She also banned all imports, supposedly to stop outflow of rupees. But this is gradually strangling business, and resulting in a loss of revenue.
Roadbuilding and public works under British rule proceeded in a businesslike fashion, but now it proceeds at a snail's pace, when done, done very poorly. The country is truly falling apart, and it's really sad to see, since it's such a lovely country.
There were a number of jewelry stores on the main street, but the guide led me to a particular one on a small side street, where he obviously got a cut for all customers brought in. It was a small shop, they all were, filled with showcases full of carvings in ivory and tortoise shell, and many mounted gems. I was seated at a small white table clothed table with a single bare bright incandescent bulb hanging down overhead, the better to see the star sapphires by of course.
A number of packets of cut star sapphires were brought out, varying in color from white to grey to various shades of blue; in size from less than a carat to over 50 carats, all with fine stars. Prices were all quite reasonable, from $1 to $5 per carat, with the finest corn-flower blue (the quality of which I'd never seen before anywhere) stars running $100 per carat. However, I was primarily only interested in rough gem material, of which he had very little. Most of the gems here seem to be cut soon after they are mined. I did manage to buy two large white and grey sapphires that showed strong silk.
After having made arrangements for a trip to the hill capital Kandy and the gem-mining district of Ratnapura tomorrow, I returned to the ship for a good night's rest in preparation for the trip.
I had gotten Bob Brenner and Jim Baker to join me for the car trip to the inland country. I had cause to wish I hadn't shortly afterwards, many aspects of the trip were rather unpleasant.
The guide met us at the ship as promised, but he hadn't obtained the car yet; much poorer service than we'd had at Mombasa, and it rapidly got worse. We were deposited at the Crown Jewelers again while he went to get the car. There we were subjected to some of the most obnoxious sales practices I'd ever seen. Gem after gem was hauled out for our unwilling examination. The fact that we weren't interested at the time but only wanted to get on with the trip made not the slightest bit of difference to them. With much shirt-sleeve pulling & jabbering about fine Ceylonese topaz (actually smokey quartz), and all sorts of jewelry, they succeeded only in driving us out of the shop to wait for the car. The guide finally arrived in a taxi and took us to the Ceylon Tourist Bureau approved (a dump) tour service where the 3 of us, the guide and a driver were squeezed into a tiny almost new Renault and we were finally on our [way], thoroughly disgusted with events to date. Our good humor gradually returned as we left Colombo and drove into the beautiful countryside. What appeared at first glance to be just lush tropical growth all turned out to be various types of plantations and farms carefully cultivated. In the small valley were numerous rice paddies, all carefully terraced and level. The low hills were covered with row after row of tea bushes, each bush in an individual plot of ground carefully tended, while all of the trees of the higher hills were rubber trees, all with grooves around the trunks for collection of the sap. Not an inch of ground was wasted, yet in Colombo there was a rice shortage! Just too many people I guess.
These beautiful sights caught in fleeting glances whenever we could take our eyes off of the road, for the driver drove with wild abandon, as if in a race with death, as all Orientals seem to drive. Passing on curves over double white lines meant nothing to him; he never hesitated to do so. Whenever we approached a small village, if anything, speed was increased, the horn blaring out constantly to clear people, carts and animals aside. A nerve shattering experience to say the least. Even if there were only two cars approaching each other on the road, a half a dozen honks from each would be required from each to pass each other.
At long last we reached Ratnapura, thoroughly fatigued by the drive so far. There were a number of wholesale lapidary and gem shops, with very primitive hand or foot-powered lapidary equipment. I purchased a couple of rough sapphires and soon returned to the car to go to Kandy.
On the way, we stopped at one of the primitive gem mines. It was just a shaft next to a rice paddy sunk down to gem-bearing gravels, and tunnelled sideways in the gravel bed. I was sorely tempted to get my hands into the mine dump to search for the gems that seemed to be lying just below the surface. All too soon it was time to be off again.
The first sight we saw in Kandy was the beautiful botanical gardens. It was easily the largest and best kept garden I'd ever seen, with perfectly trimmed hedges, and trees from all over the world. There was also a greenhouse with hundreds of varieties of orchids in bloom. I would have loved to have spent a full day there, enjoying the beautiful sights. As it was, we took a flying tour of the place, then on to Kandy, for an elephant ride. It was interesting (but damp—they sweat) and I was surprised to find that I could straddle him like a horse. All 3 of us, Jim, Smiley & I climbed aboard while the guide took our pictures with my camera.
From there we saw a large temple famous in Kandy, took a few pictures, tryed to ignore the beggars that would thrust stumps of limbs in our faces, then we were ready to start our trip back to Colombo. The driver first drove us to the top of a hill where we had a splendid view of the city and the temple. One more stop—at the University of Ceylon, a large nice campus, but apparently not a great many students in attendance. We noticed on the bulletin board the student election results—all of the candidates were unopposed. Shades of Russia!
I neglected to mention the lunch we'd had between Ratnapura & Kandy, best forgotten probably. We'd stopped at a Government Tourist Bureau rest stop, a comfortable place situated on top of a hill under cool shade trees.
We'd sat down at a table to relax and quietly talk about the trip when the guide rudely pulled up a chair, ordered a round of beer, imported, at our expense, and quickly took over the conversation. We were beginning to get a bit fed up with him. Finally lunch was ready, and we sat down to a fine lunch of soup, fish, steak & eggs and french-fried-in-coconut-oil potatoes. A quite satisfactory meal, but pretty expensive in that we had to pay for two extra people. This whole tour suffers in comparison to the one we'd had in Kenya. All costs, meals, lodging, etc., had been taken care of in the price of the tour. Not so, here unfortunately. I was pretty relieved to get back to the Argo finally, but I'm sure that in time I'll look back fondly to this trip to Ceylon and the lovely city of Kandy.
[On] our last day in Colombo, I made the most of it browsing through numerous gem shops, finally finding a worthwhile contact, where I bought two pounds of mixed gem material for $50. After writing a few more letters, I was ready to leave this city. It had the potential to be a fine scenic tourist place, but I doubt if it will ever take advantage of it. It's pretty irritating to walk down the main street of Colombo and be solicited at every other step by people wanting you [to] change money at various unofficial rates, or to drag you to some dark shop selling any number of things, or to ride their particular taxi or rickshaw.
No, I didn't have any real regrets when the Argo pulled out to sea for another month of intensive work beginning in just ten hours.
These equatorial sections, with the stations closely spaced from 5° N to 5° S, are very busy days. The last station is just barely finished up before we're to the next station. Even the buoy stations aren't much of a break anymore, they're done in only 12 hours now, instead of 48 hours, as it took on the buoy station at the equator coming across from Singapore. Today we arrived at the buoy station at the equator where we'd left a buoy at the equator 2 months ago. After searching for it for awhile and not finding it, it was decided to launch another one. We'd already lost a number of buoys, and it was not considered worthwhile to waste very much ship's time searching for a buoy that probably wasn't there anymore. So after taking about 5 hours to launch another one, we backed off a couple of miles to pick it up on the radar.
We saw it bright and clear on the radar screen, and 180° on the other side of the ship several miles away, the original buoy was spotted just as bright and just as clear! Oh well, so it goes. We picked them both up when we left.
There has been considerable cloudiness since we left Colombo, with a rain squall somewhere in sight all of the time. I've had rain on every hydro station that I've done since Colombo. Makes no difference how sunny it might be when I arrive on station; before we leave, it would start raining! My fellow technicians are beginning to call me the rainmaker, not without some reason.
I was to be notified some time during the cruise as to whether I'd have to stay aboard the ship for the next leg or not by the office. Since I hadn't gotten any word as yet, I was beginning to get a little anxious as to just what my fate would be. The next leg would be a 4 month geological-seismic cruise with stops in the Seychelles Islands, Mauritius Islands, and Darwin Australia, with only about 26 hydro stations to do in that time. It would be an interesting cruise with interesting stops, but Bruce Taft & Jim Baker had asked me to return for the spring cruise in rather persuasive and flattering requests. So I decided to try and do so. In Colombo, I wrote Hans a letter stating my wishes, but I hadn't gotten a reply of any sort yet. By now I was beginning to get a little worried, so a few days ago, I sent him a radio message with the same request. Today I got the answer. Old Hansel-Baby (as Barb would say) finally came through—I was allowed to return home in Cochin and was already scheduled to return in the spring. Boy, what a relief, I didn't realize how much it meant to me until I received the radio gram.
Our UNESCO Fellows [are] still proving to be pretty unreliable. Salim Marcos left his PDR watch when his time was up and went to bed without bothering to wake up Gene Gilly, the next man. So, the precision depth recorder ran unattended for an hour and a half before Gene woke up and got to it. So for 1½ hr, the PDR was unlogged, a potential loss of important bottom topography.
A.V.S. Murty has been busily copying everything in sight. First he started with the form 8’s, then the Hydrographic Office Manuals on data processing and observations or data collection. We [wouldn’t] mind so much if he'd be willing to help us with the work at hand that needed to be done. He only does what he is asked to do, no more. When he finishes that particular job, he will just sit there until you come back around and ask him to do something else. Absolutely no initiative or interest in seeing to it that the data is processed correctly and finished.
Today Dave came into the lab office in a burst of laughter that he could no longer contain. When he could finally speak, he said: "Look out in the outer lab—Murty is copying the chem handbook." Sure enough, Marty appeared to be copying the entire thousand page handbook of Chemistry and Physics!
Well, we've finished up our last station and had begun our 3 day run into Cochin when just fifteen minutes after leaving the last station, one of the ship's engines broke down. We'd had to sit dead in the water all day until the engine crew got it fixed again. Since we were a day ahead of schedule, the loss of time isn't serious. This had been the third serious breakdown of the ship during the cruise. The steering chain had broken down once, causing a 6 hour delay. Later on, the steering went haywire again. We'd be cruising along full speed when the rudder would suddenly swing over hard right or left and the Argo would swing around in a tight circle like a speedboat. After a few rounds of that sort of antics, it was repaired without too much delay.
Everyone is in a good mood, now that we're finally on our way to Cochin. Dave has had a bad case of channel fever for the past month, counting the number of hours left in the cruise.