THE ISLES OF THE INDIES 17 



be free, to move under the sky and over the sea if they have 

 to scrub decks and work for nothing for the privilege. 



Now that we were at the ocean's edge we were even more 

 impatient to be gone. We realized that the longer we delayed 

 the greater the possibility of running into evil weather. Con- 

 sider again what we had started. We, two city-bred men, were 

 about to sail into the open ocean in a thirty-eight foot boat. 

 Before we could make a landfall we would have to cover a 

 minimum of eighteen hundred miles of open sea. Not that it 

 had not been done before. Old Captain Slocum had sailed the 

 same model vessel around the world single-handed. But Cap- 

 tain Slocum was a seaman of many years' experience. We were 

 two amateurs in every sense of the word. I had been to sea a 

 number of times but never in the capacity of navigator. Cole- 

 man had never seen the ocean before. Furthermore, on our 

 shoulders rested the responsibility of carrying out a scientific 

 program of no small magnitude. It was more or less essential 

 to this program that we cover a full itinerary of ten thousand 

 miles, back and forth from island to island. Nor were these 

 waters any too well charted or catalogued. Yet here was winter 

 upon us before we had cleared our home shores. Already ice 

 was forming on the decks in the morning, making them slip- 

 pery as glass. Impatiently we watched the weather reports, 

 hoping for clear skies and northwest winds. Finally the tidings 

 came from the weather bureau— moderate winds and clear. 



