l68 CHALLENGER 



over the border and a great follower of the bullring. At 2.30 in 

 the morning the party had bacon and eggs at the Rock Hotel 

 while Sam declaimed the 'Hunting of the Snark'. 



Commander J. M. Sharpey-Schafer was the new Captain; this 

 was to be his third and last commission in the old ship. 



The United States Hydrographic Office were now to take a 

 hand with the surveys in the Gulf for they were interested in the 

 coast of Saudi Arabia lying to the west of Bahrein, where American 

 oil companies had been operating for a number of years. So it 

 was that the U.S. Survey ship Maury arrived in Gibraltar with her 

 three tenders on her way eastwards. Calls were, of course, ex- 

 changed between the Commanding Officers of the two survey 

 vessels. It was Mamjs captain's first visit to the Gulf, and when 

 he visited Sharpey-Schafer he was anxious to hear as much as 

 possible about conditions there. Talk turned to tides in the Gulf 

 and Sharpey-Schafer, in his serious way, began to describe the 

 tidal complications of the area in considerable detail. He paused 

 from time to time to enquire if Maury was still following the 

 gist of this complicated discourse, to which he was able to say 

 'Yes, Captain', until at length, when the complexities of ebb and 

 flow, spring and neap and range and mean tidal level had become 

 really abstruse, he changed his stock reply. 'Well, Captain, I 

 guess I've just about lost you now.' Meanwhile, as it was early 

 in the day, tea had been made by the Captain's steward and had 

 been set in its pot upon a tray in the cabin, becoming steadily 

 stronger during the course of this lengthy discussion. As Maury^s 

 Captain sipped the darkbrowQ brew he remarked, 'Well, Captain, 

 I've seldom drunk tea before. When I came through New York 

 I bought some as I knew I had to entertain the British. I guess 

 that it should be made much stronger than I was told.' 



On completion of the refit the ship went to sea for full power 

 trials, these being so arranged that the ship visited Tangier for 

 a few hours, and a number of Dockyard officials were taken on 

 this day's jaunt. When the ship came to leave Tangier in the 

 afternoon, a different pilot from the one who had boarded the 

 ship in the morning offered his services. He was a strange-looking 

 little man in a well worn Palm Beach suit and battered brown 

 topee. He did not inspire confidence, but as pilotage was only 

 a formality here he was accepted. By the time the ship passed 



