WORLD VOYAGE BEGINS 195^ 



Three months were spent working off the British Columbia 

 coast, using many of the small anchorages along the coasts of 

 Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands, 



For two or three days the ship lay at anchor in Heater Harbour, 

 a little fjord-like anchorage lying between steep wooded hills, on 

 the east coast of Kunghit Island at the southern end of the Queen 

 Charlotte's. Deer abounded on this island and could often be seen 

 on the beaches in the afternoon and early evening. They appeared 

 to be feeding on the seaweed. Small parties of the ship's company 

 would land in the afternoon to try to get fresh venison, and on 

 such occasions were warned not to enter the bush. Thick forests 

 of sitka, Douglas fir and hemlock came right down to the water's 

 edge. Beneath these stately trees lay a jumble of fallen trunks and 

 boughs, rotting stumps and thick undergrowth. 



At 5" o'clock one evening, when the boat went ashore to collect 

 four stokers who had been ashore on such an expedition, only 

 two of the men were on the beach. The other two were said to 

 have entered the woods and had not been seen again. Until dusk 

 cries of 'Hope' and 'Abel', the names of the missing stoker 

 mechanics, rang out from searchers along the shore. 



Although snow lay on the ground, the afternoon had been mild 

 and these hunters from the boiler-room were lightly clad. The 

 wind increased in the night, snow was falling and the temperature 

 was well below zero. All thoughts onboard were with the two 

 lost in the Canadian forests, and it was long before dawn when 

 the first men were 'wetting tea' in the galley and preparing to 

 land as search parties. 



A full gale was blowing when a party of over 40 men, with the 

 First Lieutenant in charge, were landed to search the woods; 

 this was now Geoff Simeon, 'the relaxed guy', who like so many 

 others in this tale had returned once again to the old ship. By 

 noon he was back onboard to report that the woods were so thick 

 that he was in danger of losing members of the search party. 

 Without a compass, one lost all sense of direction in these forests, 

 and what was needed was a number of small parties, each in 

 charge of a leader with a compass. 



The lost stoker mechanics had landed on the north side of the 

 harbour, the land here being a peninsula about half-a-mile wide, 

 the northern side of which looks out across a broad sea channel 



