Calculating Mecca

The freighter Rigel had left Norfolk on Tuesday. May 22, 1979, bound for ports in the Mediterranean.  Toward the end of the second full day at sea, one of the unlicensed crewmen called the bridge with an urgent request.  Speaking to James James, the second mate, he explained that he was a Muslim and needed to face in the direction of Mecca when he said his prayers.  So could the mate please provide him with the compass bearing of Mecca?  James James responded that he would be happy to do it, but he needed some time to work out the calculations, and so he asked the fellow to call back in fifteen or twenty minutes.

Seeing a teaching opportunity in this request, James James explained to Schnickelfritz, the cadet on his watch, what needed to be done.  They of course knew the latitude and longitude of the Rigel’s location, so they looked up the coordinates of Mecca, plugged this data into the great circle sailing formulas, and worked out both the direction of and the distance to Mecca.  James James did it the old fashioned way by using the trig tables in Bowditch and crunching the numbers with pencil and paper.  Schnickelfritz did it the new fashioned way with his calculator.  Both methods produced the same compass bearing and distance.  It proved to be a wonderful practice exercise in spherical trigonometry.  When the devout crewman who requested this information called the bridge again, he thanked James James profusely and expressed great appreciation for his efforts.

At the 8:00pm change of the watch, James James related this experience to me, one of the third mates.  All the mates and the cadet reasoned that as the Rigel crossed the Atlantic, the bearing of and distance to Mecca would necessarily change, and we foresaw the need to provide our Muslim shipmate with updated information.  Furthermore, as we would all eventually take the exams to upgrade our licenses, we saw this as an opportunity to increase our proficiency in the great circle sailings.  This was important material.  Praying toward Mecca notwithstanding, the great circle formulas figured into every transatlantic and transpacific voyage.  So it became the daily drill to practice for both future voyages and future license exams by calculating Mecca.

As it turned out, the request for the compass bearing of Mecca was a joke.  There was no Muslim crewman aboard the Rigel after all.  Some of the fellows below decks thought up this scheme to have some fun at James James’ expense.  They had their laugh, which was harmless, and they unwittingly provided a few young and ambitious officers with a useful study tool.  I certainly appreciated it, for by the time the Rigel reached Gibralter, I had become much more comfortable with the great circle sailings.  I subsequently used this newly developed expertise many times aboard several ships, and I had no difficulty with this material on the license exams for second mate and chief mate.  Many years later, I recall these formulas with fondness.  No doubt these calculations are all done by computers now.  I suppose that’s fast and accurate, but having gone to sea in the old school, I think I would find computerized navigation to be professionally and intellectually unsatisfying.  Sometimes the old ways really are the best ways.

When the Rigel was making this voyage back in 1979, few of us in the West gave much thought to the holy city of Mecca or to the Islamic faith and its adherents.  Furthermore, none of us could have foreseen the bad press that Islam would receive in recent years, or the vituperation that would be cast upon Muslims generally.  It’s very sad when an entire population is blamed for the crimes of a tiny minority.  Popular misconceptions notwithstanding, Islam has a number of uplifting characteristics.

As a belief system, Islam is a large and complex subject with a long and sometimes stellar and sometimes checkered history.  For Muslims who take their religion seriously, Islam is a way of life, a rigorous faith with high moral standards that seeks to uplift its members and bring them closer to God.  In these respects, Islam is not unlike Christianity and Judaism.

A well-composed and ideologically neutral capsule summary of Islam[1] includes a discussion of the faith’s moral precepts.  Some of these are fairly well-known, such as the prohibitions on eating pork and drinking alcohol, the period of fasting during Ramadan, and the five-times-daily call to prayer.  Above and beyond these outward practices, however, Islam requires its members more broadly to lead lives filled with charity, humility, modesty, and reverence; to acquire and value an education; to contribute to the relief of the sick and the poor; to ensure the rights of women and children; to respect the religious beliefs of Christians and Jews; and in general to extend love, kindness, and forgiveness to all people.

My personal experience with Islam has been minimal.  Three of my children, however, have enjoyed some very positive contact with it.  A few examples stand out.

As a teenager, my daughter attended the Academy of Notre Dame, an all-girls Catholic high school in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts.  One of her classmates, Salwa, came from a devout Muslim family.  Salwa was an excellent student who took her schoolwork seriously, got along well with everyone, and never caused any trouble.  She graduated as the valedictorian of her class and received a full scholarship to Boston University.  The latest report indicated that she is now married and studying toward a doctorate at Harvard.

My youngest son visited Israel during Holy Week and Passover in March of 2014.  In Jerusalem on Good Friday, he mingled with Christians, Jews, and Muslims, all of them visiting the holy sites and getting along very peacefully with one another.  Later, when my son was leaving Israel and entering Jordan, there was a mix-up concerning his visa at the border.  Without being asked, a Muslim fellow-traveller intervened and spoke to the border guard on my son’s behalf.  In a few minutes, the visa problem was resolved, and there were no further difficulties.

My oldest son and his wife visited the United Arab Emirates in November of 2014.  They found the cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi spotlessly clean and their streets crime-free.  They saw that every train on the subway had a special car reserved for women and children, not as discrimination against women, but as a courtesy that provided greater comfort and privacy for them.  My son and daughter-in-law also visited the famous Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.  Comparing it favorably to an LDS temple, they found a strong spiritual presence there and noted that proper dress, reverent behavior, and subdued speech were required of all visitors.

Muslims, Christians, and Jews all believe in a God who has certain expectations of his people, who has set specific moral precepts for them, and who seeks to raise them up to his standards. One of my favorite authors, Rabbi Harold Kushner, makes this point well.  In discussing human frailty, he asserts that when we reach “the limits of our own power, we need to turn to a Power greater than ourselves,”[2] and that “the worship of a God beyond ourselves can help us grow.”[3]  Such spiritual growth is important because “there are standards by which God summons us to live.”[4]  In short, “our behavior matters to God.”[5]  All three Abrahamic religions teach this, and it stands true for everyone everywhere, regardless of denominational affiliation.

These thoughts run a long way from the Rigel’s transatlantic voyage of 1979.  A request that started as a joke first became a training exercise for the license exams and then a springboard for considering the merits of a major religious tradition.  But life is like that, especially life at sea.  Very often when cargo ships leave port, their crews have only a vague idea of where they’re going.  Along the way, schedules change, itineraries are revised, and ships are rerouted.  A ship, like life, can take us just about anywhere.  But of all the voyages we make and of all the ports we visit, the most important ones are those that bring us closer to God 

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[1] Two good and readily available sources are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam and https://www.britannica.com/topics/Islam.

[2] Rabbi Dr. Harold Kushner, Who Needs God, New York: Summit Books, 1989, p. 59.

[3] Op. cit., p. 54.

[4] Op. cit., p. 79.

[5] Op. cit., p. 79.

The Green Flash

The General Hoyt S. Vandenberg steamed southeast at a leisurely eleven knots across the South Atlantic between Ascension Island and South Africa in late September of 1979.  A clear sky, a mild temperature, excellent visibility, and a calm and bright blue sea served as the daily standard in these subequatorial latitudes.  Classified as a range instrumentation vessel, the General Vandenberg conducted vital national defense missions for the federal government.  For this purpose, she carried an army of technicians who worked with a large assortment of electronic gadgets. Most of the crew, myself included, knew little or nothing of what these technicians actually did.  We just sailed the ship for them. 

In the late afternoon one day, several technicians gathered on the outside deck near the starboard bridge wing to watch the Sun set.  The second mate, an older man named George Hebb, stood on the bridge wing, and seeing the technicians gathering, called down to them: “Get some binoculars and watch carefully as the Sun goes down.  The conditions look good today.  You should see the green flash.”

Dumbfounded by this suggestion, they asked George what he was talking about.  He then explained the green flash to them.  In response, they exchanged puzzled expressions with raised eyebrows and laughed at him.  Finally, one of the technicians asked him bluntly, “Have you been drinking?”

“No!!  I have not been drinking!!” thundered the insulted second mate at his skeptical audience.  “What do you take me for?  A Bowery bum?  You guys want to be called scientists and you don’t know how the world works?  Just watch when the Sun sets and you’ll see what I’m talking about!!”

Normally a very congenial and mild mannered man, George Hebb seldom got annoyed. His outburst silenced the “scientists,” however, and they waited and watched the Sun quietly.  Binoculars in hand, I waited and watched, too, as did George on the bridge wing above.  The Sun set slowly, and as predicted, just when the upper limb approached the horizon, the small remaining section of the Sun turned bright green for perhaps two or three seconds.  Then the  Sun set completely, and it was all over.

The assembled technicians had seen the green flash, and so they now believed what the second mate had told them.  Also, they no longer questioned his sobriety.  Vindication!  But their initial reaction on hearing about the green flash was actually quite typical.  Most folks have never heard of the green flash and have never seen it, and as ignorant people often do, they ridicule what they do not know and have not experienced.  Thirty-seven years after this event aboard the General Vandenberg, the green flash has new credibility in the form of a Wikipedia article[1] and YouTube videos[2].  I’ll stand by the simple and straightforward description set down in the American Practical Navigator, however:

As light from the sun passes through the atmosphere, it is refracted.  Since the amount of bending is slightly different for each color, separate images of the sun are formed in each color of the spectrum.  However, the difference is so slight that the effect is not usually noticeable.  At the horizon, where refraction is maximum, the greatest difference, which occurs between violet at one end of the spectrum and red at the other, is about 10 seconds of arc.  At latitudes of the United States, about 0.7 second of time is needed for the sun to change altitude by this amount when it is near the horizon.  The red image, being bent least by refraction, is the first to set and last to rise.  The shorter wave blue and violet colors are scattered most by the atmosphere, giving it its characteristic blue color.  Thus, as the sun sets, the green image may be the last of the colored images to drop out of sight.  If the red, orange, and yellow images are below the horizon, and the blue and violet light is scattered and absorbed, the upper rim of the green image is the only part seen, and the sun appears green.  This is the green flash.

The phenomenon is not observed at each sunrise or sunset, but under suitable conditions is far more common than generally supposed.  Conditions favorable to observation of the green flash are a sharp horizon, clear atmosphere, a temperature inversion, and an attentive observer.  Since these conditions are more frequently met when the horizon is formed by sea than by land, the phenomenon is more common at sea.[3]

I have seen the green flash many times aboard several ships.  Day after day aboard the General Vandenberg in the South Atlantic, the green flash was clearly visible.  Aboard the Rigel and the Waccamaw in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, the green flash was a fairly common event.  I’ve never seen it in the Pacific or the Caribbean, though, nor in the far North Atlantic or the North Sea.  But each time the green flash occurs, it is a magnificent sight to behold, however briefly.  The green flash proves the point that:

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;

These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep (Ps. 107:23-24).

How fortunate my shipmates and I were to repeatedly witness such a spectacle!  Such a simple and small thing—the last sliver of the Sun changing color from orange to green for the last few seconds of its setting.  Then it disappears below the horizon, and the twilight gradually turns into darkness.  This is the daily transition from daylight to nighttime, and the green flash plays a small but significant role in the drama.  The “wonders in the deep” indeed!

After my Merchant Marine career drew to a close, I thought that I would most likely never see the green flash again.  And, in fact, I did not see it for many years.  Then, quite unexpectedly and in a very unlikely place, I did once again enjoy this opportunity.

Miss Patty and I sailed aboard the ferry John H from New London, Connecticut, to Orient Point, Long Island, on Friday, November 1, 2013.  The ship left New London at 5:00pm, when the Sun was low in the western sky.  While the vessel was crossing the eastern end of Long Island Sound, the Sun cast its low altitude light on a scattered collection of altocumulus and stratocumulus clouds.  This illuminated the sky in a wild assortment of vivid blue, yellow, orange, and pink.  It was a truly spectacular sight.  I remained out on deck to watch this display, and to see the Sun set as well.  As the Sun dropped closer to the horizon, I began to wonder if there would be any chance of seeing the green flash.  The conditions looked good for it.  The air was clear, the visibility excellent, the horizon sharp, but somehow Long Island Sound seemed an unlikely place for it.

Nevertheless, I waited and watched as the Sun approached the horizon and started to set.  Even without any green it was still a magnificent and breathtaking sight.  Then, as the upper limb came down closer to the horizon, I looked more carefully, even to the point of eyestrain, hoping but not expecting to see the flash once again.  Finally, it happened.  Small and faint and fast, the green started in the corners and in a second filled the center of the remaining Sun.  Then it all disappeared as the Sun set completely.  It was quite literally a flash.  It lasted at most a second and a half.  The twilight lingered for a while as the now set Sun illuminated the clouds from below the horizon.  This faded gradually as night came over the sea.  When the John H docked in Orient Point at 6:30pm, the sky was fully dark.

The green flash demonstrates a few points above and beyond the laws of physics as they are described in Bowditch.  First, it illustrates the folly of human wisdom.  The technicians aboard the General Vandenberg laughed at a fully competent licensed officer who knew his astronomy, but he had the proverbial last laugh when Nature irrefutably proved him right.  More importantly, this episode proves one of the laws of truth.  If something is true, then it is true even if someone doesn’t believe it; even if no one believes it, it remains true.

Finally, the green flash speaks to us spiritually.  As one of the many beauties of the natural world, it bears mute testimony to the scientific and artistic genius of a divine Creator.  It calls to mind the Psalmist’s famous exclamation, “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps. 19:1), a thought that occurs to me often when I gaze skyward.  No mere human could design, let alone create, the world and the universe that we inhabit.  And yet, we are privileged to enjoy this beauty in the same way that we would study the work of a famous artist.  Many such studies of the heavens have been made, and they have yielded extensive scientific knowledge.  Nonetheless, there remains something transcendent and ineffable about this realm.  In the end, perhaps the best we can do is acknowledge as the Prophet did that:

The heavens were opened upon us, and [we] beheld the celestial kingdom of God, and the glory thereof (D&C 137:1).

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[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_flash.

[2] A few of these are very good; many are mediocre; and some are obvious fakes.

[3] Nathaniel Bowditch (original author), American Practical Navigator: An Epitome of Navigation, Volume 1, Washington, DC, Defense Mapping Agency Hydrographic Center, Publication No. 9, 1977, p. 882.  This book has been issued in many editions, revisions, and expansions  since its first publication in 1802, and has served as the standard reference work for Merchant Marine officers throughout its lifetime.  Aboard ship it is referred to simply as “Bowditch.”

The Squall

One fine day in the summer of 1964, my parents and I went sailing on the Great South Bay along the South Shore of Long Island.  The weather was beautiful—blue sky, sunshine, a few altocumulus clouds, and a gentle breeze from the southwest.  The family sailboat was a small wooden knockabout of the Cape Cod class.  It measured eighteen feet in length, drew one foot of water with the centerboard up, and had a foredeck but no cabin.  Designed for fair weather recreational sailing, it offered minimal shelter from and little resistance to strong winds and high seas.  But it was fully seaworthy, handled gracefully, and served the family’s purposes well on an enclosed and shallow body of water.

As a sign of his devotion to my mother, my father named this boat Justine.  He rented dock space for the Justine in a bulkheaded canal called Karras Creek in Massapequa.  This was named after Peter Karras, the proprietor of the Riviera, an adjacent restaurant and banquet hall situated on a point of land which overlooked an alcove on the north side of the bay.  Peter Karras owned this property and operated the dining facilities.  As a sideline, he leased the dock space to my father and several other folks.  A small man with a big temper, he also complained loudly, viciously, and unceasingly about all the taxes he had to pay.  Every time we saw him he was throwing a tantrum about his taxes.  I think my father listened to these tirades for amusement.

The taxes notwithstanding, our family spent many enjoyable and peaceful afternoons sailing on the Great South Bay aboard the Justine.  Usually there were four of us, my parents and my brother and myself, but sometimes my grandparents came with us, too.  We only went sailing in good weather, and it was always a lot of fun.  But then one day the weather suddenly changed.

My mother and father and I were sailing just south of the Nassau Shores neighborhood of Massapequa, where the Great South Bay and the South Oyster Bay come together.  The weather had been perfect for such sailing all day.  Toward the late afternoon, though, dark clouds appeared in the distance to the southwest.  As the wind freshened and the air cooled and the dark clouds came closer, it became clear that a squall line was approaching.  My parents decided to return immediately to Karras Creek.  They brought the Justine about and started to sail northward up the channel.  With the increasing wind, they expected to reach port quickly.

The Justine moved right along with the wind on her port quarter, but the squall line approached faster than expected and caught up with the little boat.  The sky became overcast with ominous looking cumulonimbus clouds; the wind speed increased exponentially; the surface of the bay turned choppy; and heavy rain poured down on the bay, drenching the Justine and her crew.  Unable to hold her northbound course in the channel leading to Karras Creek, the little boat was blown eastward across the flats toward the opposite shore of the alcove.  With her shallow draft, the Justine made it safely through the flats without grounding.  In deeper water again, she approached a residential neighborhood with a bulkheaded shoreline between Carman Creek and Narrraskatuck Creek near Amityville.

As the Justine was blown closer to the shore, it became apparent that she would land alongside the large backyard of a white house.  Seeing our little boat arriving, a middle-aged couple came outside to assist with docking.  In the howling wind and pouring rain, they helped secure the Justine to their dock, and then they insisted that we come inside their house to warm up and dry off.  

These kind people were Mr. and Mrs. Shapiro, a Jewish couple with grown children. They proved to be very gracious and compassionate hosts.  They explained that they had seen what trouble we were in, and they wanted to help us if they could.   When it became obvious where we would land, they were ready for us.  With no hesitation, they took the three of us, complete strangers, into their home.  They gave us towels so we could dry off, made hot tea for my parents, and fixed a light supper for me.  Some time afterwards, when the rain and the wind abated, Mr. Shapiro returned outside with my father and me.  He helped us check over the boat and bail out the accumulated rain water.

With the squall moving eastward out of the area, the rain ceased and the sky once again became clear.  My parents decided that it would now be safe to resume our voyage and return to Karras Creek.  The three of us thanked Mr. and Mrs. Shapiro for their kindness and hospitality and bade them farewell.  Embarking once more aboard the Justine, we made the short sail westward in the twilight and across the flats to Karras Creek.  We arrived there without incident.  We tied up the boat, furled the sails, stowed all the gear, and then drove home.

My parents spoke often of this little adventure in subsequent years.  They appreciated the kindness of the Shapiros, and they remembered this couple fondly.  Like the Good Samaritan of the New Testament, Mr. and Mrs. Shapiro tended to the needs of strangers caught in an emergency.  They were indeed a credit to the great Jewish faith.

As for me, I was six years old when this took place.  Despite the intensity of the weather, I was not frightened.  I felt safe through everything because I knew that my parents would take care of me.  My mother, in particular, had had extensive experience with sailboats on the Great South Bay when she was younger.  She and my father knew what they were doing.  So I had no reason to be frightened.

Many years later aboard larger vessels on more violent bodies of water, I encountered storms of vastly different proportions.  With stronger winds and larger waves, and covering a much greater surface area, these storms were not simply local squalls but formed substantial parts of the global weather system.  They raged not just for hours but for days and sometimes for a week and more. Even long afterwards, they remain memorable: aboard the Rigel and the Waccamaw in the Mediterranean, on the Mercury in the Caribbean, the State of Maine and the Victoria in the North Atlantic, the Comet in the North Pacific, and the most violent voyage of all, aboard the Wilkes in the far North Atlantic.

While each of these is a good case in point, the rough ride on the Wilkes north of Scotland is perhaps the most illustrative.  With wind speeds of 75 knots and more—hurricane force—and wave heights ranging from 25 to 40 feet, the ship pitched and rolled without letup.  Waves crashed over the foredeck continuously.  Walls of spray threw themselves over the entire superstructure.  As soon as the ship emerged from one wave with water hurriedly draining over the side, the next one would hit and drench the vessel again.  The repeated onrush of water coupled with the constant and extreme pitching, rolling, and yawing motions of the ship made for a memorable but exhausting voyage.  A scan of the horizon through binoculars from the bridge revealed an angry ocean with waves so mountainous that their crests collapsed under themselves and turned to masses of blowing and bubbling foam on the wave tops.  Endless rows of such waves marched inexorably toward the Wilkes, and as they arrived they lifted the little ship high up on their crests and then plunged her down into their troughs and covered her with a rush of violently churning water.  Occasionally waves would break over the Wilkes’ bow, and the descending pile of water crashing down onto the foredeck would cause the entire hull to shudder and lurch and twist  under the enormous weight.  But then the bow, being lighter than the water, would leap upwards again.  As the torrents of seawater then poured overboard, the next wave would strike and the cycle would be repeated.  This continued day after day and night after night until the passing time became a blur.

By comparison, the squall that blew the Justine off course on the Great South Bay was not so bad.  Put in perspective, the wave trains that assaulted the Wilkes would completely obliterate the low-lying and sandy South Shore of Long Island.  But just as the squall that caught the Justine did not give cause for fright, neither did the storms that caught the larger vessels in subsequent years.

When I was a little boy aboard the Justine, I relied on my parents to take care of me, and they did.  As an adult aboard the Wilkes and other ships, I was more self-reliant and better educated in the ways of ships and the sea.  A knowledge of meteorology, oceanography, shipboard stability, and heavy weather shiphandling forms an important part of the Merchant Marine license exams.  These are subjects which every Master and mate must know.  I had studied them in preparation for the exams, and I used them daily aboard ship.  Understanding how the weather works, how the ocean works, and how a ship reacts to the weather and water enables one to take the elements in stride and realize that rough voyages are normal.  Furthermore, the Wilkes and her fleet mates were well maintained vessels.  All the ships of our fleet were structurally sound with positive stability and full watertight integrity.  Despite the occasional grumbling of the practitioners at sea for the administrators ashore, our fleet was well run and properly maintained.  So again, I had no reason to be frightened.    

As an old proverb holds, knowledge is indeed the key to understanding, and understanding frees one from fear.  As a child aboard the Justine, I knew that my parents would take care of me no matter what happened.  I understood their love and concern for me, and so I knew I was safe.  Aboard the Wilkes and other vessels in rough weather, I knew how the forces of nature operated and why the sea and the ships upon it behaved as they did.  I understood the laws of physics, and so I knew I was safe.

But there remains one more factor.  Because I have studied the scriptures, I have learned the fullness of the Gospel.  I know that I am a child of a Heavenly Father who loves me, cares about me, and wants me to return to him after my earthly voyages are complete.  I understand that I entered this life at his bidding, and that I will enter the next life at his bidding, too.  I further understand that no matter how extreme the storms of this life become, God will take care of me, both here and in the hereafter.  I can trust his infinite wisdom and love, which supersede both natural parental love and the laws of physics, and so I have no reason to be frightened.

The awestruck and perhaps frightened psalmist prayed, “Thou rulest the raging of the sea” (Ps. 89:9), but I think the Lord’s angel said it best:  “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy…” (Luke 2:10).

The Pier Head Jump

Once in a while, there is a great, big, mad rush to join a ship. Someone on a ship thousands of miles away gets sick, or he quits, or he dies, or something else happens. Then, the powers that be back in the home office must scramble to find a replacement and somehow get him to the ship. Usually this rush job comes after too many months of shore leave—in other words, unemployment—and the guy receiving the phone call accepts the assignment because he’s desperate to go back to sea. So on ten seconds’ notice, he packs his bags, leaves his family, joins a ship, and spends innumerable months traipsing across the world’s oceans because he’s deathly afraid that if he dares to take another vacation he won’t be able to get another ship again afterwards. So much for job security!

In the old days, a pier head jump was just that. A seaman would be recruited from a union hall, a park bench, or even from his own home, and sent by taxi to join a ship locally. If the ship was still at the pier, he just walked up the gangway. If the ship had already left, the new guy could jump off the pier onto a waiting tugboat, or possibly the pilot boat, and be delivered to the ship before it got too far away. Since the advent of the jet aircraft, however, the phrase has taken on a more figurative meaning.

Loosely speaking, I made something of a pier head jump many years ago. Overall, it fit this description pretty well, except that I did have some advance notice. That gave it the added measure of the hurry-up-and-wait syndrome. In the shipping business this is also known as the I-can’t-believe-they’re-doing-this-to-me situation. Among the seamen’s families it’s called the time-for-these-guys-to-take-up-different-work-ashore.

I picked up my new license as second mate at the Coast Guard office in Boston on Monday, March 29, 1982. That was such a happy occasion! Two days later, I called the crewing office in Bayonne, New Jersey, and told Mr. W. that I had passed the exams and gotten the license and was ready to return to sea. I had been home for three months since leaving the Victoria, and it was now time to go. When I had left the Victoria, it was with the understanding that I would spend two to three months working on the next license and then ship out again right after that was finished. Mr. W. remembered, took everything down, and promised to get back to me.

The following week I called Mr. W. again. Things were really slow, he told me. Wouldn’t I like to spend some more time at home? Well, I did have some work to do on the house, painting and carpentry and related items. So I stayed put a little longer, and then a little longer, and still a little longer. By the beginning of May, I was starting to feel desperate. Then the word came. Mr. W. had five ships that would soon need second mates. In the meantime, I could come into the office, get my medical checkup done, go to small arms school and refresher firefighting training, and then get ready to ship out. That sounded good, so I accepted the offer.

It felt great to get back on the payroll again. Unfortunately, it lasted only two weeks. Towards the end of May the five ships that needed second mates had somehow disappeared. With no realistic prospects for shipping out anytime soon, I returned to Nashua and took a janitorial job with General Floor Service, Incorporated, for the purely practical purpose of acquiring an income. Anything to fend off destitution, I thought. In retrospect, I wonder if this is what Isaiah meant by “the bread of adversity” (Isa. 30:20).

My new job started on June 1, the day after the Memorial Day weekend. I had a brand new license as second mate of steam and motor vessels of any gross tonnage on any ocean which I was very anxious to use, and there I was vacuuming carpets, waxing floors, and dumping garbage for a living! But it paid good hard cash which I desperately needed. And sure enough, a week after I started this new career, I received a phone call from the office in Bayonne.

This time it was Mr. A. The Waccamaw needed a new third mate. Was I interested? Of course I was! Then the stalling started. Mr. A. wasn’t sure about just when or where the other guy wanted to leave the ship, and the ship’s schedule was constantly changing, and he wanted to give me the job, but I might have to go on really short notice, and he didn’t know if I could do that because I lived so far away in New Hampshire, but he would keep in touch and let me know what developed, etc., etc., etc. I didn’t tell Mr. A. this, but I didn’t believe a single word of what he said. Remembering the five ships that needed second mates and then mysteriously disappeared, I told Mr. A. about my new job. I explained that my finances were such that I could not quit and go into Bayonne on a lark. I wanted to ship out again, yes, but I simply could not give up even a menial job unless he really and truly had a ship for me. Until that became absolutely certain, I needed to continue cleaning floors and emptying trash. In other words, Mr. A. needed to face reality and treat this situation seriously.

While Mr. A. thought about this, I continued working for General Floor Service. I did the after-hours shift, from 5:30pm to 1:30am five nights a week at the Digital Equipment Corporation’s two big buildings in Merrimack, New Hampshire. In all fairness, this job was enjoyable, at least up to a point. I did not have any serious responsibility; I simply did as I was told. I did not supervise anyone, so I did not need to deal with personnel problems. If someone came to work drunk, or didn’t come to work at all, or came to work and didn’t work, well, it wasn’t my problem! At the same time, though, I had no desire to make a career of the janitorial business. I really wanted to go back to sea. After all, that was my chosen profession.

After a couple of weeks, Mr. A. called back. He needed me to come into the office. When did he need me? “Well, you really should have been here yesterday,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I replied, “but I can’t help you with that.” Privately I wondered, what is going on here? Why would anyone call and tell me today that he needs me yesterday? In the discussion that followed it came out that I had a choice of flying to Greece yesterday and joining the Waccamaw in Soudha Bay on the north coast of Crete, or flying to Italy and joining the ship in Augusta Bay on the east coast of Sicily a few days from now. The third possibility was that I would go to Soudha or maybe another location not yet known and join the ship there, either before or after she went to Augusta. Whatever the logistics, it started to seem definite that I would finally ship out soon. Given these choices, I opted for Augusta. I had been there before on the Rigel. I knew the place, and it was easier to get to than Soudha.

I gave my notice—very short notice, too—at General Floor Service. Not fully believing that I would soon return to sea, I stayed on the new job until the last minute. On Monday afternoon, June 21, I reported for my final shift. I finished at 1:30am Tuesday, the 22nd. After a few hours’ sleep, Miss Patty and I left Manchester, New Hampshire, at 6:45am on Bar Harbor Airlines. We arrived at New York LaGuardia at 8:25am. My parents met us there with a car.

Without any delay, I drove to Bayonne and checked in at the company offices. Miss Patty accompanied me. She had grown accustomed to having me home, and after six months she felt reluctant to see me go away again. But the Waccamaw would arrive in Augusta tomorrow morning, and I absolutely needed to leave tonight in order to join her. I spent my time in the office taking care of paperwork, airline tickets, and a brief interview with the Port Captain. The atmosphere there was of a rush job being done at a snail’s pace. A hurried phone call from the supervisor got the snails going: “This mate’s gotta fly out tonight to meet a ship!! We gotta get him processed right away!! He’s gonna need airline tickets!! Tell those guys in the travel section they can’t take a two-hour lunch today!!!”

Afterwards, we went back home to the family headquarters on Long Island. I was booked on a TWA flight that was scheduled to leave JFK for Rome at about 7:00pm. Happily, then, the family, including my grandfather, had part of the afternoon together before it became time to leave for the airport.

My father drove me into JFK along with my mother and Miss Patty. I had not thought of this before, but June 22 was the tourist season and everyone was traveling. The TWA building was a madhouse. I joined the mob to check in for my flight. Then a security agent approached me and asked where I was going. When I told him “Rome,” he said “Oh, you’re okay, then.” And he moved on to the next passenger. Looking around out of curiosity, I saw that this mob of people was really two check-in lines for two flights merged together. The other flight was bound for Israel. All the passengers going there were having their suitcases opened and searched right in the middle of the concourse. The floor of the terminal building was covered with opened and spilled luggage being sifted through by travellers and security guards on their hands and knees. The place was a mess!

With my check-in complete and a boarding pass in my hand, the four of us went upstairs to the waiting area by the gate through which I would soon leave. This spot was much calmer and quieter than the concourse downstairs. In those days, family members and friends could accompany travellers right up to the gate. Also, there were still large windows of clear glass in the waiting areas, so we could see the airplane when it arrived and parked at the gate. When the time came, we said our good-byes. My wife and parents watched as I walked down the corridor to the waiting 747. Then they went their way as I went mine. None of us had any idea when we would see each other again.

Once aboard the aircraft I found my way to my assigned seat, on the aisle but in the interior cluster of seats, not next to a window, and in the smoking section. I had been hoping to sleep as the plane crossed the Atlantic. As the other passengers came aboard, though, I began to realize that sleep would be unlikely. The level of jovial conversation and raucous laughter among all these people who were obviously going away on vacation rose to a dull roar and remained there except for during taxiing and takeoff. A carnival atmosphere prevailed. Dinner and duty-free shopping only added to the festivity. I became convinced that I was the only passenger who was there for work and not frivolity! Somehow I did doze off for a little while, but by the time the aircraft landed in Rome, I felt exhausted.

In the early daylight hours of Wednesday, June 23, the 747 landed at the big airport near Rome. On disembarking I felt very disconcerted. I was accustomed to crossing the Atlantic in ten days, not in less than ten hours! To be in another country with a different language, culture, monetary system, and time zone after a mere overnight journey was just too much! In a daze, then, I walked through the airport, fully able to read all the directional signs in Italian. I needed first to present my passport to a customs official, and then find my connecting flight to Catania on Alitalia. It seemed simple enough, and as I awakened more it became even simpler. I realized then that there were directional signs in English as well as Italian!

In the Alitalia terminal I met three unlicensed seamen who were also going to the Waccamaw. One was an engine room mechanic, loud and outspoken about everything; another was a steward’s utilityman from Puerto Rico who spoke little English; the third was an able seaman, Glenn Best, an older black gentleman who would turn out to be one of the finest men I ever sailed with. He was intelligent and industrious, and also calm and level-headed in all situations. We had all been on the TWA 747 from New York but did not know it. No one in Bayonne had said anything about traveling companions. In mid-morning we boarded an Alitalia DC-9 for the 45-minute flight to Sicily. This time I had a window seat, and the scenic highlight of the journey was circling the famous Monte Etna before landing on the plains of Catania.

At the small airfield near Catania we collected our luggage, went through an informal customs inspection, and engaged a taxi driver to bring us to Augusta. This was an exciting ride, dodging the chaotic Sicilian traffic amid the Sicilian hills. We anticipated that our taxi driver would deliver us directly to the Waccamaw at the oil docks across the bay from the medieval city of Augusta. Cresting the last hill on the outskirts of town at about 1:30pm, we beheld a panoramic view of the city and the entire bay before us. As the taxi started rushing downhill, our driver, in a moment of exhilaration, took both his hands off the steering wheel, spread his arms wide, and exclaimed, “Ahghooostah!!!” It was indeed a beautiful view, but one thing was missing. The Waccamaw was not in port.

We looked vainly in every direction including out to sea, but the Waccamaw simply was not there. We had come all this way for nothing! On arrival at the oil docks the taxi driver asked the dock workers about the ship. Some animated discussion in rude Sicilian followed. Finally, he said he would bring us to the harbor master’s office in the city. There were people there who could fix things up.

We rode along the shoreline around the north side of the bay, through the old city gate and winding narrow streets to the harbor master’s office on the waterfront. Making inquires in bad Italian and not much better English, we were asked to wait a few minutes while the man in charge looked into things. The outspoken engine room mechanic in our group had become quite agitated, perhaps almost panic-stricken, by the Waccamaw’s absence, and it showed in this interval. Glenn and I tried to calm him down, but to little avail. After what seemed like a long wait, someone came out and spoke with us. He explained that the Waccamaw had indeed been due in port that morning, but some unscheduled operational requirements had delayed her. Instead, the ship would arrive at the pilot station at 9:00am tomorrow. This man seemed puzzled and surprised that we had been sent so early to meet the ship. Didn’t the support staff in Bayonne know where the ship was? Wasn’t the home office was in daily communication with the fleet?

With little to do but wait for our ship to come in, we retired to a nearby waterfront café. The other three fellows went indoors. I lounged outside in the warm Mediterranean sunshine with all our luggage, including my sextant in its mahogany box. As the lone licensed officer in the group, I felt responsible for handling this situation wisely, and I did not want any luggage to disappear while everyone was eating and drinking. After a while Glenn Best came outside and relieved me. After some refreshment, three of us took a walk around the town while the engine room fellow minded the luggage. It was siesta time and the city was fairly quiet. Most of the shops were closed, but we found a money changer who was open. When we told him we were waiting for the Waccamaw, he jumped up from his table, danced gleefully around the room in circles, and shouted excitedly, “Wacaamaw!! Waccamaw!! Waccamaw!!” It was quite a sight.

Back at the café, someone from the harbor master’s office met us with a taxi. We were to be lodged in a fancy hotel on one of the hills just north of the city, and the taxi would deliver us. The next day, the taxi would return for us and bring us to the ship. What great service! And even better, it was free! The taxi, the hotel, and the meals would all be billed to our employer through the harbor master’s office.

So away we went in an air-conditioned Mercedes-Benz taxi—an unprecedented luxury—out through the old medieval gate and into the Sicilian hills. I felt quite relaxed about everything by now. Someone else had taken responsibility for our plight, and we were being housed and fed instead of being left to languish on a wharf. Then the one embarrassing and unpleasant moment of the day took place. Our steward’s utilityman from Puerto Rico who spoke little English started antagonizing the taxi driver in Spanish, which he understood, although he replied in Italian, which our crewmate understood. The rest of us didn’t know enough of either language to follow the conversation, but the tones of voice became increasingly obnoxious. Finally, the driver had enough. Banging his fists against the steering wheel, he shouted in fairly good English, “Dat’s enough!! No more!! I no wanta understand no more!! You got it?!” At this outburst our crewmate had the good sense to sit back and shut up, for which the rest of us were grateful.

At the hotel the steward’s utilityman and the engine room mechanic shared one room while Glenn Best and I shared another. They went their way and we went ours. Glenn and I took dinner together, a big buffet in the hotel dining room. This was very pleasant. He was good company and we got along very well. He was old enough to be my father, yet with my license I could be his boss. These social disparities evaporated in an atmosphere of mutual respect and courtesy, though. If only life could always be this way!

Being by this time overtired but well-fed, I slept very soundly that night. Promptly at six o’clock the next morning, I awoke to racket of a cat fight outside our hotel room window. These were not women, but real cats viciously screeching and howling at each other. It was Thursday, June 24, and the new day was announcing itself. At breakfast, a hotel clerk informed us that our taxi driver would come for us at 10:30am. He took us directly from the hotel to the oil docks. We watched as the Waccamaw arrived, behind schedule again, at 12:00 noon. It felt really good to finally see her! At 6:00pm the Rigel, also behind schedule, arrived and tied up directly across the pier from the Waccamaw.

I relieved the outgoing third mate and got to work promptly that afternoon. At ten o’clock the next morning, Friday the 25th, the Waccamaw sailed from Augusta bound initially for Port Said, Egypt. While this itinerary would change within 24 hours, the impressions made by my recent experiences would not.

The scriptures tell us, “We have learned by sad experience” (D&C 121:39). Three months of delays, empty promises, stalling, should-have-been-here-yesterday, and hurry-up-and-wait before finally getting a ship are not readily forgotten. I initially agreed to stay on the Waccamaw for six months, but I remained for thirteen, three as third mate and ten as second mate, until July 22, 1983. During this time she sailed the Mediterranean, transatlantic, coastwise, and the Caribbean, and underwent a shipyard overhaul in Norfolk. Like many mates before me, I feared never shipping out again if I took a vacation. After more than a year, though, I really needed a break. I could have returned to the Mediterranean with the Waccamaw, but having had enough for a while, I opted to finally go on vacation instead. This time vacation worked out much better. After three months ashore and no delays, I shipped out again aboard the Comet on October 28.

The Signing of the Paperwork

The freighter Rigel swung on the hook in the anchorage of La Maddalena on a warm and sunny Tuesday, June 12, 1979. Situated just off the north shore of Sardegna and adjacent to the Strait of Bonifacio which separates Sardegna from Corsica, the small archipelago of La Maddalena served as an American military station for many years. The Rigel used the secluded anchorage there on several occasions to transfer cargo to other ships. On this particular day, she was sending pallets of food and supplies by both helicopter and boat to the Navy freighter San Diego.

This operation filled several hours from late morning to mid-afternoon. No one could go ashore, but no one really minded. The weather was beautiful, the scenery was gorgeous, and sailboats laden with pretty Italian girls came along to see what was going on. Besides, the Rigel was due in Napoli for an extended visit the next morning, and the crew would have a good time then. When the lengthy cargo transfer at La Maddalena was completed, the Rigel closed her hatches, weighed her anchor, and set a course eastward. Just as the watch was settling into what was expected to be a routine overnight crossing of the Tyrrhenian Sea toward Napoli, the supply officer burst onto the bridge in a panic.

“We have to go back!! We forgot something very important!!” He exclaimed in a rush to Captain Viera. He held a jumbled sheaf of paperwork in his hands, and he held it out supplicatingly to the Captain. More explanation followed. The bottom line was that a signature was missing. The head honcho in La Maddalena had neglected to sign a critically important item of paperwork, and the Rigel absolutely must return to the anchorage so he could do this. The way the supply officer described things, it sounded like the entire American military establishment would cease to function without this one signature! His explanations were confirmed by the shoreside military authorities over the radio. Like it or not, the ship had to go back.

And so Captain Viera gave the order and the Rigel reversed her course to return to the anchorage. The engineers were instructed to stand by for maneuvering, and the anchor detail was sent back up to the bow. Word of what was happening spread around the ship quickly. There was no end to the incredulity at the notion of going to all this trouble for a mere signature. Captain Viera expressed no such opinion; the look on his face said it well enough. A very disciplined man, he rarely showed emotion in front of his subordinates. He simply did what had to be done.

After a short while, the Rigel slowed as she approached the entrance to the anchorage. A small Navy launch emerged from behind one of the islands and headed for the ship. The Rigel stopped without anchoring as the launch came alongside. A visibly shaken figure stepped forth from the launch and awkwardly climbed the pilot ladder to the Rigel’s main deck. The supply officer met him as he clambered on board, and a hurried signing of paper took place. Then the man retreated back down the pilot ladder, and finally the launch whisked him off again to La Maddalena. The crisis was now resolved! With all this accomplished, Captain Viera for the second time turned the Rigel around, and the bridge watch for the second time set a course across the Tyrrhenian Sea for Napoli.

When the excitement had settled down, several men in the crew gave themselves over to philosophical discussions of what was important in life and what wasn’t. Inspired by the time, effort, and expense invested by the Rigel to acquire one signature, these fellows asked the obvious question. Just how important could this one signature really be? Was it really worth all the time, effort, and expense invested in getting it? Aren’t there much more important things in life than a scrawl on a sheet of paper? Of course there are, but some signatures really are important. The signatures of the Coast Guard officials on the Merchant Marine licenses are critically important; without them the licenses are worthless and not valid for employment. The signatures of the shipmasters in the seamen’s sea service books are also critically important; without them the records are invalid for qualifying to take the next level of license exams. But licenses and jobs were not at stake in La Maddalena. It was really nothing more than a bureaucratic obsession run amok.

For those of us who were young and impressionable at the time, the signing of the paperwork was an opportunity to “learn wisdom in [our] youth” (Alma 37:35) by observing the actions and decisions of others. Everything in life has an importance greater than or lesser than everything else in life. Simply put, everything is relative. On this informal scale, we all concurred that one signature on paperwork that would soon be relegated to the dustbin of bureaucracy was not worth the ink expended on it, let alone the time, effort, and expense of recalling the Rigel for it.

Three years later the view from another ship in the Mediterranean made this little affair seem all the more ridiculous.

On July 6 and 7, 1982, the Waccamaw and numerous other American ships stood off the coast of Lebanon. This time the weather was overcast, the scenery was drab, and there were no sailboats with pretty girls. The war between the Lebanese and the Israelis was reaching its climax with Israeli troops and ammunition wreaking havoc on Beirut. Many buildings in the city were being destroyed. Many innocent civilians, including defenseless women and children, were being killed. The United States Navy and Marine Corps were standing by a few miles offshore of Beirut, waiting to land and intervene in the combat, should the government find such action necessary.

A small armada supported this contingency. There were naval combatants, troop carriers, and several supply ships and tankers. Of these last, the Waccamaw, the Neosho, the Caloosahatchee, and the Seattle were uncomfortably fully loaded with oil and within sight and therefore weapons range of Beirut. Several amphibious attack vessels, fully loaded with Marines, took turns coming alongside the Waccamaw and the other tankers to refuel. These were sober moments. Looking across the water at the Marines, we wondered what would happen to them. We also wondered what would happen to ourselves. Hopefully nothing. Still, one well aimed missile from someone seeking to escalate the conflict by causing trouble with the Americans, or even one errant missile homing in on the wrong target, could have easily resulted in a cataclysmic destruction of shipping and horrific loss of life. Even Captain Aspiotis’ perennially cheerful and optimistic outlook was dampened by this thought.

On Thursday, the 8^th of July, the Waccamaw was detached from this assignment. Her work with the Beirut fleet concluded after only two days, she headed west toward Napoli, her crew heaving a collective sigh of relief. The other tankers remained in the area, as the war continued unabated, and the Navy and Marines continued to stand by. News accounts from European radio stations kept us informed on the progress of the war. While none of this news was good—it was mostly a litany of death and destruction—at least no American intervention took place. It could have been worse, then.

In quiet moments later on, I began to view these two occasions in relation to each other. This juxtaposition of the Rigel at La Maddalena and the Waccamaw off Beirut yielded an opposition, that of the frivolous and the momentous. One was a triumph of trivia over reason, the other a time of momentous stillness; one a comic farce, the other a potential disaster; one a signature, the other a war. Father Lehi advised his son that “it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11) and these two occasions contrast sufficiently to prove his point. Saint Augustine also recognized the principle of opposition and saw it as natural to the human condition:

The soul. . .takes greater delight if things that it loves are found or restored to it than if it had always possessed them. The storm tosses seafarers about, and threatens them with shipwreck: they all grow pale at their coming death. Then the sky and the sea become calm, and they exult exceedingly, just as they had feared exceedingly.

Perhaps Saint Augustine used this example because he himself had sailed on the Mediterranean between Europe and Africa. Whatever his motivation, I appreciate his articulation of the principle of opposition in terms congruent with my chosen profession. In the case of the Waccamaw off Beirut, the threat was not from any force of nature, but from a strictly human storm. And it was not really an explicit threat, but more an implicit understanding of what could happen—based on knowledge of what sometimes has happened—to neutrals in a war zone. Hence the feeling of apprehension among the crew while there, and the feeling of relief when sailing away afterwards.

One comparison invites another. As important as a signature may be on a Merchant Marine license or a record of sea service for the purpose of career advancement, this pales alongside the killing of innocent civilians by an invading army. To those of us aboard ship who were young and ambitious and anxious about upgrading our licenses, the war in Lebanon became a clarion call to look at the world view. We were fortunate to be able to sweat blood over license exams instead of shedding blood in an armed conflict. There were worse fates than not making it to Master or Chief Engineer!

The battle in Beirut took place thirty years ago, and the paper chase at La Maddalena three years before that. With twenty-twenty hindsight, I see these two occasions as painless ways to gain life experience, to learn from the mistakes of others, and to acquire wisdom at someone else’s expense. It’s not always that easy; life experience, wisdom, and understanding often come at a terrible price. Later in life I would pay a higher price, but in the Mediterranean those two summers it was easy for me to watch and learn and heed the scriptural admonition to “Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding” (Proverbs 4:5, 7).

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¹ St. Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions, 8:3:7, in The Confessions of St. Augustine, tr. Msgr. John K. Ryan, Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1960, p. 185. ²

Money For the Gods

The Rigel spent the summer months criss-crossing the Mediterranean.  Upon that great inland sea of the Roman Empire, she hauled cargo after cargo to seaport after seaport on a seemingly unending series of short voyages that covered relatively few miles but touched on a wide range of cultures and nationalities.  One of the most fascinating bodies of water in the world, the Mediterranean, the Mare Nostrum of the ancient Romans, held the promise of both something old and mysterious and something new and mysterious at every turn.  A battleground for many centuries of human history, the great Mediterranean was fought over by the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome as well.  Just as the civilizations that the ancients established have never become completely extinct, neither have their deities.  On the contrary, they found an admirer aboard the Rigel.

James James had come aboard the Rigel in Norfolk.  A colorful character, he sailed as second mate.  With his disheveled shoulder-length mop of salt-and-pepper hair, his food-stained gray beard, his freshly wrinkled grease-stained khakis, and his ever-present cigar that jutted out from his brown teeth, James James looked every inch the professional American Merchant Marine officer.  Originally from the Pamlico Sound shoreline of North Carolina, he had studied physics and engineering at Harvard University, and shortly after graduation decided to go to sea.  Aboard the Rigel, he was regarded as the smartest man on the ship.  This was a fitting accolade, for he really was extremely intelligent.  He had been educated in both the sciences and the humanities, was conversant in several languages, and could read Greek and Latin.  He also maintained lively interests in history and classical music.  On long bridge watches he would often hum the great symphonic masterpieces to himself.  Much of this music was religious in nature, yet religion was a subject that he wrote off as complete nonsense.  In an ironic twist of character, then, James James would entertain himself with Handel’s Messiah or Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, and simultaneously mutter about the folly of the human race in inventing something as ridiculous as religion.

But he did do one thing religiously.  As the primary navigational officer aboard the Rigel, James James was always very concerned about the state of the weather.  In addition to depending on the scientific methods of forecasting the weather, he relied on a very ancient practice of ensuring good weather for the Rigel’s voyages.  Essentially, he bought good weather.

Almost daily, James James would stride across the wing of the bridge, gaze fiercely upon the sea, extract several coins from his pockets, and with great drama throw them overboard.  The coins would catch the wind and tumble edge over edge into the water making small but distinct splashes.  They would be left behind to sink to the bottom of the Mediterranean as the Rigel plowed inexorably on to her next destination.  This small sacrifice having been made, the ship would enjoy smooth sailing through a calm sea under a sunny sky for the next day or two.  Then it would be time once again to render another payment unto the gods in order that the good weather and the smooth sea would continue.

When asked about this practice, James James was always happy to explain.  He would hold forth on the necessity of appeasing the gods for good weather for the safety of the ship and its crew.  But, he would always add, one had to do this intelligently or else it wouldn’t work.

“The gods are very particular,” he taught.  “You need to give them something, but you don’t want to throw in too much.  A few lire, a few pesetas, a few escudos, some drachmas.  You can even give them some American money, but nothing over half a buck or they’ll think you’re trying to buy them out, and they don’t like that.  They’ll get mad at you then, and they’ll send you bad weather instead of good.  But don’t throw in too little, either.  Then they’ll think you’re a cheapskate.  The gods are very sensitive that way.”

“What gods?” Someone challenged him once.  “You don’t even believe in God.  Why do you do this?”

“This is different,” James James retorted.  “The safety of the ship is at stake.”

This point made an impression.  Thereafter it became common to see one or two other fellows thoughtfully tossing coins into the water as well.  None followed this practice as religiously as James James, although one did come close.  That was Schnickelfritz, the cadet.  He was a student at the New York State Maritime College and was assigned to the Rigel for the summer for his apprenticeship.  James James worked closely with this young man to teach him the ways of the sea, and the financial appeasement of the gods formed an important part of his training.  Often on overcast mornings, James James and sometimes Schnickelfritz as well would dutifully throw a handful of coins overboard.  Within an hour, the clouds would part, the sky would become a clear blue, and the sun would shine down upon the Rigel for the rest of the day.  When this happened repeatedly, it went a long way toward convincing a largely uneducated crew of the brilliance of James James’ methods.

Captain Viera, however, was not fooled by any of it.  He was every bit as intelligent as James James, and he believed in God—not the Roman gods or the Greek gods, but the real God.  He watched and smiled as his conscientious second mate threw several coins overboard one sunny and clear afternoon.  “This poor guy!” He exclaimed, laughing.  “He’s throwing all his money into the water.  We’d better have good weather now, or all that money will be wasted!”

The Rigel did enjoy good weather that summer, but not because of James James’ contributions to the gods.  The fact is that the Mediterranean is a mild body of water.  Storms only occasionally arise, and they are short in duration.  The Rigel experienced once such storm.  It was intense, but it was over quickly.  When asked how this could happen after all the money he had donated to the gods, James James exclaimed, “I must have thrown in too much!  Now they’re mad at me!  I’ll have to give them less next time!”  And he did.  After the storm subsided, he went out on the leeward bridge wing, carefully counted out some coins, and tossed them overboard.  The rest he put back in his pocket.  Never make the same mistake twice.

            James James’ protégé, Schnickelfritz, continued to be intrigued by this practice, however.  One weekend the Rigel lay idle at a pier in Napoli with no cargo to move and almost no work for the crew to do.  Several of us decided to ride the train up to Rome early Saturday morning for a weekend visit.  On the way, the weather looked very unattractive for a day of sightseeing.  As the train got closer to Rome, the sky became increasingly dark and threatening.  Then it started to rain lightly.  Finally, as the train reached the outskirts of Rome, Schnickelfritz decided that he should do something about the situation.  Opening a window, he withdrew several lire coins from his pocket and flung them outside and onto the adjacent railroad tracks.  The rest of us watched and waited.  After ten minutes at most, the train came out of the rain and overcast.  A bright blue and sunny sky opened up.  When the train arrived in Rome, not a trace of clouds or rain remained.  The rest of the day was gorgeous, and we wandered around Rome warm and dry.  James James’ method had triumphed again.

Of course, we all know that the rain stopped not because Schnickelfritz sacrificed money to the gods but because the train, travelling north, passed through and then out of a weather system that was situated south of Rome.  And of course, we all know that there’s a better way—tithing.  A very simple and straightforward principle, tithing carries with it the promise of blessings not from arbitrary and capricious gods who don’t exist but from a real God who loves and cares about his children.  Despite his obvious intelligence and his Ivy League education, James James unfortunately did not know this.  We who do know this, however, can depend on it.  

“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse,” we were instructed anciently, and then challenged: “and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it” (3 Nephi 24:10).  In more recent times, when this law of tithing was reactivated, the Lord further explained that “those who have thus been tithed shall pay one-tenth of all their interest annually; and this shall be a standing law unto them forever” (D&C 119:4).  So tithing will not go away, and neither will the blessings that follow from it.  In my own experience, these blessings have proved invaluable and have included basic but important things such as better employment, better budgeting, and better food storage.  Also, more abstractly, these blessings have included an improved and less materialistic outlook on life and a sense of satisfaction born of supporting a good cause, i.e., the Church and all that it does for people.

In all fairness to James James, I did not know any more about the law of tithing in my time aboard the Rigel than he did.  But I did realize that all that money sitting on the seabed did no one any good whatsoever.  He would never have given it to a church, of course, but if he insisted on throwing his money away, it would have made more sense to donate it to a secular charity where someone would have benefitted from it.  Money, after all, is like everything else in life.  No one has an infinite supply of it; therefore, it must be used wisely and not wasted.  Paying a full and honest tithe is the first step in the wise use of money.