A Seaman Transplanted From the Sea

No visit to Anchorage would be complete without stopping by the large railroad station at the northern edge of the downtown area.  This station, along with the adjacent shops, offices, and freight yard, constitute the headquarters of the Alaska Railroad.  My son James worked on this railroad for several years before transferring to his present employment on the White Pass and Yukon Route.   Despite this change, however, he retains fond memories of the Alaska Railroad, and these include meeting one of my former shipmates.

Captain James Edward James, Jr., originally of Manteo, North Carolina, sailed as second mate aboard the freighter Rigel in the summer of 1979.[i]  I was then a brand new third mate, and I had the interesting and entertaining experience of sailing with him.  To call him a character would be the height of understatement.  This was a middle-aged man who sported long and tangled gray hair with a matching tangled beard, wore a winter coat and hat in the summer heat, smoked horribly stinky cigars that dripped ashes on his clothes, threw money in the water to appease the gods for good weather, and had a ready pithy witticism to suit every occasion.  More importantly, he was a highly competent seafarer and recognizably an expert in celestial navigation and nautical astronomy.  Also, as he told me, he was a veteran of the United States Coast Guard and a graduate of Harvard University.  He read Greek and Latin to a considerable degree and was conversant in several modern European languages.  Aboard the Rigel with him, I sailed across the Atlantic, spent the summer crisscrossing the Mediterranean, and then returned to Norfolk.  After that, he went his way and I went mine.  We never met again, but I heard news about him through the fleet grapevine, including that he had successfully passed all the examinations and had received the unlimited Master’s license.

Thirty-five years later, in the winter of 2014, my son James met James James aboard the Alaska Railroad.  He was then living with a female companion “off grid” in the forest north of Anchorage, a region without roads, airfields, electricity, or plumbing, and accessible only by trains that stopped when hailed by people along the track.  James James would catch a southbound train at a trailhead in the woods near his home and ride it fourteen miles to Talkeetna, the nearest town where he could purchase food and supplies.  When his business there was finished, he would return home on a northbound train.

Having heard sea stories during his childhood and adolescence, my son James came to wonder if this passenger James James was the same man that I had sailed with many years previously.  His good-humored but eccentric behavior aboard the trains seemed consistent with my descriptions of him aboard ship.  Always traveling with a gun, he willingly rode in the baggage car because firearms were prohibited in the coaches.  Always tight-fisted with cash, he laughingly engaged the conductors in endless debates over the fare structure.  Boarding the train and later disembarking from it always involved a clown show of off-beat antics and charades.  Much of this nonsense, better appreciated by watching it than by reading about it, was filmed and featured in the television series Railroad Alaska.[ii]  James James thus became a star of the Alaskan interior as well as a star of the sea.  And my son was privileged to be a part of this!

One day, after consulting with me about this unique passenger, my son James identified himself to James James as the son of a former shipmate and told him specifically that I had sailed with him aboard the Rigel to the Mediterranean and back in 1979.  On receiving this information, James James became awestruck and thoughtful.  He stared off into the distance for a moment, and then quietly remarked, “Wow.  That was a lifetime ago.”

Thirty-five years later and thousands of miles away, the past had caught up to the present.  It was one of those sobering moments that provided much food for thought but left little to say.  Both James and James James continued on their railroad journeys, but not for very much longer.  Sadly, James James became ill and eventually died of lung cancer in August of 2016.  Known long and well by many of the railroad employees, his passing seemed to mark the end of an era, and he was both fondly remembered and sorely missed.  As my son James wrote to me:

His reputation lives on at the Alaska Railroad.  Current and former employees who knew him continue to talk about him.  Among newer employees, he lives on as a character of legends.  His debates on the fare structure and antics on boarding and disembarking are still talked (and laughed) about.  He even comes up at union meetings!

 

The only time I spoke to him and he did not have a ready response or witticism of some kind was that time I mentioned the Rigel.  I don’t think he ever expected his past to catch up with him on the train! That response came only after several seconds of thoughtful silence.  He must have liked and remembered you, though, because he and I got along great after that.  He always asked how “everyone in New Hampshire” was doing and was happy to hear good reports.  He was always friendly with all the train crews, but he never asked anyone else about their families.[iii]

I’m very thankful that my son had this unique experience of meeting and traveling with one of my former shipmates.  It gave us a common ground that transcended the ordinary father-son relationship.  On further reflection, though, what were the chances of such a meeting ever taking place?  How could anyone possibly have predicted this?  I’ve never placed any stock in such long-shot coincidences; they always seemed the stuff of pulp fiction, mere contrivances that never happened in real life.  But this one proved that sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.

Now, whenever I go to Anchorage, I stop by the Alaska Railroad Station downtown and smile inwardly as I think of my son James and my former colleague James James riding the rails together.  I don’t have any photographs of James James, but perhaps these two can serve as substitutes.  In the first, a train such as the ones he rode reposes at the downtown station before departing for points north on Friday, April 25, 2025:

Here, a street sign near my son’s house honors James James’ favorite star on Thursday, April 17.  In the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere in the spring and summer, Arcturus was always the first navigational star to become visible in the twilight following sunset.  As the Rigel sailed transatlantic, James James was always waiting with his sextant and stopwatch on the bridge wing at star time, ready for Arcturus to make its appearance.  He always started his round of stars with Arcturus, followed it up with three or four others, and then finished with Polaris.

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[i] I wrote about James James previously in “Money for the Gods,” published in February, 2011.

[ii] My son James and his passenger James James were featured in several episodes of Railroad Alaska, which was broadcast between 2013 and 2016.

[iii] Extract from an email sent by my son James to me on May 27, 2025.

Escape Fiction

In order to withdraw temporarily from the responsibilities, tensions, and sometimes boredom of everyday life, many people turn to such therapeutic pursuits as light reading, soothing music, or simple daydreaming.  A typical bus or train on its afternoon commuter run is filled with people reading books, listening to music, and staring out the window.  My own withdrawal takes a somewhat different form, but it still works very effectively.

My son Michael often wears a tee shirt bearing the slogan, “Keep calm, and imagine a place.”  Taking this counsel to heart, I not only imagine but remember many places to which I’ve traveled, and in my mind’s eye, I see them again and enjoy the pleasant memories of them.  One spot in particular returns frequently to mind, and I imagine spending a day off from work there.

Located on the North Shore of Long Island, Port Jefferson is a busy and picturesque municipality at one end of a beautiful natural harbor.  Shops, restaurants, a hotel, a park, and the ferry terminal fill the downtown area.  When the ferries are in port, they dominate the skyline and command the town’s attention.  Far larger than everything ashore combined, these vessels, like great works of art, naturally turn the eyes of pedestrians to themselves and compel those passing by to stop and stare at them.  On a busy day these ships arrive and depart hourly.  I’ve watched them for brief periods on a few occasions, but I’ve often thought that I could easily spend an entire day watching them come and go.  Until this opportunity presents itself, however, the thought of such a pleasant day serves as my escape fiction, as temporary relief from “the prosaic severity of the daily task that gives bread.”[1]

On this imaginary day off, I take the first train to Port Jefferson and arrive at 8:00am.  The station sits a mile and a quarter inland from the waterfront, about 25 minutes’ walk, mostly through a quiet residential neighborhood.  Traveling light, I carry only a small shoulder bag containing my camera, notebook, and picnic lunch.  At the docks, I get comfortable on the wooden pier in front of Danford’s Hotel and Marina and fire up the digital camera.  The Grand Republic is entering Port Jefferson Harbor through the inlet from the sound, and this grand event must be recorded.

On the summer schedule, each one-way voyage across the sound lasts an hour and a quarter.  An arriving vessel docks in Port Jefferson at fifteen minutes before each hour, takes fifteen minutes to offload and backload passengers and vehicles, and then departs on the hour.  In the case of the now arriving Grand Republic, she docks at 8:45am, sails at 9:00am, arrives in Bridgeport at 10:15am, and sails again at 10:30am.  This predictable schedule is followed precisely by the three ferries on the route.  In three hours, then, three different ships arrive at and depart from Port Jefferson, and after that the cycle repeats itself.

The Grand Republic slows as she gracefully approaches the dock.  To further check her progress and ensure a smooth landing, her engines are momentarily reversed, and a churning propeller wash gathers around her stern.  Gently, she touches the dock and is made fast.   With her bow doors now open, the ramp is set in place, and disembarkation begins.  The pier now becomes a beehive of activity.  A steady stream of vehicular traffic spills out of the ship and onto the streets which bear it away.  Pedestrians trailing suitcases on wheels go ashore from the stern gangway and fan out toward waiting taxis and bus stops.  A few cross East Broadway and set out for the railroad station.

When the exodus is complete, the process reverses itself.  The lineup of cars waiting on the pier now snakes its way aboard the ship and disappears into the cavernous cargo bay.  Pedestrians hike up the gangway.  A few moments later passengers gather on the upper decks to soak up the sun and take in the view.  The loading is done quickly and efficiently.  At precisely 9:00am the Grand Republic blows her whistle and backs away from the dock.  Propeller wash again churns up around the stern and along the sides of the ship.  When well clear of the pier, she turns and backs down to starboard.  The engines are now put ahead to propel her forward and to port.  When this maneuver is complete, the Grand Republic settles onto a north-northwesterly heading and proceeds along the channel, through the inlet, and out to the open sound.  Another voyage to Connecticut begins.

Watching the Grand Republic from Danford’s pier, I record her arrival and departure movements with my camera, jot down some observations in my notebook, and review a few points in the company brochure.  Built in 2003 in Florida, the Grand Republic measures 300 feet long by 52 feet wide, carries 120 automobiles and 1,000 passengers, and is the second ship to bear this name.  Her fleet mates, the Park City, named for the City of Bridgeport, and the P.T. Barnum, named for the circus entrepreneur who was also the first president of the ferry line, date to 1986 and 1998, respectively.  The P.T. Barnum matches the Grand Republic in dimensions and capacity.  The Park City, however, is slightly smaller at 280 feet in length and 47 feet in beam with a capacity of 95 vehicles and 1,000 passengers.[2]

Looking up again, I see the Park City herself now coming through the inlet.  As she slows and enters the sheltered harbor, I begin a new series of photographs and record this second arrival, discharge, reload, and departure sequence of the day.  In the fifteen minutes allotted for the task, the exchange of passengers and vehicles is completed.  Then, starting at precisely 10:00am, the Park City blows her whistle, backs away from the pier, and maneuvers her way across the harbor and through the inlet, bound once more for Connecticut.

The Park City is followed soon afterwards by the P.T. Barnum.  This third arrival, cargo handling, and departure cycle runs as smoothly and efficiently as the first two, and at 11:00am the P.T. Barnum begins her return voyage to Connecticut.  With the three ships of the fleet now come and gone in under three hours in the bright summer sunshine and photographed on their port bows and starboard quarters, it’s been richly rewarding morning.  Now it’s time for lunch.

Retiring to the small waterfront park in front of Danford’s Hotel, I pause at the statue of the merchant seaman that gazes seaward.  Few such likenesses of merchant seamen exist, and that makes this one all the more special.  On the statue’s pedestal John Masefield’s famous lines are inscribed:

I must [go] down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied.[3]

It’s always refreshing to know that someone else feels the same way about the sea as I do!

From the park I cross over to the ferry terminal building.  Finding it surprisingly quiet inside, I take a seat by one of the large windows that face seaward and eat my lunch as the Grand Republic returns to port.  She repeats the same sequence of arrival, cargo handling, and departure of three hours ago.  While splurging on chocolate ice cream for dessert, I make some notes in my book and photograph this grand ship from her starboard side, a different perspective from earlier today.  Then, with a noon blast on her whistle, she heads out once more for Connecticut.

I head out, too, for the nearby wooden dock of the Port Jefferson Marina, just to the west of the ferry pier.  From this new vantage point, I observe and photograph the arrivals and departures of the Park City and the P.T. Barnum with the new starboard bow perspective.  Next, the cycle begins anew with the return of the Grand Republic, now at close to 3:00pm.   The Park City and the P.T. Barnum come and go again, too, an hour and two hours later.  I move among a few viewing points in this time to get pictures of the ships from several angles.  Finally, with the P.T. Barnum passing through the inlet and sailing for Connecticut again shortly after 5:00pm, I reluctantly decide that it’s time to walk back to the railroad station.      

On the leisurely half-hour hike to the station, I contemplate the course of the day: three ships, nine arrivals and departures, excellent photographic opportunities, beautiful sunny and warm weather, and uninterrupted peace and quiet in a lovely little seaport where the land, sea, and sky converge harmoniously to inspire the mind and soothe the soul.  Port Jefferson proves to be the perfect place to spend an idle but productive day.  I learned this principle from the Italians in my Rigel and Waccamaw days.  The sweetness of doing nothing—dolce far niente—but spending the time well, even constructively and for a higher purpose.

I leave Port Jefferson on the train at 6:00pm.  The ride westward toward the city is pleasant but anticlimactic.  At some point along the way, I leave the realm of escape fiction and return to the workaday world and its daily grind.  My boss calls over to me.  It’s almost time to punch out and go home, he tells me, and then he asks if I’ve done everything on the list.  The day has gone by quickly!

Some well-meaning folks may chide me for my idle thoughts and seeming inattention to my work,  but I would counter with the classical Jewish teaching that holds:

the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee (1 Chron. 28:9).

I have long sought the Lord in both the vast reaches and the coastal shallows of the sea, and he has always been there for me.  Furthermore, he invites all of us:

Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me (D&C 88:63).

Whether aboard a ship at sea, along the harbor front, or in the memory and imagination of these locales, our thoughts, intentions, and spiritual yearnings are known to God, and he abides with us wherever and however we seek him.

Now for some photographs taken on real days off!  We start at the railroad station, where Port Jefferson's heritage of the sea is commemorated by the weather vane on the cupola.  This picture was taken on Friday, August 27, 2010.

Next we go to the wooden dock at Danford's Hotel and Marina.  This structure serves as an observation platform when we watch the fleet's arrivals and departures.  This view at low tide is from the stern of the Park City on Monday, September 11, 2013.

So close to the action!  In this sequence of photographs we witness the arrival of the Grand Republic on Friday, August 27, 2010.

 

 

Between ferries on the same day, we visit the park in front of Danford's Hotel.  This statue of a merchant seaman overlooks the waterfront.  I'm very pleased that Port Jefferson honors its maritime heritage and my chosen profession with this likeness of a young man of the sea.

 

Returning now to the fleet, we see traffic waiting to board the P. T. Barnum on Tuesday, May 27, 2013.

 

Finally, my favorite sequence of photographs.  The Park City backs away from her dock, turns around, and begins her voyage overseas to Connecticut on Wednesday, August 2, 2017.

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[1] Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1899, p. 6.

[2] Information from The Bridgeport and Port Jefferson Steamboat Company, available online at www.88844ferry.com.

[3] John Masefield, “Sea Fever,” in Salt-Water Ballads, New York: The MacMillan Company, 1913, p. 59; reprinted by BiblioBazaar, LLC., n.p., n.d.  My mother, a career educator in East Meadow, Long Island, taught this poem in several of her junior high school English literature classes.

Ships That Pass In the Night

Many times aboard many ships, during long and otherwise uneventful night watches, I sailed past other vessels going in the opposite or nearly opposite direction.  Except for their running lights, these other ships were often invisible in the total darkness that covered the water.  I could see their “blips” on the radar screen, and from these calculate their directions and speeds of travel.  Beyond this information, though, these vessels and their crews remained anonymous as they sailed under the cloak of darkness—unless a lonely mate, yearning for even some temporary human companionship, picked up the VHF radio and called up the mate of the other ship.  Then the time-honored inquiries of “What ship? Where bound?” would be posed and answered, and then followed by friendly conversation until the two vessels passed out of radio range.

A few such impromptu conversations stand out in memory even after so many years.  One night aboard the Waccamaw along the coast of Cuba, the mate on another American ship called me up.  After some preliminaries involving my course and speed and destination of Guantanamo Bay, he thanked me profusely for supporting the armed forces and helping to prevent the further spread of Communism in the Western Hemisphere.  A very friendly fellow, I think he would have talked to me all night long, but we both had work to do, and so we bade each other farewell.

Another night aboard the eastbound Comet in mid-Atlantic, the mate of an westbound ship called  me up.  In this otherwise empty stretch of ocean, we had plenty of time to chat, and we found that we had much in common.  He was a graduate of Fort Schuyler, about my own age, and through school and sailing knew many of the same guys that I did.  It was a pleasant opportunity to catch up on the news of where everyone was and what they were doing.  Then he went his way and I went mine, separated by only a few miles of seawater, but bound for opposite continents.

In these and numerous other inter-ship encounters, two people at random points in their voyages met briefly, spoke with each other cheerfully, and continued on their way.  Most likely they would not meet again.  Nonetheless, their chance meetings were happy occasions with uplifting conversations that enriched them both.  After all, “it is not good that man should be alone” (Gen. 2:18).

A similar scenario sometimes took place at harbor entrances, in both daylight and nighttime.  Two ships of the same fleet, one outbound and one returning, would meet in the channel or at the pilot station.  They could be, for example, the Rigel and the Pawcatuck meeting at the Chesapeake Bay entrance.  Even though busy with matters of arrival and departure, their Masters would take a moment to exchange a “Welcome home!” and a “Bon voyage!” and some collegial chit-chat over the VHF radio.  The common ground that they shared was palpable.  They worked for the same employer, sailed on the same ships, knew the same crews, did the same jobs, visited the same ports, ate the same food, and knew that they would meet again.

Implicit in all these ship-to-ship conversations was common ground.  Even if not employed by the same company, the participants shared the rigors of the sea and the life away from home.  They took sights of the same stars and endured the same rough weather.  They lived in similar lodgings, worked similar inconvenient schedules, and enjoyed similar dubious comforts.  In short, they understood one another without needing to say so.  It just came with the territory.

In a broader sense, entering and leaving life are a lot like entering and leaving port.  A newborn baby has a long voyage ahead of him, and an elderly person has a long voyage behind him.  When they meet at the harbor entrance, one setting out and one coming back, there is so much the one returning could tell the one heading out concerning what lies ahead on the open sea of life.  Yet with each one busy with the pressing matters of arrival and departure, the situation is simply not conducive to a lengthy and detailed analysis of the sea conditions.  Some aspects of the voyage the newcomer will just need to learn on his own.  Perhaps in mid-ocean a friendly mate on a passing ship will call up and chat with him, but that remains to be seen.

My mother, Justine Elizabeth Burns, entered Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, Long Island, on Christmas Day of 2017 at the age of 99, and was diagnosed with what the medical staff described as her final illness.  They gave her a few days to possibly a few weeks to live on home hospice care.  Mom said that she wanted to last long enough to see all her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren one more time.  With the meter thus ticking, the family rallied to her bedside.

In this last week of December, my oldest son flew in from Alaska; my youngest son drove down from New Hampshire; and my middle son, traveling by airplane and train with his pregnant wife, also arrived from Alaska.  With this young couple was their soon-to-be-born baby girl whom they would name Katherine Elizabeth.  Finally, on New Year’s Day, my daughter and her daughter, Miss Lydia Elizabeth, arrived by air from South America.  Faced with such an impromptu reunion, Mom’s joy was complete.

In several days filled with heartwarming moments, the most heartwarming but also bittersweet moments occurred between Mom and her two great-granddaughters.  She had of course seen Miss Lydia several times previously, but not Miss Katherine.  She was thus very pleased to meet Miss Katherine, in a sense, by placing her hand on the appropriate spot and feeling her kicking in the womb.  Awed by this little girl’s ability to make her presence known, Mom remarked on the miracle of life and the continuation of the family line.  It was truly a very special occasion for her.

Like two ships that pass in the night, and with neither running lights nor radar, Mom and Miss Katherine were completely invisible to each other, yet at least one of them knew that the other was there.  If they could have seen one another, what sights they would have beheld!  If they could have spoken with one another, what conversation would have passed between them!  Like inbound and outbound ships meeting at the pilot station, one was starting her life’s long voyage and the other concluding hers. If they could have called across the water to each other, what enthusiastic greetings they would have exchanged, and what wise counsel one would have imparted to the other!  Alas, it could not be.  As merchant seamen must do after an all-too-brief acquaintance, each had to go her separate way, one to return to Alaska and one to remain on Long Island.

All of Mom’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren likewise had to leave and return to their distant homes.  With her goal of seeing everyone achieved, the family anticipated that Mom’s long voyage would soon be finished.  But there was a delay.

On Wednesday, January 24, 2018, in Providence Hospital in Anchorage, Alaska, Miss Katherine Elizabeth emerged from the prenatal darkness and came into the light of the outside world.  Her great-grandmother, patiently awaiting the news of this blessed event, received the announcement happily and thankfully.  Soon afterwards, she saw the first photographs of Miss Katherine, transmitted to her bedside via cell phone.  Once again, Mom’s joy was complete.

Everyone’s attention now turned to little Miss Katherine.  As her cousin Miss Lydia had done two years previously, she  came down from Heaven—descendit de caelis[1]—to become part of our family.  We all bore a serious moral obligation to treat her well, provide for her properly, protect her from harm, and help her succeed in her new life.  That this new life was a miracle seemed self-evident, providing much food for serious thought and contemplation, yet leaving very little to say.  It seemed best, then, to maintain a reverent silence and pray for God’s blessings to accompany Miss Katherine always.

Just as we waited for Miss Katherine to finish her descent from Heaven and begin her earthly voyage, we now wait for Mom to finish her earthly voyage and begin her ascent into Heaven.  Exceeding the hospital staff’s estimated survival time, she displays no readiness to ring up “Finished with Engines” just yet.  She has already requested enlargements of Miss Katherine’s photographs.  She will keep these by her bedside along with Miss Lydia’s portraits, and she will gaze lovingly at these two most precious little baby girls’ images as she prays her daily Rosary for them.

Even if they never meet again in this life, Mom and Miss Katherine have already shared a very special time together.  With the common ground of family, which is “ordained of God,”[2] they met like two ships that pass in the night, unseen and unheard by each other, but probably more known and more loved by each other than the rest of us can imagine.

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[1] From the Nicene Creed; this translates as “He (or she) descended from the heavens.”

[2] “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, General Relief Society Meeting, September 23, 1995.

The Yacht Club

Situated on Unqua Point in the Nassau Shores neighborhood of Massapequa, Long Island, the yacht club provided berthing for a variety of small recreational sailboats and motorboats that spent their summers plying the protected and shallow waters of the Great South Bay.  Only one of these vessels could properly be called a yacht, though.  This was a broad-beamed, gaff-rigged, bowsprited New Englander, conspicuous for her size and design, and somewhat out of her element on the South Shore of Long Island.  We saw her frequently at the dock, but seldom underway.  At the time, I hardly gave it a thought, but my parents wondered about this boat as we sailed our diminutive Justine up and down the channel between Unqua Point and Karras Creek.

This channel was the thoroughfare that skirted the mud flats east of Massapequa and south of Amityville and led to comparatively deeper and more open water.  From Karras Creek, where my parents kept the Justine, it was a fairly short and easy sail to the open bay, if the wind was right.  When the wind didn’t work, we paddled.  Eventually, when my father got tired of paddling, he invested in a small outboard motor.  I was a small child then.  My father did not appreciate my powers of observation when one day I remarked that while the new motor broke down routinely, the old paddles always worked just fine.

We sailed on the Great South Bay from Karras Creek in the mid-1960s.  In the 1970s, my parents traded in their sailboat for a slightly larger Justine, and they berthed the new boat first in Lindenhurst and later in Babylon.  Aboard these vessels in my formative years, we sailed the bay from Massapequa to Heckscher State Park.  In my teen years, I decided that the bay was too small for me and yearned to sail on the open Atlantic.  Eventually I did this, but aboard vessels somewhat larger and more durable than the twenty-feet-long Justine.  In all my transoceanic travels, though, the memories of my childhood voyages remained with me, and I have returned to the Great South Bay many times.

On one such occasion, two of my sons accompanied me to Massapequa, and we visited both Karras Creek and Unqua Point.  This outing took place on Saturday, June 2, 2005.  Not surprisingly, forty years after my initial voyages aboard the Justine, many things had changed.  Karras Creek, Unqua Point, and the Great South Bay were of course all still there, but the neighborhood had been revamped.  Karras Creek abutted the Riviera, a waterfront party house used for weddings and other special occasions.  Back in the day, this was a large but humble and down-to-earth affair.  It has since been gentrified into a five-star, world-class venue complete with brick driveways, Belgian block curbing, and lavish landscaping.  Down the street at Unqua Point, the yacht club was completely gone.  In its place stood the new Nassau Shores Bayfront Park, a publicly owned facility with playground equipment, expansive lawns, and benches facing the water.  In its simplicity of design and with its expansive views of the bay, this new park was quite impressive.

My sons were not very impressed, though, either with the new facilities or the family’s connection with the old facilities.  I looked at it all philosophically.  In four decades, places and people do change. Just as the old waterfront neighborhood in Massapequa had undergone a metamorphosis, so had I.  Indulging my sons’ patience for a while, then, I gazed at the Great South Bay from the new park and found plenty of food for thought.

This was the place where my lifelong love of the sea had started.  I was six years old when my parents bought the Justine.  The bay was different then.  The water was cleaner and there was less traffic on it.  The mud and sand bottom teemed with clams ripe for the picking.  People were friendlier.  When boats sailed past each other, their crews waved and called out greetings.  If someone’s boat got in trouble, folks on other boats would come by and help.  It was all very neighborly, a microcosm of the universal brotherhood of the sea.

Since that time so long ago, many tides have come and gone, and the salt water that filled the bay then has since travelled around the world many times.  The same seawater that carried the tiny Justine on her intracoastal cruises also carried the great cargo ships of my subsequent career on their more ambitious voyages.  It was a big leap from the Justine to the Rigel and the Waccamaw and the Comet, but everything big originates as something small, just as the oak tree starts life as an acorn.  Holding the Justine on a steady course as the wind filled her sails later became bringing the Waccamaw alongside an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean for underway replenishment and maneuvering the Comet through the fishing fleets in the Sea of Japan.  Studying the chart of the Great South Bay and navigating by landmarks aboard the Justine became navigating by the sun, moon, and stars first on the New Jersey Sun and then aboard a host of subsequent ships.  And recreational sailing under the tutelage of kindly parents became important employment, often with roughneck crewmen and demanding if basically good-natured Captains.  The happy innocence of childhood was thus replaced by the serious responsibilities of an often difficult profession.

Indulging my sons’ patience just a little longer, I thought of what I had gained from going to sea.  The sea gave me tangible experiences and also taught me abstract qualities that in turn produced tangible results.  The sea taught me motivation, ambition, perseverance, and discipline.  It taught me to set priorities and distinguish between genuine needs and mere wants.   It taught me to do what must be done, to consider the next step, and to anticipate the likely consequences of decisions and actions.  It taught me to gauge other people and determine what qualities they possessed.  All this and more that I learned from the sea has accompanied me through life since.  The sea was one of the three things that shaped my character and made me the person that I am.  The other two influences were church and family, and while the three worked in harmony, I came of age at sea.

Like so many things in life, the yacht club had its moment in time and then passed into oblivion.  But the small inland sea beside which it stood remains, as does the larger sea that encircles the Earth.  The sea will continue long after I am gone, and it will teach future generations of young merchant seamen as it did me.  In some ways the sea was the best teacher I ever had.  And to think that it all started here, on the sheltered and shallow water of the Great South Bay!  This was indeed the cradle of my craft, and for that I will always be profoundly thankful.

Now let’s look at some photographs of the old waterfront neighborhood:

This is Karras Creek in Massapequa, Long Island, in the summer of 1967, in one of my very early attempts at photography.  The sailboat in the left foreground is the Justine.

A much better view of Karras Creek and the Justine in the summer of 1967 taken by my father.

Yours truly at the helm of the Justine, underway on the Great South Bay in 1967.

Returning after many years and many voyages, we see Karras Creek on Saturday, June 2, 2005.

The entrance to the new park on the site of the old yacht club on the same day in 2005.  Steven and Michael pose by the sign.

Unqua Point and the Great South Bay on the same day with the same sons.  Usually a very pacific body of water, the bay was an excellent place to begin a career at sea.  Decades later, this small stretch of salt water holds a flood tide of memories.

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.