Alone at Sea : The Adventures of Joshua Slocum (9780385674072) (21 page)

Still in uncertain waters, he made his way north for Grenada. He gave a public lecture and then sailed north again, for Antigua. Another lecture and Slocum was on his way back home. He set sail on June 5 from the West Indies. His next landfall would be the United States. Excitement was mounting, and Slocum wrote of the climactic spirit of this final stretch, “The
Spray
was booming along joyously for home.” His reverie was brought to an abrupt halt: he had sailed smack into the horse latitudes and a dead calm. After an eight-day spell of becalming, the
Spray
made headway once again, and sailed into the Gulf Stream on June 18. Slocum described the scene as turbulent, noting that the
Spray
“was jumping like a porpoise over the uneasy waves.” This was merely a hint of what was blowing Slocum’s way. By June 20 there was not only another gale but a great cross-sea that made for treacherous sailing. For the second time in two days he had to repair the rigging. This time the
Spray
’s jibstay had broken right at the masthead, and jib and all had fallen into the ocean. Slocum, now fifty-four years old,
once more resorted to pure seamanship: “
The great King Neptune tested me severely at this time, for the stay being gone, the mast itself switched about like a reed.” Nevertheless, he succeeded in climbing the mast and making the necessary repairs. This feat required agility and stamina, and although he still had plenty of both, Slocum was ready to bring the voyage to its conclusion. By June 23 he had lost the psychological edge he had maintained for more than three years and was ready to put down anchor: “I was tired, tired of baffling squalls and fretful cobble-seas.” This last leg was marked by the constant eerie whistling of wind through the
Spray’s
rigging, and by the sound of seawater slopping up against the boat’s sides.

Slocum was now sailing triumphantly for New York harbor, but on June 25, just off Fire Island, he sailed into the “climax storm of the voyage.” The
Spray
found itself caught in the clutches of a tornado that had pummeled New York City only an hour earlier. Again Slocum displayed his remarkable skills and foresight. He knew all the signs of treacherous weather ahead and had already prepared
Spray
to receive it. Its impact still shook the
Spray
hard, and Slocum abandoned his plans to sail into New York, choosing instead to pull into a quiet harbor where he could mull things over. He headed into Newport, Rhode Island, never considering that the harbor would be mined as a defense against wartime attack. It was, and his little sloop “hugged the rocks along where
neither friend nor foe could come if drawing much water.” The guardship
Dexter
called “Ahoy,” and at one o’clock in the morning of June 27, the
Spray
anchored. It was a quiet return “
after the cruise of more than forty-six thousand miles round the world, during an absence of three years and two months, with two days over coming out.”

Applause was slow to come, and when it did it was a reserved trickle. Slocum’s sailing feats had been hailed in foreign ports all along the way; in his own land he had to explain the significance of his voyage. His homecoming was poorly timed, in that so much attention was being paid to the war. There was little newspaper coverage of the old sailor and his gallant little boat. The local Newport
Herald
did cover his return, but ran it on page 3, reporting that “early yesterday morning a staunch-looking little craft swung lazily into the harbor … She was a stranger in these waters and her rig … attracted the attention of the early risers.” Slocum was portrayed as not appearing overly concerned with the impression he was making: “The solitary occupant of the boat busied himself in making everything neat and tidy aboard ship and appeared to be totally oblivious of the curiosity he was arousing. When the master of the craft had prepared everything to his satisfaction he jumped into a dory and sculled ashore.”

For three years Slocum had been welcomed around the world as a seafaring celebrity, but in this American port he was listened to skeptically. Many thought the old seadog could spin a pretty convincing tall tale, and Slocum was
glad to have a stamped yacht license to prove his amazing achievement. To make matters worse, some people thought it was all a ruse to cover his real reason for sailing foreign waters: diamond smuggling. But there was one who had always considered Slocum a gallant captain, and she headed straight for Newport on news of his return. It wasn’t Slocum’s wife, Hettie, but rather Mabel Wagnalls whose welcome home touched the captain: “
The first name on the
Spray
’s visitors’ book in the home port was written by the one who always said, ‘The
Spray
will come back.’” Slocum returned the “musical story” she had given him with an inscription about the wild adventures the book had had on the
Spray:
“A thousand thanks! Good wishes are prayers, heard by the angels. And so on June 28 1898 the little book, after making the circuit of the earth in the single handed
Spray
returns in good order and condition.”

Recognition of Slocum’s unique achievement gradually spread, and the
Spray
began to attract attention and visitors. As for Slocum, he was feeling chipper and pleased with himself. The voyage had changed him, and he made it known that he had returned a new man: “Was the crew well? Was I not? I had profited in many ways by the voyage, I had even gained flesh, and actually weighed a pound more than when I sailed from Boston. As for aging, why, the dial of my life was turned back till my friends all said, ‘Slocum is young again.’ And so I was, at least ten years younger than the day I felled the first tree for the construction of the
Spray.”

In buoyant spirits, Slocum set out to bring his voyage to a symbolic end. He decided he must “
return to the very beginning,” where he had given the
Spray
new life. On July 3 the
Spray
sailed into Fairhaven on a fair wind and there Slocum brought her to her point of repose, and his voyage to full circle: “I secured her to the cedar spile driven in the bank to hold her when she was launched. I could bring her no nearer home.”

All photographs courtesy Old Dartmouth Historical Society — New Bedford Whaling Museum

Following completion of his world voyage, Slocum wrote the best-seller
Sailing Alone Around the World
. He is photographed here in East Boston by his son, Ben Aymar. (1898)

A classic “cabinet card” photograph of Slocum dating from 1898. At the time, he was promoting himself as a lecturer and adventurer. Martin H. Frommell (circa 1898)

Slocum photographed in 1902 aboard the
Spray
. He had returned from his world-wide lecturing and book-peddling junket. Clifton Johnson (1902)

Slocum and Hettie aboard the
Spray
, which he sailed to the Cayman Islands every winter after his return to America in June 1898. Clifton Johnson (1902)

Slocum and Hettie at their farmhouse in West Tisbury, Massachusetts. He bought the small house on Martha’s Vineyard for $305. Clifton Johnson (1902)

Working in the garden at West Tisbury. Slocum told the newspapers that he was going to give this “land living” a try. Clifton Johnson (1902)