Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton

1330 Sunday Service on schedule, led by Will Adams. Our attendance has increased somewhat—an encouraging sign. Will’s talk, “Have Made Passive Search, Hold No Contacts,” refers to the sonarman’s report made just before we bring the ship to periscope depth. He uses it to illustrate the point that life demands more than a passive search, and the lesson sinks home.

1422 Crossed equator for the third time this voyage at longitude 119°—05.1’ E. We are old hands now, and King Neptune just waves us by as we speed through his domain.

Monday, 4 April 1960 0613 Sighted a sailing vessel to westward. Joe Roberts’ eyes glisten as he evaluates the report. This is the kind of sailboat he has been hoping to photograph, a Makassar inter-island merchantman. As he passes nearby, Joe obtains what should prove to be excellent pictures.

0930 Completed photographing the Makassar merchantman. The vessel in many ways resembles a Chesapeake Bay schooner of a type I had seen many times from my room in Bancroft Hall at Annapolis. It is about 50 feet long, painted white, low in the water with a cargo resembling deck lumber. She has two masts with heavy booms and gaffs. There was also a rather heavy bowsprit and two good-sized jibs—a topsail was rigged between mast and gaff on both fore and main masts. At the stern of the ship was a rather strange outrigger affair, a sort of structure built well out from the stern to which the mainmast backstays are secured and from which the ship is steered. Two men could be seen aboard—one man standing aft on the outrigger, apparently steering the ship, and the other, evidently a deck hand, up forward. Neither one seemed to be aware of our presence, although during our photographic interlude they had passed rather closely and we were able to inspect them carefully.

Strangely, I seemed to recall having seen this schooner somewhere. It soon came to me: in an intelligence photograph taken in this very area during the war. It was indeed quite possible that this was the same sailing vessel, for some of them have been known to survive for a century or more. Steamers are a nondescript lot that wear out in a few years and change mightily in the process. But sailing ships seldom change, their rig seldom varies, until near the end. This is why old sailors can recognize without fail old sailing ships which they know well.

1700 Having come to periscope depth to get a fix on Balalo-hong Island Light, observed up ahead a great deal of splashing in the water; thought for a moment that we might have found the mythical sea serpent. It next appears to be a tide rip similar to one observed earlier today, but upon closer inspection it is evident that these are big fish and little fish, and that the little fish are having a hard time. Maneuvering to close and take pictures of the operation.

There are evidently at least three kinds of fish present. Nearest to us is a lazy group of porpoises swinging along and gamboling among themselves. Up ahead it is evident that the predatory fishes are probably porpoises also, and we cannot understand why the band close aboard is so unconcerned with the battle royal going on just ahead. Perhaps this is a different tribe. Try as we can to approach close enough to get a look at either group, however, we are unable to do so. Apparently they consider us an unwanted witness to whatever is going on. The lazy band of frisky porpoises avoids us by adroit maneuvers at the right time, while up ahead the fighting fish move steadily away and even the ones being eaten seem to co-operate in keeping us at a distance. It is a thrilling sight to see the sleek black bodies of the porpoises flashing around in the water. With their tremendously powerful tails working back and forth like pistons, they dash about at speeds reportedly between 20 and 30 knots. No telling how fast these lads are going, but they certainly seem to have a lot in reserve.

1749 Resumed base course and speed. Now transiting Flores Sea.

Tuesday, 5 April 1960 This morning, as we passed through the last shallow water areas before Lombok, a final try was made to fix our fathometer. Results were both success and failure—success on the theoretical plane, failure on the practical. Our second transducer, converted from a general announcing speaker, indeed produced a signal, and it did receive sounds transmitted through air or water. But like its predecessor, it could not penetrate the heavy steel of the ship’s hull.

We do, however, have one hole in the bottom of the ship—the garbage ejector. To use it, we first have to secure the fathometer head inside the garbage ejector, then shut the upper cap and open the lower door. Our first homemade transducer had been too large to fit into the garbage ejector, but our second attempt, constructed out of one of the ship’s regular announcing system speakers, fits into it neatly.