Nantucket - 1961 to 1964

The four summers of 1961 through 1964, we rented the Wilcox house in the Polpis area of Nantucket. As had been the story the previous two summers, the house was in the boondocks. We were well inland, just past, at the time, the world's largest cranberry bog. Cranberry bogs are breeding grounds for mosquitoes and there were plenty in and around our house. When we'd arrive to open the house for the summer, John's and my room was always swarming with them. The first order of business was to get out the fly swatters and start swinging. We'd usually have more than a hundred splattered on the walls of our room the first day. Once all the mosquitoes were killed, a weekly dose of Pic insect repellent, green coils of odorous incense that burned slowly once lit, kept them from returning.

Bjarni with an injured paw feeling sorry for himself - on my bed in Nantucket

It's impossible to separate the summers of 1961 through 1964 into individual experiences. Our routine didn't waiver much during those four years. We'd go into town in the morning, grab a doughnut and some Portuguese bread at the Nantucket Bake Shop, walk up the cobblestones of Main Street to the Hub, the local coffee shop / soda fountain / news stand, to buy the newspaper, then head home. You had to be out of town before noon because that was when the ferry from Hyannis arrived and the town became overrun by hoards of day tourists. Olwyn would make a picnic lunch and then we'd go to the beach at Wauwinet. The set-up at Wauwinet was ideal because you had access to both the ocean and the bay. We'd plop all our stuff on the ocean beach, swim, fish, beach comb and whatever. Then if we got bored we'd just walk the hundred yards or so across the parking lot to the head of the bay where we kept our sailfish and go for a sail. In those days, the beaches at Wauwinet were public. There was a large, run-down hotel on the bay side which had been bought by some college kids who were fixing it up. They lived in out-buildings on the property while working on the hotel. Over the four years, we couldn't see many exterior changes to the place, most of the work being done inside. Whatever they did, it worked. It is now The Wauwinet, an exclusive hotel and spa, and both the ocean and bay beaches are private and are dotted with shore homes. There were only a handful of houses there in the early 60's.

Bjarni - You can easily tell from this picture that the Nantucket house was in the middle of nowhere

 In addition to the sailfish that we kept on the bay beach in Wauwinet, we also had a sailing dinghy moored in Polpis Harbor. We didn't use the sailing dinghy as often as the sailfish but it was fun nonetheless. Polpis Harbor was shallow so you had to pay close attention to the water depth until you got out into Nantucket Bay proper. The absolute best day of sailing I ever had was during a storm. The wind was northeast and blowing strong. John and I decided to sail the whole length of the Bay, about 4 miles. The wind was behind us so we basically surfed the whole way, riding wave crest after wave crest. It took both of us to control the main sheet and we held on with all our might. There was so much force on the rigging that the metal boom bent. It was thrilling. There was no way to sail back against the wind so my father picked us up in the Wagoneer. That was the beauty of having a sailfish; it was portable. Just lash it to the roof rack and head for your favorite sailing spot.

The fishing off the ocean beach was not the best. However, three miles up the beach was Great Point where the fishing was excellent. The problem was how to get there and back. The beach road didn't go very far so you needed a four-wheel-drive car to get there. Our Jeep Wagoneer had four-wheel-drive but didn't have the right kind of tires for driving on sand. The one time we tried to drive out to Great point, we kept getting stuck and had to let some air out of the tires just to get moving again. Rob, Rob's friend Tony Townsend, John and I did walk all the way out to Great point on one occasion. I remember it not for the fishing part but because Tony stood on a nearby sand dune and delivered a hilarious fire and brimstone-type sermon to all the fishermen that had everyone in stitches.

The only realistic way for us to take advantage of the fishing off Great point was to take one of the charter fishing boats that regularly went there. It was expensive but well-worth it. There was a rip current off Great Point caused by the confluence of the cold Labrador and warm Gulf Stream currents and if you trolled through the rip, you'd catch a Striped Bass or Bluefish on every pass. It was amazing. John had a former high school classmate, Jim Harris, whose family had moved to Nantucket. He took us out fishing once in his motor boat but it wasn't big enough to safely navigate the rip currents so we didn't catch as much as usual. We actually wound up doing most of our fishing off the jetty at Brant Point in the entrance channel to Nantucket Harbor. You wouldn't catch blues or stripers here, but the fluke were large and plentiful.

Nantucket was certainly different as far as social life went. There was none. John and I had no one other then family to hang out with so we would invite our pals from Bedford, Benny and Charlie Branch, up for a couple of weeks each summer. They were always good company. One summer I put Charlie in the hospital. We were fishing off the above-mentioned Brant Point jetty on a Saturday morning. I know it was Saturday because we were right next to the Coast Guard station and they were having their weekly Saturday morning formal review. Anyway, we all had poles and were casting off the rocks into the channel. It is normal to look behind you before casting to make sure no one is in the way. I did so and saw Charlie kneeling down baiting his hook. He stood up just as I went to cast and my lure caught him right in the back of the head. I was looking forward and couldn't understand why my cast didn't go very far. Luckily John saw the whole thing unfold. Hearing a scuffle behind me, I turned to see John pick up Charlie and carry him to the Coast Guard station. Blood was pouring out of Charlie's head. John ran right through the gate into the Coast Guard's front yard where the troops were being reviewed by some dignitary and I clearly remember the guy turning around and shaking his head indicating that he couldn't help. Fortunately there was a lady gardening across the street. She saw we needed help and called the rescue squad for us. This good Samaritan turned out to be none other than Helen Gurley Brown, the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine and author of Sex and the Single Girl.

The town of Nantucket began to change between 1961 and 1964. Boutique-type stores and galleries started appearing along the piers that jutted out into the harbor. These hoity-toity stores held no interest for us. We preferred the likes of the Hospital Thrift Shop which we would check out on a weekly basis. The Whaling Museum , located near the ferry slip, wasn't bad. We'd go there once a summer. There was one movie theater downtown where we saw "The Guns of Navaronne." It was sold out many a night when it first opened but eventually we got in. There was a bike shop just next to the ferry landing. Every summer John and I would rent a tandem bike, otherwise known as a bicycle built for two, and proceed to terrorize the bike paths. I think we still hold the land speed record for Nantucket biking and would fly by unsuspecting families out for a leisurely ride.

Nobska

Once a summer, Lee Brown would sail over from the Vineyard in his cat boat. John and I would sail back with him, stay over for a night, then take the Nobska back from Oak Bluffs to Nantucket.

Our evenings were spent watching the folks play bridge and listening to the top 40 on WBZ 1030 and WMEX on our AM radios. Our favorite DJ's were Juicy Brucie Bradley, Dick Summer, and Arnie "Woo-Woo" Ginsberg.


 

S/S Austin

S/S Houston

In 1962, my mother was chosen to christen the SS Austin, a jumboized T2 tanker owned by Trinidad Corporation.  Prior to this christening, we flew to Mobile, Alabama to observe the christening on the SS Houston.  We also got to ride the ship during its sea trials, a test run routine for newly built ships.  We stayed at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear on Mobile Bay.  I did not attend my mother's SS Austin christening which took place in Baltimore later that summer, opting to stay in Nantucket.  The summers of 1963 and 1964 were also spent furthering my interest in merchant ships.  In 1963, Tom Johnson, a high school classmate, and I took a 2 week coastwise trip on the SS Houston.  I had met the captain, O.T. Tonnessen, the summer before during the sea trials. He was an old salt in the true sense of the word.  The Chief Mate, Charlie Schiba, was a real character as well.  We joined in Kingston, NY and went to Albany, NY, Norco, La, and back to Seawarren, NJ.  Tom and I had a great time, except for the fact that his class ring was stolen when we were in Norco. I remember departing the Mississippi River, peering over the bow watching schools of dolphins diving alongside.  A scene that was repeated over and over again during my career and one that I never got tired of seeing.

Meadowbrook

Chief Mate Charlie Schiba, Tom Johnson, Me & Capt. O.T. Tonnessen - S/S Houston 1963

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1964, I spent the summer on board the Keystone Corporation tanker Meadowbrook, This was my first real taste of merchant shipping since it was an actual job, one that paid only a penny a month due to union regulations but an 8 hour a day job nonetheless. The Meadowbrook was a "drug store" tanker in that it carried multiple grades of petroleum products and would both load and discharge in most ports. Cargo tanks were constantly being cleaned between products and I spent many an hour mucking sludge and rust from the tank bottoms. One interesting characteristic about the Meadowbrook was the location of the midships house.  The T2 class tankers had been built during World War II.  Many were "jumboized" (lengthened) for commercial use in the late 1950's / early 1960's.  Occasionally the "jumboizing" process consisted of taking the bow section of one vessel and joining it with the stern section of a different vessel to form the new ship.  The Meadowbrook was jumboized in 1962 with the bow section taken from the Redstone, the stern section from the Pine Ridge, which had tragically broken in two in bad weather in 1960, and the midships house from the T3 Sachem (II).  The mid-body cargo section was newly constructed.  Most "jumboized" T2's remained true to their original design in that the midships house remained closer to the bow than to the stern.  The Meadowbrook was one of only a handful of tankers "jumboized" with a long foredeck so the midships house was closer to the stern.  The quarters on the Meadowbrook were not fitted with air conditioning.  Wind scoops could be fitted in the portholes to catch and deflect air into the rooms but this wasn't very effective especially when sailing in the tropics.  On the hottest days, many of the crew, including myself, slept outside on cots or in hammocks on the after lifeboat deck.

S/S Meadowbrook

The Chief Mate, Bob Gibson, normally gave me time off in port. I was able to go to Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, Del Mar Racetrack and Tijuana while calling in Southern California ports. Several of the crew members liked to play the horses. Knowing I was going to the track, one sailor gave me $10 to play numbers 3 and 6 in the daily double at Caliente racetrack in Tijuana. Both horses won and paid off $1760 which I gave him on returning to the ship. Later I learned that it was a common practice to give 10% of the winnings to the person going to the track and placing the bet. Naturally, I saw none of the money which taught me a good lesson.

One of the crew members on the Meadowbrook, the Second Cook and Baker, was Wyatt McCovey, a relative of one of my favorite all-time baseball players, Willie McCovey. Wyatt would later sail with Texaco as Chief Steward on the Texaco Minnesota. Unfortunately, he retired just before I was assigned to the Mighty Minnie so I didn't get to talk baseball with him again.

The Captain of the Meadowbrook did not like me.  Apparently, he resented my being on board because he knew my father was a personal friend of the shipowner.  My father had given the Captain spending money to hold for me but whenever we got into port and I asked for some money to go ashore, he wouldn't give me any saying I would need it to get home.  Luckily, several crew members chipped in and paid for me to see many of the attractions.  I was supposed to ride the ship until it reached Groton, Connecticut where my parents were going to pick me up but when we arrived in the New York, the port before Groton, the Captain ordered me off the ship.  I told him that it had been arranged with the shipowner for me to stay on until Groton but he would have none of that.  He told me that because I joined in New York, I had to get off there which was pure BS but it was a Sunday night and there was nothing I could do about it.  The ship was anchored in New York harbor and I was told to take a launch ashore and go home. The launch ran to Stapleton on Staten Island.  Luckily, my brother Rob lived in New York City.  I'm sure he was surprised to get a call from me telling him I was at the Stapleton launch and could he come rescue me, which he gladly did.  I've since ridden that launch many times.

So the summer's itinerary on the Meadowbrook included Houston, Panama, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Richmond, Oakland, Redwood City, Los Angeles again, San Diego, Panama again, Mobile and New York.  The whole voyage lasted 90 days give or take a day or two and I earned a total of $.03 for the entire trip.  It was well worth it.  I figured if I enjoyed shipping out for basically nothing, then I would certainly enjoy getting paid for it, thus cementing my intention to become a merchant mariner.