BILL THOMAS AUGUST <strong>2018</strong> CARIBBEAN COMPASS PAGE 24 IVOR HEALY COMPASS CARTOONS NORMAN JUNG JONNY HAWKINS BILL ABBOTT GUTO DIAS
Tales from the Sixties: THE PHONE THAT NEVER WAS by Don Street In the Fifties and Sixties, checking in and out of various <strong>Caribbean</strong> islands was much simpler than it is today. Passports were unnecessary. I sailed up and down the Eastern <strong>Caribbean</strong> from 1956 until 1966 with no identification other than a New York State driver’s license. If I had had taken a charter from the USVI to the BVI aboard Iolaire, it was much easier to check back into US waters in Cruz Bay, St. John rather than in St. Thomas. In St. Thomas the skipper had to go ashore alone, phone Customs and Immigration, and then go back aboard the boat and wait there until the Customs and Immigration officers arrived to clear everyone. Making the phone call itself was often difficult, But if we sailed into Cruz Bay, we would all go ashore. I would take ship’s papers and everyone’s driver’s licenses up to the Commissioner’s house in the fort, while my charter party explored the village and went to the Gallows Point bar. One day after clearing in, I took the ship’s papers and driver’s licenses out to the boat and came back ashore looking for my charter party. I noticed on the big tree in the square by the small pier a wooden box secured to the tree. I investigated. It was an oblong wooden box with a wire coming out the bottom and a door held closed by a small latch. I opened the box and was most surprised to find an old fashioned hand-cranked phone with two big dry cell batteries wired to it. This was astonishing, as I knew that there were only three phones on all of St. John — one in the commissioner’s office, another in the police station, the third in the high-end Caneel Bay tourist resort. Intrigued, I decided to give the phone a try, I spun the handle and got a really bad Don Street then (above) — and now (right) electric shock. As usual, I was barefoot. I went back to the dinghy and picked up my “go aheads”, which today we call flip-flops. (In my early days in the <strong>Caribbean</strong>, flip-flops were called “go aheads”. Why? Ever try walking backward wearing flip-flops?) With my go aheads on I was insulated, so I lifted the phone’s receiver and gave the handle a good crank. The operator answered and said, “Number please!” I gave her my parents’ phone number in New York City and said I would like to make it collect. She replied, “Are you in Caneel Bay?” I replied no. She then said, “Are you in the commissioner’s office?” Again I replied no. “Then you must be in the police station.” Again I replied no. She said, “There are only three phones on St. John. You must be in the police station, or the commissioner’s office, or in Caneel Bay. Where are you?” I replied, “I am standing under a big tree near the pier in Cruz Bay, talking to you on on a phone in a box fastened to the tree.” She replied, “There is no phone on a tree in Cruz Bay. The only phones are in the commissioner’s office, the police station and Caneel Bay. Where are you?” I again repeated what I said before and asked to put the collect phone call through. After some hemming and hawing, and checking with her superior, she put the phone call through. Needless to say, my father was most amazed to receive a call from a phone that did not exist. Henceforth, whenever I checked in at St. John, I would use this phone to call my parents. We would go through the same routine, the operator trying to find out from where I was calling and refusing to believe that I was calling from a phone in a box fastened to a tree, but would finally put my collect phone call through anyway. Making a phone call in this way was much easier than doing it while in St. Thomas. To make a long distance call in St. Thomas required going downtown to the telephone exchange, waiting in line until a booth was free, then making the call. It was a two- or three-hour operation, when docked at Yacht Haven. Calling from Cruz Bay — a ten-minute argument with the operator, standing in the shade given by a nice big tree, using the phone that did not exist — beat the hell out of the St. Thomas routine. I used this phone for about three years until my late wife and I pulled up stakes and moved Iolaire from the Virgin Islands to Grenada in 1963. When I visited in St. John in the Seventies, the phone was gone. I never was able to find out who succeeded in hot-wiring into the USVI phone line. MERIDIAN PASSAGE OF THE MOON Crossing the channels between <strong>Caribbean</strong> islands with a favorable tide will make your passage faster and more comfortable. The table below, courtesy Don Street, author of Street’s Guides and compiler of Imray-Iolaire charts, which shows the time of the meridian passage (or zenith) of the moon for this AND next month, will help you calculate the tides. Water, Don explains, generally tries to run toward the moon. The tide starts running to the east soon after moonrise, continues to run east until about an hour after the moon reaches its zenith (see TIME below) and then runs westward. From just after the moon’s setting to just after its nadir, the tide runs eastward; and from just after its nadir to soon after its rising, the tide runs westward; i.e. the tide floods from west to east. Times given are local. Note: the maximum tide is 3 or 4 days after the new and full moons. For more information, see “Tides and Currents” on the back of all Imray Iolaire charts. Fair tides! <strong>August</strong> <strong>2018</strong> DATE TIME 1 0313 2 0357 3 0442 4 0558 5 0617 6 0710 7 0806 8 0906 9 1008 10 1111 11 1212 12 1310 13 1405 14 1457 15 1547 16 1653 17 1723 18 1810 19 1858 20 1946 AUGUST - SEPTEMBER <strong>2018</strong> 21 2035 22 2123 23 2211 24 2257 25 2343 26 0000 FULL MOON 27 0028 28 0102 29 0156 30 0240 31 0326 September <strong>2018</strong> 1 0413 2 0504 3 0557 4 0654 5 0753 6 0854 7 0954 8 1053 9 1144 10 1243 11 1324 12 1433 13 1514 14 1602 15 1651 16 1740 17 1829 18 1918 19 2006 20 2053 21 2116 22 2224 23 2309 24 2353 25 0000 FULL MOON 26 0038 27 0124 28 0211 29 0301 30 0353 AUGUST <strong>2018</strong> CARIBBEAN COMPASS PAGE 25
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