Grumbles From The Grave Part 8

TRAVEL.

August 6, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame Back home to a bushel of mail and a constantly ringing phone-I wonder why we came back! But it was a fine trip-Jackson's Hole, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone Park, Craters of the Moon National Monument, Sun Valley, the "Days of '47" at Salt Lake City, Zion Park, North Rim of the Grand Canyon-where we rode mules down to the floor of the Canyon-then Bryce Canyon, thence through the main range to Aspen, and finally home.

AROUND THE WORLD I.

August 17,1953: Lurton Bla.s.singame to Robert A. Heinlein . . . very excited to hear plans for the round-the-world trip.

September 25, 1953: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame We sail from New Orleans on 12 November and will leave here about 7 November. I am sorry to say that I will not be on the East Coast either coming or going, as we leave from the Gulf and return via San Francisco . . .

We have our trip about lined up, having each received permission from the Navy Department, having received pa.s.sports, having booked pa.s.sage for the two princ.i.p.al legs of the trip. We've been vaccinated, shot for cholera, typhoid and paratyphoid, teta.n.u.s; will be stuck for yellow fever on Wednesday. Ginny is down seeing about visas right now, but all the main hurdles are pa.s.sed. I will supply exact times and places later but here is how it shapes up now: By freighter S.S. Gulf s.h.i.+pper (U.S. registry) New Orleans, Panama Ca.n.a.l, half a dozen west S.A. ports to Valparaiso, fly over Andes to Buenos Aires, embark cargo-liner (swimming pool and such) M.S. Ruys (Dutch), then Montevideo, Santos, and Rio de Janeiro, across South Atlantic to Cape Town, after which the s.h.i.+p hits half a dozen East African ports and Zanzibar, ending in Kenya before starting across Indian Ocean for Mauritius and Singapore. I want to leave the s.h.i.+p for a week at Cape Town to visit Kruger National Park, but Ginny insists that lions can open automobile doors-nevertheless, I want to make that motor trip and see lions, elephants, etc., in native habitat.

We leave the s.h.i.+p in Singapore and have booked no farther, I plan to visit Java and Bali at least and wind up at Darwin, Australia-we are trying to arrange booking for an island freighter now; if that doesn't work, we will visit the islands by airline and end up at Darwin anyway. Then we fly to Sydney, stay as long as we like in Australia, go to New Zealand, where we intend to visit both North and South Islands (there is an N.Z. airline that has a circle route), and eventually back home via the Fiji and Hawaiian Islands and San Francisco.

October 24, 1953: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame As you can see, this is my "strike-out" letter-even though I may write again. You will see, too, that I have (with fantastic ingenuity and smug planning) placed all the real dope on page two, which you can now stick up on your bulletin board, or something. We'll send you postcards of calabozos and hippos and things. If I don't return on time, just forward my personal effects to Tahiti, fourth beachcomber from the left.

Wups! I forgot something-money. Don't send me any checks after about 7 November; just hold for me whatever comes in. It is possible that, after I am cleaned out by a gang of international gamblers headed by a beautiful blonde in sable, that I may ask you to cable me some dough-but it seems most unlikely, as I am taking plenty.

April 3, 1954: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame We got home late Wednesday and spent Thursday and F;riday unpacking and reading mail. I have answered none < p="">

EDITOR 's NOTE: In 1953 and 1954, Robert and I took a six-month trip around the world. When we returned, I suggested that Robert write a book about the trip. He wrote half of the book and sent it off to Lurton, to see whether there was or was not a market for it.

It turned out that there was no market for it.

Everyone who read this book loved it, but no one wanted to publish it. Robert spent some months working on this book. It is too late to publish it now-it's considerably outdated.

August 30, 1954: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I think you had better send the travel book ma.n.u.script back and let me finish it. I have spent the whole summer expecting it back in the next mail, frustrated by its half-finished condition, and unable to get to work on anything else. I'll never send out an incomplete ms. again-it is, for me, like having someone read over my shoulder; it keeps me from concentrating on the work in the machine.

A long string of houseguests helped to wash out the summer, too. The last of them are out of the house now and I should be able to finish the travel book quickly. I want to start on my next novel in a couple of weeks. I plan to do the next boys' book first, then an adult serial novel.

EUROPE.

January 24, 1955: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame We have not yet been able to book our proposed trip, but we still hope to leave about the 1st of May. Don't worry about the trips I take cutting in on writing; in the long run they increase my output and enhance its quality. Anything I do always winds up in a story eventually- and it is most unlikely that we will ever make another trip six months long.

May 10, 1955: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame We have luxurious quarters, the owner's cabin, about twice as big as the other pa.s.senger staterooms. I don't know how we got it as we did not ask for it, but it is very pleasant. For the first time in a s.h.i.+p I have room enough to write and a comfortable setup for it. I might even turn out a story . . . although this seems unlikely as my mind is comfortably blank.

July 16, 1955: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame How are you? Me, I'm a little confused. I've been in ten countries so far this trip, used nine languages, and thirteen sorts of money including U.S. MFC "funny money" in which $10 bills are printed in bright red and a nickel scrip looks like a cigar coupon. I've just finished calculating a trip into the Arctic Circle (which we start tomorrow morning) which involves marks, guilders, Belgian francs, and three sorts of kroner, all at different rates. I came out within about 10 percent of the right answer, which is better than I expected.

Ginny has been spending money with joyful frenzy and everything costs six times what it should. I think I have money enough with us to cover everything, but I am no longer sure. Could you please send me a thousand dollars in American Express drafts (the only sort which is really easy to exchange everywhere) to the Heidelberg address above? Deus volent, I will still have them in my pocket when we reach New York, but I will feel easier if I have them. We will be back on the 6th of August; then we go to Bayreuth so that Ginny can sop up Wagner (the Ring Cycle) while I sop up beer-then home by easy stages. I estimate that we will be in New York about the 9th or 10th of September, but anything could happen between now and then.

LAS VEGAS.

April 22, 1959: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame We're back home and not quite broke-in fact, I didn't even manage to use up all of some traveller's cheques I bought in New York over a year ago, and now we have money running out of our ears, with all taxes paid. Ginny worked hard on the slot machines, did not manage to drop behind more than five dollars all week. I played the slots very little, c.r.a.ps one evening, and put a few chips on roulette en pa.s.sant and broke about even-I wasn't there to gamble anyhow. One member of our party, a boy I went to Annapolis with, gambled all week, splurged on night clubs, etc., and returned to Colorado Springs with more money than he had started out with. I can't claim that, but I will say that they practically give you the joint free-provided you don't drop a lot of dough at the tables. Gourmet food is cheap, the most lavish night clubs in the entire world are very cheap, equivalent hotel rooms are about half what they would cost in New York. I understand that the taxis are expensive, but we hired a new Chevvie and never entered a taxi.

The Congress of Flight was almost the size of a World's Fair, with the most remarkable demonstrations and exhibits I have ever seen anywhere . . . The static exhibits included such things as the Atlas, Thor-Able, X-15, manned re-entry capsule for Project Mercury-and the 1911 Bleriot monoplane. The dynamic exhibits had everything, from several types of bombing to the most frightening precision flying I have ever seen-half a dozen nations each trying to bilge the others and the Chinese Nationalists stealing the show with a nine-plane diamond tight formation that did things I still don't believe. n.o.body killed-although we in the audience almost had heart failure.

Las Vegas is sort of an organized nervous breakdown. We are exhausted, sunburned, and euphoric . . . But the three largest bookstores in town do not sell science fiction-I looked for some of my own to give to friends-no dice.

To my great delight my name tag was read and recognized every few minutes all week long-a large percentage of the delegates read science fiction.

SOUTHWEST TRIP.

March 9, 1956: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame We are just back from an eight-day swing of Albuquerque, Las Cruces, and Portales, a very enjoyable time which included seeing friends at Sandia Weapons Center, the AEC [Atomic Energy Commission], a rocket society do at White Sands, seeing --- ---'s new baby, photographing the gypsum sands, a real dust-bowl storm with the sun blacked out and silt up to the fence tops, a visit on a cattle ranch, lecturing at the University of New Mexico, getting stuck in the mud, and encountering quite a bit of suns.h.i.+ne and warm weather after a very hard winter. I am now trying to clear my desk.

USSR.

August 15, 1960: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame Well, I'm home and completely swamped by the volume of work in front of me. I've spent the past four days just trying to get enough stuff put away and thrown away so that I can get at my desk to write. As soon as I finish this letter I will get to work on an attempt to try to revise and extend the Intourist article along the lines you suggested-but, truthfully, trying to write humorously about the USSR won't be easy. Ginny and I laughed ourselves silly time and again, but it was hysterical laughter; there is not much that is really funny about the place.

EDITOR'S NOTE Robert wrote two articles about this trip; they can be found in Expanded Universe.

ALMA.

May 15, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame We went to Alma, Oklahoma, on April 29th, using a chartered airplane and getting it all done in one day. "The Sequoyah Book Award" turns out to be a handsome plaque. I addressed the State Library a.s.sociation and they had a book-signing afterwards-and durn if they hadn't sold almost two hundred copies of Have s.p.a.ce Suit-Will Travel.

Scribner's offered to pay for the trip, but I preferred not to be under obligations to them while there is such continuous pressure on me to quit Putnam's and go back to Scribner's. Anyhow, it cost less than two roundtrip commercial tickets and considerably less than it would have cost to drive it-and it's deductible. Anyhow, arriving by private plane added to the show.

SAN DIEGO.

July 12, 1962: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame My short trip to San Diego and to sea was terrific. A day under the sea in the submarine Raton, spent with destroyers hunting us and trying to (simulate) depth bombing-which they do with grenades, which make a terrible racket but, at most, break a light bulb-then we flew aboard the carrier Lexington, spent the night watching night operations, then day operations the next day, then flew back to Colorado Springs-elapsed time C.S. to C.S. fifty-four hours and almost no sleep. The night landings were made by supersonic fighters, Demons (F3H), and it was the most exciting-and the noisiest-thing I've ever seen. She's an angle-deck carrier and landings and catapulting go on simultaneously, one of each about every thirty seconds-and they hit at about 130 miles per hour and roar away if they miss the wire.

Besides that, I was recognized repeatedly, which boosts my morale. The icing on the cake was a birthday party in the air for me on the way home. Much fun!

LAS VEGAS AGAIN.

September 30, 1962: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I've got to bathe, shave, dress, and run-the Houston trip was fast and frantic; the Las Vegas trip was long and delightful. Ginny hit several nickel jackpots, I did not gamble at all but saw all the shows . . . The s.p.a.ce and aircraft exhibits were magnificent, there were many fine parties and three open bars, and a fine firepower show- bombing, Thunderbirds, refueling in the air, the new planes, and a joint AF and Army Strike demonstration. And we saw many old friends. The Folies Bergere was : as always, and the Lido de Paris show better and more lavish than ever.

ANTARCTICA.

December 28, 1963: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I think I told you by phone that Popular Mechanics wants me to do another article, or several. Since then we have tentatively agreed on a subject for the next one: the research going on at the South Pole. I had in mind going there next year, but Stimson's last letter spoke in terms of right away. Since summer has just started at the South Pole this is reasonable-save that I am up to my ears in this Hollywood deal with Screen Gems. The trip need not take long-ten days or two weeks- but if I am to go at all this [Southern Hemisphere] summer, it must be in the next few weeks, with conflict most probable with the Screen Gems deal. . . .

If it does work out that I go now instead of about a year from now (anytime after Labor Day 1964, that is), this would solve the problem of what to use for a Boys'

Life serial: Lay it at the South Pole and make it a mixture of science and adventure. And that would also solve the problem of my next juvenile for Putnam's-three novellas totaling about 50,000 words, Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon, Tenderfoot on Venus, and Polar Scout. [Put-nam] has written me, twisting my arm a little to turn out another juvenile; this would satisfy [Putnam] for the '65 spring list, I think. If you see fit, you might ask Boys' Life if they would like a serial about Antarctica, one written from personal observation.

I should add that I told Popular Mechanics that, having given them a first article, I reserved the right to do other articles and fiction based on the trip. They want to pay only what they paid before ... I could hitchhike the entire trip on military "s.p.a.ce available," but I am more likely to go commercially to Auckland. But I can show a nice profit by writing other things on the same material.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This trip did not come off, but we did travel to Antarctica in 1983.

CARIBBEAN.

December 11, 1964: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame All the various checks sent registered in two mailings arrived, of course, and Ginny is again complaining that it is backing up on her. It is her own fault; spending is her province and she returned from this last trip with more than a thousand in cash-she didn't even really try. Her largest purchase was three "pans" (or drums) for a steel band, purchased in Trinidad, and they weren't expensive; they were simply hard to get home-one medium-sized, eighteenth-century bra.s.s cannon purchased in New Orleans (so now we are in business for ourselves). The cannon helped a little-$275-but when a guide offered to have a jewelry shop opened for her on a Sunday in Caracas she turned him down. We simply The 18th Century Bra.s.s Cannon was the inspiration for the original t.i.tle of The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

will have to buy some more stock after we pay the income tax; she has lost her touch.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the trip was visiting a Bush Negro village far up in the jungle in Suriname, formerly Dutch Guiana-descendants of escaped slaves who continue to live Congo-style deep in the rainforest, up a side river by launch. My princ.i.p.al reaction was that bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s aren't necessarily s.e.xy; the Zulus are much better equipped in that region. We also visited an Amerindian settlement-the Indians were polite and dirty, the Negroes were pushy and very clean. As for other matters-well, a flying fish with a 12-inch fin wingspread flew into the lounge one evening through a port dogged open only 4 inches without damaging the fin wings. I couldn't ask him how he did it; the landing killed him. We got a royal tour of the Boeing plant in Louisiana (guests of the chief engineer and chief counsel), and I beg to report that the Saturn is the most monstrous big brute imaginable and I do not believe that the Russians can do things on the scale of our Apollo project. I do believe we will have a man on the moon this decade; progress looks good. Ginny visited a Negro wh.o.r.ehouse in Jamaica, and behaved with such aplomb and savoir faire that one would think she had spent her whole life in one. We arrived in Denver late at night to find our flight did not run that day, so I chartered a 2-engine Aero-Commander and we landed in a snowstorm in Colo. Spgs. by GCA. I watched it from the co-pilot's seat-much like a carrier landing. The ground is covered with white stuff but it is good to be home.

EDITOR 's NOTE: That bra.s.s cannon still stands in the living room. It served as the working t.i.tle for The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress; of course, the t.i.tle was changed as the editors did not think it was a suitable t.i.tle for a science fiction novel.

The cannon is a saluting gun from an eighteenth-century sailing vessel, but it still works. We used to fire it every Fourth of July.

December 28, 1964: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I behaved myself in Jamaica and all through the trip-first, because I was well chaperoned and, second, because I was never really tempted. The female pa.s.sengers were all antiques and the chocolate items ash.o.r.e were not tempting. No, I'm not racist about it-some of the /.ulu gals I saw in South Africa were decidedly tempting. Hut not these. As for Ginny's savoir faire, here's how it came about: [someone from our s.h.i.+p] had a date with a mulatto gal, not bad looking but not too bright and quite notional. He . . . took Ginny and this gal and myself on a pub prowl through the lower depths of Kingston. About midnight this gal suddenly decided that we should all go to --- and gave the address to a cabdriver-instead of a night club, it turned out to be a cathouse complete with red light, eight or ten colored gals in the parlor, and a bar and jukebox in a room behind the parlor, where the madam (somewhat annoyed but polite) received us. [The gal's date] was terribly embarra.s.sed and explained behind his hand to me that he had not had the slightest idea where we were going. But Ginny was not embarra.s.sed, spotted what the place was at once, and was delighted to have had a chance to see inside one. We bought a couple of rounds of drinks, played the jukebox, and left-much to the madam's relief. (I strongly suspect that [the woman] had worked in that house.) CLa.s.s REUNION AND RETURN.

November 12, 1969: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame It was a wonderful trip for us, all the way through. I'm sorry that I arrived in New York so beaten down by my cla.s.s reunion [in Annapolis] (some day we'll make a trip in which the first stop will be New York and arrive in prime condition)-I'm especially sorry that I missed the ballet in which the gals (did) (did not) wear body stockings . . . Jack Waite took an afternoon off to give us a personal tour of the Manned s.p.a.ceflight Center [in Houston]-high points: a view of Moon rock (swelp me, it looks to me like hundreds of little s.h.i.+ny golden spheroids 'embedded in a tannish gray matrix), a visit inside the mission control room during a computer-simulation of Apollo 12 mission (the LEM was just "landing" on the Moon and you could follow it on the displays), and a long, detailed lecture on the Moon suits (for us alone) by the chief engineer of life support systems-who turned out to be Ted Hayes, whom I [had] hired as an undergraduate at U of Pittsburgh twenty-seven years ago to work at the Naval Aircraft Factory-and I lured him into signing with me rather than General Electric by promising him that he could help develop pressure suits for fighter planes and I kept my promise and it led directly to him developing the first suit used on the Moon.

We stayed over an extra day in Houston at Patricia White's [the widow of Ed White, who died on Apollo I] request- "some people who wanted to meet us." Ginny told you a bit about that party by phone ... It was a big party in a big house and I don't know what all Ginny did-but I was followed around all evening by three tall beautiful blondes-Heinlein fans. (I managed to put up with it.) But the star of the evening was "the Honorable Jane." Jane is a BOAC hostess and looks just the way an airline stewardess should look-pet.i.te and pretty and shapely.

[She] was wearing an evening dress-but it was London mod. Micro skirt-and she had nice legs but n.o.body noticed because it was cut clear to the waistline in front. No question of a body stocking in this case. Un-possible! Nor any possibility of foam rubber. Silicone? A bare possibility, but I don't think so. Everyone got cross-eyed, including me, and Jane clearly enjoyed the sensation she was creating. (I should add that styles in Houston are much more conservative than those in New York.) From there we went to New Orleans, with reservations at the St. Charles-and I was asked for identification as we were checking in ... which I refused to give (this is not yet Russia) and we had our bags put back into a cab and went to the Pontchartrain where we wound up in the Mary Martin suite without being asked to produce IDs. I can see why Mary Martin stays in that suite; the Aga Khan would be quite comfortable in it. It was late, we were exhausted, so we had a bite from room service (soft sh.e.l.l crabs Amandine, oysters and bacon en brochette, parfait praline), bathed, and so to bed.

The next morning there was a bowl of fruit waiting for us, compliments of the manager, and enclosed with it was a little carton of personalized matches with my name spelled correctly. This was followed by a phone call from the manager asking us to have a drink with him that afternoon. (Heinlein fan? Not at all. He asked me what sort of writing I did.) The moral of this is: Don't stay in hotels that demand IDs.

I must now explain that I had avoided the Pontchartrain because Eberhard Deutsch [a New Orleans attorney] lives there and I had been trying to avoid moving into his place when I knew he was out of town. Having told his office that we would be at the St. Charles, I then had to phone again and tell them that we were at the Pontchartrain. Eberhard was returning from Europe by a plane that got in at just past noon the next day-so shortly after noon I received a call: "Young man, what are you doing downstairs? My housekeeper is expecting you."

So we moved up to the penthouse. He was not there but his housekeeper was indeed expecting us, and settled us in.

The penthouse makes the Mary Martin suite look like substandard housing- -which I had known and which was a major reason why I was reluctant to stay in it with the owner away. Eberhard's little cabin in the pines occupies the entire roof of the hotel; that portion which is not house proper being terraces, gardens, "landscaping," and a spectacular (pump-driven) waterfall. It is, of course, surrounded on all sides by dazzling views of the city and of the Mississippi-and best of all, it is so high up it is quiet; we could sleep.

New Orleans was tiring fun and endless gourmet food . . . Bourbon Street in search of real Dixieland jazz, which we found.

ANTARCTICA.

Virginia Heinlein-report 1983 This is an enormous continent, barely known, but actually inhabited by mammals and birds, on the coastline at least. There could be almost anything there and we went to learn something about it.

We were outfitted with thermal underwear to outermost layers of waterproof clothing. Recommended (by those who know) is the "layer theory" of dressing for the cold weather to be expected. And it is COLD. The worst day we encountered, including the wind chill factor, was 45 degrees below Fahrenheit. Otherwise, we managed to keep relatively warm.

A few words about the Zodiacs, which will, often be mentioned. They are rubber boats with outboard engines, very shallow in draft, drawing only inches, made of rubber-coated fabric glued together, descendants of the life rafts of WW II. They have lightweight wooden floors; seating s.p.a.ce for pa.s.sengers was on the float tubes, which were about fourteen to sixteen inches in diameter. One held onto ropes festooned along the sides of these craft. We could be taken into beaches with no jetties, where it was possible to mingle with the local wildlife. "Wet" landings meant that we had to step into a shallow surf onto rocky beaches.

Undblad Explorer was a small s.h.i.+p, built with icebreaking prow. Once we toured through an ice pack, looking at the local fauna. Groups of seals lie around on the ice, soaking up the sun or just resting; sometimes they became a bit wary at our approach and slipped into the water, but many of them just looked up and stared at us.

We embarked in Lindblad Explorer in Punta Arenas on the Straits of Magellan. The first warning we had was about water conservation-the showers had "minu-tieres" on them, to time the flow of water, and we were warned about conservation, since the s.h.i.+p could not make up enough fresh water from salt water to keep up the supply, if we used too much. Water in the shower would run for only about a minute, then shut off. Eventually, we both found that about two minutes in a shower would cleanse, if we did it j.a.panese style, soaping down first, then was.h.i.+ng off the soap.

The s.h.i.+p was a bit spartan, but after a period of adaptation, satisfactory.

Lindblad Explorer carried a number of lecturers. They are specialists in various disciplines and there are daily lectures about various aspects of the things which we were about to see, or had seen. Talks on the mechanics of glaciers, about sea mammals and birds, the history of Antarctica, from the first exploration to the latest are all parts of this tour.

Getting into all those pieces of clothing in a small s.p.a.ce was quite interesting, but we learned. The boots were the most difficult, as they had to be donned after the trousers, and the waistline bulk made it difficult to lean over to lace them up. We looked like teddy bears.

The first beach we landed on had penguins galore, of the chinstrap variety. They have one marking which gives them their name, a black strap of feathers which goes under their bills. Think of a dark sandy beach with small surf breaking on it, rocks on each side, and several harems of seals lying around, and dozens, hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of penguins and you have the picture. Penguins walking into the surf, penguins returning from their fis.h.i.+ng expeditions, walking around and paying little or no attention to us as we walked up to see the rookery. If you got down to something approaching their level (about knee height) they might just walk right up to you, inspect you, turn their backs, and walk off. One inspected us, first with one eye, then with the other, turned his (her) back, waggled its tail, and stalked off.

(I got too close to one of the seals and was chased off by the master of the harem. It must have been quite a spectacle, me flying off in those heavy boots and cloth- ing-very slowly, as it was impossible to move very fast-chased by a seal.) We hiked back into the rookery, through a small stream of very cold water, just barely melted, accompanied by penguins. Those poor little creatures walk about a mile to go fis.h.i.+ng, for the purpose of feeding their young.

The penguin walk is quite clumsy, but they have another method of locomotion on snow. They flop down on their bellies and toboggan, which is relatively fast.

They sometimes cl.u.s.ter in groups on rocks at the water's edge, trying to decide whether to go into that water at all. When the cl.u.s.ter reaches a certain size, one brave individual will dive into the water, then most of the others follow. Then another group congregates, and they go through it all again. When returning, they get smashed against rocks, eventually mount them, and proceed awkwardly to their young.

Locomotion in water is by means of porpoising. Up and down, each time garnering some krill for their food, then presently they return to feed the young.

Their white fronts are often dirty with the pink color of the krill, but mostly the white is spotlessly clean. Penguin nests are built, of small stones, which they shamelessly steal from each other. One experimenter put a stack of small stones painted red in one corner of a colony, and when he returned, the red stones were scattered all over the colony. One mating habit is for the male to give his chosen a small stone. Another is for two birds to stretch their necks straight upward, making mating sounds.

Rookeries are quite noisy and rather dirty with guano. (And smelly, as well.) However, we found ourselves quite taken with those birds and their ways. After hatching from the egg, the baby penguin is covered with down, which it keeps for some time, shedding it in favor of the fancy dress. Some varieties leave the young with a nursemaid when they are off fis.h.i.+ng, and you can see aggregations of those very young birds together. I watched one of the nurseries-the "nursemaid" kept after any stragglers, chivvying them back into the group, where they stayed until the parents returned.

Leopard seals eat penguins, when they catch them swimming. So one encounters orphaned baby birds. Skuas will eventually eat those. Rookeries can be vast; one we saw was estimated by experts to have about a million birds in it.

We looked on penguins as little people. They manage lo endear themselves to anyone who comes into contact with them. Perhaps it is their upright posture, perhaps it is their clumsy locomotion on their feet-or possibly the "academic processions" going to and from the sh.o.r.e.

There were many Adelies, chinstraps, gentoos, and some of the larger species, as there were royals and the emperors, which are about four feet tall when standing upright. They look for all the world like elderly professors.

We were taken on Zodiac cruises, which didn't land at all, but simply watched for wildlife from the boats. During one such, whales appeared on the water surface. Humpback whales, weighing thirty tons, we were told. They were playing around during and after feeding. What an amount of krill such creatures must eat. (Krill are tiny shrimplike things-pale pink and almost transparent, with great black eyes. One figure I recall is that it takes thirty krill to make a gram.) Those large whales take in a great gulp of sea water, full of krill, and strain it through the baleen. Their throats pouch out with each gulp, and the .water comes cascading out as they strain out the krill.

Several whales came swimming over to the boat and swam under it. We could see their flippers in the water under the boat. Then one breached and we could see its back and finally the flukes, which had barnacles on it in a pattern. Everyone was a bit scared by these demonstrations . . . with those flimsy boats being so close to those huge animals.

Most Weddell seals have scars from contact with killer whales-we saw them. Seals slide into the water without any splash, swim away with a gliding motion. In the water, they sometimes allow their curiosity to overtake them, and they stick up their heads and watch.

Cormorants (skuas) nest on sheer cliffs-there were many nests clinging to those cliffs-all of them with young cormorants watching.

There was a barbecue dinner at the Argentine station in Paradise Bay. It was about to close for the winter, when the scientists would go home. Unfortunately for us, the s.h.i.+p had had a batch of hand-knitted watch caps for sale, each of us had one. Knitted into them was the motto "Falklands War, 1982." We had forgotten about that, and went in with those caps on our heads. I told Robert about it, and he turned his backwards, but hairpins anch.o.r.ed mine in place. I felt apologetic toward our hosts.

Leaving, our boat driver was a fanatic whale chaser, and we spent an hour and a half chasing some fin whales which we never got close to.

The s.h.i.+p stopped at Paulet Island in the Weddell Sea, Deception Island, which is supposed to have the only Antarctic swimming pool-water in that area is warm enough for people to swim in, because of some underground heating (thermal activity). Antarctica has some working volcanoes, such as Mount Erebus, which is where there was a fatal New Zealand airline crash several years ago. Mount Erebus normally has a plume of smoke coming out of it.

Summers, the U.S. has about 1,200 people down in Antarctica, most of them at McMurdo Sound, our chief base there. But we also have Palmer Station, which we visited, Siple Base, and bases at the South Pole.

Probably the visit to McMurdo was the coldest day we encountered-going ash.o.r.e in the Zodiac, our cheeks almost froze. We struggled up the hill to the base, finding it necessary to sit down for a rest several times. Then I finally commandeered a bus to take us to headquarters.

Robert found many fans among the people in Antarctica. At Palmer Station, one man was sleeping at the time of the s.h.i.+p's visit. When he heard that Robert had been among the tourists, he phoned the s.h.i.+p, and they talked.

On one Zodiac cruise, there were sea lions which played games with our boat. Their heads would come up above water and they would watch us, but when we steered toward them they would go under and pop up in a different place. Sea lions differ from seals in their gait, being able to walk in a fas.h.i.+on with their hindquarters.

One cruise was among icebergs, to see the sculpturing done by the winds, freezing and thawing and melting. Some of the bergs might be as much as a hundred years old, they told us. Bergs come in various shapes-tabular (squared off-just calved from the Ross Ice Shelf), which, after some melting, became castles, medieval monsters and all sorts of imaginative shapes. One evening, while we were at dinner, the captain spotted two huge bergs, and toured the s.h.i.+p all around them. At one point, it was estimated that we were in a field which contained sixty of the monster bergs.

A champagne party was held on a glacier. Ice is a marvelous substance, ice sculpture beautiful, but it's difficult to describe.

There were albatrosses of various sorts, including the wandering albatross-probably the largest bird known. We also saw petrels, and could go up to the nests and look at the young.

On approach and departure, there is a sea area called the Antarctic Convergence, where the water is quite rough. Many of the pa.s.sengers had to use seasickness remedies, but at most times during these pa.s.sages, lifelines were rigged permanently around the s.h.i.+p.

EDITOR 's NOTE: Robert and I took one further trip in the Lindblad Explorer through the Northwest Pa.s.sage to the Orient. Although thirty-three other s.h.i.+ps had managed to reach the Bering Strait, this was the first s.h.i.+p to go all the way to j.a.pan, having navigated the Northwest Pa.s.sage. '

CHAPTER XIII.

POTPOURRI.