Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 357
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[Page 357]
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told him that I was interested only in the few months trip up beyond the Arctic Circle and back to the United States. He then said unofficially, and quite between ourselves, that as I intended to go straight back to Australia when the voyage ended, the simplest thing to do was for me to walk off the ship wherever it suited me to get a ship back home. So after my acceptance was confirmed by telegrams to and from Headquarters in Washington, and I had declared my intentions of becoming a United States Citizen, I was thoroughly medically examined, passed fit, attested by the Captain and detailed to be carpenter's mate and hydrographic assistant. Many years later, in the mid-nineteen thirties the old "Bear" was one of the ships that U.S. Admiral Byrd took to the Antarctic for his polar explorations. She is now permanently dry berthed at Baltimore, near Philadelphia.
During our last week at Oakland we saw the fleet of about a dozen big sailing ships of the Alaska Packing Company being towed one by one past our berth, down the bay and out into the open sea, to spread their sails to go north up to the Bering Sea for the salmon fishing season. They were magnificent full-rigged ships with steel hulls, masts and yards.
We ourselves cleared the Golden Gate one stormy afternoon; four of the deck crew failing to show-up. So I was warned by the old Norwegian Bosun's Mate (John Liddman) that in an emergency I would be expected to act as a deck hand.
The "Bear", as in all sailing ships, was worked with only two watches, Port and Starboard, four hours on duty and four off, all through the twenty four hours of every day at sea. Everyone in the ship, except the Captain and the Executive Officer was in one watch or the other : I was placed in the Starboard Watch. Steam merchantmen had an easier system with three watches, four hours on and eight off. Allowing twenty minutes for undressing and dressing, a sailor in our ship had little more than three and a half hours in his bunk before being roused out by the Bosun or his Mate to go on duty again, and in an emergency the watch that was off duty could be turned out before time. So the