The master; Smith Tobin

It was a lovely day in the Coos Bay; the air transparent and bright likes a crystal. By the night it went off and then there was the bad weather with rain and wind. It lasted all the night and the next day along. The weather seemed changed. No matter since we were washing the superstructure of amidships using strong caustic soda mixed with brown soap and by an aid of the heavy rain.

In the evening, I got washed my clothes too.

The good weather was back on Wednesday.

The Baltic Isle was a ship as a tramp of the ocean with her capacity of nearly seven thousand tonnes. She was called as a Canadian's liberty by her sheer lines and was flying Panamanian flag and owned by some company of the refugee of Estonian. The interior of the sailors' quarter was Spartan, the bulkheads being build of a naked iron and there was not a proper heater to be warm the cabins. The wages were in the lowest English tariff. I have been said up myself and I wanted paid-off in the Coos Bay on the last day of December.

There is a saying among the seafarers: When the shore people have their regular feast like the midnight summer, or the feast of the NewYear, at the same time every year, the sailors will have their holiday and feast every time when they are going to sign on board a ship and when they are signing off the ship.

I was signing off with an ordinary seaman named Sven.

We remained aboard till the next morning, which was Tuesday, and when the sun rose we were well shaved and well attired and we said goodbye to our shipmates and friends aboard. Then we landed along the gangway carrying our gears on our shoulders.

There we were, on the shore of America, two young sunburned sailors, I was nineteen, and Sven was twenty. Been service for six months at the Ocean trade I had hundred and twenty dollars in my pocket. We felt free and relieved and relaxed thought there was a faint feeling of sad to leave our watery home once again. With our money, we went spending the wholly afternoon watching the shop fronts and shopping around. I bought a new hat and Sven wanted to have the wholly new silk khaki uniform. There were much strange

things advertised but we couldn't afford all them.

Looking no more backwards we set off on foot to the Raymond Lodge. The road ran along the Pacific shore then through nice woodland, over the green hillocks. That new setting was welcoming alternation to our eyes since we were so long accustomed to seeing the bare watery world around the ship. A first the walking was wonderful, to walking along the road on the steady soil.