Twice, when the weather eastward seemed right, we tried to take off. And twice we failed because of too much fog or too little wind. Three thirty! Another day. Another start. Would it flatten out into failure like its predecessors? Out of the hotel we trooped in the greyness of before-dawn. Another breakfast at an all-night eating place—Stultz and his wife, Gordon, his fiancee, Mrs. Layman, Lou and Mrs. Gower, Commander and Mrs. Elmer, George Palmer Putnam, “Jake” Coolidge, and a few others. An hour earlier the sandwiches had been made, the patient big thermos bottle again filled with coffee for the boys, the little one with cocoa for me. We drove through deserted streets to T Wharf and at once boarded the tugboat Sadie Ross. The plane, as before, lay moored off the Jeffrey Yacht Club in East Boston. Stultz, Gordon, Gower, and I climbed in. We said no “good-byes”—too many of them already, and too little going! Slim uncovered the motors. Bill tinkered a bit with his radio and in the cockpit. Slim dropped down from the fuselage to the starboard pontoon, hopped over to the other, and cranked the port motor. Soon all three were turning over and Friendship taxied down the harbor, with the tug, carrying our friends, trailing us. And then, suddenly, the adventure began—the dream became actuality. _We were off!_ But let me tell the story here as I wrote it that very morning, in the little notebook that went with me across the Atlantic. Here is that record, exactly as it was set down (often none too legibly!) in my log book, penciled as we in the Friendship flew northeastward, with Boston behind and Newfoundland ahead: * * * * _Log Book:_ 7 o’clock, June 3. Slim has the controls and Bill is tuning in. He has been getting our position. I squat on the floor next the m.p. [motion picture] camera with my feet on a dunnage bag. There is one man’s shoe in the passageway between the gas tanks. It looks odd, but no one cares about its out-of-placeness. We are flying at about 2,000 feet. There is a light haze and the ocean is smooth, with little color. From a height it looks quiet, almost like ice with flecks in it. Boston is lost to view and has been for minutes. I tried to get a picture of the tugboats and harbor as we left, but just before starting the spring lock of the cabin door broke off, and I had to hold the door shut until Slim could get back to repair it. It was at first anchored to a gasoline can, but I saw the can being slowly pulled out, so anchored myself to it instead. * * * *