On the evening of the third day we check our position again when Cape Canaveral is picked up. The next afternoon we pass Palm Beach, with its hotels and bathers plainly visible as we hug the shore in order to keep away from the strong current of the Gulf Stream. We follow the curve of the Florida coast and the Florida Keys for another twenty-four hours, and then strike across the dark blue water of the Gulf Stream for Havana. When we appear on deck the next morning we learn that, having reached the Cuban coast while it was still dark, we have been forced to lie to until daylight should bring the pilot boat out. Finally the pilot appears and the ship heads for the narrow harbour entrance. A triangular pennant, which from its appearance might have been cut from an American flag, flies on a staff on Morro Castle, signalling the arrival of an American merchant ship. A motor boat comes up alongside and a port doctor comes aboard. We are all lined up while he looks us over hurriedly, signs his report, and leaves. The ship has made her way slowly into the little harbour, and finally her engines are stopped, her anchor is let go, and with the roar of the cable through the hawse pipe the voyage is ended. Such a voyage as this is not unique. Thousands of ships on thousands of routes go through similar experiences. Whole voyages are often taken without a hint of storm. Whole voyages, again, are taken through continuous and unending storm. Ships sometimes come into Halifax or Boston caked with ice—their rigging inches thick with it, their bulwarks buried. Again, typhoons drive ships upon dark rocks, or overladen ships capsize because of storm. But consider the thousands that sail the sea—consider the fact that not a storm can blow across the great stretches of the unfrozen seas without engulfing many ships within its mighty grasp. Yet with all this one rarely reads of shipwreck—there are few ships that find their ends in storm. And this is because men build ships sturdily and handle them adeptly. Their art is seamanship, and after all, they are artists. CHAPTER X THE SCIENCE OF NAVIGATION