Jimmy Visits a Lightship off the Coast For some time after his flight to Northend Jimmy found life rather tame. No really big stories happened in the eastern part of the country. So Jimmy was occupied from day to day with minor tasks that provided little excitement. Yet all the while he was learning more about his job. From day to day he talked with fellow pilots at the Long Island airport, and drew from them as much as he could in the way of helpful suggestions about flying. For some of them had had extremely trying experiences. Whenever he was with newspaper men Jimmy asked as many questions as he could about reporting and news coverage. He bore in mind what the managing editor had said to him: “If you continue to improve, you’ll make a great reporter some day.” It was Jimmy’s ambition to be one of the very best. So he welcomed every experience that added to his knowledge. Even when his work seemed tamest he was acquiring facts and knowledge with surprising rapidity; and all that he learned enlarged his background and was just so much preparation for the day when he should truly become a great reporter. One of his assignments was to fly out to an incoming steamer in a seaplane and bring ashore some important news photographs from Europe. It was on this flight that Jimmy had his first sight of a lightship anchored at sea. He was instructed to meet the incoming ship near the Ambrose lightship, off the entrance to the Ambrose Channel that leads from the deep water of the sea up to the New York harbor. Jimmy knew the approximate hour of the steamship’s arrival at that point. He flew out to sea a little early, to be certain that he was on time. He was to get the pictures when the ship slowed down to pick up the pilot who was to guide her up the channel to her dock. Arrangements had been made by wireless with the photographer, who was aboard the liner. He was to get the pictures down to Jimmy in the seaplane. When the latter reached the lightship, the ocean liner was not yet in sight. Jimmy decided that he would not fly out to sea to meet her. He was a little distrustful of all this vast stretch of water about him. He had been ordered to meet the ship when she picked up her pilot. The pilot boat was cruising not far away. Jimmy decided that he would come down on the water, which was very calm, and take a look at the lightship. So he flew close to the vessel, then came down in a long glide, and was soon bobbing safely on the gentle swells of the Atlantic.