PHOENIX: Childhood artifacts - Journal-carrying case

      Nick Mikami, our first mate and the only Japanese crew member who sailed all the way around the world with us (becoming the first Japanese ever to sail around the world, as far as we know), made this for me to hold my current journal and fountain pens. It is made of canvas with zippers across the top and Nick used the hardy machine with which he mended sails to sew our route onto the side of it--unfortunately it's hard to see because the background has its own pattern. But look at the detail!

"Ho-o-Maru" - Phoenix in Japanese

My initials and "Around the world" in Japanese

Australia outlined in yellow and our route in light blue.

Africa, the Mediterranean--and a pocket for pens.

Our route goes right through the Panama Canal. Note Equator in red and fine khaki-colored stitches showing latitudes and longitudes.

     There are some gifts I've been given which represent so much effort and thoughtfulness on the part of the giver or are so beautiful that I don't use them at all, just keep them. I think I don't feel worthy of them. This is one of those gifts.

PHOENIX: Childhood artifacts - tiny ivory zoo

     This is just an old beat-up contact lens case. (I switched from glasses to contacts when I was 17.) But it has contained, all these years, a tiny ivory zoo.
     I'm not sure what else to call it and I can't remember for sure where we got it during our travels on the Phoenix although as I am reading through my journals I will undoubtedly come across that information. I think it's Indian--but as there were, even then, Indians (and Chinese) selling their wares everywhere we went, that doesn't narrow it down much.
     Originally the zoo came inside an eensy-teesy round red seed pod. (Maybe I can replace that at Pier I Imports, too.) There were five recognizable carved animals the size of--well, of fleas. Now there are four.

     You can see a lion, an elephant, a camel and a tiger. (Thanks, Jerry, for getting a clear picture of the animals after all my tries came out fuzzy!)

PHOENIX: Childhood artifacts - box with secret compartments

Box with hidden compartments:

Voila--a toothpick!

PHOENIX: Childhood artifacts - my dolls

     Behind me, in my bunk, is Cynthia. I don't know what happened to her. Ditto my baby doll Judy and my koala made with kangaroo fur ( I always thought that was odd--do Aussies make their stuffed kangaroos with koala fur?), and ears sticking out to the side, stiff like handles. (See below.)
     Or Bo-chan. Although I didn't know it at the time, Bo-chan was a distressed African-American baby doll. (See two pictures below.) Skipper or Mum gave him a Japanese boy's name (pronounced Boh-chan or Boat-chan, with a glottal stop in the middle) and put him in a kimono. It never occurred to me he wasn't originally Japanese.
     Where did that monkey come from? Don't have clear memories of him.

PHOENIX: Childhood artifacts - obsidian cat

     This little obsidian cat, never named, was a gift from the Ishikawa ("Stone-river") family in the port of Takamatsu ("High-Pine") the night before we left Japan to circle the world. Dad, soon to be called Skipper, noted it crouching on my desk and picked it up. He said something like, "Oh, this is a nice pet. He wants to come stay in my cabin."
     So he made off with it and although I often thought of it wistfully over the years I didn't have the courage to ask for it back or to assert my right to it. Three decades later when Skipper was living on shore among the redwoods of Santa Cruz county, California, and his wife Akie asked me to come take over his care, I found it on the windowsill in his bathroom and re-appropriated it. I had never thought it particularly attractive but it was mine. 
     Skipper and Mum both had "boundary issues."