The TRAVELER'S JOURNAL: November twenty-third, remembering the voyage of the Mayflower.

The swirling currents and changeable climates of the North Atlantic make it an ocean of stark contrasts, peacefully beguiling one moment, elementally violent the next. Even today, its perfect storms claims victims from among those mariners who stretch their luck. How much more fearsome was it on September 16, 1620, when a badly overloaded 180-ton vessel slipped out of Plymouth Harbor, England for a 2700-mile voyage across a still largely unknown void?

The journey for the Mayflower's 103 passengers actually began six weeks earlier. Two months wasted trying to make seaworthy their second ship, the Speedwell, had cost them all fair winds. Now running against strong currents, the Pilgrim's progress averaged a mere two miles an hour. Initial good weather quickly turned foul, forcing passengers to stay in cramped, cold, unlit quarters. Yet, despite its hazards and anxieties, the 65-day voyage went largely without incident. On November 19th, land was spotted, the Cape Cod cliffs where Truro lighthouse now stands. Though hundreds of miles north of their intended Virginia destination, the Pilgrims landed the following day, signing a historic compact which established a self-governing colony. One month later, the group moved to the mainland, settling at the mouth of a river they named Plymouth.

One year after that, these Pilgrims had a feast to give thanks for having survived their passage. In 1789 President George Washington decreed Thanksgiving to the new nation's first national holiday.

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