7. The circumnavigation began and ended at St. Peter and Paul Rocks
On February 17, at noon, Captain Beach announced to the officers and crew under his command the true nature of the voyage upon which they had embarked. “As I reveal our intention over the general announcing system, there is a most attentive audience”, he noted. The circumnavigation had not yet begun. St. Peter and Paul rocks, off the coast of Brazil, were the starting and ending point for that phase of the cruise. The decision to follow the track of Ferdinand Magellan as closely as possible dictated the circumnavigation based on land sighted by the 16th century explorer. The following day the ship received notice that one of the crew had become a father. No opportunity to reply to the message was presented.
After just a few days at sea Beach noted that the requirement to come to periscope depth each night for an hour or more was retarding the ship’s progress behind projected schedules. Coming to periscope depth slowed the huge submarine, which had to rise slowly and in stages, in order to ensure that there were no ships on the surface which posed a collision hazard. Beach decided to use the speed built into Triton during the periods of deeper submergence to make up the time lost. That too posed hazards; much of the sea floor remained uncharted, and unknown seamounts waited to wreck a submarine moving blindly at high speed. Triton charted several previously unknown seamounts during the long voyage, using a fathometer and active sonar.