About eight o'clock
About eight o'clock on the morning of the 5th of November , 1900 , those of the passengers and crew of the American liner _ St. Louis _ who happened , whether from causes of duty or of their own pleasure , to be on deck , had a very strange -- in fact a quite unprecedented experience . The big ship was ploughing her way through the long , smooth rollers at her average twenty-one knots towards the rising sun , when the officer in charge of the navigating bridge happened to turn his glasses straight ahead . He took them down from his eyes , rubbed the two object-glasses with the cuff of his coat , and looked again . The sun was shining through a haze which so far dimmed the solar disc that it was possible to look straight at it without inconvenience to the eyes .