eight o'clock
It was a real joy to be looking through the glass panels of the airplane 's cabin once more , to hear the muffled roar of her engine and propeller , and to realize that probably before dark they would be across the five hundred miles of blue waters of the Caribbean and hovering over the world-famous Canal Zone . It was a fine morning . What clouds could be seen were well above them -- light , billowy , and white , reflecting the sunlight so strongly upon the white-capped waters below , that the sea seemed much closer to the voyagers than it really was . Shortly after eight o'clock they crossed over the long , low-lying island of Cuba , dipping down close enough to get a fairly good view of the topography . Then rising to three thousand feet , they swerved a little to the eastward and made off across the Caribbean Sea itself . At a few minutes of eleven they sighted the shore of Jamaica , five miles or so to the eastward of them . Then John took the throttle , both engines were put into the work , and they began to whizz through the air at a clip which would have made them gasp for breath had they been in an open cockpit .