Failure as a fisherman--A voyage around the world projected--From
Boston to Gloucester--Fitting out for the ocean voyage--Half of a dory
for a ship's boat--The run from Gloucester to Nova Scotia--A shaking
up in home waters--Among old friends.
I spent a season in my new craft fishing on the coast, only to find
that I had not the cunning properly to bait a hook. But at last the
time arrived to weigh anchor and get to sea in earnest. I had resolved
on a voyage around the world, and as the wind on the morning of April
24,1895, was fair, at noon I weighed anchor, set sail, and filled away
from Boston, where the _Spray_ had been moored snugly all winter. The
twelve-o'clock whistles were blowing just as the sloop shot ahead
under full sail. A short board was made up the harbor on the port
tack, then coming about she stood seaward, with her boom well off to
port, and swung past the ferries with lively heels. A photographer on
the outer pier at East Boston got a picture of her as she swept by,
her flag at the peak throwing its folds clear. A thrilling pulse beat
high in me. My step was light on deck in the crisp air. I felt that
there could be no turning back, and that I was engaging in an
adventure the meaning of which I thoroughly understood. I had taken
little advice from any one, for I had a right to my own opinions in
matters pertaining to the sea. That the best of sailors might do worse
than even I alone was borne in upon me not a league from Boston docks,
where a great steamship, fully manned, officered, and piloted, lay
stranded and broken. This was the _Venetian._ She was broken
completely in two over a ledge. So in the first hour of my lone voyage
I had proof that the _Spray_ could at least do better than this
full-handed steamship, for I was already farther on my voyage than
she. "Take warning, _Spray,_ and have a care," I uttered aloud to my
bark, passing fairylike silently down the bay.
The wind freshened, and the _Spray_ rounded Deer Island light at the
rate of seven knots.
Passing it, she squared away direct for Gloucester to procure there
some fishermen's stores. Waves dancing joyously across Massachusetts
Bay met her coming out of the harbor to dash them into myriads of
sparkling gems that hung about her at every surge. The day was
perfect, the sunlight clear and strong. Every particle of water thrown
into the air became a gem, and the _Spray,_ bounding ahead, snatched
necklace after necklace from the sea, and as often threw them away. We
have all seen miniature rainbows about a ship's prow, but the _Spray_
flung out a bow of her own that day, such as I had never seen before.
Her good angel had embarked on the voyage; I so read it in the sea.
Bold Nahant was soon abeam, then Marblehead was put astern. Other
vessels were outward bound, but none of them passed the _Spray_ flying
along on her course. I heard the clanking of the dismal bell on
Norman's Woe as we went by; and the reef where the schooner _Hesperus_
struck I passed close aboard. The "bones" of a wreck tossed up lay
bleaching on the shore abreast. The wind still freshening, I settled
the throat of the mainsail to ease the sloop's helm, for I could
hardly hold her before it with the whole mainsail set. A schooner
ahead of me lowered all sail and ran into port under bare poles, the
wind being fair. As the _Spray_ brushed by the stranger, I saw that
some of his sails were gone, and much broken canvas hung in his
rigging, from the effects of a squall.
I made for the cove, a lovely branch of Gloucester's fine harbor,
again to look the _Spray_ over and again to weigh the voyage, and my
feelings, and all that. The bay was feather-white as my little vessel
tore in, smothered in foam. It was my first experience of coming into
port alone, with a craft of any size, and in among shipping. Old
fishermen ran down to the wharf for which the _Spray_ was heading,
apparently intent upon braining herself there. I hardly know how a
calamity was averted, but with my heart in my mouth, almost, I let go
the wheel, stepped quickly forward, and downed the jib. The sloop
naturally rounded in the wind, and just ranging ahead, laid her cheek
against a mooring-pile at the windward corner of the wharf, so
quietly, after all, that she would not have broken an egg. Very
leisurely I passed a rope around the post, and she was moored. Then a
cheer went up from the little crowd on the wharf. "You couldn't 'a'
done it better," cried an old skipper, "if you weighed a ton!" Now, my
weight was rather less than the fifteenth part of a ton, but I said
nothing, only putting on a look of careless indifference to say for
me, "Oh, that's nothing"; for some of the ablest sailors in the world
were looking at me, and my wish was not to appear green, for I had a
mind to stay in Gloucester several days. Had I uttered a word it
surely would have betrayed me, for I was still quite nervous and short
of breath.
I remained in Gloucester about two weeks, fitting out with the various
articles for the voyage most readily obtained there. The owners of the
wharf where I lay, and of many fishing-vessels, put on board dry cod
galore, also a barrel of oil to calm the waves. They were old skippers
themselves, and took a great interest in the voyage. They also made
the _Spray_ a present of a "fisherman's own" lantern, which I found
would throw a light a great distance round. Indeed, a ship that would
run another down having such a good light aboard would be capable of
running into a light-ship. A gaff, a pugh, and a dip-net, all of which
an old fisherman declared I could not sail without, were also put
aboard. Then, top, from across the cove came a case of copper paint, a
famous antifouling article, which stood me in good stead long after. I
slapped two coats of this paint on the bottom of the _Spray_ while she
lay a tide or so on the hard beach.
For a boat to take along, I made shift to cut a castaway dory in two
athwartships, boarding up the end where it was cut. This half-dory I
could hoist in and out by the nose easily enough, by hooking the
throat-halyards into a strop fitted for the purpose. A whole dory
would be heavy and awkward to handle alone. Manifestly there was not
room on deck for more than the half of a boat, which, after all, was
better than no boat at all, and was large enough for one man. I
perceived, moreover, that the newly arranged craft would answer for a
washing-machine when placed athwartships, and also for a bath-tub.
Indeed, for the former office my razeed dory gained such a reputation
on the voyage that my washerwoman at Samoa would not take no for an
answer. She could see with one eye that it was a new invention which
beat any Yankee notion ever brought by missionaries to the islands,
and she had to have it.
The want of a chronometer for the voyage was all that now worried me.
In our newfangled notions of navigation it is supposed that a mariner
cannot find his way without one; and I had myself drifted into this
way of thinking. My old chronometer, a good one, had been long in
disuse. It would cost fifteen dollars to clean and rate it. Fifteen
dollars! For sufficient reasons I left that timepiece at home, where
the Dutchman left his anchor. I had the great lantern, and a lady in
Boston sent me the price of a large two-burner cabin lamp, which
lighted the cabin at night, and by some small contriving served for a
stove through the day.
Being thus refitted I was once more ready for sea, and on May 7 again
made sail. With little room in which to turn, the _Spray_, in
gathering headway, scratched the paint off an old, fine-weather craft
in the fairway, being puttied and painted for a summer voyage. "Who'll
pay for that?" growled the painters. "I will," said I. "With the
main-sheet," echoed the captain of the _Bluebird_, close by, which was
his way of saying that I was off. There was nothing to pay for above
five cents' worth of paint, maybe, but such a din was raised between
the old "hooker" and the _Bluebird_, which now took up my case, that
the first cause of it was forgotten altogether. Anyhow, no bill was
sent after me.
The weather was mild on the day of my departure from Gloucester. On
the point ahead, as the _Spray_ stood out of the cove, was a lively
picture, for the front of a tall factory was a flutter of
handkerchiefs and caps. Pretty faces peered out of the windows from
the top to the bottom of the building, all smiling _bon voyage_. Some
hailed me to know where away and why alone. Why? When I made as if to
stand in, a hundred pairs of arms reached out, and said come, but the
shore was dangerous! The sloop worked out of the bay against a light
southwest wind, and about noon squared away off Eastern Point,
receiving at the same time a hearty salute--the last of many
kindnesses to her at Gloucester. The wind freshened off the point, and
skipping along smoothly, the _Spray_ was soon off Thatcher's Island
lights. Thence shaping her course east, by compass, to go north of
Cashes Ledge and the Amen Rocks, I sat and considered the matter all
over again, and asked myself once more whether it were best to sail
beyond the ledge and rocks at all. I had only said that I would sail
round the world in the _Spray_, "dangers of the sea excepted," but I
must have said it very much in earnest. The "charter-party" with
myself seemed to bind me, and so I sailed on. Toward night I hauled
the sloop to the wind, and baiting a hook, sounded for bottom-fish, in
thirty fathoms of water, on the edge of Cashes Ledge. With fair
success I hauled till dark, landing on deck three cod and two
haddocks, one hake, and, best of all, a small halibut, all plump and
spry. This, I thought, would be the place to take in a good stock of
provisions above what I already had; so I put out a sea-anchor that
would hold her head to windward. The current being southwest, against
the wind, I felt quite sure I would find the _Spray_ still on the bank
or near it in the morning. Then "stradding" the cable and putting my
great lantern in the rigging, I lay down, for the first time at sea
alone, not to sleep, but to doze and to dream.
I had read somewhere of a fishing-schooner hooking her anchor into a
whale, and being towed a long way and at great speed. This was exactly
what happened to the _Spray_--in my dream! I could not shake it off
entirely when I awoke and found that it was the wind blowing and the
heavy sea now running that had disturbed my short rest. A scud was
flying across the moon. A storm was brewing; indeed, it was already
stormy. I reefed the sails, then hauled in my sea-anchor, and setting
what canvas the sloop could carry, headed her away for Monhegan light,
which she made before daylight on the morning of the 8th. The wind
being free, I ran on into Round Pond harbor, which is a little port
east from Pemaquid. Here I rested a day, while the wind rattled among
the pine-trees on shore. But the following day was fine enough, and I
put to sea, first writing up my log from Cape Ann, not omitting a full
account of my adventure with the whale.
[Illustration: "'No dorg nor no cat.'"]
The _Spray_, heading east, stretched along the coast among many
islands and over a tranquil sea. At evening of this day, May 10, she
came up with a considerable island, which I shall always think of as
the Island of Frogs, for the _Spray_ was charmed by a million voices.
From the Island of Frogs we made for the Island of Birds, called
Gannet Island, and sometimes Gannet Rock, whereon is a bright,
intermittent light, which flashed fitfully across the _Spray's_ deck
as she coasted along under its light and shade. Thence shaping a
course for Briar's Island, I came among vessels the following
afternoon on the western fishing-grounds, and after speaking a
fisherman at anchor, who gave me a wrong course, the _Spray_ sailed
directly over the southwest ledge through the worst tide-race in the
Bay of Fundy, and got into Westport harbor in Nova Scotia, where I had
spent eight years of my life as a lad.
The fisherman may have said "east-southeast," the course I was
steering when I hailed him; but I thought he said "east-northeast,"
and I accordingly changed it to that. Before he made up his mind to
answer me at all, he improved the occasion of his own curiosity to
know where I was from, and if I was alone, and if I didn't have "no
dorg nor no cat." It was the first time in all my life at sea that I
had heard a hail for information answered by a question. I think the
chap belonged to the Foreign Islands. There was one thing I was sure
of, and that was that he did not belong to Briar's Island, because he
dodged a sea that slopped over the rail, and stopping to brush the
water from his face, lost a fine cod which he was about to ship. My
islander would not have done that. It is known that a Briar Islander,
fish or no fish on his hook, never flinches from a sea. He just tends
to his lines and hauls or "saws." Nay, have I not seen my old friend
Deacon W. D---, a good man of the island, while listening to a sermon
in the little church on the hill, reach out his hand over the door of
his pew and "jig" imaginary squid in the aisle, to the intense delight
of the young people, who did not realize that to catch good fish one
must have good bait, the thing most on the deacon's mind.
[Illustration: The deacon's dream.]
I was delighted to reach Westport. Any port at all would have been
delightful after the terrible thrashing I got in the fierce sou'west
rip, and to find myself among old schoolmates now was charming. It was
the 13th of the month, and 13 is my lucky number--a fact registered
long before Dr. Nansen sailed in search of the north pole with his
crew of thirteen. Perhaps he had heard of my success in taking a most
extraordinary ship successfully to Brazil with that number of crew.
The very stones on Briar's Island I was glad to see again, and I knew
them all. The little shop round the corner, which for thirty-five
years I had not seen, was the same, except that it looked a deal
smaller. It wore the same shingles--I was sure of it; for did not I
know the roof where we boys, night after night, hunted for the skin of
a black cat, to be taken on a dark night, to make a plaster for a poor
lame man? Lowry the tailor lived there when boys were boys. In his day
he was fond of the gun. He always carried his powder loose in the tail
pocket of his coat. He usually had in his mouth a short dudeen; but in
an evil moment he put the dudeen, lighted, in the pocket among the
powder. Mr. Lowry was an eccentric man.
At Briar's Island I overhauled the _Spray_ once more and tried her
seams, but found that even the test of the sou'west rip had started
nothing. Bad weather and much head wind prevailing outside, I was in
no hurry to round Cape Sable. I made a short excursion with some
friends to St. Mary's Bay, an old cruising-ground, and back to the
island. Then I sailed, putting into Yarmouth the following day on
account of fog and head wind. I spent some days pleasantly enough in
Yarmouth, took in some butter for the voyage, also a barrel of
potatoes, filled six barrels of water, and stowed all under deck. At
Yarmouth, too, I got my famous tin clock, the only timepiece I carried
on the whole voyage. The price of it was a dollar and a half, but on
account of the face being smashed the merchant let me have it for a
dollar.
[Illustration: Captain Slocum's chronometer.]