Sailing Alone Around the World |
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Common terms and phrases
abeam ahead anchorage arrived ashore astern Australia Azores berth blowing boat Boston breeze cabin canoe Cape Froward Cape Horn Cape Pillar Captain cast anchor clear coast Cooktown coral course cove craft crew cried danger deck Durban Fairhaven farther fish following day Fuegian gave Gibraltar governor hand harbor hauled head heard helm island Joshua Slocum Juan Fernandez Keeling Cocos knew land light mainsail mast Mauritius miles morning never night ocean once passed port reached reefs rigging rocks round SAIL-PLAN sailors Samoa Sandy Point savages shark ship shore sight Slocum sloop soon Spray sailed Spray's squalls steamer steamship steering Stone Frigate stood storm Strait of Magellan Sydney Tasmania thing THOMAS FOGARTY thought Thursday Island Tierra del Fuego told took trade-winds vessel voyage waves weather whale williwaws yammerschooner
Popular passages
Page 141 - IN MEMORY OF ALEXANDER SELKIRK, MARINER, A native of Largo, in the county of Fife, Scotland, who lived on this island in complete solitude for four years and four months. He was landed from the Cinque Ports galley, 96 tons, 18 guns, AD 1704, and was taken off in the Duke, privateer, 12th February, 1709.
Page 39 - I realized that the sloop was plunging into a heavy sea, and looking out of the companionway, to my amazement I saw a tall man at the helm. His rigid hand, grasping the spokes of the wheel, held them as in a vise. One may imagine my astonishment. His rig was that of a foreign sailor, and the large red cap he wore was cockbilled over his left ear, and all was set off with shaggy black whiskers. He would have been taken for a pirate in any part of the world. While I gazed upon his threatening aspect...
Page 211 - July 17, 1897, twenty-three days from Thursday Island. The distance run was twentyseven hundred miles as the crow flies. This would have been a fair Atlantic voyage. It was a delightful sail! During those twentythree days I had not spent altogether more than three hours at the helm, including the time occupied in beating into Keeling harbor. I just lashed the helm and let her go; whether the wind was abeam or dead aft it was all the same : she always sailed on her course.
Page 89 - I might expect to meet savages; but seeing no signs of life, I came to anchor in eight fathoms of water, where I lay all night under a high mountain. Here I had my first experience with the terrific squalls, called williwaws, which extended from this point on through the strait to the Pacific. They were compressed gales of wind that Boreas handed down over the hills in chunks. A full-blown williwaw will throw a ship, even without sail on, over on her beam ends; but, like other gales, they cease now...
Page 10 - The cost of my new vessel was $553.62 for materials, and thirteen months of my own labor. I was several months more than that at Fairhaven, for I got work now and then on an occasional whale-ship fitting farther down the harbor, and that kept me the overtime.
Page 107 - The parting of a staysailsheet in a williwaw, when the sea was turbulent and she was plunging into the storm, brought me forward to see instantly a dark cliff ahead and breakers so close under the bows that I felt surely lost, and in my thoughts cried, "Is the hand of fate against me, after all, leading me in the end to this dark spot?" I sprang aft again, unheeding the flapping sail, and threw the wheel over, expecting, as the sloop came down into the hollow of a wave, to feel her timbers smash...
Page 102 - Under pressure of the smallest sail I could set she made for the land like a race-horse, and steering her over the crests of the waves so that she might not trip was nice work. I stood at the helm now and made the most of it. Night closed in before the sloop reached the land, leaving her feeling the way in pitchy darkness. I saw breakers ahead before long. At this I wore ship and stood offshore, but was immediately startled by the tremendous roaring of breakers again ahead and on the lee bow. This...
Page 145 - I had already found that it was not good to be alone, and so I made companionship with what there was around me, sometimes with the universe and sometimes with my own insignificant self; but my books were always my friends, let fail all else.
Page 155 - Following the subject of voyages, she gave me the four beautiful volumes of sailing directories for the Mediterranean, writing on the fly-leaf of the first: To CAPTAIN SLOCUM. These volumes have been read and re-read many times by my husband, and I am very sure that he would be pleased that they should be passed on to the sort of seafaring man that he liked above all others. FANNY V. DE G. STEVENSON. Mrs. Stevenson also gave me a great directory of the Indian Ocean. It was not without a feeling of...
Page 12 - 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.