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Joshua Slocum - Sailing Alone Around The World
I had the sloop soon under good control, however, and in a short time rounded to under the lee of a
mountain, where the sea was as smooth as a mill-pond, and the sails flapped and hung limp while she
carried her way close in. Here I thought I would anchor and rest till morning, the depth being eight
fathoms very close to the shore. But it was interesting to see, as I let go the anchor, that it did not reach
the bottom before another williwaw struck down from this mountain and carried the sloop off faster than
I could pay out cable. Therefore, instead of resting, I had to "man the windlass" and heave up the anchor
with fifty fathoms of cable hanging up and down in deep water. This was in that part of the strait called
Famine Reach. Dismal Famine Reach! On the sloop's crab-windlass I worked the rest of the night,
thinking how much easier it was for me when I could say, "Do that thing or the other," than now doing
all myself. But I hove away and sang the old chants that I sang when I was a sailor. Within the last few
days I had passed through much and was now thankful that my state was no worse.
It was daybreak when the anchor was at the hawse. By this time the wind had gone down, and cat's-paws
took the place of williwaws, while the sloop drifted slowly toward Sandy Point. She came within sight of
ships at anchor in the roads, and I was more than half minded to put in for new sails, but the wind coming
out from the northeast, which was fair for the other direction, I turned the prow of the Spray
westward once more for the Pacific, to traverse a second time the second half of my first course through
the strait.
CHAPTER IX
Repairing the Spray's sails - Savages and an obstreperous anchor-A spider-fight - An encounter
with Black Pedro - A visit to the steamship Colombia, - On the defensive against a fleet of
canoes - A record of voyages through the strait - A chance cargo of tallow.
I was determined to rely on my own small resources to repair the damages of the great gale which drove
me southward toward the Horn, after I had passed from the Strait of Magellan out into the Pacific. So
when I had got back into the strait, by way of Cockburn Channel, I did not proceed eastward for help at
the Sandy Point settlement, but turning again into the northwestward reach of the strait, set to work with
my palm and needle at every opportunity, when at anchor and when sailing. It was slow work; but little
by little the squaresail on the boom expanded to the dimensions of a serviceable mainsail with a peak to
it and a leech besides. If it was not the best-setting sail afloat, it was at least very strongly made and
would stand n hard blow. A ship, meeting the Spray long afterward, reported her as wearing a
mainsail of some improved design and patent reefer, but that was not the case.
The Spray for a few days after the storm enjoyed fine weather, and made fair time through the
strait for the distance of twenty miles, which, in these days of many adversities, I called a long run. The
weather, I say, was fine for a few days; but it brought little rest. Care for the safety of my vessel, and
even for my own life, was in no wise lessened by the absence of heavy weather. Indeed, the peril was
even greater, inasmuch as the savages on comparatively fine days ventured forth on their marauding
excursions, and in boisterous weather disappeared from sight, their wretched canoes being frail and
undeserving the name of craft at all. This being so, I now enjoyed gales of wind as never before, and
the Spray was never long without them during her struggles about Cape Horn. I became in a
measure inured to the life, and began to think that one more trip through the strait, if perchance the sloop
should be blown off again, would make me the aggressor, and put the Fuegians entirely on the defensive.
This feeling was forcibly borne in on me at Snug Bay, where I anchored at gray morning after passing
Cape Froward, to find, when broad day appeared, that two canoes which I had eluded by sailing all night
were now entering the same bay stealthily under the shadow of the high headland. They were well
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