Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the southern Atlantic, going east about after all - if he survived the
screeching fury of wind and waves:
No ship in the world could have stood up against so violent a gale
. . . And so she drove southeast, as though about to round the Horn,
while the waves rose and fell and bellowed their never-ending story of
the sea . . . She was running now with a reefed forestaysail, the sheets
flat amidship. I paid out two long ropes to steady her course and to
break combing seas astern, and I lashed the helm amidship. In this
trim she ran before it, shipping never a sea. Even while the storm raged
at its worst, my ship was wholesome and noble. My mind as to her sea-
worthiness was put at ease for aye . . . The first day of the storm gave
the Spray her actual test in the worst sea that Cape Horn or its wild
regions could afford, and in no part of the world could a rougher sea
be found than at this particular point, namely, off Cape Pillar, the grim
sentinel of the Horn . . . the Spray rode, now like a bird on the crest of a
wave, and now like a waif deep down in the hollow between seas; and
so she drove on. Whole days passed, counted as other days, but with al-
ways a thrill - yes, of delight.
19
There speaks the true adventurer, the man who could put him-
self and his lovingly-built ship at risk of instant destruction - just for
the hell of it. For him the voyage was a contest. Sometimes he had to
give his opponent best, such as now, when he was obliged to steer an
easterly course round the Horn, but if he did so it was only to stay
in the game. The voyage was a contest - and only a contest. No oth-
er motives diluted the thrill of facing and overcoming challenges. For
the first time in history a man sailed round the world with no com-
mercial or imperialist objectives. No national pride was at stake. No
scientific discoveries beckoned. He did not even travel to see other
lands, for there were few he had not already visited. Every adven-
turer has something of the gambler in him. Beneath the calculation,
