Scapa Flow

“ Indeed, the demands for destroyers from all directions were as insistent as ever. The unsuitability of the Tyne as a collecting port was remarked upon by the Naval Staff, as well as other objections to the scheme as put forward from Scapa. In order to decide upon a workable scheme, directions were given that a conference was to assemble at Scapa on December 10. ”

“ Then, too, we tied up to the bank in the Sacramento River, and, grounding by an accident on the steep slope on a falling tide, nearly turned a side somersault down the bank. In a stark calm and heavy tide in the Carquinez Straits, where anchors skate on the channel-scoured bottom, we were sucked against a big dock and smashed and bumped down a quarter of a mile of its length before we could get clear. Two hours afterward, on San Pablo Bay, the wind was piping up and we were reefing down. It is no fun to pick up a skiff adrift in a heavy sea and gale. ”

“ The underlying cause of the Big Cascade is a limestone ledge which cuts the channel diagonally and makes ugly-looking water. We plan to run the rapid one boat at a time. The crews are doubled. Our steersman is alert, expectant, and as agile as a cat, his black hair switching in the wind. Sitting in the centre of the scow, as we do, the sensation is very different to that which one experiences in running rapids in a canoe. Then it is all swiftness and dexterity, for your craft is light, and, in expert hands, easily dirigible with one clever turn of the wrist. ”

“ The only sounds were the crash and thud of green water that slid off in foaming cascades from the forecastle to the well, the harp-like moaning of the wind-tautened stays, and, in brief lulls, the sizzling of rain and spray upon the heated funnel and the creaking of boat-gear whose serviceable character in such a humble “tramp” was a phenomenon reminiscent of unwonted marine perils that had but recently ceased. No longer did her look-out scrutinize every flitting patch of foam in apprehension of the dreaded periscope. The violences of sea and sky were dangers as of yore. ”

“ The long easy swell that had been lifting us gently along in the open sea was now transformed into heavy breakers as it reached and swept over the coral reef, each wave lifting and dropping with a frightful thud the quaking ship. It seemed at each fall as though her masts and smokestack would jump from their holdings and go by the board. To a landsman or even a professional seaman who has never experienced the sensation it would be impossible to convey a realizing sense of the feelings aroused by our sudden misfortune. ”

“ There is off Portland Bill a race, or overfall of water, caused by a shallow and rocky bottom, where the sea at times breaks so violently that vessels have been known to be swamped, and to go down amid the turmoil, with scarcely a possibility of any of the hapless crew escaping. During south-westerly gales, and with an ebb tide, the race runs the highest; but sometimes, even in moderate weather, without any apparent cause, there is a strange chopping and leaping of the sea, which makes it dangerous for a small vessel to pass through. ”

“ When the tide opposes the wind and swell, there is always a heavy, and, for small vessels, dangerous 'race' off Cape San Diego, where the water is more shoal than elsewhere (k) , we found it so at a neap flood-tide, but let it be remembered that on another day, at the top of the springs, being the day after full moon, we passed the same spot, at half flood, with the water perfectly smooth, and although strong eddies were seen in every direction, the vessel's steerage was but little affected by them. ”

“ Wilson has also determined the existence of a current, which sets steadily from Speke Bay parallel with the coast westwards. It is caused by the south-east trade winds, which prevail throughout the greater part of the year. The superfluous waters of the inland sea flow gently through a broad opening on the north coast over against the island of U-Vuma. This emissary, forming the head of the Nile properly so called, gradually narrows its banks to the proportions of a river, when its liquid contents are precipitated over a tremendous cascade, to which Speke has given the name of the Ripon Falls. ”

“ Even at the very beginning we know we are watching a host of cross currents dominated by one great violent stream; and though at first this stream moves unsteadily over hidden reefs, and the torrent seems to be torn asunder as if it were travelling towards different points, gradually we perceive the central and general movement growing stronger and more rapid, the convulsive fury of the contending waters is converted into one broad, steady, and terrible flow in the direction of an unknown goal ”

“ Many are the theories among fresh-water philosophists respecting these currents, but in practical sailing, where the subject is met with in its tangible form, one cause only is recognized; namely, the action of the wind on the surface of the water, pushing the waves along. Out on the broad ocean the effect at first is hardly perceptible, but the constant trades, sending countless millions of waves in one direction, cause at last a mighty moving power, which the mariner meets sometimes as an enemy to retard and delay, sometimes as a friend, as in our case, to help him on his way. ”

“ To windward of the lakes, and in the trade-wind regions of the southern hemisphere, is no land; but to windward of the Caspian Sea, and in the trade-wind region of the southern hemisphere, there is land. Therefore, supposing the course of the vapour-distributing winds to be such as I maintain it to be, ought they not to carry more water from the ocean to the American lakes than it is possible for them to carry from the land—from the interior of South Africa and America—to the valley of the Caspian Sea? ”

“ When the tide made against the wind the swell rose and caused our only remaining anchor to drag; more cable was instantly veered; but as the vessel did not bring up and we were drifting towards the reef no alternative was left but to weigh and keep under sail; which, during a long and dark night, and near so extensive a reef, was running great risk. Our loss of anchors was now much felt for no sooner were we under sail than the wind died away; and from the heavy swell the cutter was so ungovernable that the vessel twice missed stays in endeavouring to tack in shoal water ”

“ A human tide was setting northward from the States, a tide which swelled and quickened daily as the news of George Carmack's discovery spread across the world, but at Healy & Wilson's log-store, where the notice above referred to had been posted, the stream slowed. A crowd of new-comers from the barges and steamers in the roadstead had assembled there, and now gave voice to hoarse indignation and bitter resentment. Late arrivals from Skagway, farther down the coast, brought word of similar scenes at that point and a similar feeling of dismay ”

“ About the middle of the morning there sounded through the still air a distant boom, which grew louder until finally it became a crashing roar. Beyond a bend in the river stretched before them a long gorge. There the stream had narrowed, and, rushing across a ledge shaped like a horseshoe, foamed and roared and beat its way among the great boulders. The paddlers brought their craft into smooth water under an overhanging bank while they held a council of war. ”

“ I cried, and to this end I carried on all the sail she would bear. She ran all night with a free sheet, but on the morning of March 4 the wind shifted to southwest, then back suddenly to northwest, and blew with terrific force. The Spray, stripped of her sails, then bore off under bare poles. No ship in the world could have stood up against so violent a gale. Knowing that this storm might continue for many days, and that it would be impossible to work back to the westward along the coast outside of Tierra del Fuego, there seemed nothing to do but to keep on and go east about,
Cape Pillar. ”

“ Three times the bulkhead crumpled under the tremendous pressure of the sea, as soon as the pumps had relieved the opposing pressure within the hull. Mayo, haggard, unkempt, unshorn, thin with his vigils, stayed underwater in his diving-dress until he became the wreck of a man. But at last they built a transverse section that promised to hold. The pumps began to make gains on the water. As the flood within was lowered and they could get at the bulkhead more effectively from the inside, they kept adding to it and strengthening it. ”

“ The swell at the break of the reef lifted the keel with a motion buoyant and balloon-like, and the following wind, broken by the reef and the near presence of the land, died away into light airs. Pariseault had no need to take to the sculls; the boat had way enough on to reach the strip of sandy beach lying before her across the diamond-bright lagoon water, and, as her nose touched the sand, the wind died away utterly. ”

“ At this time [pg 218] the wind was west south-west; she had the main top-mast struck, the fore and mizzen top-gallant mast on deck, and the jib-boom in. At three a pilot came on board, when they were about two leagues west from Portland; the cables were ranged and bitted, and the jib-boom got out. The wind suddenly died away as she crossed the Shangles, a shoal of rock and shingle, about two miles from the land; and a strong tide setting the ship to westward, drifted her into the breakers. ”

“ The rocking of the ship by the waves and the storms that beat over her on the sand and coarse gravel of the bed of the sea had worn holes through her iron sides where her masts were stepped into her keel, and immediately the ship rose from the bottom a great torrent of water poured in through these openings, flooded the entire ship again and carried her back into the sandy bed where she had so long reposed. For many years in the ever changing sands the jagged sides of her ever diminishing hull would be exposed only to be buried by the next great storm that swept her. ”

“ The tide, by raising the sloop to the wreck suspended in the air, had diminished the dangers of the descent, and abridged the labour. But this diminution of the interval had left the top of the funnel entangled in the kind of gaping frame formed by the open hull of the Durande. The funnel was held fast there as between four walls.
The services rendered by the sea had been accompanied by that unfortunate drawback. It seemed as if the waves, constrained to obey, had avenged themselves by a malicious trick.
It is true that what the flood-tide had done, the ebb would undo. ”

“ So swift is it, so great the volume of water, and so contracted the channel, that half its water ascends the sloping banks, runs over them for nearly a score of yards, and then falls into the narrow chute below, making a veritable horseshoe funnel of boiling cascades, not much wider than the length of our raft, and as high at the end as her mast. ”

“ We sailed into Salcombe on Saturday evening, in a hired yacht of twenty-eight tons, after beating around the Start and Prawl against a sou'westerly wind and a strong spring tide. Now the tide off the Start has to be studied. To begin with, it does not coincide in point of time with the tide inshore. The flood, or east stream, for instance, only starts to run there some three hours before it is high water at Salcombe; but, having started, runs with a vengeance, or, to be more precise, at something like three knots an hour during the high springs; and the consequence is a very lively race. ”

“ It presently occurred to me that it was in vain to pretend to make a raft with the wind offshore; and that it was my business to be gone before the tide of flood began, otherwise I might not be able to reach the shore at all. Accordingly, I let myself down into the water, and swam across the channel, which lay between the ship and the sands, and even that with difficulty enough, partly with the weight of the things I had about me, and partly the roughness of the water; for the wind rose very hastily, and before it was quite high water it blew a storm. ”

“ There is more open water between the floes around us, yet not a great deal more.
In general what we have observed on the opening of the pack means a very small increase in the open water spaces, but enough to convey the impression that the floes, instead of wishing to rub shoulders and grind against one another, desire to be apart. They touch lightly where they touch at all—such a condition makes much difference to the ship in attempts to force her through, as each floe is freer to move on being struck. ”

“ When the raft stranded on a bar with the water on each side so deep that we could not wade ashore, the canoe was used for "lightering the load," an extremely slow process which, fortunately, we were obliged to employ only once on the whole raft journey, although several times in wading the water came up to our waists before we could get to shore. In fact, with a heavy load on one's back or shoulders, it is evidently much easier to wade through water of that depth and proportional current than through very swift water over shallow bars. ”

“ Within the gorge the ear is stunned with the continual din of the rushing waters, and the attention kept constantly on the strain to avoid the perils of rock, rapid, whirlpool, and cataract with which the course is strewn. With extreme caution and good-luck the rapids may be run in safety; but how are frail canoes to survive the experiment of a plunge over a perpendicular ledge, in company with millions of tons of falling water, into an abyss of seething and gyrating foam? ”