Open sea

“ The flashful trembling of the sunlit sea was in the atmosphere of the cabin, and bulkhead and upper deck seemed to race with the rippling of the waves of light in them. Through the open port came the seething and pouring song of the ocean; the music of smiting billows, the small harmonies of foam bells and of seething eddies. There was the presence of the ocean too, the sense of its infinity, and of the speeding ship, a speck under the heavens, yet fraught with the passions and feelings of a multitude of souls bound to a new world, fresh from a land which many of them would never again behold. ”

“ There is nothing more fascinating than the edge of a reef in the open sea, where numbers of forms and their delightful groupings can be seen in succession, one below another, till they become hazy and gradually lost in the blue depths, sixty to ninety feet below us. ”

“ Nature has not neglected to make her preparations. She gives you the stretch of open sea as a contrast to what is coming. And just when you are beginning to feel its monotony, the prow of the vessel veers to the left, seems to be sensitively searching for some unseen opening in the rugged coast. ”

“ So, too, in exploring the open sea, besides the pleasure of sailing along a variegated coast, with sun and blue water, we have the constant excitement of unexpected discovery: for, as often as we pull up the dredge, some new wonder is revealed. ”

“ The sun sinks beyond the vast expanse of open, wide, and illimitable sea, heaving with a deep and mysterious ground swell as the long waves roll shorewards. Between the great pinnacles of rock blue chasms yawn and pass away, and the bases of the nearer rocks are momentarily hidden by the foam of the surging waves. ”

“ The salt breath of the sea, wandering up the dusty avenues, called the children of men to new adventures—hinted of far countries across the world, of men going down to the sea in ships, of traffic and merchandise in fairer climes, of dripping forest gloom and glittering peaks, of liquid-lisping brooks and the green scenery of the open earth. ”

“ But in an open boat, brought down to the very plane of the sea, this feeling almost wholly deserts you. Unless the waves, in their gambols, toss you and your chip upon one of their lordly crests, your sphere of vision is little larger than it would be at the bottom of a well. At best, your most extended view in any one direction, at least, is in a high, slow-rolling sea; when you descend into the dark, misty spaces, between long and uniform swells. ”

“ The swell has subsided, the storm clouds have cleared away, and the tide is scattering the ice out over the sea. We are fairly and truly afloat, and once more cannot leave the deck without a boat. It is just ten months to a day since we were locked up, during which time our little craft has been a house rather than a ship. We are glad to feel again the motion of the sea; and "man the boat" seems a novel order to give when one wants to go ashore. We await only a wind to send us to sea. ”

“ ADIEU TO PORT FOULKE.
Moving out to sea under full sail, with a light wind from the eastward. We make little progress, but are able to pick our way among the loose ice. As we pass along, I see shoals of old tin cans, dead dogs, piles of ashes, and other débris of the winter, floating on ice-rafts upon the sea,—relics of the ten months which are gone, with all its dreary and all its pleasant memories. ”

“ The swimmer who, attracted by the beauty of the spot, ventures among breakers in the open sea, where the still waters hide the splendours of the deep, or in the hollows of unfrequented rocks, in unknown caverns abounding in sea plants, testacea, and crustacea, under the deep portals of the ocean, runs the risk of meeting it. ”

“ The open water has made still further inroads upon the ice. The islands are all now in the open sea, and it is but a few rods from the ship to its margin. The ice still clings tightly to the schooner, notwithstanding all our efforts to free her. In anticipation of a southerly swell setting into the harbor and breaking the ice, I have had the men at work for several days sawing a crack across the harbor from the vessel's fore-foot in the one direction, and from the stern-post in the other. ”

“ The west coasts of both continents are marked for their dearth of great streams. The open sea that some Arctic explorers have presumed to be about the poles is no doubt the beginning of the fresh water ocean.
The open sea problem introduces the importance of this disquisition. If there is an open sea, which is in all probability true, it must be the open door to an inside world as truly as the coming back from those high latitudes and entering open sea is the evidence of our habitable outside world. ”

“ Rowing and sailing, we continued to make our way out to the open ocean. It was blowing fresh but, the wind coming off-shore, the sea was tolerably calm, and we agreed that at all events it was better to undergo the dangers of a long voyage in an open boat than trust ourselves in the power of the revengeful savages. We had reached the mouth of the harbour, and could still see the village far off on its shore, when, to our dismay, we found the sea breeze setting in. ”

“ Freed from the shackles which it has borne in silence through unnumbered centuries, this new-born child of the ocean rushes with a wild bound into the arms of the parent water, where it is caressed by the surf and nursed into life again; and the crystal drops receive their long-lost freedom, and fly away on the laughing waves to catch once more the sunbeam, and to run again their course through the long cycle of the ages. ”

“ The sea is smooth as glass; not a ripple breaks its dead surface, not a breath of air stirring. The sun hangs close upon the northern horizon; the fog has broken up into light clouds; the icebergs lie thick about us; the dark headlands stand boldly out against the sky; and the clouds and sea and bergs and mountains are bathed in - 25 - an atmosphere of crimson and gold and purple most singularly beautiful. ”

“ It has been fashionable to speak of an open polar sea, but no one has yet penetrated into it. The impression derived from the latest Arctic voyages of the American, English, Austrian, and Swedish expeditions is unfavorable to the existence of permanent open water. ”

“ We can as readily sound the ocean as fathom the feelings it inspires. It is too deep for thought. As often as the sea speaks to us of the birth of Venus and of Joy, so also does it remind of Prometheus bound and the thrall of Nature. ”

“ The boat is making her way, rolling slightly, but bearing herself bravely. Now and then we go out of our way to avoid a steamer. For several days there is nothing to be seen; the gramophones play gaily, and everyone is in the best of humours. On the open sea we are entirely dependent on the weather for our comfort."
It was, as a matter of fact, the first moment that we had been able to breathe freely. Looking round on all sides one became almost incorporated with the everlasting sameness of the sea.
One day I was standing on the fore-deck. ”

“ A river whose estuary resembles a breach in a sand rampart may flow through a most fertile country. But all the estuaries of great rivers have their fascination, the attractiveness of an open portal. Water is friendly to man. The ocean, a part of Nature furthest removed in the unchangeableness and majesty of its might from the spirit of mankind, has ever been a friend to the enterprising nations of the earth. And of all the elements this is the one to which men have always been prone to trust themselves, as if its immensity held a reward as vast as itself. ”

“ These considerations, and the fact that the surface of the sea is a broad plane, permit open sea areas to be traversed by a variety of routes to an extent not applicable in the case of land areas and the air above them. ”

“ There is no better way of actually seeing that the surface of the ocean is curved than by watching a distant ship on the open sea. When the ship is a long way off and is still receding, its hull will gradually disappear, while the masts will remain visible. ”

“ Between two seas the sea-bird's wing makes halt,
Wind-weary; while with lifting head he waits
For breath to reinspire him from the gates
That open still toward sunrise on the vault
High-domed of morning, and in flight's default
With spreading sense of spirit anticipates
What new sea now may lure beyond the straits
His wings exulting that her winds exalt
And fill them full as sails to seaward spread,
Fulfilled with fair speed's promise. ”

“ An attentive study of the currents of the sea, and a close examination of the laws which govern the movements of the waters in their channels of circulation through the ocean, will lead any one irresistibly to the conclusion that always, in summer and winter, there must be, somewhere within the arctic circle, a large body of open water. ”

“ It may be remarked, in Confirmation of the above Doctrine, that triangular or Latteen Sails are used, and more useful, in a Mediterranean Sea, surrounded by high Lands, from which the Wind suddenly descends in Squalls; than in the open Atlantic, where the Wind is more equal. ”

“ Pushing back the water, it makes its own coast line; and, moving still onward, accommodating itself to every inequality of the bed of the sea, as it had before done to the surface of the land, filling up the wide bay or fiord, expanding where it expands, narrowing where it narrows, swallowing up the islands in its slow and - 143 - steady course, it finally reaches many miles beyond the original shore-line. ”

“ I had now become the possessor of seventeen dogs, and awaited only one principal event to set out on a preliminary journey northward. The sea had not yet closed about Sunrise Point, and I could not get out of the bay on that side. To travel over the land was, owing to its great roughness, impracticable for a sledge, even if without cargo; and to round the Point at that season of the year, through the broken ice and rough sea, in an open boat, was, for obvious reasons, not to be thought of. ”

“ It is in the air, like a touch of autumn, and we know it as much through feeling as through seeing. The coast is saturated for some distance inland with this presence of the sea, much as the beach is soaked with salt water. It is music and poetry to the soul and as elusive as they, wrapping us in dreams and yielding fugitive glimpses of that which we may never grasp, but which skirts, like a beautiful phantom, the mind's horizon. ”

“ But if there was nothing but the grand old ocean itself, it would be enough. Whether it is calm and quiet, just rolling in steadily upon the shore, in long lines of waves, which come sweeping and curling upon the beach and then breaking, spread far out over the sand—or whether the storm-waves, tossing high their lofty heads, come rushing madly upon the coast, dashing themselves upon the sands and thundering up against the rocks, the sea is grand! ”

“ The little fleet will soon appear yonder betwixt the ocean and God’s sky with its white or brown sails. To-day the sky is unclouded, the sea calm; the flood tide floats the fishers gently to the shore. But the Ocean is a capricious old fellow, who takes all shapes and sings in many voices. ”

“ We see a manned boat and a wrecking ship upon the immense ocean, with its swirling drift blown across like a tongue of tormented flame; and huge volumes of grey cloud over the horizon, walling out from the sea the gorgeous dawn of a new day, on fire with the blaze of sunlight. The painting of the vast sea-surface is a very great effort of knowledge and mastery, and a very successful one. ”

“ The ocean air is delightful and invigorating, the sky a perfect azure, and the translucent waves with their foamy edges stretch away in long beautiful curves. We feel the heart throbs of old Neptune, as the waters plash softly over the steamer’s sides, and we speed steadily forward, with the rush and swish of the sea sounding in our ears with a wild sweet melody all its own. To fall asleep on deck amid these charming conditions is delightful indeed. But how quickly the scene changes. ”

“ With an east wind the sea is always musical. It breaks forth in its solemn chant, as though the wind were an influence that awakened memories of the immeasurable past, and inspired this primitive song. ”

“ The sun-breeze smiled, the night-wind laughed ;
The white-flocked sky, the foam-decked sea
Beckoned and welcomed sail and craft,
Beckoned and welcomed friend and me.
So side by side we sailed and sailed,
Fair wind behind, fair port before,
Till port forgot and wind that failed
Left both adrift twixt shore and shore.
A sea that steamed, a sky that scowled,
A sullen silence calm as death,
Then o'er the changing ocean howled
Full in our face the wild wind's breath. ”

“ The leaping waves with their white-capped crest
The plunge and lunge on the ocean's breast
Like wild, white horses racing free,
With the swing of the rolling, surging sea!
The white sea cloud that drifts like a dream;
The sea-gulls that skim o'er the waves, and scream;
The dolphin's plunge and the petrel's nest,
That is borne to land on the tide-race crest:
And all that goes, from mid-ocean to lea,
To make up the rolling, the surging sea! ”

“ I never beheld a lovelier dome of sky, so tender in glory and rich in delicate perfections of tints. The sea spread in a firm dark line to it like a blue floor under some mighty roof of marble; the sun’s wake came in a misty stream of light to the port bends of the yacht, where it was flashed by the mirror-like wet blackness of the glossy side back deep into the brimming azure of the brine in a great puff of radiance that made one think of a cloud of brightly illuminated steam ascending from the depths. ”

“ I strongly suspect that those who complain of the monotony of the ocean do not use their eyes as they do on land. It seems to be the custom at sea to sit on deck, looking abroad only when the sun is setting, or the moon rising, or when there is a sail to be speculated upon. Some of the most beautiful sights I caught were when no one else was looking down quite into the deep, the only way to see most of the creatures that live there. One day I was startled, while thus gazing, with an excessive radiance, like an expanse of brilliant rainbow, far down in the sunny deep under our bows. ”