Dana, Richard Henry, 1815-1882; Sailors; Seafaring life; Voyages and travels
The Ayacucho got to the anchoring ground about half an hour before
us, and was furling her sails when we came to it. This picking up
your cables is a nice piece of work. It requires some seamanship
to do it, and to come-to at your former moorings, without letting
go another anchor. Captain Wilson was remarkable, among the
sailors on the coast, for his skill in doing this; and our captain
never let go a second anchor during all the time that I was with
him. Coming a little to windward of our buoy, we clewed up the
light sails, backed our main topsail, and lowered a boat, which
pulled off, and made fast a spare hawser to the buoy on the end of
the slip-rope. We brought the other end to the capstan, and hove
in upon it until we came to the slip-rope, which we took to the
windlass, and walked her up to her chain, occasionally helping her
by backing and filling the sails. The chain is then passed through
the hawse-hole and round the windlass, and bitted, the slip-rope
taken round outside and brought into the stern port, and she is
safe in her old berth. After we had got through, the mate told us
that this was a small touch of California, the like of which we
must expect to have through the winter.
After we had furled the sails and got dinner, we saw the Loriotte
nearing, and she had her anchor before night. At sundown we went
ashore again, and found the Loriotte's boat waiting on the beach.
The Sandwich-Islander who could speak English told us that he had
been up to the town; that our agent, Mr. Robinson, and some other
passengers, were going to Monterey with us, and that we were to
sail the same night. In a few minutes Captain Thompson, with two
gentlemen and a lady, came down, and we got ready to go off. They
had a good deal of baggage, which we put into the bows of the
boat, and then two of us took the señora in our arms, and waded
with her through the water, and put her down safely in the stern.
She appeared much amused with the transaction, and her husband was
perfectly satisfied, thinking any arrangement good which saved his
wetting his feet. I pulled the after oar, so that I heard the
conversation, and learned that one of the men, who, as well as I
could see in the darkness, was a young-looking man, in the
European dress, and covered up in a large cloak, was the agent of
the firm to which our vessel belonged; and the other, who was
dressed in the Spanish dress of the country, was a brother of our
captain, who had been many years a trader on the coast, and that
the lady was his wife. She was a delicate, dark-complexioned young
woman, of one of the respectable families of California. I also
found that we were to sail the same night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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