I went aboard with Captain Balcom at ten o’clock and turned in on the Mate’s bunk. The cabin was small, but not uncomfortable, and it was not long before I was asleep. I did not even hear the ropes being cast off in the morning and only waked when the boy came down to call the Captain. We were well down the Sound when I came on deck, and were steaming swiftly along among little wooded islets half shrouded in gray fog. Far ahead the ugly, foam-flecked rocks of Cape Beale stretched out in a dangerous line guarding the entrance to the Straits of Juan de Fuca; beyond was a sheer wall of mist shutting us out from the open sea. The Captain was sure it was only a land fog hanging along the coastline, and that we would soon run through it into clear air. As the ship rose to the long swells of gray water and burrowed her way straight ahead deeper and deeper into the mist, everyone on deck was drenched and shivering. Fifteen minutes of steaming at full speed and the gray curtain began to thin; soon we ran out of it altogether. There was not a big sea running, but the little _Orion_ was dancing about like a cork. Balcom said, “It is calm weather so long as she keeps her decks dry,” and with this rather dubious comfort I settled down to get used to the tossing as best I could. Everything was intensely interesting to me, for it was my first trip on a steam whaler. Already a man had been sent aloft and was unconcernedly swinging about with glasses at his eyes watching the water ahead. I learned later, when seasickness was a thing of the past, what a wonderful view can be had from the crow’s nest. The whole level sea is laid out below like a relief map and every floating object, even the smallest birds, shows with startling distinctness. And if it is comparatively smooth, one can look far down into the water and see a whale or shark long before it is visible at the surface or to those on deck. [Illustration: Loading the harpoon-gun. “The charge is 300 to 375 drams of very coarse, black powder which is ... rammed home from the muzzle; then come wads of okum, hard rubber or cork, after which the harpoon ... is hammered solidly into place.” ] Before we left the station, the harpoon-gun had not been loaded. The muzzle was plugged with a wooden block and the iron rope-pan drawn upward and tied against the gun’s support. When coming in from the last trip the vessel had encountered heavy weather, and the rope was taken off the pan to prevent it from being carried away by a wave and fouling the propeller. Now as we were nearing the feeding grounds, the Bo’s’n went forward to load the gun, re-coil the harpoon line, and see that all was clear and running smoothly.