Aug 14– From Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr. (1840)
Summary: Sailing is hard in bad weather.
Commentary: Good to be back with Two Years Before the Mast. I think this is the third excerpt, and I enjoyed the earlier two. That said, it's also one of the hardest pieces in here to read broken up. It's very narrative, and reading a chapter here and a chapter there is rough. Still, enjoying it very much and have it on the list to finish later. Dana sure seems to have some crappy weather on his voyage. Here's the grab for tonight:
He had just got to the end of the windlass, when a great sea broke over the bows, and for a moment I saw nothing of him but his head and shoulders; and at the next instant, being taken off of his legs, he was carried aft with the sea, until her stern lifting up and sending the water forward, he was left high and dry at the side of the long-boat, still holding on to his tin pot, which had now nothing in it but salt water.
But nothing could ever daunt him, or overcome, for a moment, his habitual good humor. Regaining his legs, and shaking his fist at the man at the wheel, he rolled below, saying, as he passed, "A man's no sailor, if he can't take a joke." The ducking was not the worst of such an affair, for, as there was an allowance of tea, you could get no more from the galley; and though sailors would never suffer a man to go without, but would always turn in a little from their own pots to fill up his, yet this was at best but dividing the loss among all hands.
No matter how bad your day was, it's probably better than the guy who got knocked into a lifeboat by a crane and lost his tea. And if that does happen to someone, give him a hand up.
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