Nearing the Breakwater we had more company. Other seiners, with boats astern and dories on deck, were coming in; jumbo, jib, fore and reefed mainsail generally, and all plunging gloriously with a harbor near at hand.
For the next few hours of that morning any watcher in the lighthouse on the Breakwater could have seen plenty of samples of clever seamanship. At our time we were only one of a half-dozen at the business of working around the jetty, some making for one end and some for the other. There was a great trying of tacks and some plain criticism of tactics and weatherly qualities. There was one who tried to cut in before he could quite make it. When he had to put back or run ashore and lose her, a great laugh went up, though there was nothing the matter with the try. He had only tried too much.
Eddie Parsons was the sharp critic. “Trying to beat out the fleet, hey? And with that old hooker? Nothing wrong with your nerve, old man, but some fine day, when there’s a little wind stirring, you’ll roll that tub over a little too far. That’s 100 right––jam her up now! Think you got a steamboat? Wonder nobody ever told you about sailing a vessel. Come out of it, old man, and let her swing off.”
We had yet to get in ourselves, and that we had the Johnnie Duncan to eat into the wind we were thankful. At last we were by and reaching down to the end of the jetty. We all began to feel good once we were sure of it. It was fine, too, to listen to Clancy as we got near. He was standing on the break, leaning against the weather rigging and looking forward.
“You’d think she’d been coming here for a hundred years, wouldn’t you? Look at her point her nose now at that beacon––don’t have to give this one the wheel at all. She’s the girl. See her bow off now. Man, but she knows as well as you and me she’ll be inside and snug’s a kenched mackerel before long. Watch her kick into the wind now. Oh, she’s the lady, this one. I’ve sailed many of them, but she’s the queen of them all, this one.”
A half dozen of lucky fellows were in before us. We drove in among them, under the bow of one and past the stern of another. They were all watching us, after the custom of the fleet in harbor. We knew this and behaved as smartly as we could without slopping over.
By and by our skipper picked out a place to his fancy. “Stand by halyards and down-hauls,” was his warning.
“Ready––all ready.”
“Ready with the anchor!”