The Torres Strait is about thirty-four leagues wide, but it’s obstructed by an incalculable number of islands, islets, breakers, and rocks that make it nearly impossible to navigate. Consequently, Captain Nemo took every desired precaution in crossing it. Floating flush with the water, the Nautilus moved ahead at a moderate pace. Like a cetacean’s tail, its propeller churned the waves slowly.
Taking advantage of this situation, my two companions and I found seats on the ever-deserted platform. In front of us stood the pilothouse, and unless I’m extremely mistaken, Captain Nemo must have been inside, steering his Nautilus himself.
Under my eyes I had the excellent charts of the Torres Strait that had been surveyed and drawn up by the hydrographic engineer Vincendon Dumoulin and Sublieutenant (now Admiral) Coupvent-Desbois, who were part of Dumont d’Urville’s general staff during his final voyage to circumnavigate the globe. These, along with the efforts of Captain King, are the best charts for untangling the snarl of this narrow passageway, and I consulted them with scrupulous care.
Around the Nautilus the sea was boiling furiously. A stream of waves, bearing from southeast to northwest at a speed of two and a half miles per hour, broke over heads of coral emerging here and there.
“That’s one rough sea!” Ned Land told me.
“Abominable indeed,” I replied, “and hardly suitable for a craft like the Nautilus.”
“That damned captain,” the Canadian went on, “must really be sure of his course, because if these clumps of coral so much as brush us, they’ll rip our hull into a thousand pieces!”
The situation was indeed dangerous, but as if by magic, the Nautilus seemed to glide right down the middle of these rampaging reefs. It didn’t follow the exact course of the Zealous and the new Astrolabe, which had proved so ill-fated for Captain Dumont d’Urville. It went more to the north, hugged the Murray Islands, and returned to the southwest near Cumberland Passage. I thought it was about to charge wholeheartedly into this opening, but it went up to the northwest, through a large number of little-known islands and islets, and steered toward Tound Island and the Bad Channel.
I was already wondering if Captain Nemo, rash to the point of sheer insanity, wanted his ship to tackle the narrows where Dumont d’Urville’s two sloops of war had gone aground, when he changed direction a second time and cut straight to the west, heading toward Gueboroa Island.
By then it was three o’clock in the afternoon. The current was slacking off, it was almost full tide. The Nautilus drew near this island, which I can see to this day with its remarkable fringe of screw pines. We hugged it from less than two miles out.