There was a sinister tower of cloud piled up beyond the reef by the time I had brought my reluctant charges back aboard the yacht, but its east side was showing blacker than its west, and before long we had the satisfaction of seeing it bear off in the former direction and disappear, roaring mightily, behind Point Venus. The rest of the night we were left in peace to haul off out of danger.
For the last two or three hundred yards the yacht had backed in a course which lacked but a few degrees of being parallel to the sea-wall, so that the anchors were but little further from the shore than the schooner herself. "Hauling off," therefore, was a tedious and not entirely simple proceeding. We first hove short on the starboard anchor, broke it out and brought it just awash. Several lashings were then passed through its ring and round and round the port life-boat, just aft of the beam, after which a line from the yacht was made fast to the anchor and the shackle knocked off. This left it suspended in the water in a manner best calculated to trim the boat and not hamper the rowers.
While the boat pulled offshore and dropped the starboard anchor the port was broken out and catted. Then the line from the former was put on the winch and the yacht hauled offshore as far as possible. Here the port anchor was let go, following which the starboard was hove up, re-shackled and dropped again. The next morning, taking advantage of a favourable slant of wind, we dropped back to within a hundred feet of the sea-wall and ran mooring lines to a couple of cannon which projected from the coral, a berth which proved both safe and convenient.
Friday, the 13th of May, was set for our day of departure for Samoa, but the unlucky coincidence of the day of the week and the month evoked such a storm of protest from the sailors that the Commodore postponed sailing for another twenty-fours and thereby lost a fair wind out of the harbour. On the morning of the 14th a fitful N.W. wind blowing directly down the passage made it impossible to get under weigh without running a strong chance of piling the yacht up on the beach. After a bootless wait of a couple of hours for a shift of wind, a line was finally carried to the mail-boat's buoy, out to which the yacht was laboriously hauled by winding in on the winches. Letting go here at noon, we sailed down the bay with a beam wind, dipping in turn to the flags of the American and British Consulates and the gunboat Zelee.
As we hauled up to thread the entrance the wind was brought dead ahead, and for the next fifteen minutes the yacht was put about so often in the scant working room of the narrow passage that the sails were hardly filled on one tack before, with shoaling water and an imminent surf, it was necessary to go off on the other. The trading schooners make it a rule never to attempt the passage with a head wind, but Lurline's superiority in pointing up, as well as the greater ease with which she handled, made comparatively simple a performance that for the others would have been really hazardous. At 12.30 P. M. we were clear of the harbour, and at two o'clock took departure, Point Venus Light bearing S.E. by S., distant eight miles.
Close-hauled to a baffling N.W. wind, a course of due N. was sailed until ten o'clock, when the yacht was put about to a westerly course for the rest of the night, her speed averaging less than six miles an hour. Tahiti was still visible under a dense cloud rack at daybreak, while the northern side of Moorea presented a crazy skyline of sharp pinnacles. Toward noon Neahau was sighted, Raiatea almost immediately appearing beyond. At sunset all the leeward islands were in sight, Tahaa and Bora Bora showing up beyond Raiatea. Between the two former a sharp sail-like rock appeared, the tips of the pinnacles of Moorea were still visible to the south, while above and beyond them a heavy cloudbank betrayed the position of the veiled Orohena.
The north line of Bora Bora showed forward of the starboard beam at daylight of the 16th, our course then being due west. At eight o'clock Tubai raised a fogged outline to the south, and just across its leeward end the hazy form of Marua, the most westerly of the Societies, was dimly visible. Marua and the skyline of the great cliff of Bora Bora held places on the horizon till sunset, and with darkness we saw the last of the French islands.
The wind, which had been light for the last two days, had fallen away entirely by the morning of the 17th, the calm for the next eighteen hours being so complete that the yacht had not enough way to straighten out the log-line. From midnight of the 16th to that of the 17th but twenty-six miles were covered, most of the distance being made in one watch. By morning of the 18th, however, the renegade Trade-wind again began asserting itself, to stand faithfully by nearly all the rest of the way to the Samoas.
The coming of the Trade-wind was coincident with another happening which served graphically to illustrate the dangers that little-navigated seas hold for the most careful skippers. From the observations of the 17th it appeared that Bellinghausen Island, a low uninhabited reef of considerable extent, lay directly upon our course to Tutuila, and at a distance which made it probable that we would come up to it toward the end of the night. Findlay's "Directory" gave warning of a southerly setting current of a mile an hour, allowing for which our course was so altered as to give the dangerous reef an amply wide berth. That course, we figured, would carry us from ten to twenty miles north of the island in spite of the current, but at midnight, to make assurance doubly sure, it was decided to edge still farther to the north, and the course was altered to N.W. by W. This we were to hold until daybreak and then, the danger being past, head off due west for Tutuila again. Of course we would pass out of sight and sound of the reef, we thought; but that was the safest way, and there wouldn't be much to see anyhow.