One comfort about this wooden craft is, that she was built for bottle-nose whaling and has bulwarks. The modern steam-whaler is somewhat smaller and has no bulwarks, only a rail, because she must offer as little resistance as possible to a rapid side rush of a big whale. So in such weather, even in this half-gale, they would be under water all but the bridge, whilst here we can go nearly dry-shod behind nearly two and a half feet of bulwark, behind which our too-strong she-cook in slippers can easily dodge the little water that comes on board.
Seven-forty P.M.—An interval here of twenty-four hours.
It would take each of us books in black margins to describe the melancholy of the gale; not a very severe gale, with only low waves for the amount of wind, but they are hard, and telling on our little home. It is remarkable what low, hard waves we have here. South of Norway, with similar strength of wind, I am sure the waves would be twice the height, but here they seem very hard and give heavy hits for their size. South in the sub-tropics, with half-an-hour’s wind, I have seen waves get up twice as high as those we had last night, which were not a bit dangerous—have had them over the bridge, soft and warm, and no harm done; here a wave that size would do a great deal of damage. In the north I expect this is due to the greater density of the water owing to its lower temperature.
... Gale all night, falling in morning, leaving an abominable swell.
Sight land through mist, rain, heavy swell, everyone very tired of life. Trying to make out where we have got to. Made this jotting in night. It is not elaborate, but I think it expresses a certain amount of movement.
And this is a single-line description of the appearance of Norway as you approach it over the swell. A one-line drawing of swell and mountain-tops. Why make two lines when one is enough?
In Tuglosund, the north entrance to Trömso fiord, we find stillness and twilight.